Visionary Nutrition
Greetings Friends! I wanted to share an article by my good friend Morgan Maher, the host of the my upcoming online workshop on “Visionary Nutrition”. I think it is an inspired and poignant summation of the plant medicine path, and especially the synthesis of food, medicine, and the realm of entheogenic plants in the human ecological niche. If you are interested in joining us for this online workshop just click the banner below.
Enjoy the article and let us know what you think!
~D
Food Medicine Life
by Morgan Maher
“As we begin (once again) to naturalize ourselves – both nutritionally and medicinally – we may begin to discover that there is far more to a plant than just its chemical composition, more than just its list of constituent phyto-nutrients, vitamins and minerals. Rather, and more vital to our personal healing – as well as to the continuation of life as we know it – is our becoming acquainted with the organism producing the food or medicine itself. With the life-form, the being.”
-Daniel Vitalis
~
Visionary Nutrition. This is a path of uniting stories. An open source invitation into deeper relation with the many things that fuel, heal, and energize us; that which is alive all around us, co-creates with us. This a path of dissolving separation. A path of connectivity.
It is the strengthened engagement with the harmony of humanity – the beautiful songs we’ve sung and are singing, our peak performance, the best of the best – that boils down to our collective necessities – food, medicine, life – from which can be drawn ever-expanding analogies, inter-elated metaphor, and metamorphosis.
It is here all around us; Eden, Heaven – find it in an apple. Got Demons? Join forces with a vine. Eat garbage conjured and sold by the darkest magicians – become “Stay Puft Marshmallow Man”; your ill-conceived nightmares. Invite the forces of nature, say an orange or a mushroom, and with the right kind of eyes – grow further infused with infinite ecologies of everlasting spirits.
“What ayahuasca teaches is that right now, at every moment, we already live in the magic forest.”
-Steve Beyer
Dig around a bit, and you might observe the root of our crisis as being humankind’s long, drunken lust for separation – mind/body, human/nature, food/medicine, physical/spiritual. Simultaneously, it is these elements which unite our species, and always have. We all participate, we all dance with these elements – and it is these elements that, by and large, make up our world. We create worlds, as worlds creates us.
But we are new here – sometimes awesome, but ultimately amateur, and we’ve been grasping. We simply cannot believe it. Timelapse the situation and it’s like we appeared only yesterday – instantaneously – in ever-changing form, on a particular planet.
Growing in size, staring at our hands, finding our feet, rubbing our eyeballs, mind boggled – immersed, surrounded, and face to face with an overwhelming presence perceived, at times, as threatening.
We dash for the door, or some way out. We invoke separation, like children covering their ears – convinced it’s not happening. Running in circles, making mirages, chasing dragons, ouroborically awestruck, deaf, blind and dumbfounded by this life, the afterlife, reality and its alternatives, ghosts, dreams, philosophy, the powers that be, the secret life of plants – all this raging intricacy.
Yet we appear now to see eye to eye with the storm. This quiet, ripping whorl, where time is in question, and of its essence. Where the consensus amongst the conscious is that we are indeed all one, we are nature, there is no separation, and it’s all changing dramatically. Be it homo nexus, homo luminous, neo aboriginalis, or Sylvapolitans – it’s on, and it’s your choice. Merge with the Maelstrom, let Gaia absorb you. Produce solutions – dissolve.
“The fiction that supports the culture-nature separation is rapidly failing under the weight of its own inconsistencies. It is becoming obvious that what we do to nature we do to ourselves, what we do to ourselves we do to nature.”
-Morgan Brent
All plants are psychoactive. Everything has a spirit. You can learn a lot from Arugula – even more from Cacao, or from an elder like Maize. What we place inside ourselves, transforms us. Eating and drinking is intimate communication. Daily comm-union, even telepathy, most often one-way, where a plant invited into the human body as food or medicine can “see what you mean”. From it nothing is hidden and it knows what’s what – so it provides certain answers in the form of nourishment – literally; “bringing (you) up, raising, fostering, supporting, preserving”.
Be it food or information – we become what we consume, and we produce from the inside out. When we eat and drink – we practice relationship with different forces, with spirits and sentience. We are what we eat, and what we eat runs the show.
Plants, fungi and bacteria are significantly adept at piloting humans. Michael Pollan, for example, explores this extensively and convincingly in his work, posing the question: “What if we are all just pawns in corn’s clever strategy game to rule the Earth?”. Further, Pollan suggests, in his “Plants-eye view” Ted Talk, that “Looking at the world from other species’ points of view is a cure for the disease of human self-importance.”
If plants – specifically Teacher Plants – convey anything, it is that they have the upper hand, the higher branch. They can throw you down, clean you up, send you out to space, thrust you on a new paths, make you change your ways, whisper advice, keep you warm, dry, sheltered, alive, and in some cases, even kill you.
Essentially, plants can do whatever they want with humans, and with near-absolute impunity. Our species’ “ultimate verdict” is the concept of death. But to a plant, death is laughable. A sentiment reinforced in a recent New York Times Magazine article describing the plant take-over of New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, where “For six and a half years, the neighborhood has undergone a reverse colonization — nature reclaiming civilization.”
Have you ever seen plants happen? Plants, and plant-time, are like crop circles (which of course are made of plants in most cases) – like magic, they appear, leave traces, clues, fruit, messages. In the New Orleans “Jungleland” – behind climates of chaos and the media newsfeed, burnt cars and dead bodies are consumed by tall grass.
Side with the plants, learn plants, eat plants, become plants – let food be your medicine, let medicine be your food – and begin to synthesize entirely different dimensions of time, technology, communication, and potential.
“In order to live a magical life, you have to eat magical food”
-David Wolfe
Several years ago, during dieta with Ayahuasca, the plants suggested to me that “ayahuasca would go best with raw food”. Plants, I’ve found, often speak in terms of one’s present perception – in shapeshifting symbols that change as you follow them, conversations to discern and decipher. With this in mind, I set forth exploring a raw food diet – with sharp eyes and a healthy aversion to dogma and definitions. However, the heart of this guidance was clear: Ayahuasca, once drank, prefers to live in, and works better with; clean bodies.
I eventually engaged and evolved my raw food/living diet path as a kind of inverted version of a Plant Dieta. Something I could practice daily as a way to learn from, and build relations with numerous “common” plants like Kale, Chard, Chia, Blueberries, Tomatoes, Pears, for example. As though I was, or have been, turning myself into some kind of garden. Into which, ayahuasca digs deep, purging junk, transforming thoughts, composting things, creating soil from soul, turning the stomach into a womb, encouraging conditions right, good, and fertile – so it can root, grow, and flower.
Raw, living diets take many forms. From my perspective it’s a kind of plant artistry. Plant-based edible living sculpture with vibrant living beings who in return sculpt you. Essentially though, it is process of healing and strengthening. Significantly, it’s a cleanse – of body, of mind – and by extension, environment.
From yet another direction, the “higher reflection” in a sense the Mother of raw, living diets, can be seen in the traditions and disciplines of Plant Dietas. Commonly referred to and often mistaken as “the ayahuasca diet” - Plant Dietas are, in very general terms; a discipline and process of cleansing, purging, healing, learning, and building right-relationship. During Plant Dietas, one is isolated, eats very little, and/or very simply, in order to remove distractions, sensitize one’s body/mind/spirit to the subtleties of the spirit world, to become transparent, lucid and focused in it. A student-teacher relationship emerges as one sits with a plant, drinking it exclusively over a period of time.
Working safely and respectfully with Ayahuasca and other Teacher Plants, alongside raw food/garden-variety plants, the Teacher’s Assistants so to speak, leads, of course, to many physical and spiritual benefits. The plants led me out of concrete jungles, cured any concrete ideologies and crumbling health I might carry – hold my gaze and engage my commitment to unfolding endeavors of evolutionary advantage – wild foods, living water, permaculture, forest gardening, medicinal mushrooms, herbalism, synaesthesia…
Yet perhaps most importantly, the process has opened, and continues to expand, a certain grand permeability – pathways and bridges between common ground and the sky – between day-to-day and ceremonial nights.
~
“I think that once a person is aware of the life in everything, they can begin to access the spirit of everything. And once they can do that they can interact with those spirits. I’m talking about the spirit of the creek, the bricks in your house, the hundreds of spirits roaming your kitchen.
This universe is full full full of life and life force. The roll of shamanic knowledge for us westerners introduced to those spirits is to spread that knowledge, make communication easier. And if we can do that–a big task, no doubt–then the way people interact with the world and the spirits of the world and universe will change, automatically, from one of dominance to one of cooperation. And when we, mankind, begin interacting with the world, rather than trying to dominate it, well, I think mankind will be better off. The world and its spirits don’t really care if we do, for the most part. Trees will be here long after we’re gone, and so will stones and bricks and clouds and the moon. So it’s really up to us to take an interest if we are to make the friendship of those spirits.
And thus far, for most of us throughout mankind’s short history on this planet, that effort has not been made. Which has left us losing out on so much we might have learned. Who knows what we have missed simply by not asking a plant what benefit it might have for mankind, rather than saying “tree, chop it and burn it for fire.”
I think the universe has all the secrets of the universe. And our arrogance in trying to continually conquer the universe rather than communicate with it, has kept us from being taught those secrets. And how delicious they might be!”
-Peter Gorman
Watch Hungry For Change for FREE! (and other upcoming 2012 happenings ;)
It was a tremendous honor to be a part of the new documentary film “Hungry For Change”. Click here to see the full length film for FREE between now and March 31st! The film exposes the myths and mistruths that the diet-fad and processed food industries have perpetrated on a mis-educated populace for so many years. We are now awakening from the last few decades of over-fed / under-nourished slumber and collectively reclaiming our Sovereign Health! This film is a beautiful depiction of how that is happening. I really feel that this movie has the potential to make some real change in the lives of people you know, so please turn your friends and loved ones onto it as well!
