Story of Stuff, Full Version; How Things Work, About Stuff

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

"Early to Bed - Early to Rise" Improves Brain Function

Yes, there is truth to this old saying by Benjamin Franklin. We were meant to get up with the light of dawn and to go to sleep at nightfall, our hormone levels adjusting to the rise and fall of daylight around us. Now, in our modern world we can fool our hormonal system with artificial light, which has a big impact on our health. Staying up late with bright lights shining in our eyes keeps our stress hormone cortisol high when it should be diminishing, and suppresses our sleep hormone melatonin, when it should be rising, which has an impact on our ability to deal with stress, lose weight, physically and psychologically repair our tissues, feel rested and be ready for the new day. So, try to get to sleep in a very dark room by 10pm, and marvel at how much better you feel!

A recent survey of university students in Utah has found that students who habitually go to bed late and sleep late the next day have lower grade point averages (GPAs) than students with early-to-bed and early-to-rise sleeping habits.

Researchers at Brigham Young University in Provo surveyed 184 of the school's freshmen and found that the later students slept in the morning, the lower their grades tended to be.

Out of all the factors studied, weekday and weekend wakeup times had the strongest association with students' GPAs. Each hour over the average that students slept in on weekdays was associated with a 0.13-point drop on the GPA (0.0-4.0 scale). A similar correlation was found for hours spent in bed on weekends, when many students catch up on sleep.

Eating breakfast each morning was also associated with higher grades, while having a night job was associated with lower grades.

Although many would automatically assume that alcohol consumption was a possible culprit for the connection between late sleeping and poor grades, since heavy drinking has been shown to damage academic performance. But the researchers point out that Brigham Young University is a dry campus where students sign agreements not to drink. "Alcohol-consumption behavior sufficient to cause morning hangover would be difficult to hide in the monitored residence halls of this university," the authors wrote in the report.

Journal of American College Health 2000; 49: 125-130

Here is strong evidence backing my "early to bed - early to rise" recommendations. The reason that this is so important is that our body's systems are tied to the natural circadian rhythms of the earth. Our bodys, particularly the adrenal glands, also do most of their healing during the early part of the night. Going to bed early is even more important in the winter when the sun sets earlier.

The Most Common Sleep Disorder: Insufficient Sleep

In April of this year, the Institute of Medicine issued a report that confirmed definite links between sleep deprivation and increased risks of hypertension, diabetes, obesity, depression, heart attack and stroke.

Some scientists are also investigating connections between insufficient sleep and depressed immune function.

Sleep can work to activate or inhibit hormone production in the hypothalamus, which is the part of the brain that gives the body signals regarding when to adjust temperature, blood pressure, digestive secretions and immune activity. Insufficient sleep also inhibits the pancreas from producing insulin, the hormone required for the digestion of glucose.

A groundbreaking 1999 study showed that after six days on only four hours of sleep, healthy volunteers would fall into a pre-diabetic state. Sleep also gives the heart a chance to slow down, and those who less than six hours a night have as much as a 66 percent greater prevalence of hypertension.

The largest study of sleep duration and mortality followed over one million participants for six years. Those who slept about seven hours had the highest survival rate, and those who slept less than 4.5 hours had the worst. Nine hours of sleep or more each night was also associated with a higher mortality risk, however.

In general, a good night's sleep seems to be as important to good health as a nutritious diet and regular exercise. Experts tend to agree that the majority of people require about eight hours of sleep each night.

However, roughly 40 percent of Americans get fewer than seven hours of sleep on weekdays, and 71 percent get fewer than eight hours of sleep. As a result, most Americans accumulate two full weeks of "sleep debt" each year. The two main causes for sleep debt were long work hours and long commutes.

New Information on the Science of Sleep

Human beings sleep through one-third of their lives, yet why we sleep is one of the biggest unanswered questions of science. In the fascinating article from 60 Minutes, linked below, Lesley Stahl explores all of the latest scientific findings about the reasons for -- and functions of -- sleep.

