Rhio

Last Updated: May 1, 1998

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Raw Energy Hotline

New York City - (212) 343-1152

"The human body is self-cleansing, self-regenerating and self-healing, if given the proper conditions, and it can maintain itself in a superb state of health. A growing community of people are discovering that eating vegetarian foods in their natural, uncooked state, as nature provides it, makes them feel vibrantly alive," says Rhio, a leading proponent of this wonderful lifestyle.

Rhio's Raw Energy Hotline provides information about health-related issues and raw and living foods events. Rhio is also completing a book Hooked on Raw to be published later this year. The book has 32 chapters, half of which are devoted to more than 350 gourmet live food recipes. The other half of the book deals with other pressing issues involving our health, such as food irradiation, bio-genetic engineering of seeds (gene splicing), extensive hybridization of plants, etc.

Rhio's memorable living food potluck dinners have been written up in the Los Angeles Times as well as in smaller papers across the country and in Canada.

Hobbies:

Rhio enjoys organic gardening, horseback riding, salsa dancing and preparing living food recipes.

Occupation:

Rhio makes a living as a singer and has been heard on many national commercials. She has recorded three record albums but is still waiting for that elusive Hit. Her second career as an author, educator and preparer of optimum foods is close to her heart and she is passionate about making this information more generally available.


 

JR's Favorite Pizza

Written 1994 by Rhio

To Make Crust:

For Tomato Sauce:


Toppings for the Pizza:

To Make Cheese for Pizza:

Put Pizza in deydrator at 110 degrees F for 40 hours.

You can substitute water for the rejuvelac but pizza will come out darker in color. The rejuvelac is better because it keeps the batters from oxidizing.

For 2 pizzas, double the recipe, for 4, double again, etc.

The Most Important Ingredient of All:


 

TOONA

Ingredients

Procedure

  1. Drain and rinse walnuts. Cut the carrots into chunks and measure out three cups. Process walnuts and carrots through a Champion or Green Power juicer (with the blank in) to a pate. If you don't have one of these machines, process in a food processor until smooth. Set aside in a bowl.

  2. Cut the celery into 1-inch pieces so that you don't end up with long strings, (to get stuck in your teeth). Then pulse chop garlic, onion, celery, herbs and lemon in food processor until well chopped. Add to carrot and walnuts in the bowl and mix well. Add Braggs to taste.

Goes well with a crudite. Serves 4.
Keeps for 2-3 days in refrigerator.

Variations

  1. In place of the celery, use fennel, for a different taste.

  2. Use as a stuffing for nori rolls.

  3. This recipe also makes delicious dehydrated crackers.


 

Curried Sugar Snap Peas

Ingredients

Directions

  1. De-string the peas and then julienne.

  2. Mix with the freshly grated coconut and set aside in a bowl.

    Dressing

  3. In a small bowl blend the oil, lemon juice, mashed date, spices and Braggs. Pour the dressing onto the peas and toss well. Sprinkle chopped cilantro leaves over the top.

Serves 2-4. Keeps in refrigerator for 2-3 days.


 

Tomato Surprise Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Scrub the squash and jerusalem artichokes with a vegetable brush but do not peel. If there are any blemished areas, cut them out. In a juicer, juice the first 4 ingredients, (to juice the lemon, peel the lemon being careful to leave the white pith** on, cut in half, then put through the juicer).

  2. Transfer the juices into a blender, add the tomato, onion and miso and blend well. Sprinkle with cayenne if desired.

Makes 2 servings.

This soup came as a complete surprise to me one day when I didn't have much in the refrigerator and I didn't feel like going shopping (it was a New York deep-freeze winter). I started by making the juices (an unlikely combination I probably never would have tried, except that was all there was), then I added the miso, onion and tomato. Surprise, it was delicious, and satisfying!

**Pith: This is the white part, just under the peel of all citrus fruits. It is very rich in rutin. When you use the pith in juice, you get a more nutritionally complete juice, plus the juice is thicker. When used in juice or soup the pith is not bitter as it would be, if eaten alone.


 

HOOKED ON RAW

(C) 1998 BY RHIO

What are the known differences between raw foods and the same foods in a cooked, heated or processed condition?