Join me on my upcoming radio show with Patrick Timpone on March 29th at 10 am EST. I will be talking about everything from the “best foods available in the super-market” to the “worst food that people are eating today“. We will also be talking about footwear, and why I am such a fan of five-toed shoes! This will be a fun call, and Patrick is never shy about taking me into edgy and interesting territory! You can check out lots of my past interviews with him (as well as hundreds of other amazing guests) in his extensive audio archives.
Also, special thanks to my friends at Evolver for inviting me to be a part of the Visionary Nutrition project, beginning on April 8th with my interview, where I will be teaching about the role of psychoactive plants in the human ecological and dietary niche. Homo sapiens have a long and rich history with psychoactive plant medicines, and they have always been a part of our traditional diets. What role do psychoactive’s play today, and if they are no longer represented in our food supply, is it possible that we can become “alkaloid deficient”? This online workshop will delve deeply into human domestication and the affects of an alkaloid-poor diet. Click here to learn more about this upcoming online event.
I will be speaking in Washington, DC at the Take Back Your Health Conference on April 14th and 15th! Please come visit me and the SurThrival team, and support this important East Coast event! I will be talking about ReWilding and Transcending Human Domestication, and how we can stay strong, healthy, and actively-fit for a lifetime in a world that constantly pushing us towards a deeper state of domestication. Come learn how this April!
Please take a few minutes to check out the “ReWild Yourself” skills event that I am hosting in Maine in the late summer of 2012! This is going to be a very special weekend, featuring talks by both Arthur Haines and myself, as well as introductions to several earth based SurThrival skills. My close friend Frank Giglio will be creating all of our meals throughout the weekend using the freshest local, organic, and wild-crafted ingredients.
The last two weekend events we hosted in Maine turned out to be game-changers for nearly everyone involved. Not just for the participants, but also for the facilitators. After years of hosting events and retreats, we have learned what powerful transformational tools these kinds of workshops can be. We strive to put on events that can nourish the body, inform the mind, and touch the spirit. I really hope you make the commitment to join us there!
Because we will be teaching actual skills on the land, we must limit the class size in order to ensure that each student experiences an attentive learning environment. If you are thinking of coming, secure your space soon because this workshop will fill! You can find all the details and register here.
But Wait… Theres More!
Check out my coming events page to see more of what I am up to in 2012, and how you can come be a part of it!
If you know anyone who might be interested in these events, please share this post with them!
Thanks for taking a moment in your day to read this. You are appreciated!
~Daniel
Pine Pollen Book now available!
Greetings ReWilder’s!
I am really excited to announce the release of the new book “Pine Pollen, Ancient Medicine for A New Millennium”, by Stephen Harrod Buhner. I had the privilege of both publishing this book as well as writing the foreword, and am very excited to see it added to the existing herbal literature.
This project began a few years back when I read Stephen’s outstanding book “The Natural Testosterone Plan”. Actually, I was reading a few of his books and found myself particularly spellbound by the section on Pine Pollen and its incredible androgenic effects. My company, SurThrival, became the first to bring a fully developed Pine Pollen product line to the natural foods market place in North America. I had met Stephen at a workshop he gave in British Columbia (here is an interview I did with him) and having become friends, asked if he would be willing to collaborate with myself and the SurThrival team on a Pine Pollen herbal-monograph. Stephen, having studied Pine Pollen extensively, had much to share on the subject. The results are his latest book which you can find here.
Stephen was sure to include extensive sections on the historical use of Pine Pollen in various traditional medicine systems, its chemistry, as well as its androgen profile, dosages for use, and yes… Even how you can harvest your own! The entire
book is extensively footnoted so that you can access the scientific literature from which so much of this information has been compiled.
The following is a short excerpt from the opening pages of the book:
“Although the Western world has been undergoing its greatest herbal renaissance in over a century the medicinal actions of trees are often overlooked, perhaps none more so than pine. Given the drive for new plant medicines and the continual search for a new herb-of-the-day that will simulate excitement in the general populace (e.g. rhodiola, maca), it is astonishing that pine has been unrecognized for so long. This is particularly perplexing since the pollen of pine trees has been used for millennia in China and Korea as both food and a particularly powerful tonic and adaptogen, especially for the elderly.
Thousands of Chinese herbs have entered the Western pharmacopoeia; the earliest and best known is perhaps ginseng. Pine pollen, given its potency, its similarity to ginseng in some of its actions, and its status as, perhaps, the premier phytoandrogen on the planet, should have been recognized long before now as the powerful medicinal it is. This monograph is intended to remedy that oversight and help establish it as one of the most important medicinals in the herbalist’s repertory.” - Stephen Harrod Buhner
I suspect you will all enjoy this book as much as I have enjoyed being a part of it. Stephen, in addition to being a prolific writer on herbal craft and lore, is a poet and word-smith par excellence.
To your health and prosperity,
~D
Is Hollywood ReWilding?
Greetings Friends & Welcome to 2012!
This past autumn was a really exciting time for my team and I, with so many of our projects coming to fruition and our message of ReWilding, Spring Water, and Indigenous Nutrition spreading around our community and beyond, faster than we ever imagined.
I want to extend a big thanks to the Longevity Now Conference for all they have done to make this happen. Check out this 12 minute video clip (click on the image below) of the talk I delivered in Costa Mesa last October titled, “Developing Sovereign Health: The Path of Rewilding Ourselves”. If you would like to see the rest of the talk, as well as those presented by the rest of the Longevity Now speakers, it is available here.
"Rewild Yourself: Tips & Tricks for Strengthening Your Epigenetic Health"
I also want to share this quick video clip of my good friend Shailene Woodley’s appearance on the Late Night With Jimmy Fallon Show (check out that clip right here)! She was so kind as to mention my name and the work I have been doing the last several years! Shailene has become a tremendous ally, helping to share the message of ReWilding, Spring Water, and Indigenous Nutrition with the world. Recently, she also appeared on the Ellen Degeneres Show carrying a mason jar of spring water which she promptly shared with Ellen!
Here is a recent interview with her in Black Book Magazine titled “Eating Clay and Super Humans”! She talks about foraging, spring water and her daily clay consumption!
If you don’t know Shailene’s work, check out her latest film, The Descendants, where she co-stars alongside George Clooney. Shailene, from all of us, Thank You for all that you are doing!
Lastly I want to share the link to the newly rebuilt SurThrival website! It’s a great place to stock up on great winter immune system supplements, such as Medicinal Mushroom Extracts and Colostrum. I am so proud of SurThrival as a project, as a company, and as a team! Thanks to all of you who have supported us! We are constantly working to serve you better!
Thats all for now!
Keep on ReWilding Yourself!
~Daniel
Neti Pots: Nasal Irrigation to Smog-Proof Your Sinuses
How is your sinus hygiene?
After 14 years of using a neti pot on a regular, almost daily basis – I must admit, I am amazed how overlooked this basic bit of personal hygiene is.
Most of us brush our teeth and we usually expect the same of others. In fact, when someone neglects this important bit of personal cleanliness, the rest of us can be easily turned off.
How about bathing? What if you knew someone hadn’t showered or bathed in months, years, or worse still, never at all… How would you feel about getting… um, close to them?
Well, how about our sinuses? Each day we are all breathing the many stow-away particles (read: pollutants) that free float amongst what was once, some pretty fresh air here on planet earth. Today our air is loaded with everything from dust (which is mostly dead skin cells) to heavy metals, from car exhaust to radioactive isoptopes. These particles are constantly lodging in and congesting our upper respiratory tract, creating an environment for infection and/or being drawn still deeper into our lower respiratory tract (our lungs). The neti pot gives us the ability to clean our upper respiratory tract, in much the same way that a toothbrush cleans our mouth or a shower washes our skin, before these particles can accumulate or be drawn deeper.
Otherwise, we simply carry this debris around, haphazardly sneezing or blowing it out, or letting it drain back into our throats… Blah!
Want to see what a truly clean upper respiratory tract feels like? Try using a neti pot!
After a few days, to a few weeks, of implementing this practice it will become immediately clear why I am recommending it. My experience has been that you can only truly feel the chronic congestion after you have cleared it. It is the open, clear, and relaxed sense of breathing; the ability to fully utilize your respiration that makes you conscious of its importance. In other words, once you have tried it and felt what clean and clear sinus cavities feel like, you won’t want to go back.
As for the technique and specifics, I will let this video explain the rest.
My company SurThrival recently started carrying what we feel are the most beautiful and durable ceramic neti pots available anywhere, and you can get one for yourself right here on our newly designed website (we are pretty excited about this)! We were sure to get them in several different colors so that you can choose one thats right for you. These are made right here in the State of Maine (where we are based out of) and I have personally tested them now for almost a decade and a half, so I can honestly tell you they are the best around. Watch the video above where I compare some of the features against other design-styles.
If your looking to smog proof your sinuses, help to prevent sinus issues in general, and improve your respiratory health, give the neti pot a try. Better yet, take some time to develop mastery of this skill by making it a regular practice!
My hope is that our community will immediately see the value of this handy little device and add it to the tool-belt of practices and skills that are helping us to thrive in, and adapt to our modern environment. I promise if you give it just one week of consistent practice, not only will you easily master this skill, but you will have a life long practice that will contribute to your health and personal detoxification strategy.
