I need some more reading material and wondered about this chap. I have never read any of his books - I see there are a few on amazon but they are expensive here. Any ideas which of his books are the best - ha ha how can anyone answer that question - but you know what I mean - which books have you read and liked or not liked. Do they cover similar ground in different books?

Unfortunately but not surprisingly the library cannot provide!!!

I have Conscious Eating, it's a lexicon of info that I will keep forever. I recently received Rainbow Green as a gift and must say that I am enjoying it. However, my favourite raw food book of all time is 12 Steps to Raw by Boutenko. What a lovely, gentle soul she is and what a fantastically encouraging book.

I've read There is a Cure for Diabetes and I'm reading Conscious Eating and I recommend them both. He is a doctor so his books are among the most medical-style raw food books available but not out of reach of the average reader, "comprehensive" is a word that describes all his books well.

You can preview his books in Google Books:
[books.google.com]

Thanks - I didn't know he is a doctor - that's interesting. I rather like it when people come from a medical background.

I read his latest, "Rainbow-Green Live Food Cuisine," which I thought was spectacular. His bookbasic thesis is that we're much better off eating less sweat foods. He lays out a glycemic index of fruits and suggests that people can eat a fair amount of lower-glycemic (sugar) fruits, such as berries and cherries, but should be very moderate in our consumption of the higher-glycemic fruits; such as figs, mangoes, papaya, dates, etc., and all dried fruit. In my personal experience I've found this to be true. He also suggests that if you're coming from a non-raw diet or a high-sweet diet it's best to take a certain period of time where you eliminate all sweet fruits from the diet, until you feel you're ready to start incorporating them gradually. The premise is that really sweet foods in excess pollute the body and disturb meditation.
There are also a lot of unique and fantastic recipes in the book, and as well he presents a particularly strong case for raw/living foods in general. It's really a cutting-edge book, imo; I strongly recommend it.

I am going to get "Rainbow Cuisine" one day, I think, if the recipes are pretty much straight forward. I have "Spiritual Nutrition" and I am not that gung-ho about it. I bought it because I am into spirituality but it was a little too out-there for me. The first half is about spiritual energy/chakras, which is great, but he refers to himself in the third-person and that was a bit silly and off-putting to me. I think he was trying to distance his persona from his "true self" but I thought it was a bit much. And it affected the way I thought of him...I thought he was a space cadet type and then I watched the companion DVD and he had a New York accent and was much more down-to-earth that I could have imagined! I have a lot of respect for him because he's a doctor who is into this stuff. It much be very difficult to break out of that paradigm.

hmmm interesting - I thought all fruit was good fruit. not that there's any danger of having too many mangoes or figs in England!!!!

I've definitely found the difference between very sweet fruit and low-sweet fruit to be very significant. Low-sweet fruit is a lot better, I've found. Not that one can't ever had super-sweet fruits, but it's healthiest to keep them in moderation.
There's also a lot in Rainbow-Green Live Food Cuisine" about eating to match your ayurvedic constitution. For instance, I'm very "vata"- thin, airy- and I need more heavy foods such as nuts and seeds. He evens presents very specific foods which are good for specific ayurvedic constitutions.
The recipes in the book are quite straightforward, though often quite elaborate.

I not into all this 'ayurvedic' stuff so I'm sure this book isn't for me.

Is Conscious Eating more down to earth?

i love rainbow green live food cuisone & the recipes are all delicious but many of them have too much fat for my system. i am trying 80-10-10 although i realize that all the sweet fruits are used in that diet except for dried fruits!! hmm-i am confused about wahts right but we will see how i feel

flipperjan Wrote:
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> Is Conscious Eating more down to earth?

In a word, no.

I have Conscious Eating, and Rainbow Green Live Food Cuisine. I think Dr. Cousens is whip-smart and I admire his knowledge. I am not so keen on the 'spiritual guru' vibe in some of his works (Spiritual Nutrition, for example).

I like and use many of the recipes in Rainbow Green, but as someone else said, some of them are rather high in fat (and salt too sometimes). I generally add less fat and salt than the recipes call for, and they are fine. These are recipes for food served at his Tree of Life Center. Some people go there for a gourmet raw food/spa experience and others go there for serious medical conditions--those people's food choices while at Tree of Life would be quite a bit more restrictive.

best to ask the library to get them in for you so you can check them out first. That is how I first review any book I want to purchase. Saves me a lot of time and money!

Coco - as I said in my o.p. - the library hasn't got any Gabriel Cousens books. This is not just in my local library but in the whole county. As I said I am not surprised.

I was sifting through the DVD section at a local library and almost fainted when I saw one by Cousens regarding raw food and yoga! If you ever get a chance to view it, do so.

I purchased "There is a Cure for Diabetes" first. Big mistake. It is very scattered and I got lost trying to figure out what was going on. I felt like it was more of an advertisement for his retreat. But, not to give up, I knew there was something there I needed, so i bought the Rainbow Green cuisine. This was the book I should have bought to begin with. (I also feel like the books names should be switched) My blood sugar went from around 165 to 100 in three weeks. The recipes do contain too much salt and oils, but I adjust that to a minimum.
Burness

Thanks.
I have ordered Conscious Eating now - funnily enough the day after I ordered it I met someone who has known Gabriel for 30 years and she spoke very warmly about him - said he is a wonderful man. I like co-incidences like that

I've read conscious eating and his book spiritual nutrtion, I really like them, he is very scientific with it all


I did hear from someone who worked at the tree of life that he takes so many supplements he practically lives on them

I wonder if he used to take a lot of supplements some time ago because he does say in 'Conscious Eating' that supplements can be useful in the beginning when you are adjusting your diet and transitioning.

Anyway I am enjoying the read so far - i love the depth in the book.

Won't your library order books that you want or get them from an interlibrary loan? Mine does whenever possible, it's a big library system that covers the whole province so I can usually get anything I want. Sorry if you can't, that's lame of your library system.
Glad you're liking the book, it's one of the few I'll be keeping forever. So much information...

Seriously Coco - all I get in the library is a blank stare - 'sorry we can't help you'

In this case though I am very happy that I have bought the book.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/16/2010 10:10PM by flipperjan.

flipperjan Wrote:
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> I wonder if he used to take a lot of supplements
> some time ago because he does say in 'Conscious
> Eating' that supplements can be useful in the
> beginning when you are adjusting your diet and
> transitioning.
>
> Anyway I am enjoying the read so far - i love the
> depth in the book.


I read it in the late 90s and it was the 93 edition, I have not read the later editions so don't know if there is much difference.

The friend who spent time there was in 2005/2006 , she says he took around 100 supplements a day, he sells more supplements than ever now though.

I like his books, I'm not against supplements, some people may need them, I'm just saying what I was told

He is a firm believer that soil and the growing environment of plants for food have been so compromised that it is no longer possible to get the nutrition needed via a diet of whole foods alone. I know that he has done a lot of testing in this area, and experimentation as well. He's got some kind of soil organisms, soil feeding, tachyon energy etc happenings on the go. Can't say I disagree with his stance on this, in fact it seems more than likely to be true. It's interesting to consider anyhow.