FruitMonster.com

Look, Sometimes I Cook My Food

A lot of visitors to my site wonder why I even take the time to explain why I cook food, doesn’t everyone cook their food?  What’s so wrong with that?  Well, here at fruitmonster.com, I have essentially two audiences – those who are fruit-curious and those who are already into the fruitarian lifestyle.

For those who are already in the fruitarian lifestyle, there is a very strong emphasis on raw food.  This is because raw foods, or ones that are not cooked (or cooked below ~104 deg F) have all of their enzymes and other micronutrients intact.  They also do not have the toxic byproducts that sometimes show up when we cook things.  So, the theory goes, that by eating raw foods we can achieve the most optimal states of health.  And that is largely true!  Raw foods are fantastic, and I promote the raw food lifestyle on this site!  Especially with smoothies, juices and fruitmonstering sessions!  But I have to explain myself, because a large part of the raw food community will reject my thoughts as ‘heretical’.  I can even be kicked out of some raw food circles for sharing ‘non raw’ food ideas/content.  But I hope that those people will listen to what I have to say.

We Need to Go Local!

Cooked FruitMonster Garden Zucchini with Herbs

But I am also coming to understand in a very profound way, that the key to solving the world’s problems flows through what we put in our mouths!  And to escape the Corporate Crap Sandwich that we are caught up in, we need to shift our diets to locally sourced, organically grown foods!  This type of fruitmonstering diet will naturally follow the seasons and will be based on the foods accessible to us from our local environment.  So, although I love me some bananas, I really can’t sustainably base my diet off of them without shipping them in from a far away place, can I?  I also, living in southeast Australia, cannot grow them (or mangoes!) in my backyard or barter with my neighbors for them.  We need to keep this in mind!

Growing Your Own Food and Cooking It

Monstering Corn I Grew!

BUT, I sure can grow a lot of other amazingly awesome fruits and veggies!  But many of these food items just simply aren’t edible in their raw state (potatoes, other tubers)!  Others may be edible, but they are difficult to digest due to the large amount of cellulose in them. That means one cannot get enough calories from monstering them raw (e.g. brocolli, zucchini).

‘Healthy’ is Bigger Than Just Your Body

But, by cooking my garden grown goods, I am able to feed myself out of my backyard.  And while, yes, this is not as optimal for my body, it is more optimal for our communities and our planet.  ’Health’ has to do more with general well being of the rest of life around you than you might at first realize!  I think that is much more important, and I’m not afraid to shift to a less optimal diet for that cause.  And to be honest, I’m still eating an extremely healthy diet, balancing my non-local purchases (bananas and mangoes) with local ones (peaches, pears, apples, apricots) and cooking things lightly or steaming them for a short period of time (you don’t have to torch them!).

And who knows, maybe someday I will move to a tropical area and be able to monster mangoes at will!

In Summary:

Eat as much raw food as you can, sourcing it from mostly local sources.  Strive to eat seasonally, and don’t be afraid to cook your foods, especially if it allows you to feed yourself out of your garden.  Because growing your own food is power and this ailing planet needs that now more than ever!

Let’s Take Back Food

Farmer FruitMonster

What We Eat and How We Make It is Crazy.

Using huge swathes of land we relentlessly grow one type of crop in a petroleum intensive fashion to produce pesticide laden, genetically modified crops using methods that exhaust soils, deplete aquifers and wash nitrogen into our rivers.  Instead of eating this produce, it is either delivered to food processing companies, sent off to feed massive numbers of livestock, or used to produce expensive and inefficient biofuels.

Monocropping or Monoculture, No Good

These food processors turn that fresh produce into dead, sugar ridden, salty infused, fatty crap that sits on shelves or hums in freezers for months or even years before it ever enters our bodies.  The livestock community feeds this food to penned and caged up animals whom are weak, sick and essentially tortured for most of their lives - and then we eat their flesh and drink their milk.  The biofuels industry takes crops which could feed hundreds of millions, and put them into our cars, driving up the costs of food related commodities worldwide.