I have used this strategy, along side others, such as regular sauna use (check out Clearlight Saunas, it is the brand of infrared sauna that I have in my home), a clean whole food diet containing lots of wild foods and herbs, drinking natural spring water, implimenting regular functional exercise, all combined with and tied together with time spent in nature. The goal is to create a kind of Invincible Health that allows us to thrive in this mad, mad, world!
To your health and adaptation!
ReWild Yourself!
~D
P.S. Though saline water is what people usually put in their neti pots, I have heard of many other solutions. Quick question: What is the most exotic thing you have ever put in a neti pot? Go ahead and leave a comment below, and please… Don’t be shy 
ReWilding: Tips & Tricks for Strengthening Our Epigenetic Health
Tune into Daniel’s next interview on the One Radio Network on November 10th called “ReWilding, Tips & Tricks for Strengthening Our Epigenetic Health”! This is a FREE interview – Call in to listen live at 10 a.m. EST (9 a.m. CST & 8 a.m. PST). Click the banner below to tune in or listen to the recorded version!
On this interview, Daniel will be speaking about his latest research into the reclassification of modern humans as a new subspecies. It is a wild new idea that comes from the effects our modern lifestyle has had on our epi-genome and our health. Because our epi-genetics are influenced by everything in our environment, the lifestyle we have lived has shaped us into some new and all together different creature. The concept of “rewilding” is about recreating or replicating some of our natural conditions to make us healthier and more robust. Daniel will be sharing tips on the kinds of things a person can do to rewild themselves and what it could mean to our health.
Join us for this sure-to-be spectacular call!
Sovereign Dental Health, a 6 Part Strategy
Hello Friends,
Welcome (or welcome back) and thanks again for stopping by. My last few videos have been focused on sharing some Sovereign Self-Healthcare strategies that I have been developing and employing for some time now. It has been really exciting to share these with you all, and for me it feels like a timely message, given the considerable distrust and dissatisfaction so many of us have been feeling for mainstream “medicine” in recent years.
Many of us have taken our diets and nutrition into our own hands, though when it comes to personal health care, few of us have really stepped out and away from the entrenched medical system’s doctor/dentist treatment, and the role we play in it as “patient” (from the Latin meaning “suffering”).
This current video is a 6 part dental health and maintenance strategy that has replaced the role of dentistry in my life. It has been many years since I have seen a dentist (I was 12 the last time I can remember having an appointment with one), and as it is with so many aspects of living, I have found it far more rewarding to take care of myself, rather than turning my health over to others. Especially those “quacks” – originally a term reserved for dentists who employed mercury amalgam fillings – with less than shiny-white histories (e.g. fluoride, mercury, etc).
The world of “modern medicine”, to include modern dentistry, seems far less interested in our health than it does in furthering its quasi-scientific agendas, human experiemention, and profit driven procedures. For this reason I will continue to promote Sovereign Self-health Care Strategies here at DanielVitalis.com.
ReWild Yourself! This doesn’t refer to behaving wildly, or giving up your standards of personal conduct, rather it means “Shed your Domesticator“!
This video is for all of you who celebrate being grown-ups, and are unafraid to raise yourselves up and out of the near ubiquitous neoteny that is now standard in the epi-genome in our “modernized” population.
This video comes on the heels of the last video we released, which details how to make the toothpaste that is used in this dental care strategy. Please keep in mind that this toothpaste, in addition to providing the mild abrasive qualities we have become accustomed to in our commercially available toothpaste preparations, is designed to pull toxic cations out of the body, and to be an aid in our overall radio-protection strategy (protection from radioactive isotopes).
For those of you who are interested in going deeper, I would highly recommend an e-book by my good friend Nadine Artemis called “Successful Self-Dentistry, how to avoid the dentist without ignoring your teeth”. This e-book is very comprehensive, and empowers us to take our dental health into our own hands for a lifetime.
We are now getting ready for Ancestral Ignition, a workshop that myself and some good friends are hosting here at my home in Maine, September 16th – 18th, 2011. The main focus of this retreat is to share the ancient and ancestral skill of aboriginal friction fire with all of those who attend. We really believe that stewardship of this ancient fire-craft is valuable for many reasons, not the least of which is the carrying on of what is one of our most ancient and fundamental human technologies.
Our ability to generate and maintain fire is a powerful thing indeed, so it is our intention to pass on not just the skill, but the ethics of stewardship as well.
We also feel privileged to share the basics of fire-craft with our friends and clients because so many of us were never taught how to properly or efficiently build or maintain a fire. I certainly wasn’t, growing up in the 1980’s American Dream. In fact, learning to properly construct and burn a fire has meant far more to me than just having another survival skill. It has connected me with one of the essential practices that makes us human.
This workshop will be fully catered with organic, local food, prepared by Chef Frank Giglio, who is one of my best friends and a truly culinary mentor of mine.
Check out the video below to hear more about Ancestral Ignition, and to see acclaimed botanist, author, and my foraging and aboriginal skills guide and all around friend, Arthur Haines, make a fire with a primitive tool known as the bow drill.
If you are interested in joining us, or learning more about Ancestral Ignition please contact us at info@danielvitalis.com.
As always, we would love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of this recent post, video upload, and what you would like to see in the future by commenting below.
Your readership is truly appreciated,
~Daniel
How to make your own Detoxifying Toothpaste, and details on my annual trip to Peru
Greetings Friends, thanks for stopping by.
Would you like to make your own toothpaste for self-dentistry and detoxification?
The video below is an installment in dental health sovereignty. It has been working very well for me, and it just might work for you too.
For years I have been looking for the right toothpaste for my home self-dentistry, and have experimented with a great many things. From “organic” store-bought toothpaste brands, to tooth soaps and powders, and even aboriginal “chew sticks” – Nothing has been the right fit for my self-dentistry needs.
I have now arrived at a strategy that is really working wonders for me, and I feel could really work for you too. This video is the first part of that strategy, the rest of which I am eager to share with you in full over the next few weeks.
How I arrived at this…
As I began experimenting with tissue detoxification using Zeolites and Clay, it dawned on me that these, when rendered into a fine flour-like powder, have just the right amount of abrasiveness to take the place of the toothpaste I had grown up with.
This video details how you can make your own, and at a very low price at that. In fact, if you know where to look, you could get everything you would need for making all the toothpaste you would use for the rest of your life for probably under $100!
Best of all, you can swallow this toothpaste, which yields all of the amazing health benefits of these detoxifying earth compounds. In particular I am referring to zeolites ability to perform cation exchange - CEC or Cation Exchange Capacity is the term used in physics- which is its ability to electrically bind positively charged ions (heavy metals, radio-isotopes, etc) whilst trading out (in exchange) beneficial cations like potassium or calcium. The toxic cations are then transported out of our bodies, along with the zeolite powder in our bowel movement. The case with clay is very similar, though the phenomena in this case is referred to as adsorption, which is also an electrical binding, but in this case to the surface of the clay particle and without the accompanying exchange of a cation.
Keep in mind that this practice, consuming clay and other earth compounds, is perhaps one of the oldest of all human behaviors. It has been practiced around the world and is present in virtually all pre-industrial populations. Evidence for this has been found in archeological sites that predated our current human form, and anthropological surveys have found that it lives on in societies around the world today. Actually, it is common to nearly all mammals, and in particular to broad ranging herbivores. The behavior is termed “geophagy”, and is unquestionably part of the species-specific diet of human beings. From my perspective, it appears that a diet that lacks the geophagy pattern could not be called a “natural diet” at all, as it would essentially be deficient in these all-important compounds. Below is a link to one of the best books I have read on the subject.
Most of us were taught to spit our toothpaste out, which, given the host of less-than-beneficial ingredients (particularly fluoride) is pretty sound advice. With this home-made clay or zeolite toothpaste, the goal is indeed to swallow it, moving it into the intestine where it can go to work mopping up industrial and nuclear debris that has bioaccumulated in our tissues.
When this clay or zeolite consumption is combined with sauna therapy (this dual approach is the subject of my last video), we arrive at a very effective life-long detoxification strategy that really works, and is easy to implement.
This second video is about my August 4th, 11 day tour of Peru, for which I have just a few openings left.
If you are looking for a riveting adventure, are interested in Peruvian shamanism, amazonian biology, visiting Machu Pichu, or just wanting to soak in a rain forest hotspring, this trip might be for you. We are less than a month away, so if you would like to join us – by us I mean the very amazing and interesting group of people who have assembled for this trip – contact Jeannette at info@rawflora.com, and check out the 11 day 10 night itinerary here. It is exciting to see who takes the plunge and comes along!
Please let us know what you thought about the video above, and if there are any subjects you would like to see covered in the future.
Until then, please know that your readership is appreciated.
Enjoy the summer sunshine!
~Daniel
Looking for Some Inexpensive Radiation Detoxification?
Greetings and thanks for visiting!
Your time here is very appreciated. The video that accompanies this blog post is a two part strategy breaking down how you can inexpensively and easily begin protecting yourself from the long-lived radio isotopes, which have now become a regular part of our habitat. This began 65 years ago, and has become particularly disconcerting in the last few months since the damage to the Japanese facility at Fukushima.
I am also including here the two links that I mention in the video. The first is an amazing visualization that shows all of the nuclear detonations that have happened on Earth since 1946. Hint… its over 2000!
The second is a documentary called Trinity, and it shows with nothing less than truly epic footage, the history of these tests. This, if you have time, is a must see! Very disturbing, but strangely entrancing… I guess that is the nature of this technology.
The reason I share these videos and information is to demonstrate that the issues with radiation did not begin Fukushima, or even with Chernobyl, but with the “silent” nuclear war that has already happened on Earth.
