Join Us In A May DETOX!

Hello my lovelies!
It's that time of the year again! We are doing a DETOX CLEANSE! (starting May 1st, if you would like to join us!) I get very excited in the spring because it's a time of new beginnings, fresh starts and healing the body from the inside out. Two weeks is a good amount of time, but you can go longer or if you are just starting out, try it for a few days at least.

We will do the Master Cleanse (click on the detox button at the top of the page for all the details), and this time I will add in two fresh, organic juices per day (strained so very little pulp will activate the digestive juices). I will choose any juice combination I feel drawn to on any given day.

Some people are purists on either side of the Master Cleansing or the Juice Feasting, but I am in the middle. I have done it many times over the years, and feel comfortable doing it this way. You can do which ever kind of cleanse works for you :)

What toxins are we talking about? Why do we need to do a cleanse? There are many sites that will go into all of that detail if you like, but I will just tell you a few of the major contributors of toxins building up in the body:
1. Stress
2. Non-organic food: You know the deal by now...
3. Environmental Toxins, including obscure things like particle board and plywood furniture in our homes and offices that contain formaldehyde, a known carcinogen that has been directly linked to nasopharyngeal carcinoma (throat cancer). The chemical can also cause, headaches, allergies, nausea and a burning sensation in the throat.
4. Cooked (dead) Foods, Alcohol, Caffeine, Dairy, Meat: These are all highly acid-forming, and acidic environments in the body invite disease. The more raw vegan, the more alkaline the body, the less disease.
5. Lack of exercise
6. Lack of good water: We are made of water. If we do not hydrate ourselves adequately and eat enough raw food we become constipated, and what most people don't realize is that our bowels reabsorb toxins right back into the body if we do not eliminate every single day.
7. Medications: Don't even get me started on this one. I will go nuts on you. All I can say is 'let thy food be thy medicine'.

Alright so follow along with us on facebook for updates, videos and inspiration! You can do it!

Happy 20th Birthday Josh!

Josh, of the beautiful-vegan crew, turned 20 today, and I couldn't be prouder.

He requested his favourite cake, Lemon Poppy Seed Love Cake, (click link to get the recipe), so I made one for him, and I topped it with a blueberry compote!
I also made him a wicked Vegan Pad Thai :)

I have known Josh for his entire life, and now he's all grown up. I sometimes miss him being a little kid though. He would follow me around everywhere on our crazy adventures, and I wouldn't have traded raising him for anything in the world. Whoever said having a kid slows you down or stops you from being able to travel and do exciting things, was making up those impediments for themselves. Children grow up so very quickly that we have to just go for it and try to remember everything.

I love you :)
xoxo
Mom

We Are Here To Empower Souls, Not To Disempower Them:

Hello my lovelies!

It's been a long, hard winter here in Toronto, and I feel like I am waking from a long slumber. I've been thinking about who I am and what my purpose is. We all have an essence, a central gift that is unique and valuable, to be shared with the world whether we know what it is or not.

To pinpoint your gift simply ask yourself the question "What would I do with my time if money were not an issue?". How you answer this question is your gift, no matter how ridiculous or intangible it seems. And with our gifts we empower people around us (including ourselves), or we put up fronts that do not align with our true nature and disempower the people we encounter.

What happens when we align with our genuine, true nature is nothing short of miraculous. Synchronicity becomes commonplace, and what we need to accomplish our goals suddenly appears without explanation. It's scary as all hell to step up to the plate and immerse ourselves in our vision, but it is much less risky than playing it safe and never doing what we love.

Most of us believe money holds us back, but this is a story we made up to entrap ourselves in "normality". This fight or flight feeling takes over, and fear never gets us anywhere. This is definitely the case for me. I have struggled to do what I love and keep food on the table, and somehow I have managed. But this isn't good enough now, so it's time for me to say "Fuck Fear" and dive right in to that black water. Spring is perfect for this. It represents a fresh start, a new beginning and the birthing of progressive ideas!

