Hospital Food

So last week I was at my local hospital rehab ward to observe occupational therapy for several days (occupational therapy is my next course of study and, I promise, the last degree I'll collect before I turn 30. I need to make more money.). Folks who have suffered strokes, folks who've had heart attacks, amputees, folks who've been shot or endured devastating accidents, these individuals constitute the population of this inpatient ward. This private non-profit hospital is among the more progressive and well-endowed in the NYC metro area. The staff seem respected and happy, from the physical and occupational therapists to the practical nurses, from the food servers to the social workers.

The hospital food orders can be restricted for patients with cardiac conditions, limiting them to low-fat/low cholesterol options. And one could get some fresh fruits with his or her requests. Vegetarian meals were also options. The food offerings were conventional, but not of the lowest standard, and there was room for customization on the part of the savvy patient.

Nonetheless, I want to assert that many conditions suffered by these patients were ultimately caused by diet. Smokers and heavy meat-eaters, given their stated conditions and diets, abounded in this population, especially amongst stroke and cardiac patients. Diet is the first medicine. It begins at youth. Bad medicine across a lifetime leads to an undesirable outcome, it was overwhelmingly clear to me after my observation of who tends to wind up needing these sorts of therapies.

Healthy food, physical culture (primal and vigorous exercise and play), adequate sleep, healthy relationships and vocations, sunshine, rest, hopefully some love - these are the original therapies. If the whole population ate brilliantly and lived vigorously (but safely and sanely), physicians and allied health professionals like me, even those in alternative medicine disciplines, would be damn near out of business. For real. If we are honest, many of our professions are created by the need to mitigate negative lifestyle choices only. Nutritionists, for example (just one of many disciplines to critique) are not really necessary but to the nutritionally clueless, obese client who can afford one, who will tell the client what to eat and why. But common sense says we should eat natural fresh fruits and vegetables, as much as we need, and then relax. Hell, personal trainers - a profession I've been trained in - don't really need to exist but for an adult population that has completely forgotten how to move and play to stay naturally healthy. Another thing I've been trained in, massage therapy, is unnecessary for those who have great friends and/ or lovers who can share affection and apply pressure to pain and aches maturely and effectively.

If the population moved towards health and sanity, no need for many of us healthcare peoples. We'd need retraining for some other profession, those that actually produce and reproduce material needs in societies. I would actually prefer that the population did this. That would be the trend in a revolutionary society that knows about preventive medicine, social equality, pro-human values, harmony with nature, and so on.

But it's not happening, in fact the trend goes backwards. Hence among the only stable and growing jobs in this recession continue to be those in healthcare.

Shouldn't be. Preventive medicine is the best therapy. Love is the best drug. Healthy diet is the most profound lifelong pill. For me, healthy diet is of course this low-fat raw vegan road. Staying healthy is easy in this configuration. Eat fresh clean raw plants when you're hungry. Then relax and do other things like positive, life-affirming and creative work, coupled with vigorous and fun play, and completed by welcome and relaxing sleep.

Stay healthy, so you don't have to even deal with the berserk capitalist anti-human monster euphemistically called our healthcare system in these united snakes. Complicated and clever ways to deal with the ordeal of medical billing for insurance was one of the main things everyone at this hospital was talking about.

Don't make the world need more nurses, therapists and hospital food.

What it Looks Like!

Here are photos of yesterday's batch of raw okra stew:

And here in my hand is an habañero chili pepper - one of the hottest peppers grown on Earth, or in the known universe. I throw just one of these babies in a sauce, raw. I've been known to use two from time to time. It is fiyah.

I call 'em Heat Rocks.

Behold this force of nature.

Raw Okra Stew

Here is my first attempt at putting a recipe into written words:

Raw Okra Stew

All ingredients are fresh raw from the produce stand or farmer’s market!

Chop up:

Buncha Okra (like 2-4 handfuls)

Two Cucumbers

Buncha Spinach

Red Bell Peppers

(you can add or subtract whatever base veggies you want here. Tomatoes, celery, carrots, asparagus, you name it.)

Blend:

Like three or four nice tomatoes

Thumb or two of ginger

A red onion if you’re down with that

One or two habañeros (Jamaican hot peppers) because I like it hot! It’s raw but it ain’t bland son. I’m still Nigerian.