Cooked foods cannot create true health because they are missing some very vital elements needed by the body for its optimal functioning. Things like enzymes, oxygen, hormones, phytochemicals, bio-electrical energy and life-force. When foods are heated above 105 F they start losing all of the foregoing. (By 118 F, most food is dead.) Yes, the vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fats and proteins are still there, but in a greatly altered state . . . . not at all what nature provided.

Each cell of the body is like a tiny battery and raw and living foods supply the bio-electricity which charges these batteries. The bio-electrical energy of raw food can be clearly seen in Kirlian photographs of the food. This process shows electrical discharges, naturally emanating from all living things, as an auralike glow surrounding the subject. The glow is bright and radiant in raw foods, yet almost totally absent in Kirlian photographs of comparable cooked foods.

To me life-force means . . . . able to create life. This life-force is demonstrated in raw food because most raw foods have sprouting abilities. All grains, seeds, legumes and beans sprout. Nuts in the shell sprout. Potatoes sprout and create new potato plants. (Do not eat potato sprouts as they are poisonous.) If you stick the top part of a pineapple into water, it will sprout roots. Apple seeds create apple trees. Avocado pits and mango pits sprout. Now, take cooked versions of all the above and try to sprout them. This is how you can easily demonstrate for yourself what you are losing by eating cooked foods. A food that is cooked cannot create life and cannot maintain the life-force energy in our bodies.

Cooking food disrupts its molecular structure and kills all the enzymes too. Enzymes are the indispensable catalysts which enable the body to utilize vitamins and minerals. (Think of enzymes as the workmen and vitamins and minerals as the bricks and mortar. Without the workmen the bricks and mortar don't get put into place.) Enzymes are extremely heat sensitive and thus do not survive in cooked foods. The vitamins and phytochemicals also are injured, greatly diminished, and left in an altered molecular state. The minerals are made less soluble. The fats have turned from life enhancing cis fatty acids to trans fatty acids, which create damaging free radicals in the body. Trans fatty acids also interfere with respiration of the cell. The proteins (including vegetable proteins), become denatured; they then coagulate (like the white of an egg) and are very difficult to digest. Some researchers report unmetabolized protein particles in the bloodstream as a possible cause of allergies.

When you eat cooked (enzymeless) foods you put a heavy burden on your body, which then has to produce the enzymes that are missing in the food. One of the reasons you feel lethargic or sleepy after a cooked food meal is because the body is diverting its energy to replacing what was not supplied. By comparison, a raw food meal leaves you feeling light and full of energy. You can judge this for yourself. Uncooked foods digest in 1/3 to 1/2 the time of cooked foods. The stress of creating and replacing enzymes, meal after meal, day after day, year after year, contributes to accelerated aging.

Ingesting cooked food also causes the body to produce a surge of white blood cells (leukocytosis.) These cells normally defend against disease, infection or injury to the body, but their production is a routine effect of ingesting cooked foods (as if the body considers such food a threat or danger) and does not occur when raw, unheated foods are eaten. Leukocytosis also occurs when additives, pesticides and chemically based supplements are ingested. And, of course, producing these cells creates an additional stress upon the body.

Raw foods are full of oxygen, especially green leafy vegetables which contain an abundance of chlorophyll. The chemical structure of chlorophyll is almost identical to the hemoglobin in our red blood cells. The only difference is the hemoglobin molecule has iron at its center and chlorophyll has magnesium. Chlorophyll detoxifies the bloodstream and every other part of the body faster and better than anything else you could eat. When you eat raw green chlorophyll foods you oxygenate the blood and the bloodstream, through its capillary system, delivers this oxygen to every cell in your body.

Sprouted seeds contain vital elements which nourish our glands, nerves and brain. The hormones needed by the body are created out of the natural fat and other essential principles found in seeds. Think about how few seeds are found in the average diet. The plant breeders are hybridizing most of the seeds out of our foods. Now we can get seedless watermelons, seedless grapes, and seedless citrus and the list goes on. Even if we did find a seed, most of us don't understand the value of eating it and thus, it would be discarded.

When you eat cooked starch, the body absorbs more than it needs and then getting rid of the starch becomes another burden to the body. It has been used as an example by those who favor cooked foods that since the body cannot absorb raw starch, this is a sign the food should be cooked. Another way to look at it is that the body absorbs just enough of the raw starch for its needs and then passes out the rest.

