I’ve been wanting to try a glass straw for a while. I typically don’t use straws, but I love the fact that glass straws are an environmental alternative to adding more plastic to the land fills and water ways. And of course the less plastic touching your food the better.

So I finally got around to ordering some and found the COOLEST glass straws on the internet!

They are handcrafted by California glass artist Mark Black from GlassParadise.com They are the only ones on the internet I found that are these wonderful solid colors. You can buy one or a set (great pricing, fast shipping).

And if you think that a glass straw is something that will break the first time you use it, don’t worry – glass straws are made of the same Pyrex glass that sturdy cookware is made with. These are their standard 9″ straw – you can see that they are plenty long enough for my quart jar for juice and smoothies. And they will also make longer ones and fatter ones. The fatter ones are called “Smoothie Straws” though I found these to be fine for smoothies – but my smoothies aren’t chunky.  And they even have very inexpensive little straw brushes to clean the straws! (for those times when you forget to rinse when you finish using them)

As an artist I love that buying from Glass Paradise supports other artists – independant glass blowing artists! Check it out!

(Okay, so I wrote a whole entire post about straws…but I just get excited when I find such a great deal for such a cool thing)

The weather has turned cooler here and I was craving some soup.

Using my Vitamix I pureed up some soup – kept it on high for a little longer to warm it up a bit. Being a high speed blender you can do that!

This was adapted from an Elaina Love  recipe – I blended up a red bell pepper, half an avocado I had left in the frige, one small organic carrot, handful of cilantro, dash salt (I use Real Salt available from WholeFoods), dash of cumin. It made way too much for one serving so I refrigerated the rest.

Taking a tip from Ann Wigmore I dehydrated the leftover soup. I added a half cup of sprouted buckwheat (which I turned into “nut butter” by running it though the auger juicer).

I also added 2 chopped green onions, minced about 4″ of fresh rosemary, added more salt and cumin.

I poured this mixture out on a teflex dehydrator sheet and dried it at 105 degrees for about 2 or 3 hours.

I used a spatula to spread it around evenly and even shook the tray to even it out. It dried really fast, I flipped it over onto the screen in about an hour. It was too thin to actually be crackers. I broke them up and put them in a jar. If I can keep out of them, I will use them to sprinkle over salads! Really tasty, made the house smell great!
  

It is biologically appropriate for humans to eat a plant based diet. We know this because we don’t have claws, fangs and short digestive tracts to name a few reasons.

Our pet cats and dogs should eat a raw animal based diet because they do have sharp teeth and the short digestive tracts. And like humans, when they live a mostly raw diet, our pets become amazingly healthy and vibrant and shiny.

One of my fantail goldfish died and it prompted me to move the remaining fish from the small outdoor bog pond to an indoor aquarium. The aquarium set up came with water treatment filter, heater, light and tropical fish flake food. I wondered if it was okay to feed tropical fish food to my gold fish – so I asked online. 

 And I learned a lot.

Where do I find biologically appropriate food for my gold fish? It’s not in the flake food sold at pet stores.

I started reading the labels of the fish food I had on hand.

TetraFin Goldfish Flakes lable: fish meal, ground brown rice, yeast shrimp meal, oatmeal, wheat gluten, soybean oil, fish oil, corn gluten, algae meal, sorbitol, lecithin, potato protein, ascorbic acid, yeast extract, inositol…and then about 20 more words of things I can’t pronounce as well as red, yellow and blue dyes.

Hai Feng Fast Color Gold Fish Food label: (pellets) wheat flour, fish meal, wheat germ, shrimp meal, spirulina, corn meal, soybean meal, L-lysine hydrochloride, algae meal, lecithin, choline, BHT, citric acid, calcium, phosphate monobasic, minerals, 16 vitamins.

Aqueon Tropical Flakes:Whole fish meal (salmon, herring & other mixed fishes), whole wheat flour, soybean meal, whole dried krill, wheat gluten meal, dried yeast, squid meal, wheat germ, corn gluten meal, kelp meal, fish oil, spirulina, garlic, natural astaxanthin, marigold powder, chili powder, spinach … and about 18 more words that are unpronounceable. 

Fish were not created to swim up the plowed rows of a farmers field trying to get at the potato and wheat, rice and soy. I’m on the hunt for awesome food for my little fantail friend. I had some floating anacharis (a water plant) in the bog pond, so I put that in the aquarium. I had it because they produce oxygen – but I’ve since read that goldfish like to eat them. So at least the little guy is getting his greens.

Some may say that worrying about biologically appropriate food for a simple goldfish is taking things too far. Well, people that have fish as pets and love them would disagree. And it’s also the principle of the thing – I’m sick of how manufactures use dyes, wheat, rice, potato, soy and sorbital in everything on the shelf.

