{in response to a Raw Energy Hotline which talked about "freshly" harvested food)

Dear Rhio,

Hi. Thanks for the beautiful letter.

I wanted to share some things with you about fresh food.

Anna and I went to Brooklyn for a week after our tour [THANKS SO MUCH FOR STAYING FOR OUR TALK IN LA. IT WAS QUITE A SHOCK TO ARRIVE THERE, FIND OUT THAT NO ONE KNEW WE WERE COMING, THEN SEE THE ROOM EMPTY OUT AFTER DINNER!].

After removing many of our things from storage and bringing them to Anna's sister's house in Baltimore, we came back to Portland.

We had decided that trying to fight the City {NYC} over the spraying, and being mentally and emotionally terrorized every day wondering whether we were going to get sprayed was just too much. Additionally we had been sleeping outside every night with just two exceptions for the prior 6 weeks (yes, even in LA). In NY there just aren't options for sleeping outside. But I must tell you the benefits of breathing clean, mostly live air for the many hours of rejuvenative sleep has made a huge difference in the way we feel. At one point Anna asked me if we're making the effort to eat 100% live foods, then breath dead air, are we really live foodists? More importantly, air is our first food.

Well, what could I say?

So all these things together has brought us to Portland for September and October. We will go to Bali in November for a retreat we will run there.

Now back to fresh foods. Portland is abundant in fruit trees. There is wonderful fresh fruit literally on almost every block. Apples, pears, blackberries, plums, and figs and Figs and FIGS. Oh, the figs are just incredible. And the power they give when they are just off the tree or the ground below the tree is…how can I explain just how powerful it is. When one eats perfectly ripe fruit, then we begin to know real food. It is just electric.

So many problems that people have when eating raw, disappear when eating perfectly ripe fruit. It is a huge difference than the produce from the store or even the farmer's market. The tendency to overeat almost totally disappears. I am sure because the body is actually getting food it can use. When I ate cooked vegan food, I overate massively. Eating store bought raw foods I overeat some. But perfectly ripe fruit from the tree…The body is nutrified. It is just awesome.

Another problem which has diminished almost into non-existence is gas and/or bloating from combinations that were impossible before, particularly dates and nuts. This would give me incredible gas and I have avoided it for years. However, we have gotten a huge pile of walnuts just off the tree and a wet pack of dates from Jamie and Anjou (The Date People) that were just harvested. I combine the two and feel light and wonderful after. I can also eat the fresh walnuts with just off the tree figs and no problem.

Eating produce off the tree or directly out of the garden (there is an organic garden in our back yard, and many friends and neighbors have also said that we can eat from theirs) is hugely different from store bought. I have to eat pounds of store bought greens to equal the benefits of a few ounces of wild or just picked greens. And it is never really equal.

The only thing like it is fresh homegrown sprouts. But despite years of advocacy of sprouts and teaching about growing them, they are just not quite the same. Now I understand why people say they are not as strong as freshly picked vegetables grown in the Earth.

It is amazing how much difference even a few hours off the tree or out of the garden makes. If I pick a fig now off our tree (there is a massive fig tree that we sleep under each night in our back yard), it is awesome and powerful. Tomorrow it just doesn't feel the same. It's power is diminished. And two days later… it could just as well go in the compost.

Eating fruit directly from the tree is also an important political statement. We do not buy into the system of destruction of which health food stores are also an intrinsic part. Transportation, shipping, packing, refrigeration, the trees and earth that are killed to build the store. Eating from the tree strikes directly at the core issues of our dominator culture and renders them superfluous for that meal. It is incredibly powerful. I'd like to share this idea with all the green anarchists who are dumpster diving. Want to tell the corporate dominated food industry to f*** off. Eat live, fresh food directly from the tree!!! Wouldn't it be awesome to see young people forming Fruit Liberation Brigades rather than becoming punks sleeping on the sidewalks and begging for money on the lower east side.

So what does this mean for City dwellers?… for us living in New York?… We don't know exactly. We are trying to assess for ourselves. There are a lot of benefits living in the City, especially the people… But how can we be nourished? I forage a lot in Prospect Park and grow my own food as well as belong to a CSA {Community Supported Agriculture) and the PSFC {Park Slope Food Co-op}. I think it is fair to say that few people get food as fresh as I do in the City. But after this experience, what course we will take I am not sure. I feel almost as though I have not been eating real food most of the time up to this point.

So thanks again for your letter and also the one directly after September 11. The power of our dinner plate to bring peace is massively strong. Keep up that great work in sharing it with others. The quiet revolution is, peace will happen and it is happening from person to person. Whether the mass of humanity will be saved from the impending storm is yet to be seen, but at least small numbers are taking it into their/our hands to live a life which just will not kill and seek to dominate everything.

Wishing You Peace, Love and Courage,