Here is a sampling of what she found after talking with sleep researchers from across the United States:

• You can die from sleep deprivation, just like you can die from being deprived of food.
• Sleep can actually enhance your memories.
• A single night of sleeping just four, five or even six hours can impact your ability to think clearly.
• Sleep deprivation can cause changes in your brain activity similar to those experienced by people with psychiatric disorders.
• Sleep deprivation puts your body into a pre-diabetic state, and makes you feel hungry, even if you’ve already eaten.

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1. Would you like to have vibrant health?
2. Would you like to feel full of energy throughout the day?
3. Would you like to have a clear and sharper mind?
4. Would you like to feel emotional balance and calm?
5. Would you like to loose weight and keep the weight off?
6. Would you like to feel beautiful from the inside out?

There is a saying: “You are what you eat”.

Energy Soup for the Soul

Blender: Recommend a commercial grade blender with variable or high power such as a VitaMix. Use of a standard blender may result in clogging or a stringy soup, however, cutting the vegetables into smaller pieces will often work.

Quantity: This recipe is for a 2 quart blender capacity. Reduce ingredients proportionally for blenders with a smaller capacity.

Serving: Serving size is generally 1/4 to 1 quart per person depending on appetite and whether other entrées are served with it.

Spices:

1. Ginger (1/2 to 1 tsp size) to taste
2. Garlic (1/2 to 1 tsp clove) to taste
3. Parsley (1/3 of an average bunch)
4. Basil (optional) to taste
5. Cayenne Pepper (1/4 - 1/2 tsp) to taste
6. Himalayan Sea Salt (1 tsp) to taste

Ingredients:

1. Water (2 cups = 1 cup per quart)
2. Celery (4 to 5 stalks)
3. Bok Choy (3 to 4 stalks depending on size)
4. Kale (2 to 3 leaves depending on size)
5. Swiss (red or rainbow) Chard (8 to 12 leaves depending on size) add to fill blender capacity
6. Avocado (1 whole = 1/2 per quart)
7. Spinach (optional)
8. Fruit (optional)

Instructions:

The ingredients can certainly be added in any order; however, experience suggests that as the soup becomes thicker, some ingredients don’t blend as well. To thin the soup, simply add more water to your recipe. The following instructions are offered from experience.

Add water and spices (except salt and pepper) to empty blender and mix ingredients thoroughly. Add remaining ingredients one at a time, mixing thoroughly during the entire process or in between steps. Make sure to add each ingredient gradually and separately rather than stuffing them into the blender. This will allow the ingredients to get blended thoroughly. When adding the Swiss Chard, be sure to add only one leaf at a time to the blender with the stalk pointing up and the leafy part down into the blender. This helps to reduce splatter and allows the suction of the blender to pull the Chard leaf towards the blade.

Add Kale, Celery, Bok Choy, Swiss Chard (until blender is full), then add the Salt and Pepper, Avocado last

Taste soup and add additional spices as needed….. You are done!

The entire process of blending may take between 8 and 12 minutes, with the only cleanup being to wash the blender after serving.

Zucchini Pasta with Pesto Sauce

Blender/Food Processor: Used to prepare pesto sauce.

Zucchini Pasta Maker: Use to convert raw zucchini into zucchini pasta noodles. Can use any other type of knife, peeler, or slicer that can convert zucchini into edible slices, slivers, or curls.

Quantity: This recipe will make about 1 quart of pasta and can be doubled or trippled as necessary.

Serving: Serving size is generally 1/4 to 1/2 quart per person depending on appetite and whether other entrées are served with it.

Pesto Sauce:

1. Basil Leaves (3 cups = approx 3oz w/stems)
2. Garlic (2 medium size cloves) to taste
3. Olive Oil (1/2 cup)
4. Pine Nuts or Walnuts (1/2 cup) optional
5. Cayenne Pepper (1/8 - 1/4 tsp) to taste
6. Himalayan Sea Salt (1 tsp) to taste
7. Organic Lemon Juice (1/2 tsp) to taste

Other Ingredients:

1. Organic Zucchini (4 medium sized)

Instructions:

Wash and peel zucchini, then use zucchini pasta maker to convert zucchini into pasta noodles. Wash and separate basil leaves from stems. Add 1/2 of basil leaves along with pesto sauce spices to blender or processor as appropriate. Once spices are properly blended, add remaining 1/2 basil leaves and blend for desired consistency.

