Thanks Ani, and Rose!
I know that I should eat more raw food, but at least I have been eating raw carrots every day for quite many years...
I should also eat more fruits...
Anyway; it's never too late to change habits, is it?
20 years ago, me, and my ex. had a garden for 15 years, then we produced our own potatoes, tomatoes, garlic, cabbage, carrots, fruits, and much more. Organic (ecological) of course!
Those were the days...

I've been eating raw a lot more lately...in fact, I've made a commitment to myself to eat 100% raw on two days a week, and at least one meal raw a day on the other five days, plus at least one raw item at every meal.  So, that would be about 10 meals which are 1/3 raw, and 11 meals which are all raw a week.  I really like how this feels!  I'm going to increase it up a little bit more very soon by adding another completely raw meal a day, leaving only 5 meals a week which are partially cooked.

I've been going to raw food meetups in the area and I'm also starting one of my own.  I'm learning new ways of preparing raw foods...ways I never would have thought of myself!  I'm having a "whole" lot of fun!

I've known for years this was the best way to eat, but getting on a routine was the trick that's working for me.  My suggestion to everyone would be to start with consciously designating one meal a week to begin with and take it from there!  You'll find it's a lot easier and tastier than you ever knew!

Vibe

 http://www.NaturalNews.com/023136.html

 Gift from Gaia.  Smile. 

I adhere to a living foods diet (about 80%) - long story, but good one.  More and more, although I've know for more than 10 years this is truly the case, fruits and veggies are proving scientifically their enormous " divine biphotonic powers."  Smile. 

Blissings, Ani 

From www.anoumirkine.com

Whole, live foods carry electrochemical energy and other complex nutritional messages that vibrate with frequencies that energize your body.

Raw, Live fruits and vegetables contain all  the original vitamins, minerals and essential enzymes which are  easily destroyed by heat.

Eating raw foods builds your immune system making you more resistant to disease and allergies.

Oils, animal fats, nuts and seeds are  chemically changed by heating, creating toxic substances harmful  to the body.

You have more energy & vitality when you eat raw foods.

You look better & healthier when you eat raw foods.

You can lose weight quickly & easily without counting calories or limiting how much you eat.

Many people heal chronic diseases by eating  a raw, living foods - often in addition to fasting, juicing,  exercising and meditating.

Live, raw foods cleanse the palate so foods  taste better - everything tastes so good that you probably won’t  even miss cooking!

The info was taken from www.rawfoodlife.com

The Science of Raw Foods

101 Reasons why you should eat Raw

Thank you Anou!

Blissings, Ani 

http://www.NaturalNews.com/023012.html

 Blissings, Ani 

consequences. But I started realizing what I was doing that was different. And what I was doing that was different was I was taking the science of nutrition that I have learned in various areas. As I said in college, I was a nutrition major and health and Phys Ed and nutrition. Studying the various research that was out there, looking at the textbooks that were out there, looking at the private books that people had written, responsible nutritionists and doctors from the vegan world and from outside the vegan world have written a huge number of books, and it turned out that all of them agreed on one point and one point only.

In every other area they seem to have their own little perspective, you know, of this and that. But at one point they agreed, and that was that when your fat intake in terms of total calories exceed ten percent of calories consumed, predictable health decline ensues. Various doctors explained why from various fields, even the sports nutritionist say the same thing and they could tell what happens and why it happens. Whether it has to do with the lowered oxygen-carrying ability of the blood or whether it had to do with reduced permeability of the vessels so that various nutrients don't cross the vessel wall as well. Whether it had to do with build-up on the arterial walls or in the joints but it did not seem to matter what it was. They all had a perspective, but they all agreed on this ten percent number, that when your fat intake exceeds ten percent, of course, you know, I am fighting that tooth and nail, because raw is different than cooked, right? And plant is different than animal, but it turned out that study after study kept confirming that it really didn't matter whether it was cooked or raw, animal or plant. The kicker was when I started getting raw food clients coming to me who had heart attacks while they were on the raw food diet.

Kevin: Wow.