A few basil or cilantro leaves if you like

A red bell pepper

Two or three sticks of celery.

Do:

Rinse everything well.

Get a big-ass bowl.

Chop everything in the chop category into fine chunks the size of the ends of your pinkies.

Put it in the bowl.

Then blend everything in the blend category.

Pour that into the bowl.

Mix all the contents of the bowl for a few minutes until the soup is thickened into a slimy consistency by the Okra. Mix it well!

Eat.

Try this one y’all Afrikan vegans and others out there staying raw and healthy. Let me know how you like this. This is one of my main dinner dishes. I love this.

Rolling

Folks want to pick my brain, so I am back. It's been exactly one year since the last post. I've been keeping it low fat raw vegan all the while, doing Afrikan and Nigerian-style recipes for dinner, eating mostly simple, affordable staples like bananas, apples and oranges by day. There are several topics I'm going to touch upon very soon: physical culture and functional fitness, raw veganism and the environment, recipes, and some other things.

Briefly in terms of progression, since I first became a raw vegan two and a quarter years ago, my diet has steadily become a lot more simple and less exotic, besides much lower in fat in the past year. I haven't eaten nuts in over a year, and have not been to a raw vegan restaurant in the same time span. No durians, no cashews, no cacao, no goji berries. Avocados like once a month. I don't even eat dates anymore because they're so damn expensive, especially when I can get like ten pounds of bananas for the price of one pound of dates. Nowadays it's mostly about spinach, bananas, tomatoes, oranges, okra soups, zucchini pastas, basil and ginger flavored sauces, and so on. So I've moved away from so-called "superfoods" and other exotic things. My diet is very pedestrian at this point, the way I like it, and my health is robust. Maybe I'll progress further in the future towards liquidarianism or something, ala Jericho Sunfire. When I became vegan ten and a half years ago as young teenager I wouldn't have dreamed of becoming a raw vegan, so who knows? I'ma just keep evolving, getting wiser and stronger.

I vouch for the fruitarian/ low fat raw vegan lifeway. It is easy, it keeps one healthy and vibrant and with a clear smooth complexion and high energy. As a strength athlete I attest that, with resistance exercise, one will have no problem putting on muscle and maintaining tone, definition, or even bulk. This diet is excellent for all natural athletes and even body builders. It is practical because you can find your raw materials in any produce section of almost any grocery or farmer's market. All raw folks, I encourage y'all to stay raw. To those new to it, begin. Have no doubt and be disciplined.

More later.

The "Lost Crops of Africa"

In my last blog post extolling durian, I asked where all the Afrikan varieties of "superfoods" were at. In exploring the raw vegan/ fruitarian world, one hears much about "superfoods"/ "superfruits" from the tropics, but they mostly seem to emerge from South America and tropical Asia. I hardly found varieties indigenous to or widely propagated in Afrika discussed in the common literature on "superfoods" by the raw vegan popularizers and commercializers of these plants. But in searching for more info on potential "superfoods" growing in Afrika right now, I have discovered a series of books available online: Lost Crops of Africa. You can read it online for free!

The above link is to Volume III: Fruits. Click here for Volume I: Grains and here for Volume II: Vegetables. These as well can be read online for free.

This encyclopedic series of books is answering many of my questions and is shaping how I want to practice agroforestry (and what I'm gonna chew on) in Afrika when I return. Some of these varieties I now want to look into for local availability (in the NYC region). There are Afrikan markets in Newark (Brick City) and the Bronx I'll definitely want to peak into now to see if they have any of these curious and promising varieties (I'm most interested in what I'm finding in Volume III, followed by Volume II).

So I'm passing on the knowledge. Hope you find this as useful as I do. We need to plant more trees in Afrika - trees like the ones they're talking about in Lost Crops of Africa. We gotta get extremely serious about land and return as Afrikans living outside the continent. There is absolutely TOO MUCH OPPORTUNITY in all spheres, too much we need to do to revive Afrika, and too little time in our brief-ass human lives.

Let's study the trees, take a deep breath of the fresh air, pause for the cause in the soaring Sun, and get to work in the soil of our motherland, folks! Where the black botanists and agronomists at?

Tropical agroforestry rocks!
Towards a sustainable Afrikan agricultural revolution and massive reforestation!
Towards the further greening and fruiting of Afrika!
Uhuru!