Place zucchini into bowl or vessel and use a knife to cut pasta noodles to desired length. Pour pesto sauce over noodles and mix contents together.

Raw Vegan Cheese Cake

Food Processor: Used to prepare all ingredients in recipe.

Cake Pan: Spring-form type or other appropriate cake mold.

Quantity: This recipe will make 1 large cheese cake.

Serving: Serving size is generally a 1/16 to 1/8 slice per person.

Bottom Layer:

1. Raw Dried Coconut (1/4 cup)

Crust:

1. Raw Almonds or Macadamia Nuts (1+1/2 cups)
2. Raw or Organic Dates (1/2 cup)
3. Himalayan Sea Salt (pinch) optional

Cake Filling:

1. Raw Cashews - soaked (3 cups)
2. Organic Lemon Juice (3/4 cup)
3. Raw Honey (3/4 cup) or other raw sweetener
4. Raw Coconut Oil (3/4 cup)
5. Raw Vanilla (1 tbsp)
6. Fruit (for fruit cheesecake) optional
7. Chocolate (for chocolate cheesecake) optional
8. Pumpkin (for pumpkin cheesecake) optional
9. Carrot (for carrot cheesecake) optional
10. Mix with different amount of cake filling to make layers, etc....

Fresh Topping:

1. Berries of choice (2 cups) frozen or fresh
2. Raw or Organic Dates (1/2 cup) as sweetener to taste

Instructions:

Sprinkle coconut evenly on the bottom of cake pan. Blend crust ingredients to create a granular paste (you'll see when it starts to get 'crusty') in food processor and spread evenly on top of coconut layer. Blend cake filling ingredients in food processor and spread evenly on top of crust layer. Blend topping ingredients in food processor and then spread on top of cheesecake layer immediately or store for use when serving. Place raw vegan cheesecake in refrigerator or freezer until firm. It can take up to 45 minutes in the freezer to become firm.

For serving, remove cake from refrigerator or freezer, remove metal cake mold, and cut into desired slice size. Apply fresh topping if not already applied to cake.

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Cooked food is a very severe addiction. Can you go to Russia and get all the alcoholics in Red Square to drink carrot juice? You can tell them that it's cheaper than vodka and it has beta-carotene and it's good for you, but less than 2% will switch. For six years I had been wasting my time because people cannot go on raw food without some form of therapy.

100% Success with the 12 Step Program to Raw Foods

In 2001 I created a therapy that is described in my book, 12 Steps to Raw Food and began another class. There were 45 people in my first class. When it was over, I waited 30 days, then I called everyone. I was praying that 30% were still on raw food. What do you think? 100% were still on raw food! Since then, for the past three years, I've been teaching 12 Steps to Raw Food very successfully.

The Four Levels of Addiction to Cooked Food

I have found that cooked food is addictive on four levels:

1. Chemical

All carbohydrates become sucrose when heated. Sucrose or white sugar is one of the most addictive substances in the world. Its molecular structure is very similar to cocaine. When people stop eating cooked carbohydrates, their personalities change a lot. They become calmer and happier and they even go through the same twitches that people go through when they quit taking cocaine. That is why cooked carbohydrates are the basis of all international cuisine. Mexicans eat tortillas, Italians eat pasta, Americans eat potatoes, Russians eat bread, Armenians eat lavash. What about white sugar? Have you ever had just one little candy and thought it was enough? You always want another. Other addictive substances in cooked food are caffeine, chocolate, MSG, aspartame, all of the excitotoxins, preservatives, colorings and flavor enhancers, almost 2,000 different things that are addictive. That's the chemical level.

2. Biological

When we are born, we are programmed to be raw fooders. We never request our mothers to steam their breast milk. We like it raw. However, when we're six months old, doctors tell mothers to introduce cooked foods to the baby. The instincts in our body are telling us to beware, SOS! Mother says "Mmmm", and the baby's body says "No". Baby spits it out, screws up his face. Pooh. They try it again and again. Then the next thing that happens, is a fast and smelly diarrhea. The body says, hey, ouch, quick, out of the body. But because this substance is addictive, it takes three times and the baby gets accustomed to it and begins to like it. We are now programmed to be cooked food eaters.