Doug: When I started putting those case histories together and looking at what was the common denominator between the various people having diabetes on a raw diet, having heart disease on a raw diet, experiencing chronic fatigue on a raw diet, experiencing candida on a raw diet and a wealth of various issues and huge digestive problems. These are things that we don't tend to think of. They are not the norm, but I am seeing them in fairly large numbers. And when I start seeing those things happen, and looking for what is the common denominator, the common denominator was dietary fat. In the raw diet when the dietary fat level goes up beyond a certain point we start to see health decline rather than health improvement. And so, that stimulated for me a breakthrough in consciousness. So, I started saying, "You know what, let me start to define what I am doing. Rather than just calling it a raw diet, let's call it a specific kind of raw diet. We will define the parameters of it a little more. and over the last ten years have been defining and referring to what I call the 80-10-10 diet".

To read the rest of this interview please visit (http://www.RawSummitArchives.com) and (www.RawSummitArchives.com) . This is just an excerpt of over 14 hours of cutting edge living food, raw food or health information revealed during the Raw Food World Summit.

About the author

Kevin Gianni is a health advocate, author and speaker. He has helped thousands of people in over 85 countries learn how to take control of their health--and keep it.
To view commentary on natural health issues, vegan and raw food diets, holistic nutrition and more click here.
His book, "The Busy Person's Fitness Solution," is a step-by-step guide to optimum health for the time and energy-strapped.
To find out more about abundance, optimum health and self motivation click here... or you're interested in the vegan and raw food diet and cutting edge holistic nutrition click here.
For access to free interviews, downloads and a complete bodyweight exercise archive visit www.LiveAwesome.com.

BB, Ani 

perform is really not our thing. So, it was reinvent the wheel, and reinvent the wheel over and over again. And I went through what maybe the world's slowest transition into the raw food diet. Because I did not want to go there, it was just the results were inarguable. I did not want to go there.

I like all my food and it took me a long time to realize that essentially, I'm in a relationship with food. And that what ended up happening was that I loved all food, but all food did not love me back. And I much prefer to be in relationships with people who love me as much as I love them. Those are the most rewarding relationships. And so, gradually, I came to the realization that I was going to have to make some decisions about my food based on how much the food loved me. How did it make me feel? Did I want to wake up the next morning feeling like I have been in a train wreck? Did I want to ache in my joints, or be congested in my head? Or did I just want to feel fantastic all the time. Eventually, I committed to what was called an all-raw diet and failed miserably for seven years on the all-raw diet.

Kevin: Really?

Doug: Oh failed miserably. I either would loose my health or I would find myself binging on cooked carbohydrates, or both, or I would just get soup and eat myself into oblivion. I just couldn't find anything even remotely that I would call balanced until I finally did the unthinkable thing which was to eat a lot more fruits and a lot more vegetables and reduced the amount of other raw food in my diet. I found that if I ate a lot more fruits and a lot more vegetables and started reducing nuts, seeds, avocados, olives, oils and other foods, I almost magically felt better. My athletic performance soared. My clarity of mind was better than ever. And I had no idea what I was doing, but it was working like crazy. So I just decided to keep on working it. This is about 1985. And I opened up a health retreat in 1986 where people came to fast with me and when they recovered from their fast, I would put them on to this version of the raw food diet where fruits and vegetables predominated over all other food both in volume, in weight, and in total calories, which was the big kicker.

Kevin: Total calories ok.

Doug: Total calories, because a teaspoon full of oil is only, you know, a teaspoon full. But in terms of calories, it's many calories as an entire head of lettuce. So, once I got to that, we used that program for 10 years at the health retreat and had fantastic results helping sick people get well and then my roots of athleticism just kept coming back. Various doctors from around the world and athletes from around the world would contact me now and then asking for help.

I would help them as best that I could. And one of them, a player from the NBA, a gentleman named Ronnie Grandison came to me and said, "Look, this is my last year of playing basketball pro and I want to do the best I can." And I said, " Well, you know, don't waste my time because I can't imagine that your going to do what I'm gonna suggest." And he goes, "No I really will, I am that kind of guy, I am extremely motivated." So, I explained to him what to do over a series of telephone calls and he did it really to the letter, got phenomenal results and felt so good at the end of the year that he continued and went back the next year and tried out for his club who had told him he was too old the year before, but now he wasn't too old anymore. Now, he was fitter, faster, shot better, thought more clearly and ended up playing another five years of NBA ball.

Kevin: Wow.

Doug: And the only reason he quit when he did was because he fell down in a training game, in a practice game, he fell down, when in a freaky accident somebody pushed him at the same time that somebody else stepped on his foot. Well, when he landed, because he was pinned, you've got to remember that guys six foot eight fall pretty hard. He broke both hands.

Kevin: Oh wow.