So what do we do? This video is about the strategies that I have been employing since the Japan disaster earlier this year. Knowing what I know now, I wish I had started the day I came into this world. Regardless, taking actions like these has put me at considerable ease about the radio-isotopes in our environment. This allows me to operate without fear, but remain in a dominant emotion of confidence.
Also, on another note, my opening evening talk at the Longevity Now Conference last April is now available for purchase in DVD format, in an 18-DVD set which includes the lectures from each of the other health educators who spoke at the Conference! The DVD set is a compilation of hours, upon hours, of live footage from the weekend long event and includes tons of the latest health information and inspiration. Click here to see a 15 minute clip of the my main lecture from the event, titled “Habitat, Living the Life of Our Biological Design” which I feel came out wonderfully! To learn more about this excellent DVD offer or to purchase your copy today, follow this link.
Thats all for now, though I eagerly await your comments, so please let me know what you would like to see future videos on!
Thank You for taking the time. Keep SurThriving!
~D
Invincible Health at the Kripalu Center
Hello Friends,
Join me in Western Massachusetts’s celebrated Kripalu Center May 20th – 22nd for our Invincible Health workshop, a weekend of inspiration, invigoration, and community building with other’s who share your passions, your insights, and your lifestyle.
What an opportunity it is for me to spend three days with you amidst Kripalu’s gorgeous spring settings, with its wonderful food and renowned staff. Three days gives us time to deeply explore the lifestyle that is the theme of this workshop.
There is so much I am excited to share, from creating and implementing a healthy and well developed natural diet, to finding the cleanest and purest water available to keep your body hydrated. From creating healthy habitat within your own home, to protecting yourself from the radioactive fallout that is, even now, blanketing the northern hemisphere. This will be a robust and fully developed workshop covering hundreds of aspects of personal health sovereignty, loaded with tips, techniques, and strategies for those of us who are ushering in the new paradigm on earth.
I am expecting this to be a very intimate event, with lots of time for personal exchanges, questions and answers, and exploration of territory that isn’t always easy to cover in a one night talk.
Today I have been considering what an honor it is to be a part of this great change that is taking place here on our planet, and in ourselves. I truly believe that the generations alive today are uniquely positioned as the gate keepers of an emerging world.
That said, each of us faces innumerable challenges to our health everyday, from the simple habituated patterns that have been passed on to us from the generations past, to more complex issues like genetically modified foods and radioactive fallout that have emerged more recently as a result of our rapidly developing technologies. We all require training and education in order to successfully navigate a transitioning world that sometimes seems -strangely- designed to corrupt our health, our values, and even our will.
But….
What if there was a lifestyle that protected your health, increased your ability to express your personal potential, kept your body clear of industrial, agricultural, radioactive and genetic pollution, protected your fertility, your stamina, your libido, and increased your will and desire to care for all of life? I really believe there is such a lifestyle, and living it is so much more exciting and rewarding than the life that most of us were born to.
In fact, not only does this lifestyle exist, I feel that many apects of it will be as common to people in the coming decades as taking a shower or brushing your teeth is today. In fact, aspects of it will have to be implemented if we are to continue to inhabit this world. For instance, methods for removing radioactive isotopes from our body fat, muscles and bones, pcb’s and other industrial chemicals from our lipid stores, and keeping genetically modified bio-pollutants out of our bodies will become as common place as removing plaque from your teeth or dirt from beneath your fingernails. They will have to, as these things are rapidly destroying the integrity of our immune systems, our ability to reproduce, and even riddling our bodies with cancers. For us to continue, for us to clean up the mess we have collectively made, we will have to, as a species, choose to walk down a new path. Many of us already have, and are.
Eating well grown local food, drinking clean, fresh water, breathing clean and uncontaminated air, and receiving brilliant sunlight on our skin will once again become the norm, and again, this just might come about -for many at least- out of necessity before want. We do not and will not have any other options left. The lifestyle that dominates the “developed world” today is wreaking havoc on our immunity, our endocrine systems, our neurology, our physiology and even our psychology.
If you are reading this, I assume you are part of the change that is coming, and I commend you. If you would like to deepen your training, move further down this path, develop skills that can protect and nourish you and the generations to come, please consider joining us May 20th-22nd in the Berkshire Mountains.
Lets explore the awakening, forge a path into the new paradigm together, and let’s do it in a place as beautiful as this.
Here is a little bit more information on the event, as well as the Kripalu Center itself.
Thanks for visiting and I hope to see you there,
~Daniel
SurThrival into the 21st Century
Adaptation: the process by which an organism becomes better suited to its environment. 
And now its more important than ever!
I believe we are standing on the edge of a truly profound event horizon, one that holds within its grasp the seed of the greatest human evolutionary renaissance since our species first emerged into the world some 200,000 years ago.
More than ever before, every choice we make, each and every action we take is leading us onward to thrive or downward to our own demise.
Our environment is changing faster than our minds can keep pace with, and this change is pressuring our biology to adapt at what are now nearly break neck speeds.
Oil in the seas, nuclear fallout spreading across the globe, shortages of food, genetic and degenerative disease, antibiotic resistant infectious agents, mass extinctions, epidemic infertility, genetic modification, electro-smog, etc, ad infinitum.
Can any of us adapt fast enough? I believe some can, and whats more, that some will.
The question remains, what will separate those who go on to inherit the Earth from those who’s genes will fade into the recess of geologic history.
Those who remain will have to be more than survivors, they will be SurThrivalists.
The SurThriver understands the health challenges inherent in our modern world, and yet chooses to Thrive despite them. He or She has the ability to witness events like those that recently struck Japan, and while maintaining a sense of empathy and compassion, takes the necessary steps to protect themselves, their health, and that of those they love.
The SurThrivalist differs from the Survivalist in that they operate from a place of love and recognition of the inherent bounty of the natural world. The SurThriver believes in and aligns themselves with Life. The survivalist too often operates from a place of fear and uncertainty. Survival is bare minimum, SurThrival is abundant, and even opulent.
Make no mistake, we stand before the greatest evolutionary event our species has ever known. Now is the time – our time – to seize this opportunity and sail it into the future!
In full honesty, I don’t believe that most of – or even many of – the human beings alive today will carry forth their genetic material into the future. In fact, it seems to me that the only humans who will be able to inhabit this planet soon will be those who have developed and implemented strategies to thrive in this brave new polluted planetary ecology. In other words, those who can keep their bodies clean and detoxified, nourished and healthy, no matter what the level of contamination.
What does all this mean? It seems to be some kind of natural (or perhaps unnatural) selection.
Natural Selection is a simple enough concept. Those individuals who are more adapted to a particular environment will be healthier and will produce more offspring than those less suited to an environment. In the environment we now live in, with its extremes of climate, toxic foods, petro-chemicals, pharmaceuticals, polluted air and water, etc, only those who have developed strong, wise, and strategic methods for thriving will be able to carry forth their genetic material and live through this phase of history to populate the new and coming world.
I believe in us, I believe in our ability as a species to make it through even the most challenging times. We are up against something so much more powerful than any natural disaster, we are up against our selves. We have created a world so very far outside of the balances of natural law and it is now time that each one of us reestablishes a new equilibrium within ourselves. It might not be easy, though that doesn’t mean it can’t be exciting – and yes… maybe even fun.
I will be teaching a three day workshop at the Kripalu institute in western Massachusetts May 20-22nd of 2011, called Invincible Health, the intention of which is to develop in each participant a strong desire to Thrive combined with the knowledge necessary to take their health into their own hands with poise and grace. You can find the details of that event here.
We will be covering a very comprehensive lifestyle approach that can – and I believe will – give one the confidence to step into the world each day with a sense of abundant growth, rather and fear and uncertainty.
Food, Water, Air, and Sunlight, are the critical elements for nourishing our bodies, and we will be covering these topics in depth. Chemical and Radiation exposure, EMF’s, xeno-estrogens, fluoride, pharmaceuticals, and a host of other health pitfalls will also be addressed to ensure that each participant can protect and detoxify themselves from these safely and adequately. We will literally cover healthful living from conception to the grave and beyond. I promise a profound and moving experience in this workshop.
This workshop is the three days long, just enough time to share an entire, coherent, and well organized method for insuring your SurThrival into the 21st century, and I am feeling very honored for the opportunity to do so. Please consider joining me there next month. We have priced this event very resonably, and I look forward to sharing a message of empowerment, resolve, wisdom, and health with all who attend.
Keep SurThriving, the world is your inheritance.
~Daniel
Coconut Water in Maine??? The First Wild Food of the Season!
Ok, so of course Maine hasn’t got any coconuts, but we do have something that tastes just as good – maybe better – and is just as nutritious.
Its the sap of the Maple tree.
There are not many wild foods that taste particularly sweet here in New England, but Maple Syrup is certainly the exception. Whats more, the flowing sap of the maple tree is the first wild food to emerge after a long and cold snow covered New England winter.
This video is a quick peek into my spring cleansing strategy which is most welcomed after a lengthy season of living indoors. The fresh Maple sap is so refreshing, so hydrating, and tastes so good that it is almost shocking that more people aren’t taking advantage of this delicious, abundant, and free late winter/early spring drink! In the second half of the video I’ve included a recipe that I have been making with fresh maple water, chaga, and a bit of cream. I wish there was some way to convey flavor through the internet! Is there an app for that yet?
To compliment and expand on my video, I have also included a video with botanist Arthur Haines detailing how he taps his maples, and prepares his maple syrup. With childlike enthusiasm, we have been texting back and forth each day to see how much sap the others trees have produced!
The experience of procuring food directly from wild nature is truly, for me at least, one of the great joys of living! As each season goes by and my skills in this area increase, not only have I developed a strong sense of food security, my direct relationship to the Earth as an abundant and loving provider continues to increases. To say that I am grateful would hardly do justice to this exuberant emotion.