According to the book, Sacred Wisdom of the Human Body, when the body is programmed to cooked foods, two gallons of digestive juices per day are pumped into the system. When the body is programmed to be a raw food eater, it is only one cup per day. That means if you eat three cooked meals a day, your body produces 700 mg. of saliva, 750 mg. of pancreatic juice, 3 liters of stomach juice and 3.5 liters of intestinal juice. Altogether, two gallons per day. If you put your ear to your belly, what do you hear? Growling. That's those juices pumping. All those juices give you an uncomfortable feeling. You feel tension, light-headedness, weakness, irritability, even depression, hunger pains, headaches and withdrawal symptoms. The only thing that will give you relief is cooked food. You feel hungry, you feel starved. That never happens to people who eat only raw food. They could easily move the time of lunch for two or three hours, even miss it completely, and they don't feel any discomfort.

When we put a good cake or pasta in our mouth, we say, oh, it's so good, it's to die for. My book, 12 Steps to Raw Foods, has been translated into twelve languages including Chinese. In all languages there was no problem finding the equivalent of "to die for". We sarcastically call it by its true name and it does kill people because statistically, people who eat only raw food, never die from cancer or heart attacks, the two main causes of death today. If people who have cancer or heart problems simply go on 100% raw foods, statistics tell us their symptoms will go away. So, that is our biological level of addiction to cooked food.

3. Emotional

The next level of addiction to cooked food is the emotional level. Whenever we experience stress, we like to eat something because eating cooked food makes us sleepy and foggy. Eating cucumbers doesn't help. We need to eat something comforting. It's not that we are popcorn deficient. We don't call popcorn or corn chips nutritious. We call them comforting. When someone is feeling sad, you take them out for some ice cream or give them some chocolate. We don't know how to cope with our emotions, and if we are left alone with our emotions and we don't have anything to eat, it will be very uncomfortable. It could actually lead us to some spiritual discoveries, but we don't do that, we eat instead. So that's the emotional level, but the hardest level of all is the spiritual level of addiction.

4. Spiritual

We are all spiritual beings, and as spiritual beings we are all special. Maybe some of you have been brainwashed to believe that you are not really important, but deep inside you feel special because you know you have a special spiritual mission in your life. And when you don't follow the spiritual mission, you have problems. What would you like to have inscribed on your gravestone when you die? "She had a good credit history"? It looks like that's what we really care about, but if we don't follow our spiritual mission, we begin to develop spiritual pain and we experience this spiritual pain more and more as we get older. That's why the 12 Step Programs are spiritual programs. That's why the last four steps of the 12 Steps Raw to Foods are spiritual steps.

Help for the Addiction

We help you to reprogram your behavior. First, we help people to get out of denial. Food is the hardest case of denial. We don't give six month-old babies alcohol or cocaine, but every single person in the world has been given cooked food at an early age, and because almost everyone eats cooked food, it's hard for us to acknowledge that it's an addiction. Do you ever overeat? Do you feel good when you overeat? You don't want to overeat, but you know that it will happen because it's beyond your control. Your body just takes over and rationalizes, "I will only eat it this time, but never again."

If I can't handle it by myself, I need help. So the second step is to get a sponsor. We divide into sponsor pairs. Then you write down the three main reasons you want to eat your food raw on a business card. Some people say they have fibromyalgia, some are overweight, some want more energy. On the other side you write the cell phone of your sponsor and you carry it in your purse at all times. Whenever you have a wish to eat some cooked food, you have to call your sponsor and you tell them how delicious that food smells, and so you think you're going to eat some. Your sponsor tells you to take out your card and read it out loud. You read, "I weigh 280 pounds, I don't want to be dependent on my children". She says, is this still important to you? You say, oh yes. And then she says, what can you do instead? And you say, well maybe I'll go for a walk or buy myself a flower or a smoothie at the juice bar. Then you say, thank you, and she calls you when she needs help.

Article from Victoria, founder of www.rawfamily.com, author of books Raw Family, 12 Steps to Raw Foods and Eating without Heating.

Click here for links on raw food websites, Books, DVDs and support

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