Cellulose, the woody fibrous parts of food, was previously believed to be unnecessary to the body because it was found the body did not absorb it, so it wasn't deemed important. Now we find this fiber is what keeps things moving through our body so we don't get constipated. Nature was vindicated again. I believe, in addition, raw fiber has the ability to act as a broom to sweep and keep the alimentary canal (colon) clean. Cooked fiber has lost the ability to do this for us. Enemas and colonics serve their purpose but they are a poor second to what nature, by putting the (raw) fiber in, provided.

Raw and live foods nourish and improve the body's inner environment. Raw and live foods enable the body to dislodge and expel accumulated wastes. A member of my family had a tiny sliver of metal lodged in his hand as a result of an accident. For two years he tried to get it out, squeezing, pushing, probing with sterilized needles etc., but it wouldn't budge. He went to the Optimum Health Institute (to learn about live foods) for a week and when he returned home decided he would continue on raw foods. Four weeks later, a bubble formed on his hand and inside the bubble was the sliver of metal. This is an example of what raw and live foods do. If something is not supposed to be in your body, it will be expelled.

Eating cooked food prevents the immune system from working on what is really important in keeping us superbly healthy and young in body, mind and soul. We exhaust and dissipate the body's strength by using the immune system to combat the unnatural cooked foods, chemically based supplements, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, hormones (in meats and dairy) and numerous other toxins we ingest, breathe in or absorb through our skin. When we really need it then, (as when a disease condition develops) it has not the strength to defend us properly.

Eating healthy means giving your body power foods it can easily assimilate and use for regeneration and rejuvenation. Life comes from life, so the more foods you eat which are organically grown and straight from nature's raw garden, the better you are going to feel.


 

HOOKED ON RAW

(C) 1998 BY RHIO

The Value of Wild Uncultivated Foods

Preserving the heritage of non-hybridized seeds, which are the source of all our domesticated, commercially cultivated foods.

It is eminently important to preserve the heritage of unhybridized seeds (aka heirloom or open-pollinated) because they are the root source or root stock (germplasm) of all of our domesticated, commercially grown fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, grains, in fact . . . . of all our food. All our food originally came from non-hybridized wild stock, a large percentage of it discovered in the now diminishing rainforests. For the purpose of earning undeserved profits,* multi-national agribusiness corporations are relentlessly extinguishing our earth's biological diversity, nature's fail-safe mechanism against extinction. Wheat, rice and corn account for half the world's human diet. A serious disease infestation afflicting any one of these could create famine of unimaginable proportions.

Non-hybridized seed has the ability to reproduce itself from generation to generation true to its original form. When you use non-hybridized seed (and save a small part of your crop for seed) you do not need to purchase seed year after year as the farmers do today. Hybridized seed, which represents the majority of seed used today to raise our crops, does not have the ability to reproduce itself year after year. What is the significance of this? Well, for one thing, it has been speculated if a world-wide disease epidemic were to occur it could wipe out all the usable seed stock, of corn say, as an example, and if we were forced to go back to the originals, there might not be any originals left to go back to.

Actually this is not as far-fetched as it may sound because we've already had disease epidemics, such as "the Southern Corn Leaf Blight,** [which] devasted 15% of America's 1970 corn crop . . . . costing farmers about $1 billion i+n losses. Some southern states lost more than 50 percent of their corn crop." It was found that this occurred because of a mutation in the hybridized seed which made the corn susceptible to the blight. Actually the devastation in 1970 could have been much more serious except the weather, in the corn growing states, remained cool that summer. Had the weather been more hot and humid the losses would have been even more ruinous. In addition, because this seed was exported to other parts of the world, the potential for this disease to have spread was mind boggling.

*All profits gained at the expense of destroying the planet or its inhabitants are immoral.

**Ref: Altered Harvest by Jack Doyle

Because of the uniformity of current seed stock, many of the original unhybridized seeds have been lost. There are some organizations trying to recover and save these original seeds so they won't be lost forever, but these organizations are too few and far between at present.

Since plants impart their strengths (and weaknesses) into us, how can plants which do not have the genetic strength to reproduce themselves, impart that strength into us?

What you can do to eat more wild foods and why it is necessary to try to at least eat some?