Enter the Durian

Yesterday I had durian for only the second or third time in my life - the first time being in 2003 or 2004 during a college spring break hanging out with my uncle in Toronto, Ontario. He's the one who predicted I would become a raw vegan/ fruitarian long before I had even known much about that whole practice, though I had been a conventional vegan for four or five years by then, just emerging out of my teenage years at that time.

I'd been thinking about it for a while. Many weeks ago a friend of mine and myself had a little chow at Bonobos, the raw vegan hole in the wall on 23rd St and Madison Ave right in front of Madison Square Park. My friend sampled their durian "ice cream" and then I followed. Not being into "raw gourmet" much at all anymore, I nonetheless entertain daydreams of eating tropical fruits like durian and such all the time, and most days I realize those dreams by at least eating bushels of bananas and oranges each day and a daily avocado, and some papaya and/or mango at least a couple times a week. I eat many apples as well, grown mostly in Washington State on the opposite side of this continent. Greens I eat - "spring mixes" of various lettuces, chard, cabbage, etc., as well as celery - are often grown in Mexico or California; I eat raw okra too, imported sometimes from the US South, though more often from Asia or Afrika. I'm not a great locovore as you can surmise. But nothing much is growing in NJ or NY during these arctic dog days of winter. In any case, back to the story: I fantasize about, and eat, foods mostly "exotic" to where I live. (Hence my recent refrain - time for me to get very, very serious about resettling in Afrika and the tropics more broadly and as soon as I'm ready.)

The durian was bound to enter my realm at some point. Hearing raves about it from raw vegans and fruitarians on these here internets, and following initial exposure by my uncle some years back as a younger man, it was only a matter of time and commitment before I would start getting my hands on those things more often.

So after my "soft tissue conditions" class yesterday, I headed into Chinatown before making my way back home. I had some leads that good durian were to be scored on the corner of Grand St and Bowery. Not finding some there, I headed towards Mott St and walked down a bit, and sure enough the spiky punks were staring at me outside in the frigid air like gunslingers challenging me to a duel. Well, it wasn't that dramatic.

Anyway I bought two of them, at $1.25 a pound (but each one is pretty damn heavy). I threw them in my army duffel bag and headed back towards Herald Square on the Canal St N, from where I entered Penn Station to get on home.

To make a long story short, the verdict is that durians are now among my favorite fruits. And these were just the imported-frozen-from-Thailand variety! How much more succulent, fleshy, filling, sweet, creamy, and all manner of nice could a fresh-from-the-grove one be? Seriously, these fruits are fiercely tasty - durian is no joke, son! Reading about durian culture and activity in Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia, I understand that there are varieties that are very expensive, that won't or can't even necessarily be exported far off to the wilds of Manhattan and environs, and that there are many flavors and so I'm left thinking this "durian mornthong" I picked up near the corner of Mott and Grand is just a starter brand.

I am quite pleased indeed to have initiated myself into this fruitarian culture of durian connoisseurs. These spiky guys aren't that cheap. I don't imagine I'll be after them all the time. But so long as I'm here in NYC where I can have them from time to time, why not do just that?

Further down the line, when I'm setting up land for an agroforestry preserve in the Congo Basin or Niger Delta wet equatorial rainforest regions, I might plant some durian, jackfruit, and mangosteen trees, varieties from identical climes and soil conditions in Borneo, for my Afrikan fruitarian arboretum. Of course the many rare and advanced fruits with supreme phytonutrient content growing deep in places like the Ituri and Kivu rainforests, as yet only at best lightly explored with intent to find "superfoods"/ "superfruits" and medicines because of all the wars there, may occupy too much of my time to get around to bringing strong seedlings from Borneo to Central Afrika. South America and Southeast Asia surely aren't the only places growing these "superfoods," y'all self-styled raw-vegan superfood gurus! Where are the Afrikan varieties? If not y'all, at least I'll be on the lookout for them. There are fruits I couldn't even name right now that I had in Ghana, and many others yet to be explored and, well, popularized.

Anyway, the future is bright and tasty one way or the other. Fruitarianism in Afrika! Wet tropical regions grow the tastiest things for humans to munch on and grow big and strong with. Wet tropical regions are where I intend on spending most of my life once I'm done with my obligations and studies in Gotham.

