New Vrindaban Brijabasi Spirit

On Wednesday, April 20, 2011, about 20 devotees met at the Small Farm Training Center Guest House. The gathering was organized by New Vrindaban’s Center for Preventative Medicine (CPM). One of the goals of the CPM is to raise awareness about the medicinal properties of food.

“Let food be your medicine and your medicine be food”. –Hippocrates

The gathering started with a short bhajana led by HG Nityodita Prabhu. Then, a discussion about the health benefits of raw foods amongst the devotees was led by Arya-siddhanta dasa.

During the discussion, Bhaktin Shannon said, “When foods are heated above 115 degrees, the beneficial enzymes naturally present are denatured. The digestive system has to work harder and longer to process cooked foods to get nutrition and energy from it. Living foods have healing powers that can alleviate many illnesses such as low energy, allergies, digestive disorders, weak immune system, high cholesterol, candida, obesity and weight problems.”

After the brief discussion about the health benefits of raw foods, the guests enjoyed a Raw Food Potluck Prasadam Feast. Some of the dishes present were:

-Raw Nori Rolls, filled with veggies & a tasty raw sauce
-Several varieties of Fruit Salad
-Zucchini Pasta
-Wild Edibles, Sprouts, and Spinach Salad with a Creamy Raw Ranch dressing
-Juice pulp from Wild Edibles from the Dham crackers with Cashew Cheese
-Green Smoothie
-Raw Asparagus & Spinach fresh from the Garden
-Sweet balls (recipe included below)

Guests commented how delicious the items were and some were surprised how light and energized they felt after sumptuously eating.

One goal of the CPM is to offer alternatives for prasadam— to gradually influence the temple prasadam to be a more diversified, healthy, organic diet. The CPM wants to help devotees maximize their service to Krsna by encouraging a diet that provides the maximum amount of energy with minimal bodily effort. The group is not supporting veganism, but instead is encouraging the health benefits of raw food, as well as creating delicious foods for Krsna that come from our organic garden (or other local organic gardens).

A highlight of the event was a group of 15 high school students and teachers came through, each sampling a raw dessert. They were all excited to taste new treats –and every guest took a piece of Maha fruit! When told what the ingredients were, Anthony, one of the students exclaimed, “How can something made only out of that taste so good?!”

The Raw Food Meetups will continue on Wednesdays at 5:30pm at the Small Farm Training Center Guest House. This upcoming Wednesday we will be watching the movie Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 days. For more information about the movie and the potluck click here: http://www.brijabasispirit.com/2011/04/24/movie-night-raw-food-potluck/

Sweet Balls

Ingredients:

• 2 Cups Walnuts or Pecans
• 2/3 Cup Dates, pitted
• 1/3 Cup Raisins
• 1tbsp Raw Almond Butter
• 2tbsp Maple Syrup
• 1tbsp Carob Powder
• 1/2 Cup Coconut shreds

Directions:

1. Grind nuts in food processor until the larger pieces break up.
2. Add dates and raisins and process it again until sticky.
3. Transfer to a bowl.
4. Add almond butter, maple syrup and carob, and mush together with your hands.
5. Roll into balls and roll in coconut to garnish
6. If they happen to be too sticky, put in fridge for 30minutes, and you are back in business