For those of you who are interested in developing more wild food identification, harvesting, and processing skills, please consider joining Arthur and I for our Ancestral Plants workshop here in Maine, May 6th – 8th, 2011. Be sure to contact us soon, as the class size is very limited. We have chosen the intimate class size to ensure that each of you gets the close personal attention you need, and to ensure that we don’t trample our wild foraging grounds. The class has been filling up rather quickly these last few weeks, and we are getting very excited for the spring foraging to begin!
I have a few more days of maple sap harvesting before heading of to Los Angeles for the Longevity Now Conference, April 1st -3rd. I have just finished preparing my presentation, called “Habitat, Your Guide to Intentional Lifestyle Design” which will focus on specific strategies for more than just vigorous health, but epi-genetic wealth. In other words, we can use our environment and lifestyle to activate our genetic potential for a more robust experience of life on Earth! The newly emerging scientific field of “epigenetics” is rapidly confirming the obvious fact, our habitat and lifestyle choices, from what we eat and breath to what we wear and think not only impacts our health but actually influences our gene expression! Many of you are already planning on being there, and those who would like to join can get your tickets here. If you can’t make it to the event, but would like to watch the video stream, here is the link where you can sign up to watch at home.
I am so enthusiastic about this upcoming foraging and touring season. I have events planned around the US, Canada, and even in Peru. Keep checking my current events for more details, and I hope to meet you somewhere out there soon!
Keep ReWilding,
~Daniel
Urban Foraging Florida!
The Brazilian Pink Peppercorn
Tampa Bay was the site of another example of an urban forage, and this time with an exotic invasive that produces more food than I could ever hope to harvest.
Branches bowed under the weight of pinkish-red berries as I sped across the highway on a recent trip to Southern Florida last December. Hour after hour I burned to know and meet the species who’s berry drupes splatter painted pink the otherwise indistinguishable wall of sub-tropic greenery that lined the highway 75. Was it edible, and if so could I make the time to harvest some of it before my flight home? Finally curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to do what any avid forager would – I pulled over to have a taste. I know what your thinking, shouldn’t I identify the plant before I taste it? Probably, but I didn’t. I have a good sense of the tastes of poisons, and this strategy has rarely failed me ( I will spare you the tale of the time I tried a taste of “Jack-in-the-pulpit”. Ooops!) The exotic sweet and spicy aromatic flavor of these brittle pink berries was well worth the risk, and I was certain I was on the trail of a new wild food ally.
It only took a few moments of internet research to discover the identity of this wildly successful invasive. 
It was Schinus terebinthifolius, the Brazilian Pink Peppercorn, and while not a true peppercorn, it is the pink berry we all have seen in the high end peppercorn blends and fancy see-through peppermills.
This plant, once planted ornamentally is now Southern Florida’s most noxious invasive, and today is illegal to plant, sell, or transport within the state! It is quickly claiming more and more habitat for itself, displacing native species from their long held habitat.
And while this presents ecological issues in Southern Florida, it produces a tremendous surplus of wild food for the keenly aware forager. One of the great things about a plant like this, is there there is no concern of over harvest. Due to its status as Florida’s floral-enemy-number-one, we can harvest its berries with a kind of impunity that is rarely experienced by the modern forager.
Having harvested several pounds of these beautiful pink peppercorns, they are now dried and jarred, and have become a staple of my ever increasingly wild food rich diet. They provide an exotic spiciness to any dish, from sweet to savory, and they come with the added percieved benefit of being from my own personal harvest.
While I hadn’t had personal experience with this plant before, I do have plenty of experience with the principles of wild food identification, harvest, and processing, and each of these skills translate well from biome to biome, from one eco-system to the next.
If you are interested in developing this skill set as well, or if you have experience but are ready to go deeper please check out my Ancestral Plants workshop this May in Southern Maine! It is 3 days long, catered by Chef Frank Giglio with all local organic and wild food, and taught by myself and wild food expert Arthur Haines. It is the wild food apprenticeship you have been waiting for! I hope to see you there!
In the meantime, check out the video below to see the harvest and processing of these beautifully blush bunches of berries!
~Daniel
David Wolfe, Matt Monarch, and Daniel Vitalis Make a Smoothie Spoof!
Whats the World’s Best Kept Health Secret???
Being able to laugh at yourself! Let me explain…
This week has been full of just that kind of laughter! For the last couple of weeks myself and several good friends and great acquaintances have been working together diligently to get the word out about the 16 DVD set that was filmed last September at the Longevity Now Conference in Costa Mesa, CA. There has been a friendly rivalry going on, and a few of us decided to take it as far as we had to in order to bring the most attention to these DVD’s. It sort of turned into an informal contest, and I was determined to win…
It all started last week with my team and I brainstorming about how we could get peoples attention. I needed to do something out of the ordinary, something bold and hilarious. This is what I came up with, and if you haven’t seen it yet, I would love to hear your opinion.
My girlfriend Ali, my operations manager and brother Kaleb, and my Best Friend and Business Partner LeighLon and I then spent several hours posting this video to everyone we could think of in our social networks. It was a huge hit, and got a few thousand views in its first 24 hours! People were loving it, but the competition was swarming and before we knew what to do, several other videos popped up. It was our friends and colleagues trying to out-do us (special thanks to Jason Wrobel and Ron Obadia) with videos of their own!
We went back to the drawing board.
I needed something fresh, something bold, something that would send ripples coursing throughout the health-minded community… I had an idea, but would this be going to far? Was what I was about to do; was I crossing the boundary? Did I even dare?
No… I couldn’t, I didn’t. I was going to back down. I was defeated.
Then, suddenly I was flooded by a deluge of emails. It was my friends from the Longevity Now Conference. They wanted to know if I, Daniel Vitalis, was the kind of person to retreat into shadow, to fall sullenly into obscurity, or would I rise like the proverbial Phoenix from the ashes of video doldrums to deliver the masterpiece that the world had been waiting for?
Text messages from my close friends David Wolfe and Chef Frank Giglio started rolling in. They told me that I had until midnight to get something onto youtube, if I was to regain my honor. It was 9 p.m., and time was running out. I had just a mere three hours to make some magic.
The few hours that followed are little more than a blur, and if it wasn’t for the record kept in the footage I am about to share with you, I would’t have believed that it even happened. None the less, it will now be immortalized forever.
What follows is a spoof of myself, David Wolfe, and Matt Monarch all hanging out in my kitchen making the “Longevity Now Conference 16 DVD Set Superfood Tonic Elixir Smoothie”…
I play all of the parts, and keep in mind that this was made on an extreme time budget. Each character had to be filmed separately and I had to shave between each filming session. I can hardly believe this is real….
So, what’s the message here? Is there a message?
Please allow me to summerize. For years now the three of have worked seperately and together in the same general arena and field. Each of the three of us represent extrememly driven and productive individuals. Each of us has spent countless hours employing personal development strategies to fulfill the blueprints for who we truly are and what we want to share with the world. Though each of us is very different, there is a common theme that we all agree on, and that is wanting to see a healthier, more peaceful, and more beautiful world for everyone.
As public speakers and figures, there is a tremendous amount of pressure placed on us from all directions, as this is the nature of the work that we do. It can be so easy to find and focus on the differences in what each of us is teaching and if we are not careful, to allow ourselves to be divided by it. It is easy to lose sight of the obvious; that we are all friends and working together toward a common goal. The differences between us are beautiful and healthy, and ultimately what make this whole ride so much fun.
I think of it like this, imagine that David Wolfe, Matt Monarch, and I all walked into a restraunt together (ok, what restraunt would that be? I guess this is hypothetical). Each of us orders something different from the menu, something that is suited our own unique taste, preference, whim, and health goals. The fact that we ordered different dishes does not mean we are in nutritional opposition to one another. It does not mean we are contending with one another, and certainly doesn’t affect our friendship or support of eachother. None of us would be wrong for what we ordered, it is just a menu after all. We can each enjoy our meal together over laughter and appreciation for each others company.
A second message I have embedded into this video is the following: Don’t take life or yourself too seriously. Ever.
All three of us are so focused on creating the life that we desire, each of us so good at what we do, that we have all become characters as archetypical as those found in the pages of a comic book. This deserves to be laughed at sometimes… Its funny.
David the globetrotting shamanic mad scientist, Matt the California beach boy turned South American land owner, Me the elven borreal forest primitive locavore. This is the stuff comedy is born of! Each of us is simply bringing forward the health strategy that has fueled our unique missions and passions, and each of us does this in our own unique style. Our work is the distillation of years of study and practice, and we could be celebrating the diversity that this has created.
There are times when we all come together for work and play, and when we do, all of these apparent differences are set aside. We are friends first and foremost, and we know the value of love and laughter.
You the reader may have encountered some of the harassing internet trolling that each of us has had to endure. There are those online who do take this far too seriously and are constantly leveling accusations, and cruel and harsh words against us. They take our work and contort it in an attempt to make a mockery of us. What is funny to me, is the way that these people seem to do this as a near full time job! They are so obsessed, and take it all so seriously that they have committed their lives to displaying hatred and spewing vitriol, claiming that their way, their method, their diet, is the only viable truth. This video is a message to those people. It says “You can never make fun of us better than we can of ourselves!”, and that living without humor in your life is more than ugly, it is unhealthy and violates one of realities prime directives. Honestly, I feel sorry for people like that, people who are too closed down in their hearts to display the lightness of being that initiates human bonding. It seems like a cold way to live, and very, very lonely.