A note about the scent of the durian: it is not a "bad" smell at all! I don't know how folks came up with that one. It must surely have been sensory-deprived Europeans overwhelmed by the power of such a botanical powerhouse as the durian. It's a sweet and succulent smell that tells you, once it hits you, that durian-related activities are occurring nearby. Yes, the scent is strong, getting through my army duffel bag from behind newspaper and plastic wrapping, and on a 20 degree day! But those who think it smells bad must be alarmist, sense-inhibited, orientalist tourists and passersby to the durian world. Because durian absolutely has a signature smell, and it is GOOD!

I'll be eating some durian in my afternoon meals tomorrow and perhaps even Saturday if my stash lasts that long. Long live fruitarian adventurism!

To Make Vegan=Fitness

Part of the curriculum of things I'm studying these days is exercise physiology. So how is physical fitness defined in my notes? It is

"the ability to carry out daily tasks with vigor and alertness, without undue fatigue, and with ample energy to enjoy leisure-time pursuits and meet unforeseen emergencies. It is the ability to withstand stress and persevere under difficult circumstances in which an unfit person would quit. Implied in this is more than a lack of illness; it is a positive quality that everyone has to some degree. Physical fitness is minimal in the severely ill and maximal in the highly trained athlete. Persons who maintain high levels of fitness may have increased longevity as compared to those who are sedentary. In addition, the quality of life is enhanced in those who are fit.

Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary, 19th Edition

The above definition of physical fitness suggests the centrality it should have as an achievement and practice for those who wish to live life to the fullest, which should include all Afrikans. The World Health Organization defines health as "a state of complete physical, mental, or social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmary." Again, this means optimal function as human beings, not merely the adequate or the tolerable. In health, we have no serious, scientific, honest, or honorable reason to strive for other than our most optimal condition, because due to the brevity of a human life, it only makes sense to do those things that both lengthen lifespan and improve life's quality.

Vegans, in my opinion, should never stop in their quest for health at the composition of their diet only. Vegan should also come to mean athlete, or physically fit person who does not exploit animals. Check out how widespread sedentary life is: did you know that here in America there is now a pathology for it, called "Sedentary Death Syndrome (SeDS)"? Because the biggest killer in this country, coronary heart disease, is largely attributable to sitting on our ass too much, it is argued that SeDS is actually the number two cause of premature death here, after tobacco. Now dig these statistics:

• Only about 15% of adults in America engage in vigorous physical activity during leisure time, 3 times a week for at least 30 minutes
• More than 60% do not engage in physical activity regularly
• 25% lead sedentary lives
• Physical inactivity occurs more among women than men, Afrikans and Latin@s than whites, older than younger adults, and less-affluent than wealthier persons
• SeDS will cause 2.5 million Americans to die prematurely in the next decade.
• "Racial differences in food and exercise habits and cultural attitudes towards body weight help to explain the greater prevalence of obesity among black women (nearly 50%) than white women (33%)."

-Katch, Katch and McArdle: Exercise Physiology, Sixth Edition (2007)

In regards to SeDS, Afrikans suffer the most. As stated above, half of Afrikan women in the United Snakes are now obese. This means so many sisters, mothers, aunts, daughters, and so on are at grave risk for type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke, cancers, and the like. Brothers, fathers, uncles, sons, and so on, suffer from various cancers and diseases at exponential rates, also related to, among other things, sedentary life.

All this said, the benefits of exercise are numerous! I'm talking about serious exercise - and there is little excuse for humans to live in any other way but that they give themselves at least an hour or two a day to exercise vigorously, in manners touching upon all the main arenas of fitness - cardiovascular, muscular strength, and flexibility. I won't rattle the benefits off here as they are quite obvious, but should not only be enjoyed by the world's elite athletes. All Afrikans, especially those that combine a highly active life with a seriously vegan one, should be able to enjoy increased muscle strength, bone density, cardiovascular endurance and heart strength, reduced heart rate during work and rest, improved stress tolerance and psychological well-being, low body fat content especially of non-essential, useless and dangerous fat, proven substantially increased longevity, and proven increased quality of life.

