I made the mistake of putting off reading this book because my children are all grown and on their own. What could possibly hold any interest for me in a book about raising healthy children? If I’m going to take the time to read an entire book, I like it to be applicable and relevant. Let’s repeat the cliché- “Never judge a book by its cover!”

Karen Ranzi’s book marries the two most important foundations for creating healthy children: the raw food diet and attachment parenting, a term originally used by pediatrician William Sears in describing a more natural and intuitive parenting philosophy than most people in this day and age practice. Attachment parenting sheds light on the truths about raising and truly ‘nurturing’ children from the heart and not the head. I loved reading about the mothers, and fathers returning to the practice of following their parenting instincts and each child’s individual needs for the mutual benefit of all, and not following whatever current popular parenting trend comes along.

From the first few pages, I was thoroughly engrossed. Karen’s writing style is very easy to read, yet highly informative. This book was seven years in the making and it shows. The research is impeccable and covers the entire spectrum of parenting healthy children from pre-conception, to pregnancy, breastfeeding and beyond. It also includes information on vaccinations, circumcision, exercise, education of children, obtaining sufficient nutrition from plant foods at every stage of a child’s life, transitioning older kids to the raw food diet, meeting emotional needs, and would you believe there’s more?

You can see that no stone is left unturned and it seems every aspect of a child’s life is examined in light of the raw vegan lifestyle, not merely diet. By the time I was done reading the hefty question and answer section from real people with real life questions, I realized how valuable this book will be. It will help ease the minds of parents and soon-to-be’s, showing them that having healthy, natural children and families is entirely possible and within their grasp if they are willing to follow their hearts and dedicate themselves to this most noble of tasks. There is such a lovely balance of first hand experience and nutritional research related between the covers of this book that no one, parent or not, could read it without becoming thoroughly informed about avoiding the most common pitfalls in the raw food diet.

By the time I finished chapter two, I felt as if I had already taken away an entire book worth of valuable and motivating information and had hardly scratched the surface. Nearly every page is peppered with research, resources, personal experiences, websites, quotes from experts, and even recipes. The extensive chapter on the controversial B12 issue is, in my opinion, worth the price of the book alone.

Reading this book rekindles my hope and yes, that utopian vision, for a new generation of healthy, naturally birthed and raised children. You might be tempted, as I was, to gather your tribe and head off to greener pastures in Costa Rica!

Having said all that, I must admit there is one thing I didn’t like about Karen’s book: she wrote it after my children were already grown! How I wish I had this information 20 years ago. I had the desire, the inner vision, but not the information. We parents are famous for saying “I want my kids to have what I never did.”? Thanks to Karen’s dedicated work and Tonya’s treasure hunting, I feel like I now have a gold nugget of my own to pass along to the next generation: their very own copy of Creating Healthy Children.

When it comes to losing weight and looking better, you’ll find an abundance of options out there. I just received a mass email from one doctor who wrote: Forget diets and exercise! Another email promised: Take a pill to burn all the fat in your body. Still another: Get a laser treatment that will take care of the extra weight around your stomach and thighs! These promoters know what you want to hear.

It’s the euphemisms that fool us. Consider: Who’d pay some guy to stuff a vacuum cleaner hose under the flap of their tummy and slurp out the excess flab? But call it “liposuction,” or “lipoplasty” and that somehow makes it appealing. What sane person would say Bovine toxin…or paralytic poison… That’s for me, yes, sir! Stick it in! But call it ‘Botox’ and it’s almost cute! Then there’s this whole stapling thing—stapled stomachs, butts, and even a recent, quirky little thing involving stapling your ear as a supposed way to curb appetite.

That’s not to say these services won’t offer the instant gratification they promise. But they do not slow your aging process and they will not make you healthier, let alone heal or prevent disease. Instead, the assault on your body brought by these surgeries and attendant anesthesia will certainly have a negative impact on your looks.

If you’re over 40, you probably you know too well about those little wrinkles that insist on settling down in that same spot on your face for the rest of your life. The flabby skin that likes to wave hello every time you do. You may have your own ‘inevitables’ to add to that list. But the question is, are they really inevitable?

These things and many others are parts of the aging process. That aging is guaranteed to happen when you live an unhealthy lifestyle. Sooner or later, your habits, good or bad, will catch up with you.

To have outer beauty, you must first create inner beauty. I do not mean to say that a loving and kind person will not be overweight, or that someone who is compassionate and patient will not have acne. We’re talking about another kind of internal beauty, a beauty that comes from healthy internal organs. Aging is the mirror reflection of your liver, colon, heart, kidneys and arteries losing their peculiar kind of “beauty.”

Eat raw foods, the way we were intended to, and you will achieve the inner cleanliness and vibrant health that will manifest themselves in radiant outer beauty.

My first book, Your Right to Be Beautiful, was written about this very transformation process. Once your body is clean, thriving, and working to its best ability, it will reward you with a beautiful outer shell.

My ebook 100 Days to 100% Raw is your roadmap to success. Here, I’ll guide you step by step, with all the tools and support you need to fulfill your resolutions for 2010. This is your year to shine, and I am determined to help you get there—the right way!

If you don’t know how painful bursitis can be, consider yourself lucky. Bursitis is a painful inflammation of the fluid-filled sacs called ‘bursae’. The bursae (singular: bursa) serve as smooth surfaces to help reduce friction between uneven surfaces of the body, helping tendons move smoothly over bones, particularly around the larger joints. When this inflammation occurs, every movement delivers excruciating pain. Some common causes for this inflammation are trauma or injury, overuse, infection, arthritis, or post-surgical complications. Sometimes the cause is unknown.