Though people may at time level criticisms against us, I ask that you imagine this. Imagine the fearlessness it takes to put yourself out there to the world. Imagine what it takes to make videos, write books, travel the world getting in front of hundreds and thousands of people to share a message of hope and healing in a world so full of suffering and destruction. It takes a lot, and it is not always easy.
To those who have supported us all these years, THANK YOU.
Oh, and one other thing, a message to the haters… I am making a joke about the sales of this DVD for this reason alone. I don’t understand why there are people who are critical of me or anyone in my field for being a business person. How would I be able to do what I do if I otherwise had a full time career doing something else? Also, I feel the need to point out the obvious here: People buy products from myself or my colleagues because we carry extremely good products, products that help people. People choose to purchase these products because they add value to their lives and health, and because they feel good about putting their money back into the economic networks that support what they believe in.
We exist as businesses because we carry things that people want. That should be obvious, though there are those that detract from this. Perhaps it is because they make their money in ways they are not so proud of.
The businesses that each of us run are beautiful, thriving, life promoting operations and each of them is working to support the vision that each of us share for the world. My company, SurThrival, is my contribution to peoples health and healing and is my way of operating economically in a world that demands this of me. I am proud of the work that I do there, and of the people that this business supports. David Wolfe and his Longevity Warehouse exists to support peoples health and developement, and is critical to keeping the message alive and available. I am proud to work with him. Matt Monarch has ceaslessly brought more and more products to us at his Raw Food World, and runs one of the tightest ships I have ever seen. I am proud to work with him.
In closing, I want to say this. The Longevity Now Conference DVD’s are amazing. I feel very good about sharing these with you because I know how much quality information they contain, and how diverse that information is. Each speaker is very different from the others, and holds a piece of information that could be the piece that you are looking for. These DVD’s are not for the dogmatic; they are for the open minded and adaptable! One of those DVD’s is dedicated to the talks that I gave at the conference, and is the information that is most on my heart and mind now. I truly hope that you get the chance to watch these, as this is why I do what I do. I believe in their value.
If you would like to get yourself a set, click here now!
Also, I will be at the Longevity Now Conference in April (1st-3rd), and will be making tickets for the upcoming conference available soon… So… Stay tuned, I might just be forced to top this last video!
~Daniel
New Book Now Available! Ancestral Plants
Finally, a Wild Food and Medicine book that really delivers!
My good friend Arthur Haines has just released his new book Ancestral Plants, and I must say, it is amongst the best wild food and plant-use book I have yet to come across. People are constantly asking me to recommend a book on the subject, and there just haven’t been many that I have found particularly helpful. Either the pictures weren’t clear, the text wasn’t informative enough, the author was lacking real experience, or the book just wasn’t laid out in a user friendly way (ok, Samuel Thayer’s books are an exception to these criticisms, and are excellent wild food references).
Ancestral Plants is different, this book just seems to have it all. Arthur writes from a place of profound understanding of the nutritional and medicinal actions of wild foods, as well as the important uses that these 95 plants held for the native people of this continent (and still do for the “neo-aboriginal” today).
Since I received my first copy (just a couple of weeks ago on the Winter Solstice) I haven’t been able to put it down. Thats not hype, I have literally been taking it everywhere. This book has become part of my everyday kit. And even though it is winter here, I have been studying up on the plants I want to learn in the next growing season, as well as using the calendar in the back to determine when I will be harvesting the key plants I intend to use throughout the year of 2011!
One of the things I really appreciate about it is that it is written as more than just a wild food guide, it is a plant medicine guide as well, detailing herbal uses of these plants in addition to their uses as foods. More than that, it also lays out which plants
Ancestral Plants uses a series of icons to denote the possible uses of a plant (a little fire icon for plants with fire uses, an arrow for plants with uses in archery, etc), and then the text details how, when, and which parts of a plant can be used in this way. The photos are very clear and the descriptions have been written by someone who has actually used the plants to the ends described therein (believe me, this is not the norm).
This is the go-to book for understanding wild plants of the North East, and the one that will accompany me into the field this year and for years to come (mine is getting dog-eared already).
Also, I want to let you know that though this book was written for plants of the North East, dozens of the plants here will be found throughout North America, and even beyond. I think that foragers of all skill level and in a variety of eco-ranges will benefit from this work. Also, this is an excellent resource for herbalists or those interested in herbal medicine, as each plants pharmacology and mode of action are broken down in a very explicit and comprehensible way. It has already become one of my most valued herbal references.
This book was published by Anaskimin, (the Penobscot native word for “acorn”) a nonprofit organization here in Maine, who’s purpose is the protection of open and wild spaces through public and private education. Not only is this book the most useful and user friendly I have seen on the subject, but by purchasing it you are directly supporting the preservation of remaining wild places in a radical new way, by educating people how to care for and interface with wild nature.
Also, as a heads up, Arthur and I will be leading two weekend workshops together this year in the North East, one in May called “Ancestral Plants” and another in September called “Ancestral Ignition”. The first will be a three day wild food education, identifaction, gathering, processing, and preparation workshop! The second will focus on the creation of fire from friction, using natural materials from the landscape, the way it was done for the last 400,000 years. I am very excited about both of these classes, and will be posting the details shortly. Stay Tuned!
Check out the video interview below to learn more about the book, and click here to get your copy now! You will gain tremendous knowledge and be supporting a wonderful and important cause.
Today is the first blizzard of 2011 here in Maine, and I am off to enjoy the snow! Thanks for visiting and please let me know what you think of the book!
~Daniel
Join Me In Costa Rica March 13th – 20th!
What are you doing this March?
Happy New Year, both Solar (winter solstice) and Gregorian (Jan 1st)!
I am home in Maine, and gearing up for the headlong plunge into the frigid depths of another New England winter! I get so excited every time it snows here, and though some people find it challenging to live through this kind of cold and dark, I must say that even more than loving it, I am fascinated by it. Watching the season change, feeling the solar low just before we emerge into the spring, seeing the tracks of the animals who move like ghosts through this icy, crystalline landscape, all of this brings out the wonder of a child in me!
That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciated a reprieve, and a chance to charge up my blood with Vitamin D from the Equatorial Sun just before spring begins (ok, the trip actually concludes on the Spring Equinox)!
I will be teaming up again with RawFlora this year for a one time only Costa Rican adventure, and have a limited amount of space available for those who want to have a special experience at the tail end of this year’s winter!
As you can probably tell, I am an avid “foodie” so I have made sure there will be an abundance of fresh local fruits and vegetables, wild fish and seafood, as well as local goat milk and cheese! And one of my favorites, fresh water coconuts to drink all day long! We will have an experienced chef on hand to prepare our meals, and keep us fueled up for our exciting and dramatic daily excursions!
Our lodge sits directly on a private tropical beach, where the Noni trees grow abundantly to meet the gentle lick of the Caribbean Sea. Each day is packed with truly exciting adventures, from visits to cacao plantations to white water rafting down a
deep jungle river, from a forest canopy eco adventure to visits with the local shaman for healing jungle herbs. All this will be supported by our outdoor training with Tai Chi Master Dr. Bob Bacher (He trained extensively in China, and has taught Tai Chi for over 40 years)!
This is the Life Affirming New Year Resolution trip you have been quietly desiring, and this is your chance to make it a reality! Come play with us in paradise as we explore the bounty of the PachaMama (Mother Earth)!
All of the trip details are available here! There will be just one tour, and space is extremely limited, so please contact us immediately at info@rawflora.com to reserve your space!
While I get to meet so many of you out on the road when I am teaching around the world, this is our chance to spend a full week together, exploring the wonders of this beautiful planet! I look forward to meeting you, and the special few who attend!
See you there!
~Daniel
Sauerkraut Fermentation At Home
For those of us who are developing or returning to our ancestral health through traditional and indigenous nutritional practices, few food preparation skills are as valuable to possess as lacto-fermentation.
Imagine for a moment living without a fossil fuel driven infrastructure to deliver us our “fresh” veggies in January and an electrically powered refrigerator to store them in, and its importance and relevance becomes clear. Storing vegetables for the winter is a critical skill, and lacto-fermentation has some advantages that are hard to beat.
For instance, Lacto-Fermentaion actually increases the amount of nutrition that was present in the vegetable alone (by converting sugars into protein rich bacterial bodies, B vitamins, and omega 3 fatty acids), increase the bio-availability of the existing nutrition (by breaking down cell walls by predigesting the vegetables cellulose, and removing anti-nutrients) and all the while preserving the inherent nutrition better than freezing, canning, or drying!
Lacto-fermentation, the kind of vegetable fermentation that produces foods like sauerkraut (as well as kimchee and brined pickles), preserves our food in lactic acid, and was one of the dominant preservation techniques used by our ancestors before sugar and preservatives became the norm. The primary fermentative organism present in these kinds of preserves is lactobacillus acidophilus (who’s name means “acid loving milk bacteria”) one of our bodies primary microbial symbionts.
Not only does lactobacillus acidophilus allow us to preserve and even increase the amount of nutrition in our vegetables, but it also aids in digestion and increases our immunity too! Lactobacillus takes up residence in our small intestine, creating a kind of probiotic bio-shield in the gut, where it aggressively out-competes other dys-biotic organisms that can cause us to fall ill.
Ok, so forgive me here, but I am going to interject a few definitions and a quick mathmatical formula. Trust me, it will help.
Prebiotic + Probiotic = Synbiotic. Easy right? Here is what it means.