I am doing a juice/lemonade detox cleanse (fear and stress create acidity and toxic build up in the body), so I invite you to jump into the water with me and dare to do what you love! Click the detox button at the top to find out more :)

21 Days of TED: Project Transformation!

Okay so I made a project for myself and 3 days in I'm so excited about the effects it's already having on me that I thought I would ask you guys to join in, and report back with your experiences!

Here's the experiment:

I will watch and listen to inspiring and positive Ted Talks for the next 21 Days (I will post at least 1 new one every morning on facebook for us all to watch). No video games or news either!

I will keep a journal or a tablet (iPad etc) with me at all times and write down everything I think of throughout the day so that nothing is stored in my head for me to worry about. (example: anything I have to remember to do, ideas I have, thoughts about the project, dreams etc)

I will do the things suggested by each speaker as an experiment to see if my life improves in quality and to see if I feel happier than before I began. I may even do a fake TED Talk of my own at the end... who knows.

WHY? Because I need to have a breakthrough! I waste so much time streaming movies and television shows on the computer that are not inspiring me. Of course I watch nature shows and documentaries too but as a whole it is not improving my life. Let's face it- it's a HUGE waste of my hours! Feel me??

At the end of my life am I going to be glad I caught the latest episode of Vikings? Or can I change my life and say I actually did something meaningful and contributed something of myself to the world?

Actually I equate many of these programs and movies with gladiator games of ancient Rome where huge arenas would flood with people to watch men and animals butcher each other.

Our brains apparently cannot tell the difference between real or fake violence, so our emotions and consciousness take a beating, and over time it takes its toll. The toll is that we have done NOTHING with our lives! After working all day we have nothing left of ourselves so we just want to sit back and be entertained.

SO... in order to use our addictions to watching things move on a screen I propose our 21 days of TED, where inspirational speakers motivate our cute vegan asses into making profound changes in our lives! Actually you don't even have to watch the videos- you can just listen to them in the background while you get ready for work etc. It may sound nuts but after only 3 days I am so pumped into action and fulfilled that I had to share this!

Ok here is the first video! So inspiring!:

Happy PRIDE Everyone!

There were 43,800 dislikes for this Macklemore video on youtube for this one version alone, and this made my heart sink. It is one of the most powerful videos I have ever seen, and thankfully 1,002,896 people gave it big thumbs up, so this world is changing.

There are many things about me that you fine folks out there do not know. How could you? You only know what I post and what image I present to you. Just like I don't know about your life unless you write and share with me. I will probably lose some readers over this, but I will tell you that I have loved women in the past more than I have loved men.

You may think "Why is she telling us this? And what does it have to do with veganism?", and to that I say that I am presenting my true self, and trying to be as genuine as I can be with the world in order to open people's minds. We love who we love.

I won't publish any negative comments so please don't bother. I am the king of this little blog (well, so are the other crew members), and it is my hope that people who are compassionate enough to choose a vegan lifestyle will also be welcoming to all kinds of souls, whether you are from another country, have skin of a different colour than yours, believe in a god that is not yours, or love partners of the same gender.

There are so many bigger issues to spend our energy on :)
Celebrate.
I love you. All of you. Happy PRIDE :))

MACKLEMORE & RYAN LEWIS - SAME LOVE feat. MARY LAMBERT

"The Future of Meat is Vegan" Bill Gates Article:

"The future of meat is vegan", Bill Gates (veggie burger above)

The following is an amazing article about Bill Gates' view on the Future Of Food written by Josh Tetrick for the Huffington Post. I thought you might be interested! Now, Bill Gates is not my favourite human by any stretch of the imagination, but if he gets people to go vegan I want him on my team. Here is the article (I added the photos):

Josh Tetrick, Founder of Hampton Creek, a sustainable food company:

"We need to start thinking about the future of food if we are going to feed 9 billion people in a way that does not destroy our environment." -- Bill Gates' recent Facebook post

Our food system is broken. And it's eroding our values and the environment with equal ferocity.
Want absurd? The animals we eat consume more food than the 1.3 billion people who go to bed hungry every single night. And by 2050, all the animals we eat will themselves consume as much food as 4 billion people. Just a thought, but I'm guessing all that food would be more effective in the stomachs of the 16,000 children dying every day from hunger-related causes. Eighteen percent of all GHG emissions flow from this same place: animal farming.