The products that we eat after these massive amounts of produce are turned into ‘food’, leaves us sick (heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc) and we are then bled dry by expensive pharmaceuticals and medical treatment.  This leads to more than just the person who ate the nasty food suffering from it!  It hurts our families, our communities and whole countries.  It’s such a big problem that it even blows up our national deficits, because of the subsidies we give to this process and from the great costs medical treatments impose on us ($2.4 Trillion in 2008)

Click Here to Read About This 'Corporate Crap Sandwich'

To be brief – the way we grow food, what we eat as ‘food’ and the effects it has on our bodies after we eat it is absolutely INSANE.  It’s actually comical that people look at someone like me who thrives off a locally sourced, seasonally driven, produce based diet that I try to grow in my backyard and call what I’m saying ‘controversial’ or ‘crazy’.   I don’t think it takes much more than an average understanding of our actual food production process and some basic nutritional intuition (one that ignores the heavy lobbying of the FDA and USDA by the meat and dairy industries), to see that the ‘normal’ way to eat is actually completely broken.

If this gets you down, then stop right now and cheer up.  Because I’ve got answers to this  pollution ridden, poisonous and corrupted system we depend on, and using these ideas we can quite literally save the planet, changing this world for the better.  So are you ready?  Listen up.

The whole plan revolves around your food choices

That’s because the revolution starts with your mouth.  You can change what you eat tomorrow and that is true power.  We the People can shift the supply and demand curve back into the direction we wish, just with our dollars.  It’s already happening everywhere around you, people are ‘waking up’!  So why not join in?

Alright fruit-freak, where do I start?  By shifting your diet towards a whole-foods based one, away from this system. The best way to start doing this and make a sustainable, community driven, change, is to start your own garden and grow some food on your own.  That’s what ‘The FruitMonster Garden’ is all about!

It’s easier than you think, and I’m going to devote this section of my blog to covering how you can do it.  Through my YouTube videos, helpful links on my Twitter feed and a series of blog posts – we’re going to go over how just about anyone can have a garden (yes, even you apartment ridden folks!).  There are countless methods of doing so, so there is really no excuse. If you want to make a difference in this world, then starting with a garden is an excellent way to start.  You’ll be amazed what you learn and how big the smile is on your face when you reap your first harvest!

7 Ears of Corn, Is That 9 With An Ear-to-Ear Grin?

It’s quite obviously hard to grow ALL of your own food, so what else can you do?  Start doing more of your shopping at your local farmer’s markets.  We really need to start doing this enmass right now!  (Watch out, Wal-Mart sells over 20% of the food in the US!).  So where are they?  In the United States, search for the nearest one here.  Australians, check out this link.  By supporting your local farmers, you are stimulating your local economy, getting fresher and healthier produce, and you will find great satisfaction in getting to know the person who grew your food.  Plus, I often find the best deals on fruit and veggies there!  Its a win-win-win-win!!

$55 At the Farmer's Market, Beat That!

If you can’t get to the farmer’s market, then there is another option for you Australians (if anyone knows of a system like this in the U.S., please email me: unleashthemonster@live.com) – it’s called Aussie Farmer’s Direct.  They will deliver fresh fruits and veggies right to your door, and you will get a GREAT deal.  They get goods straight from the farmers, bypassing the supermarkets and supporting Australian agriculture.  What a great deal!

So to review – I’m endorsing a produce based diet, self grown, locally sourced and supportive of farmers.  Doing so, you can snag up armloads of fresh fruits and veggies and indulge in a vigorous fruitmonstering session, a refreshing juice or a monster-sized green smoothie.

Be sure to check out my YouTube channel for the latest from the ‘FruitMonster Garden’!

Eating, Growing and Inspiring the Food Revolution,

Let’s Take Back Food

Farmer FruitMonster

What We Eat and How We Make It is Crazy.

Using huge swathes of land we relentlessly grow one type of crop in a petroleum intensive fashion to produce pesticide laden, genetically modified crops using methods that exhaust soils, deplete aquifers and wash nitrogen into our rivers.  Instead of eating this produce, it is either delivered to food processing companies, sent off to feed massive numbers of livestock, or used to produce expensive and inefficient biofuels.