The thing we intend to ferment is known as a “prebiotic” (I am using this term loosely, don’t tell the scientists), this is the food source (sugars) for the organisms that will be converting the food into a fermented-food (in our case cabbage). We add to that the “probiotic” organism (these are healthy, symbiotic micro-organisms) that will be performing the fermentation (here it will be lactobacillus). Ok, a little caveat, we might not actually add the probiotic, but rather let it colonize itself, in what is called a “wild fermentation”, as is the case here with sauerkraut. Organisms native to the area where you are fermenting, or – as is the case with cabbage – are indigenous to the food itself. Through the alchemy of the fermentative process something new will be created, and that new thing is known as the “synbiotic”. I want to emphasize, the synbiotic is a new food, not the sum of the original parts, this is why sauerkraut is not “cabbage”, and wine is not “grape juice”.
Synbiotics like sauerkraut have long been used by those before us to fortify their immune systems, assist in digestion (their acidity helps to lower the pH of the stomach increasing the effectiveness of our hydrochloric acid), and to maintain healthy levels of the probiotic organisms that colonize our digestive lumen. While many people use probiotic supplements in an attempt to achieve these ends, most often lacto-fermented foods perform these tasks better, can be made at home from whole, fresh, local foods, are inexpensive, and add a considerable amount of quality nutrition in the form of highly absorbable predigested, living food. Oh, and they taste great too!
For me, lacto-ferments like sauerkraut are one of my primary ways of preserving and consuming local vegetables through out the long Maine winters. Aside from the occasional Whole Foods splurge, I don’t suspect I will be eating very many fresh green vegetables until the wild spring shoots emerge after the thaw. Aside from the vegetables that keep in my cellar (onions, squashes, garlic) and the vegetables I have frozen (wild fiddle heads, japanese knotweed) lacto-ferments are my main source of “living” vegetation.
If you have never made a fermentation like this at home, take heart! It is easy to do, and requires very little work or know how. Simply follow the steps in the video below, and in a couple of weeks you will have your first batch ready to eat!
For those who would like a deeper look into the biological processes that take place in the fermentation of cabbage into sauerkraut, check out this link!
I love to hear from you, so please leave me comment below to let me know what you think of this post, the website, and what you would like to see next!
~Daniel
Wild Fermented Hard Cider
Did you know that fermented beverages, specifically ethanol containing beverages were a crucial componant of most indigenous and traditional health strategies? Or that those who drink a moderate amount of ethanol live longer than those who drink heavily or don’t drink at all?
Of course the beverages fermented by native peoples and by our traditional cultural forebearers were much healthier and nutritionally viable than those of today, created with local ingredients and wild yeasts, and were not filtered and pasturized like the ones that most of us were raised around. Turning simple sugars into ethanol, amino acids, and B complex vitamins, not to mention a culturally and ritually significant inebriant is a nearly ubiquitous human behavior, and part of what holds the fabric of traditional societies together.
Earlier in the year I had the culturally enriching experience of imbibing some of the traditional fermented beverages of South America, specifically Chicha (from Maize) and Masatao (from Cassava), both traditional ferments of the people of Peru. These wonderful drinks were both relatively low in alcohol, with probably just a bit less than a modern beer, and loaded with nutrition and calories, making them as much a food as a drink. I was immediately impressed with the way that these were built into the nutritional and spiritual systems of the area. They were not viewed as guilt laden pleasures or sources of immoral behavior and debauchery, but rather as sacred and vitally health supportive. And while we use the term “intoxicant” to refer to drinks that contain alcohol, these people didn’t associate their sacred beverages with “toxicity” at all.
It was my desire to begin wild fermenting a local sugar of low to moderate alcohol content that could be drank unfiltered and unpasteruized. I wanted to recreate this often undiscussed and overlooked aspect of traditional human diets and bring it into my home and my life. While I have also been fermenting honey with some success (a beverage called Mead), I wanted to brew something with a milder effect (mead has the alcohol content of wine, upwards of 16 % or more) that could be done with very little labor or input, just the way our ancestors had done it.
Through this quest I have become enamoured by Cider, which is the proper name for the fermented alcoholic draught made from the fresh pressed juice from apples. Today we often refer to “Hard Cider” as the fully fermented version, and “Cider” as the unfermented, unfiltered juice of apples, which is a departure from the traditional meaning. Cider is usually defined as having an alcohol content of 2 – 8.5 % or higher, though my experience is that it tastes great and is incredibly refreshing even during initial fermentation when the alcohol content is negligible like that of Kombucha.
You can imagine that prior to the widespread use of refrigeration, areas of the world with large apple yields would have had quite a bit of Cider on hand, as the juice of fresh apples ferments quite readily. Perhaps you have bought fresh apple juice from a local orchard before and had it begin to ferment on you!
The apple juice I have worked with begins to ferment almost immediately after it reaches room temperature, and in truth gets better each and every day that it sits. The initial fermentation stage is wonderful, as the Cider develops its sparkling effervescence. I love drinking it this way throughout the day, and like saving the older, dryer, and “harder” Cider for the evenings with dinner and after.
Fermentation can seem a bit intimidating when you haven’t tried it before, and that is why I am posting this video. Cider is so easy to produce at home a cave man could do it!
I hope you enjoy this two part “Wild Fermented Hard Cider” video. Please give us your feedback by leaving a comment below!
~Daniel
P.S. Your probably wondering what “a moderate amount of alcohol” is. Studies indicate that 1 – 3 drinks ethanol drinks per day seems to extend lifespans! Here is a review from the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology showing the effects of alcohol on life span!
P.P.S. I understand the many detrimental effects that alcoholism and alcohol related accidents have had on us as individuals and as a civilization. I have personally been witness to it in my own life amongst people that I love dearly. This blog is in no way supporting reckless or irreverent use of ethanol. Alcohol consumption goes further into antiquity than can be accounted for, in other words it is part of the human story. Each one of us must determine how we will responsibly relate to it as a substance, and how we will steward it with health and safety in mind.
Wild Ricing in Maine!
(The actual video of harvesting wild rice is at the bottom of this blog post!)
I have had the opportuntiy to forage wild foods for a few years now, with each season yielding greater and greater amounts of food. No harvest yet has supplied me with the amount of food energy that I was able to gather this September when I learned the ancient art of “Ricing”.
Most of the wild plants that I have been learning to use are incredibly nutritious (as well as delicious) but a bit low in calories. Many wild foraged plants are eaten like vegetables (stinging nettle come to mind) but lack the energy density that we get from meats, grains, oils, concentrated sugars. This means that as a forager I am still largely dependent on my local agricultural system to provide me with calories that I need to live out my daily life.
Wild rice however, is a complex carbohydrate (macro-nutrient), and unlike the mono-cropped and refined carbohydrates of the average American diet, is a rich whole food grain loaded with vitamins and minerals (micronutrients) as well.
Today, most of the worlds citizens are living with an inverse relationship between micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, etc) and macronutrients (calories). We have become overfed and under nourished. Our ancestors ate extremely micronutrient dense diets when compared against our own. Their constant quest instead was securing the macronutrient (carbohydrate, lipid, and protein calories) that they required for their huge daily energy expenditures.
Of course today it is nearly the opposite, where most of the (over) developed world has calorie rich diet composed of overly processed and refined food – think white sugar, white flour, high fructose corn syrup, etc – that is deeply lacking in micro-nutrition. Most Americans are deficient in micronutrients even to the RDA standard (recommended daily allowances of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences) which is surprisingly low when compared against the nutrient intakes of so called “primitive peoples”.
Now that I am moving away from “novelty foraging” toward a subsistence that includes Wild Foods, I am acutely aware of this nutritional crux. There are plenty of micronutrients in the foods that I forage from my ecosystem, but most of my actual caloric needs still come from my local farm.
That is all changing for me now that I have learned to forage a few key items, perhaps the greatest and most important, of which is Wild Rice.
Zizania palustris is an aquatic grain occurring widely throughout the Eastern United States (like Maine where I live) and Canada. It inhabits the shallow waters of lakes, ponds, and slow moving rivers. There is a long and rich historical record of its harvest by native peoples of this continent and is to this day still harvested by existing native populations of North America, and in particular the Great Lakes region.
Though today much of the Wild Rice sold in the market place is cultivated in rice paddies, this highly nutritious grain is still available to the forager for the price of his or her labor.
Before trying truly wild rice, I was familiar only with the store bought, paddy cultivated wild rice which, though wonderful in flavor and rich in nutrition, just simply pales in comparison. Hand harvested, sundried, fire parched, foot treaded, and wind winnowed wild rice is so soft and delicate in flavor that it simply has to be tasted to be understood. The softness is like that of the most perfectly cooked white rice but with all the nutritious nutty flavors of a wild intact grain. This is because of a curing process used with commercially prepared “wild rice” that causes the grains to become very hard and locks in some of the unpleasantly strong flavors.
In contrast to many wild foraged plants, wild rice requires a more considerable amount of know how and equipment to locate, access, harvest, and process, so to show this in its entirety is simply outside the scope of a blog post. Instead I have prepared this short video to highlight the experiences I had ricing this season.
I am hoping that in the future some of you will have the opportunity to come to Maine to learn the art in person.
What a wonderful feeling to know that this winter I will be eating more of my calories from foods that were sustainably harvested from my local landscape.
I am grateful to the abundant Earth.
~Daniel
Nettle Root Tincturing and Male Health
This video below is part 2 of the Stinging Nettle Root harvesting video that I put up a couple of weeks back.
I put this up to demonstrate how simple it is to produce your own wild nettle root tincture for use as an herbal medicine.
Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica) is an herbaceous perennial flowering plant known by many of us for the painful stinging hairs (they are actually called “trichomes”) that inject histamine into our skin like micro hypodermic needles.
Despite this, and even because of it, Nettle has been used as food and medicine by many cultures and is an important species for those of us who practice foraging, herbalism, or primitive outdoor skills.