Standard treatments for bursitis begin with simply taking anti-inflammatory pain medication, resting the affected area, and applying icepacks during the first few days, then moist heat after that. If relief doesn’t come, a doctor will sometimes then inject a corticosteroid into the bursa to combat the inflammation. If the bursitis arises from infection, the doctor will prescribe antibiotics. Often physicians will also prescribe physical therapy targeted at the affected area, usually including gentle stretching to improve the range of motion.

This is where Bikram yoga comes in to relieve the suffering of bursitis. The Bikram yoga series was actually designed as a form of physical therapy, targeting the major muscles and joints. This combination of gentle stretching and therapeutic poses, done in a hot, humid room, can be extremely soothing for bursitis pain. Raising your body temperature serves to enhance the immune system and sweats out harmful toxins at the same time. Exercise of this kind also releases endorphins, your body’s natural pain killer. You can see why Bikram yoga is gaining a worldwide reputation for its tremendous restorative results.

Your best adjunct to the soothing, refreshing and healing effects of Bikram yoga: eating a raw food diet! Raw foods can be your secret weapon in battling inflammation and enhancing your body’s ability to heal quickly from trauma or injury. Consuming mainly pure, clean, unprocessed food which hasn’t had the vitamins, minerals and enzymes cooked out of it, you flood your body with nutrients it needs to cleanse and heal on a cellular level. Remember the quote by the famous ancient physician Hippocrates: Let food by thy medicine and medicine be thy food.

My latest book, Raw Foods and Hot Yoga: From Severe Disability to Superior Health, is filled with information on how I conquered a plethora of physical problems with the combination of raw foods and Bikram yoga. You may be a yoga practitioner or a raw foods aficionado. Whichever one you are, try adding the other. Or you may not yet be either a yoga enthusiast or following a raw food diet—you may just be “curious.” Wherever you are in your journey, know this…Improvement in exercise is always good. Improving your diet, leaning more toward the freshness and goodness of raw vegetables and fruits, will certainly add to your well-being. The combination is unbeatable. General good health—and for sufferers of bursitis and similar ailments, relief from pain—is waiting just past the produce aisle and down the block at your neighborhood Bikram yoga studio. Try it—you’ll be glad you did!

Whatever you’re seeing in the mirror, the Rawsome Flex System will help you improve what you—and others—see. Tonya Zavasta’s experience and research bring you 30 carefully designed exercises, with illustrations and practical tips. Her 21-day regimen will help you build a healthy lifetime habit that achieves incredible results.

Tonya Zavasta’s unique Rawsome Flex System offers a better look, a better self-image to every woman—or man!—who feels the need to look their best. Sculpted abs…trim triceps…taut buns—any gym, any sound exercise program can bring you those. Your facial muscles, as much as or even more than body muscles, can sag, bag, droop, and go all-over wrinkly. Facial exercises improve your face just as other exercises improve your physique—only faster and more dramatically.

The Rawsome System will literally sculpt your face. Tonya’s system will slim your face…give you that glowing look…reduce wrinkles…eliminate or greatly reduce pouches, double chins, jowls…give you that “high cheek bones” look you’ve always wanted.

Facial exercises are excellent, but they are only part of the whole beauty equation. Your challenge is to make your mature skin respond the way your young skin once did. By eating raw foods, you’ll help your system work as efficiently as a much younger person’s. You’ll attack the aging process internally with raw foods…externally with a total exercise regime—body and face. The result—slower aging. Tonya’s Facial Exercise plan will get you looking 10 years younger…raw foods another 20 years younger. Starting today.

Face it—you’ve nothing to lose and lots of youth to gain. Here’s the book you want…for the look you want. Exercise the right choice…Go ahead—make your move.

Here’s a review from Sarah Best, editor of Get Fresh! magazine…the world’s leading raw foods periodical—a must-have resource for anyone interested in the raw lifestyle. You’ll find the review in the Summer 2007 issue, excerpted here by permission. Don’t forget to visit the Get Fresh! website… www.fresh-network.com.

As the title suggests, this book marries quantum physics and nutrition. The aim? It’s the culmination of the author’s quest to discover the ultimate anti-aging diet. Tonya Zavasta is best known for promotion the beautifying benefits of the all-raw diet, and what makes her regime unique is the suggested prolong of our natural night-time fasting period by gradually phasing out dinner. Zavasta eats her last meal at 2 pm and goes for 16-18 hours a day without food-and here’s the thing-or water.

Zavasta provides compelling evidence that this complete digestive system rest, dubbed ‘dry fasting’ by other health pioneers who have similarly extolled its benefits, has detoxification, longevity and rejuvenative benefits. The regime also provides ‘calorie restricted optimum nutrition’—the book draws on the body of research that suggests that if we can meet all our nutrient needs on a low-calorie diet, we’re likely to live longer, healthier lives.

Zavasta emphasizes that the plan she recommends is only to be considered by those who have a few years on a pure raw diet under their belts and are ready to go to the next level. She is also explicit that she is recommending dry fasts that last hours, not days.

At over 400 pages the book is a comprehensive and engagingly written guide to staying young gracefully and ends with a selection of recipes and a rundown of the gadgets Zavasta has discovered to help keep skin looking fresh and glowing.

Learn more about Quantum Eating here…