What's stopping Afrikans from reaching and exceeding high, wise ages, such as now enjoyed by people in Japan or Sweden? Underdevelopment is indeed severely and brutally holding back access to health care in many of our communities around the world. But those of us without further excuses, especially those who are overeating for no good reason and not getting off their asses, including vegans, very much need to step up their game.

The rhetoric of the vegan word needs desperately to be infused with simultaneous pronouncements of the need to exercise well. The vegan and raw vegan athletes - and many of them are black! - are out there all over, so there is no lack of inspiration, nor any grounds for excuse. Again, I reiterate my appeal to discipline, the highest and hardest brand of it, which Afrikans will need to overcome oppression including self-destructive tendencies, of which, yes, sedentary living is very much one of them.

Sedentary living is a sad, indeed a cowardly resignation to fate, to the seemingly overwhelming circumstances, to oppression without taking initiative to change the picture. How can oppressed people afford to sit their ass down? They are the most in need to stand and run and get strong!

Imagine lots of strong, hardy, fit, lean, healthy, fierce, beautiful, athletic Afrikan vegans and raw vegans outliving and outfighting and outshining their enemies, including the enemies within - the typical African dictator, with his usual fat ass. Look at the average corrupt corpulent African head of state - he or she is a miserable ugly fatass! Do you all want to be like them, look like them, big overfed piles of feces not worth the food and expensive banquets lavished on them on the international neocolonial circuit? Do you want to be fat like the fascists, or fit like the fighters and the fire starters?

Revolutionaries have to be beyond physically fit. Fitness needs to be taken very seriously by Afrikans who say they are also vegan or raw vegan/ fruitarian. Fitness is a science and can and should be applied to any and all of us. We need to be doing something that makes us sweat at least thirty minutes a day. If not then at least thirty minutes every other day. We should try to push ourselves - when a given level of exertion no longer stresses us significantly, we must raise the level of the challenge - add more weight, add more miles, push further in the stretches, add more variety. Exercise is for getting stronger.

There shouldn't be no flabby vegans, shouldn't be no fruitarian dough-boys or girls. We should cease to separate in our minds vegan and physical fitness. Afrikan forces that practice veganity and athleticism can potentially be among the most revolutionary and sophisticated cats walking the Earth.

As for me, I know I want to do more work in the cardio department. My resting heart rate is only slightly below the average, and I'd like to bring it far below the average and get into marathon-running territory, for real. I'm putting this out there so I am forced to challenge myself. I've always relied on my own body for transportation - walking, biking. When I was in college I did much much more jogging than I now do, and was on the track team for a minute way back in high school. And I've been doing Kung Fu twice per week for over a year and a half now. I also do plenty of calisthenics. But all that hasn't translated into an extremely high level of cardiovascular endurance - territory I'd like to march into in order to near the level of the great Afrikan dieties of marathon running. Why not? Cardiovascular health is perhaps the most important in the realm of increased longevity, oxygen utilization, disease prevention, and so on. The elite athlete should be joined by the masses in enjoying the pinnacle of heart health. I'm going for it. Why don't y'all consider similar moves?

Exercise has to be targeted and specific. Want to work the cardiovascular system and strengthen the heart? Do extremely vigorous, sweaty, hard, rhythmic, sustained activities that involve a lot of running, cycling, rowing, or other such movements. Want to increase muscle strength? Do plenty of weight-bearing activities wherein you periodically, incrementally increase the amount of weight you lift and move. Want to get more limber and flexible? Go for the yoga or yoga-like exercises, and make sure that during each session, you push yourself further than you did last time. And make exercise comprehensive - so your sessions and sports make you stronger, more flexible, and increase endurance.

Physical fitness, including at the highest levels we should attain, is only a good thing. ONLY A GOOD THING. AND AN ESPECIALLY EXCELLENT THING FOR AFRIKAN VEGANS. We need to be as strong and healthy as possible in order to struggle long and successfully for our people.

I am increasingly convinced that the discourse of veganism is empty without the language of physical fitness.

Let athleticism, sport, and regular hardcore SWEATY exercise grace our black vegan lives, so we reap the benefits and roll through the world beautiful, strong, healthy, and ready to pull down the walls of oppression and disease with our bare hands!

Towards a veganism of physical fitness and sport!

Towards the Afrikan vegan fitness revolution!

It's never too soon or too late to start making the right moves.

UHURU!