It’s not all their fault – the public contantantly demands cheaper prices, so manufactures have to use cheap fillers and cheap lab made ingredients to bring the price down.

If you don’t want that – vote with your dollars.

Hopefully by now you know that you need to filter your city water. You can spend several thousand dollars if you get carried away or you can at the very least a pitcher like Brita or Pur. I recently purchased a Zero Water  pitcher filter system. It advertises that its the only filtered water that meets FDA definition for purified bottled water. So if you are used to purchasing bottled water in plastic, this is the thing for you. I filter it and put it in glass bottles.

The Zero pitcher comes with a TDS meter to stick in your water and digitally read how pure it is. My tap water read 280, my distilled read 001, my Brita read 199.  I had a bottle of Culligan Purified Water and it read 022, and of course – the Zero Pitcher - read zero.

Update: More readings: PUR Water filter pitcher – 075,  Ozarka bottled spring water – 022

From their brochure: ” The TDS (total dissolved solids) meter measures the electrical conductivity of the water and converts it to a value of total dissolved solids. The meter can detect things such as nitrates, chloride, sulfide, aluminum and other contaminant with a positive or negative charge. It does not text for uncharged particles, such as nitrogen or chlorine; organic compounds such as herbicides or microbiological contaminants such as bacteria. The filter cartridge removes inorganic, organic and radiological contaminants. The meter measures inorganic contaminants which are removed by the weakest part of the system. “

I have been drinking distilled water lately, preferring the taste over filtered water. But the first glass of water out of my Zero tasted really good to me! And I could drink the first glass – not like my Brita which I have to filter several pitchers before it’s right. (charcoal filters coloring the water)

In an effort to quit using plastic (leaches chemicals into your water) I filter the water and put it in glass bottles at home and on the road I use a stainless drinking bottle. I wish it could be glass, but of course glass is heavy and breaks.

And shameless plug here … I just uploaded a whole bunch of new designs to my Cafe Press store – including a Sigg Water Bottle with a graphic of high vibration words! On the left is one of my new designs. See more at the RawCityLife Cafe Press store! Brand new aprons too!

 Update: Here is proof my new Zero Water pitcher has really pure water…I’m using it for ice cubes – took out my ice maker (well, the huge tray thingy) because my frige filter tested bad. Ice spikes usually form with pure water, like distilled water. Was happy to see this fella, so I took a photo.
There were several in other trays, but this one was real pointy and pretty.

Victoria Van Cleef, creator of ToothSoap, quotes often from a book by Weston Price, DDS , Nutritional and Physical Degeneration and an out of print book by Dr. Judd, Good Teeth, Birth to Death. Dr. Judd says to use pure and natural soap to clean the teeth. Toothpaste has abrasives and glycerin – glycerin coats the tooth and prevents enamel regrowth.Victoria developed ToothSoap so her family would have healthy teeth.

It’s a liquid in a glass bottle with a glass dropper. Put a few drops on a soft wet toothbrush (never use a hard toothbrush) or drop it right into your mouth. It is quite nice! Very foamy, it’s light. There are a lot of flavors – I got cinnamon. Yes it does have a very slight soapy taste – but if I don’t get it on the back of my tongue, I don’t taste the soapy taste. I used to always brush my tongue after my teeth – don’t do that now so as not to get the soapy taste on the back taste buds – I use a tongue scraper now. Also, on the website it says a bottle lasts a person 4-6 weeks – I’ll keep you updated on that, I think it will last longer – it only takes a few drops at a time.

(UPDATE: It’s now Nov. 10, I am just now using the last of my bottle. I have no idea why they say the bottle lasts a month – mine lasted 5 months and I brush at least twice a day and use about 1/2″ or less of the dropper of Tooth Soap. Perhaps they mean one bottle per family. )

Since Dr. Judd recommended pure and natural soap – I thought I’d give it a try since I make my own pure and natural soap (click to see the book I talk about at the bottom of that post if you want an easy how-to on soap making). So I rubbed a wet toothbrush across a bar of my homemade soap and brushed my teeth. Never thought I’d be doing that. It was not bad! It was light and foamy and wasn’t very soapy tasting (again keeping if off of the back of my tongue). I will definitely use this when I travel instead of bringing the glass bottle.

1. Try ToothSoap or try a bar of natural soap.

2. Use only soft bristle tooth brushes.

3. Eat more greens and other alkaline plant based foods to remineralize your teeth.

4. Rinse your mouth out after eating acid foods (like meat, potatoes, grains) if you can’t brush right away.

PS: I didn’t really throw out my old toothpaste – I put it under my kitchen sink to use as a sink/chrome cleaner as well as a silver and jewelry polish. Works great on silver chains with a toothbrush!