Living well, China

I first became interested in a raw food diet after a detox fast in Koh Pgnan, Thailand. I was living in Beijing, China at the time and two of my best girlfriends convinced me to try a fast with them to counter the negative effects of China's pollution and lifestyle. In Thailand we met many expats from China using their vacation time to detox and take care of their health. I loved living in China, but I am convinced it did slice off the end of my lifespan. In fact, one reason why I moved to Paris was to try to add back a few years by living somewhere cleaner and with a greater variety of healthy eating options.

I am fortunate that my work brings me back to China several times each year. During this past trip I came across a few new developments indicating that China's big cities are beginning to offer access to some of the health trends sweeping other large international cities.

Macrobiotic restaurant, Shanghai

In Shanghai I had a delicious and energizing dinner at Annamaya, a macrobiotic restaurant owned and run by a Japanese woman. The menu is great with a range of offers -- to drink there are fresh fruit juices and teas, as well as organic sulfate-free wine, and to eat there are various salads, curries, vegan burgers, and I am sure I am forgetting everything on offer. I had a delicious meal starting with a salad of carrots and daikon radish followed by a veggie curry with barley. Afterwards I felt totally grounded and peaceful. If I still lived in Shanghai, I would be eating here quite alot.

Annamaya
3 Taojiang Lu, near Hengshan Lu (French Concession Area)

Wheatgrass, Beijing

Beijing is not built on a human scale. It is larger than life with Soviet-style buildings that take up entire 15-minute walk blocks. Development is never ending, and new shopping malls, apartment buildings, office buildings, and compounds containing all three, sprout all over the city.
I entered a newly developed shopping mall called Fortune Shopping Center (Caifu Gouwu Zhongxin) off Dongsanhuan where only a handful of shops had opened, and came across a kiosk called Jambo that had trays of fresh wheatgrass in the window. Wheatgrass is not easy to grow, so to see it nonchalantly growing in an empty shopping mall in Beijing surprised me. So I entered the kiosk and promptly ordered a shot. Not only can you buy a wheatgrass shot at Jambo, but you can also order pots of freshly grown wheatgrass delivered to your home. If you buy a wheatgrass machine from them, they give you two free pots of wheatgrass. Amazing. I hope they are marketing their product well throughout the city and that this business thrives.

Jambo Juice
Caifu Gouwu ZhongxinDian 2nd Floor
Enjoy Liquid Sunshine at Home -- +86 15710023807
Oh yea, their juices are great too!

Wellnessecity, China
I am sure there are many other new, health-conscious initiatives happening in China. My friend Amena, who is based in Shanghai, has started a new project called WellnesseCity focused on helping urbanites live healthier. This past May she organized a Health & Wellness Fair in Shanghai that brought together a range of local producers and organizations all focused on holistic, natural, healthy living.

Hmmm, if the air was a bit cleaner, I could be convinced to move back to China!

Update: Since writing this post, I have come across two great resources for Beijing-ers.

• One is the Beijing Organic Consumers Yahoo! Group.  The mailing list is great even for non-Beijing- based folks filled with interesting information and discussions.
• Another is the World Health Store in Beijing. They are offering a Raw Class this August 14th!

New England is Awesome

I currently live in Paris, and although I have lived out of the United States for nearly twelve years (my goodness, has it been that long?!), I still consider Connecticut to be my home base. As such, from time to time I like to check out what the Tri-State Area offers in terms of my various hobbies and interests. Who knows why? Maybe I still think I will move back one day...

I was delighted to discover the Raw New England Community. They have a bi-monthly mailing list that serves as great sources of information for raw food and healthy living events for all of New England. And the website has links to products, books, recipes, and restaurants in the form of a discussion board.

If you live in New England, check out the site and join the conversation. It's tag line is: New England is Awesome. With that positive attitude, how can you not check it out?

Bio Panier: organic local goodness delivered!

France has a proud agrarian culture that is reflected in the outdoor markets, at the food and wine expos, and in the focus and respect for  local cuisine and artisanal products.