At the very heart of the answer to all this absurdity is a central question: How can we feed a growing world without destroying our environment -- and our values? See, as smart folks like Bill Gates know, as population grows in the developing world, a desire for meat (and the inefficiency that comes along with it) will only grow. We need to start thinking about the future of food today that doesn't involve the resource intensity of raising animals tomorrow.

And a revolution in food is about to break open -- in fact, it's already started. Hampton Creek, a company I co-founded with my best friend last year to develop plant-based eggs, is honored to have been selected by Bill Gates and his team as one of three companies leading this reinvention of food. The Future of Food, a Gates-led special on our food system, was just released on the official website of Bill Gates -- gatesnotes.com. you should watch. And then talk about it with your family.

In writing about Hampton Creek and others, Gates said: "Beyond Eggs, an egg alternative from Hampton Creek Foods, does away with the high cholesterol content of real eggs." And, "... companies like Beyond Meat, Hampton Creek Foods and Lyrical [plant-based cheese] are doing some amazing things." Here's a featured video on his Future of Food special:

Why do we focus on eggs? And why a plant-based alternative? Because of the 1.7 trillion eggs laid in the world last year, over 95 percent came from female chickens who are confined in battery cages, small wire enclosures that afford each hen a space smaller than a single sheet of letter-sized paper. The hens are fed massive amounts of corn and soy, both crops that would be better off in the mouths of a hungry world. It's an outdated and inefficient system. We think the world deserves better.

My best friend once said: "We didn't move on from the horse and buggy because of morality alone." I think he's right.

Follow Josh Tetrick on Twitter: www.twitter.com/hcfoods

Well I hope the future is vegan... or we're all in trouble.

Lyn's Hot-List ;)

1. Guys who shop at farmer's markets

John the BadAss Vegan, Fitness Trainer :)

2. Girls who don't care if they are wearing two different socks
3. Guys with beards
4. Anyone who loves themselves, animals and the planet enough to live a vegan lifestyle, or move in that direction

Josh Raymond, Vegan Caterer :)

5. Well done, meaningful artwork on your body

6. Secret Dates (they don't tell you where you're going. So fun!)
7. Strong women who do what they want

8. People who go to the movies by themselves sometimes even if they feel awkward
9. Anyone who can go to a party and drink smoothies and fresh juices instead of alcohol
10. Guys who do yoga

11. Guys who can take charge and make decisions
12. Good tippers who are nice to servers

Rug Hooking I did when I was 10...

13. People with many interesting hobbies, the weirder the better

14. Girls who can't sing but do anyway

15. People who put away their cellphones when you are with them!

Vegan Wildlife Photographer James Toth

16. Anyone who loves to be outdoors more than indoors
17. Those willing to try new things with an open mind
18. People who shop at second-hand clothing stores

19. Anyone who finds themselves beautiful after growing up not feeling beautiful

20. Travelers who wing it and never stay in resorts or fancy hotels
21. Guys who say how they really feel, even if it makes them look foolish
22. People who bring their fold-up reusable bags everywhere (how hard is that??)
23. Guys who are good with kids and animals

24. People who can spend time doing nothing at all and still have fun
25. Anyone who writes love notes, and actually delivers them

Sima & Monique

26. Girls who dress like boys

27. Those with individual style

28. Guys who can prepare at least one dish really well
29. People who pick you up for a date on a bike
30. Anyone who waits for you to sit down before starting to eat
31. Direct eye contact while talking, like you are the only person in the world they want to be with

32. Guys who smile a lot and don't take themselves too seriously

33. Confidence

34. Guys who plan picnics

35. People who define their own beauty

36. Anyone who can build with their own hands
37. Guys with silvering hair
38. Bad liars
39. People who don't give up on their bodies even if it's difficult
40. Genuine people who are trying to make this world a better place