Monocropping or Monoculture, No Good

These food processors turn that fresh produce into dead, sugar ridden, salty infused, fatty crap that sits on shelves or hums in freezers for months or even years before it ever enters our bodies.  The livestock community feeds this food to penned and caged up animals whom are weak, sick and essentially tortured for most of their lives - and then we eat their flesh and drink their milk.  The biofuels industry takes crops which could feed hundreds of millions, and put them into our cars, driving up the costs of food related commodities worldwide.

The products that we eat after these massive amounts of produce are turned into ‘food’, leaves us sick (heart disease, diabetes, cancer, etc) and we are then bled dry by expensive pharmaceuticals and medical treatment.  This leads to more than just the person who ate the nasty food suffering from it!  It hurts our families, our communities and whole countries.  It’s such a big problem that it even blows up our national deficits, because of the subsidies we give to this process and from the great costs medical treatments impose on us ($2.4 Trillion in 2008)

Click Here to Read About This 'Corporate Crap Sandwich'

To be brief – the way we grow food, what we eat as ‘food’ and the effects it has on our bodies after we eat it is absolutely INSANE.  It’s actually comical that people look at someone like me who thrives off a locally sourced, seasonally driven, produce based diet that I try to grow in my backyard and call what I’m saying ‘controversial’ or ‘crazy’.   I don’t think it takes much more than an average understanding of our actual food production process and some basic nutritional intuition (one that ignores the heavy lobbying of the FDA and USDA by the meat and dairy industries), to see that the ‘normal’ way to eat is actually completely broken.

If this gets you down, then stop right now and cheer up.  Because I’ve got answers to this  pollution ridden, poisonous and corrupted system we depend on, and using these ideas we can quite literally save the planet, changing this world for the better.  So are you ready?  Listen up.

The whole plan revolves around your food choices

That’s because the revolution starts with your mouth.  You can change what you eat tomorrow and that is true power.  We the People can shift the supply and demand curve back into the direction we wish, just with our dollars.  It’s already happening everywhere around you, people are ‘waking up’!  So why not join in?

Alright fruit-freak, where do I start?  By shifting your diet towards a whole-foods based one, away from this system. The best way to start doing this and make a sustainable, community driven, change, is to start your own garden and grow some food on your own.  That’s what ‘The FruitMonster Garden’ is all about!

It’s easier than you think, and I’m going to devote this section of my blog to covering how you can do it.  Through my YouTube videos, helpful links on my Twitter feed and a series of blog posts – we’re going to go over how just about anyone can have a garden (yes, even you apartment ridden folks!).  There are countless methods of doing so, so there is really no excuse. If you want to make a difference in this world, then starting with a garden is an excellent way to start.  You’ll be amazed what you learn and how big the smile is on your face when you reap your first harvest!

7 Ears of Corn, Is That 9 With An Ear-to-Ear Grin?

It’s quite obviously hard to grow ALL of your own food, so what else can you do?  Start doing more of your shopping at your local farmer’s markets.  We really need to start doing this enmass right now!  (Watch out, Wal-Mart sells over 20% of the food in the US!).  So where are they?  In the United States, search for the nearest one here.  Australians, check out this link.  By supporting your local farmers, you are stimulating your local economy, getting fresher and healthier produce, and you will find great satisfaction in getting to know the person who grew your food.  Plus, I often find the best deals on fruit and veggies there!  Its a win-win-win-win!!

$55 At the Farmer's Market, Beat That!

If you can’t get to the farmer’s market, then there is another option for you Australians (if anyone knows of a system like this in the U.S., please email me: unleashthemonster@live.com) – it’s called Aussie Farmer’s Direct.  They will deliver fresh fruits and veggies right to your door, and you will get a GREAT deal.  They get goods straight from the farmers, bypassing the supermarkets and supporting Australian agriculture.  What a great deal!

So to review – I’m endorsing a produce based diet, self grown, locally sourced and supportive of farmers.  Doing so, you can snag up armloads of fresh fruits and veggies and indulge in a vigorous fruitmonstering session, a refreshing juice or a monster-sized green smoothie.

Be sure to check out my YouTube channel for the latest from the ‘FruitMonster Garden’!

Eating, Growing and Inspiring the Food Revolution,