To protect its agrarian heritage, and to maintain its culinary and vegetation diversity, there is a growing focus on promoting organic and local food production. This promotion meshes well with increasing demand from consumers for better health and to know where their food comes from.

As consumers, each time we spend our money, we vote for the type of economy and world order we wish to have. It may sound dramatic, but it is the truth! Buying locally produced organic sustenance is a vote against the industrial, monoculture agriculture that is stripping natural resources from the planet and our health, and a vote to support your neighbor workers and the ecosystem that surrounds you.

I recently discovered the Bio Culture site that delivers organic fruits and veggies from France and Europe at a reasonable cost every Wednesday to my local wine store. In the above picture Serafina is checking out the goods. Each week I am informed as to where my produce comes from, and what stage of the harvest we are in. I swear there is something about having this knowledge that makes the food taste better! There are many different bio (organic) delivery or local produce sites in France (see the list below for delivery sites around Paris), and around the world. If you live in the United States, check out Farm Fresh for a list of local farms and what produce is in season near you.

Paniers Bio
www.mon-panier-bio.com
www.reseau-amap.org
www.lespaniersduvaldeloire.fr
www.lehautdupanier.fr

Raw food at Bob's Kitchen

One of my favorite vegetarian restaurants in Paris is Bob's Kitchen. It is just up the street from the Marais Bikram yoga studio, on Rue des Gravilliers, and after class I love to treat myself to their fresh juice of the day. My fave so far has been lemon, strawberries and mint. Yum!

Two weeks ago I noticed they were announcing a raw food special dinner hosted by local raw foodie Arletty Abady with special guest chef Adam Graham. Hooray! This was my first discovery of raw cuisine in Paris, I was more than excited. Could this mean no more trips to London for raw desserts?

The theme was Italian food, and it was delicious. The appetizer was a fennel, orange, yellow pepper salad and mushrooms marinated, stuffed with olive tapenade, and dehydrated. As someone who has dehydrated a fair amount of mushrooms, I can tell you that these were divine. Full of flavor and a great texture.

The main course was zucchinetti (can I trademark that word?) with a pesto made from a wild herb foraged in the forests of Belgium. Foraging is becoming a new interest of mine, so I was very excited to discover a potential forest guide in neighboring Belgium. There was also a delicious eggplant, marinara tomato, cashew cheese stack.


Dessert was a chocolate cheesecake (made from cashew cheese) parfait with raspberries. It was divine. Raw desserts are the best! The raw heart-shaped chocolate was made by Arletty herself.

Overall, it was a wonderful evening. It was great to meet other folks in Paris interested in raw food, and I look forward to working with them to help build the budding community. There will be other raw food events in the future, I will be sure to post about them here. In the meantime, check out the awesome veggie resto. Enjoy!


Bob's Kitchen
74 Rue des Gravilliers 75003

Yoga thought: winding down

You're hitting the last five minutes of an hour long conference call, or the thirtieth - and final! - review of your article, and in those final moments it it easy to say: I've done great work till this point, I'm tired, let's just wrap this up. As a result, we tend to wind down at the end of projects.

I practice Bikram yoga, a 90-minute practice that consists of 26 postures repeated twice on both the left and right side. It is towards the end of holding each posture that is the hardest; my muscles are tired, my determination fumbles, and I think, I've held the position so well until now, there are only a few seconds left, I can let go.

In fact, it these last few seconds that are the most important. It is in these last few seconds when my mind and body are struggling the most that holding the pose delivers the most benefits. And the other day my teacher gave me a new thought: in the last few seconds, he said, do more than maintain - go deeper in the pose, reach further.

If you have worked hard until the last few seconds, why give up on the end? Maintain or even increase your intensity, and instead of winding down, the project/call/yoga posture may wrap up to a new level, may produce an even greater result, may reach a greater expectation. What a reward for all your hard work! So, why do we wind down?

How Food Shapes our Cities -- Carolyn Steel on TED.com

Very interesting presentation linking how food distribution shapes our world. Premise is that we do not value food today, which means we have lost our most important relationship to nature.