There has been research done which indicates plants from hybridized seed are having trouble picking up certain nutrients from the soil. Plants from hybridized seed may not contain as high a percentage of phytochemicals as non-hybridized plants. Think about it, why is a plant breeder hybridizing in the first place? Because industry wants to maximize yield and profits. How do they do this? Well, they hybridize to get traits into the plant which will make the crop uniform in size so it can be mechanically harvested. They hybridize for toughness in shipping, etc. Well, what's wrong with that? Nothing, if it's not done at the expense of our health. Hybridization is also done so the plant can withstand more chemical and pesticide inputs without the plant itself dying. It is no coincidence that many multi-national petrochemical companies have gotten into the seed business. They manipulate the seeds so that the plants need more chemicals and pesticides and then they also sell these to the farmer. Altered s eeds, more chemical fertilizers and pesticides creates a self-perpetuating vicious cycle which is almost impossible for today's farmers to break out of. Modern plant breeders have been tampering with our seeds but now we are finding out the true consequences of these interferences. If these findings are confirmed by further research, it means that in the interest of big business controlling all the seed stock of the world, our health is again being compromised because the plants are not able to nourish us as optimally as they were originally meant by the creator to do. (Worldwide the hybridized seed industry is worth 45 billion as of 1985.)

With the addition of gene-splitting which is now being done such as introducing fish genes into a tomato by Calgene Co. so the tomato will not freeze in the field, and widespread experimenting with the manipulation of genes in other plants and other man-made interferences with nature, soon the only way to get untampered with produce will be to grow your own from open-pollinated, untampered with seed, and how many of us will be able to do that? This is a serious problem and I hope we wake up soon and do something about it. Individually we can support organizations which preserve original seed by supporting the work of these organizations and buying these types of seeds for our home gardens. (See Source Index.) We can also inform ourselves of the growing dangers by reading books such as Shattering - Food, Politics and The Loss of Genetic Diversity by Cary Fowler and Pat Mooney and Seeds of Change; The Living Treasure by Ken Ausubel, and then lend our voices to the growing protest.

Having a home garden and planting only heirloom, open-pollinated seed is one way to get better nutrition from the plants you eat. Of course, I encourage you to grow them organically and thus not expose yourself, your family or your environment to pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers and other poisons.

Learning to forage for wild plants is another way to get superior nutrition. Wild plants are much higher in nutrients than commercially grown plants. They have been conditioned to be that way by nature otherwise they wouldn't have survived. And since they have the strength to survive they will impart that strength to you. Lambsquarters, a wild relative of the spinach family is much denser in vitamins, minerals and nutrients than its domestic relative. And in all cases it is the same. Stronger plants and higher nutrient values which they then impart to us. Even if you only added a small percentage of these plants into your diet, you would be going a long way in regards to your health, because a small amount of these foods would be equal in nutrient value to much larger portions of their cultivated counterparts. And there may be other as yet undiscovered factors in wild foods not present in cultivated foods.

Finding these wild, original foods can be done very easily by foraging. But FIRST you have to take some classes with an expert forager so you know what you are doing. There are poisonous plants out there and sometimes there are poisonous look-a-likes to edible plants. In New York City we have a treasure. . . . "Wildman" Steve Brill who takes people for walks through the public parks almost every weekend throughout the year and teaches them which plants are food for the taking, and in the New York and surrounding area parks the wild food is abundant. They do not have the budget, thank goodness, to be applying pesticides.

One summer a few years back, I spent every weekend with the"Wildman" on his sojourns through the different parks and it was an education I will never forget. We found mulberries galore, white, pink, purple, but people are largely unaware the fruit is edible and soooooo delicious! (The mulberry trees are there because in some former time there was an effort to create a silk industry in New York and, when it failed, the trees remained.) We also found an abundance of other types of berries, wild cherries, blueberries, apples, and green herbs of all kinds. One of my favorites, which I go to pick up every year in Inwood Park, is goutweed. It is a leafy green herb vegetable with an indescribable flavor and aroma. If you can ever locate some of this try my Go Go Goutweed recipe (see Recipe Index).

Most localities have people who are trained in wild plant identification and who are willing to teach others how to do it. To find them check with your local botanical gardens, organic gardening clubs or horticultural organizations.