While the aerial parts of the plant (the parts that grow above the ground) are most commonly eaten as a pot herb (cooked) or made into infusions (teas), it is the roots from which we can extract its potent androgenic substances. If you are woman reading this pay close attention. While you may not need Nettle root as a medicine for yourself, its highly likely you know a man who does. Be sure to read on.
Nettle root supports male health in a few different ways. There is a globulin in human blood called Sex Hormone Binding Globulin (SHBG) which binds to testosterone, rendering it unavailable to the our cells. Nettle root contains compunds that bind to SHBG taking the place of testosterone and thereby keeping free testosterone in the blood.
More than this, it also prevents the conversion of testosterone into a metabolite known as dihydrotestosterone, which has been implicated in benign prostate hyperplasia and even male pattern baldness.
If this wasn’t enough, phyto-chemicals in Nettle root further work to prevent Benign Prostate Hyperplasia (BPH) by stopping the binding of DHT to the prostate membrane.
Since the prostrate is the endocrine gland thats responsible for male orgasm, taking care of it for a lifetime is probably a good idea!
Nettle Root is an herbal ally that seems almost designed to ensure the good health of a mans reproductive system into longevity (wives and girlfriends may want to take note).
Making your own Nettle Root tinctures at home can be easy, and only takes few minutes.
I encourage you to give it a try, and to get out into your local ecosystem to commune with your landscape. This is truest expression of environmentalism I can think of!
If this post (or any other) has inspired you, please leave a comment below!
~Daniel
Important New Chaga Foraging Update!!!
Welcome Friends, Foodies, and Foragers!
For the last several years I have talked more about Chaga (Inonotus obliquus) than any other wild foraged food or medicine.
For those who don’t know, Chaga is a fungal sclerotium with notable anti-cancer terpines (such as betulinic acid) and immune system modulating sugars (called beta glucans). More than any other medicinal mushroom, this has been my number one herbal/fungal ally. In fact, for much of the year I use it almost daily and have for several years now…
Chaga is normally decocted (boiled in water to produce a broth or tea) for about two hours, yielding a very mild vanilla like flavor (it contains vanillin as one of its components) which is great to drink on its own, with added cream and a sweetener (I like maple syrup) to create a drink much like coffee. It is also an excellent blended drink or soup base.
This video post is about peeling Chaga, which is its traditional preparation method in Siberia (it is from their folk medicine that we have learned of Chaga). For years I used this fungus without peeling it, which yeilded wonderful results, but now that I have included the traditional preperation method, it would be difficult to depart from. De-barking Chaga yields a far more mild, pleasant tasting, less medicinal and more tonic tea.
There are of course wonderful uses for Chaga with its bark on as well, particularly as an anti-neoplastic medicine. Still for my daily use this is now my preferred method.
Here is another video from my archive showing how to identify and harvest Chaga if you are interested in trying this yourself. If you are looking for a premier Chaga extract you can find it at my company, SurThrival.
Thanks for watching and I can’t wait to hear your results!
~Daniel
Wild Foods and Medicines! Harvesting Nettle Rhizomes
Greetings Everyone!
What an amazing Autumn it has been!
This has been, by far, my most prolific year of harvesting wild food and medicine. While I know it is an ambitious goal, it is my personal desire to hunt and gather. Spending time with Arthur Haines has propelled my wild nutrition path forward in ways I am so grateful for. In this video Arthur and I go into the wilds in search of wild stinging nettle roots for our personal homemade medicine stashes!
Now that I am just weeks away from SurThrival’s launch of its new Pine Pollen extracts, I wanted to share a video that is yet one more piece of my natural hormone maintnance strategy.
I hope this motivates you to get out and harvest some food or medicine for yourself. Stay tuned for events that Arthur and I will be putting on where you can learn to harvest your own foods and medicines!
And don’t forget to check out the mead making workshop that I have coming up next week. You can see the details here.
Thanks for watching, and please let me know what you think.
~D
From Alcohol to Alchemy: The Lore, Craft, and Nutrition of Mead
A mead workshop with Daniel Vitalis and Jim Lindenschmidt
I am very excited to be co-hosting this up-coming Autumn workshop with my good friend and mead-mentor, Jim Lindenschmidt of Bardic Brews and The Sweet Peas Podcast. I have been highly involved in brewing my own mead for several months now, after learning the traditional nutrition that has been derived from this fermented beverage for ages. The experience of harvesting the ingredients for the mead from my environment (honey, fruits, herbs, etc.) and going through the process is yet another gratifying experience of building self-sufficiency. I so look forward to sharing my knowledge on this ancient beverage at our workshop coming up in November!
Tuesday, November 16, 7-10pm
At the Urban Farm Fermentory
200 Anderson St. – Bay 4
Portland, ME 04101
207-653-7406
General Admission, $35
42 spots available ($45 at the door)
- or -
Get Your Gear, Brew Your Mead, $125
only 12 spots available, including:
- Admission ($35 value)
- Brewing Kit ($60 value) — you keep all the brewing equipment
- Ingredient Kit ($40 value) — your first batch will produce 10-12 bottles of mead for you to enjoy
- Hand-holding: consult with James Lindenschmidt in advance to plan your first batch of mead, and brew onsite with guidance during workshop
- You keep everything, you will take home the 3 gallon carboy full of what will become mead in a few weeks (about 10-12 bottles).
Workshop includes:
- Short talk on Mead Lore by James Lindenschmidt of www.BardicBrews.net
- One-Hour lecture on the Nutrition and Alchemy of Mead by Daniel Vitalis
- Meadmaking Craft workshop with James Lindenschmidt, where you will see several batches of mead being made, and have the opportunity to brew your own first batch of mead
Also Available At The Workshop:
Brewing Equipment Kit ~ Optional, available at event
$60 includes:
- 3 gallon glass carboy
- funnel
- stopper
- airlock
- siphon hose
- hydrometer
Ingredient Kit ~ Optional, available at event
$40 includes:
- 1 gallon of honey
- 1 packet of brewing yeast
If you’d like to register for the full Get Your Gear, Brew Your Mead package, including admission, ingredients, and all brewing gear so you can take home your first batch of fermenting mead, register here. There are only 12 premium seats available, so hurry!
If you’d like to register for general admission, which includes viewing the workshop and hearing my talk, then register here.
Seating is limited, so register soon! Looking forward to seeing you all there!
~D
The Longevity Now Conference!
September 24th-26th, 2010
I am honored and excited to share that I will be speaking at the upcoming Longevity Now Conference! This health seminar unlike any other. That is because this seminar has the worlds leading health authorities, all gathered in one place for a whole weekend, to share their unique knowledge around health and longevity. The Longevity Now Conference is held at the Orange County Hilton in Costa Mesa, CA. The Longevity Now Conference is by far, the most original, comprehensive, and exhilarating healing and longevity seminar I have ever seen.
Aside from myself speaking, we will be graced with the presence of many other amazing health experts such as David Wolfe, Dr. Joseph Mercola, Frank Giglio, Donna Gates, Truth Caulkins, Nadine Artemis, and several others! Each presenter brings to us their unique skillset and education around optimal health and longevity. We are blessed to receive such a wide range of knowledge and experience to learn from! I can’t wait to see what everyone brings to the stage!
My lecture will revolve around Eugenics and what “natural foods” really are, in this day and age. I recently did an interview with Len Foley of the Longevity Now team, in preparation for the event which you can listen to here, and get a taste of what I will be speaking about at the conference!
Another aspect that makes this seminar unlike any other, is that each individual participant will be “grounded” (using the latest cutting-edge technology provided to us by Earthing) throughout the event in its entirety! This is exciting to me, because I am a huge advocate for maximizing the amount of time we spend outdoors, with our barefeet connected to the ground. However, in this day and age, most of us are unable to spend all of our time outdoors ~ That is where the grounding technology comes in. We can use these advances to ground us while we are spending time indoors, working away by keeping our feet on a ground pad, or wearing one of their grounding bands. In addition, each participant will receive a complimentary $40 Earthing Kit so that they will experience the healing effects of being grounded even while in their hotel room.
There will be over $10,000 in prizes given out throughout the event as well! Truth Caulkins, one of the speakers, brings us a world-class Longevity Tonic Bar which will be open all weekend long! The tonic bar team will be providing us with the most powerful, delicious healing drinks only available through this wonderful crew. The drinks served are scrumptious healing blends of herbs and superfoods, to help heal and optimize any individuals condition. They are a group of “ElixirCraft Masters“, for sure!
We are also excited to have a booth in the exhibition area for my company, SurThrival, all weekend long at the event! The whole SurThrival team with be present for the weekend, posted up at the booth, ready to share and connect with all of the participants! We will have our full product line up for sale at our booth, along with some surprises we are waiting to reveal for the first time at the conference! We are can’t wait to share our latest excitement with all of you there!
One last piece I would like announce, is that I will be one of the featured speakers in the extended workshop taking place the Monday after the conference concludes! This workshop is being called “The Masters Workshop”, and it will be a comprehensive lecture between myself, David Wolfe, and Truth Caulkins where we will go in depth about ElixirCrafting, the art of tonic alchemy, the secrets to abundant health, complete cell rejuvenation, and longevity. There will also be a 90-minute panel, where the audience members can ask us all of their burning question!
I highly encourage you to join us in September at this event. Not only will you discover the latest advances in longevity technology that aren’t available anywhere else, but this event will be nothing short of one of the most uplifting, educational, and inspirational weekends of your life.
Three full days of major downloads of advanced information is priced at a mere $297! This is a huge deal considering the amount of knowledge, connections, goodies, and community you will leave with after the weekend!