 

HOOKED ON RAW

(C) 1998 BY RHIO

The Importance of Preparing Food with Love

The importance of preparing food with love cannot be overstressed. When food is prepared lovingly, there is an intangible vital nutrient added to the food. As far as I know, there is no name for this nutrient, so, for the purposes of this book, I'll call it Vitamin L-complex. I submit the food tastes better and is more nourishing when Vitamin L-complex is imparted into it.

Oh, no, now she's really lost it, I can hear you say. But, bear with me and I will try to explain why I feel this way. Dr. Deepak Chopra, in his audio tape series, Magical Mind, Magical Body, talks about an experiment which was done with newborn premature babies at the University of Miami. In the experiment they set up two groups of newborn babies, one known as the control group and the other known as the experimental group. Both groups of babies were fed identical diets, but the experimental group was touched and stroked for 10 minutes three times a day (they called this stroking,* tactile kinesthetic stimulation), while the other group was just fed but not touched or stroked. At the end of the experiment, they found the group which was touched had gained 49% more weight per day than the other group. So this group of babies, as a result, could be released from the hospital much sooner, and the hospital saved $3,000 per baby. As Deepak Chopra says, heaven forbid they should call this stroking . . . love, but that's just what it was and you can plainly see the result. It's intangible, but it nourishes. Is it not possible then to affect the foods as we prepare them by touching with our hands and our loving thoughts? And as a result would not this food be more nourishing to those who ate it?

Another example of how we impart intangibles into things is a humorous incident that occurred to Edgar Cayce,** as reported by his son, Hugh Lynn Cayce. Edgar Cayce in some of the readings had given detailed instructions for building an appliance which was supposed to help people sleep better, especially insomniacs. After a number of these readings, a close friend of the Cayces, Marsden Godfrey, started to manufacture the appliances to send to people as called for in some of the readings. One client, who had received an

*Stroking has been shown to stimulate growth hormone, like when dogs and cats lick their young.

**Edgar Cayce was a psychic during the early part of this century who used to go into a trance state and when he did he was able to diagnose people's illnesses and give remedies for their healing. It was found if people followed his suggestions faithfully, a large percentage of them regained their health A whole organization sprang up as a result of these readings which during the course of years numered into the thousands. This organization is known as The Association for Research and Enlightenment and it is located to this day in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The readings are available for perusal.

appliance, sent a letter to Cayce stating "Mr. Cayce, I was sleeping part of the night before I got this appliance that you recommended and now I can't sleep at all. I have gotten so nervous. What should I do?" Cayce didn't know what to do either but he told her to send the appliance back. When it arrived, it was decided to have another reading to find out what to do. Cayce, in the trance state, suggested they use a strong magnet to remove the anger which had been programmed into it. It seems Godfrey, on the day he was building the appliance, had had a violent argument with his wife and the "inanimate" object had picked up the vibration. After being cleared by the magnet, the appliance worked as it was supposed to, as later reported by the client.

"Of course, we could never explain to the woman what was wrong with her appliance because the explanation was harder to accept than the original malfunction," mused Hugh Lynn.

What I got out of this is that feelings (strong feelings) can impart intangible qualities into things.

Many cultures on earth have had a tradition to bless food before eating. This is usually in the form of being grateful to nature, God or the universe for providing sustenance. This consciously charges the food with loving energy which makes it more harmonious and nutritious to consume.

My third example for you to ponder is Grandmother's Chicken Soup. The reason I believe it may work for the ailing grandchild or other member of the family is that when Grandmother is making this soup, she is making it with the love and regard she has for her family and the Vitamin L-complex is imparted into the food and is picked up by the person who eats it. Love is ever the healer, and we do absorb it any way it comes.

How much love and caring do you think goes into the food prepared in fast food establishments or factory processed food?

So please, get into a good mood, put on some healing music and impart Vitamin L-complex into the food as you are lovingly preparing it and this will be the most nourishing ingredient of all.


 

Order the book - Hooked on Raw

(C) 1998 BY RHIO

Advance Order

Send Check for $30 to

Rhio's Raw Energy,
244 5th Avenue Suite 2354,
NY NY 10001-7604

Please include your name, address and phone number

Visa, Mastercard and Amex also accepted.

The book is expected to ship in November, 1999


 

Mas Amor

You are listening, if you have waited long enough to get the whole file (one meg) to a selection off Rhio's Latin CD called Mas Amor (translation: More Love)



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