Doug: And was going to be out for several months. And by the time he was out for that long he just said, you know what, my family commitments are getting really strong and I want to spend my time with them. So, he did. But he said, "I am thinner than I have ever been." At 36, he was actually the fittest man on the team and actually thinner than he had ever been when he played college ball. And what he said to me, in some ways haunts me and in some ways motivates me. But he said on many occasions, he said, "Doc are you going to die with all that information in your head or are you going to write it down?" I got to tell you I don't like writing it down. It is a lot of work to write it down.

Kevin: Right.

Doug: But for Ronnie Grandison, I have written a few books and I continued to do so. And eventually through a back door, and I am almost closed, but eventually through a back door, I started realizing what I was doing that was different than most other people in the raw food world were doing. It is not about right or wrong, good or bad, in any way, it is strictly about consequences. But I started realizing what I was doing that was different. And what I was doing that was different was I was taking the science of nutrition that I have learned in various areas. As I said in college, I was a nutrition major and health and Phys Ed and nutrition. Studying the various research that was out there, looking at the textbooks that were out there, looking at the private books that people had written, responsible nutritionists and doctors from the vegan world and from outside the vegan world have written a huge number of books

by Kevin Gianni

(NaturalNews) This is an excerpt from Dr. Doug Graham's interview for the Raw Summit, a complete interview encyclopedia of cutting edge living and raw food knowledge. You can find the complete transcripts and audios at (http://www.RawSummitArchives.com) and (www.RawSummitArchives.com) . In this excerpt, Dr. Doug Graham discusses some of the common issues with the raw food diet and how he brought a 36 year old NBA basketball player to the top of his game.

Raw Food World Summit Interview Excerpt with Dr. Doug Graham, creator of the 80-10-10 Diet

Kevin Gianni: Hi everyone! This is Kevin Gianni, optimal health expert, and I'd like to welcome you to another very special Raw Summit Teleseminar, which can be found online at (http://www.RawSummitArchives.com) and (www.RawSummitArchives.com) . The purpose of the raw summit is to pass along cutting edge information about raw and living food technology for you to reach optimal health, wellness, and success.

Today, I have a fantastic guest on the line. He is an author, a lifetime athlete, and a 27-year raw fooder. He has also been an adviser to world-class athletes and trainers from all around the globe. He has worked professionally with top performers in almost every sport and every field of entertainment including notables such as tennis legend Martina Navratilova, Chicken Soup for the Soul co-author Mark Victor Hansen, and actress Demi Moore. Today, we are going to talk about the new distinctions he has made about the raw food lifestyles. So, Dr. Doug Graham, I want to welcome you to the Raw Summit.

Doug Graham: Thank you! Thank you, Kevin. It is a pleasure to be here with you.

Kevin: Great! So, why don't we get into it and let's start with a little bit of a landscape of your history and why you are here now.

Doug: You know I always find this a funny question and I know people are fascinated and it's one of the most boring parts for me. It's a funny world isn't it? You never know exactly what it is that is going to be meaningful to somebody else. I was a sick child. I was physically sick, I was an athlete, but I went every week to the allergy doctor for years and years for "shots". I had every childhood disease at a very early age and I was a sick child. I never left the house without a pack of tissues in my pocket. It never occurred to me that I was a sick child because I was an athlete. But I was always looking for a way to improve my athletic performance, it just seemed there must be an edge I could gain over the competition, somehow. So, I started looking into food at a fairly early age.

My family was very open- minded about food and we went on many diets because my mother especially, was trying to control her weight. Whatever diet she went on, the family went on. Eventually, she discovered Weight Watchers and succeeded with that. The whole family went on Weight Watchers and I was just still approaching my teens. By my mid-teens I was making wholesale dietary changes, to attempt to eat more healthfully. I had coaches in grammar school, health classes, and high school health classes telling me to eat my fruits and vegetables. I was a health and Phys Ed major in college and the teachers all touted the health benefits of fruits and vegetables. And by the time I was in college, I was eating as a vegetarian and noticed small improvements. After a few years as a vegetarian, eventually the concept of vegan came to me. I was exposed to it. Before the internet, you know, these things came a little more slowly that they do now.

Kevin: Absolutely.

Doug: So, I did the vegan experiment and literally decided I would try it for a month to see if I liked it and I tried it for a month and at the end of 2 weeks, the changes were so profound. I could breathe better, I could run better. I found myself thinking more clearly. I was sleeping less and having more energy. And you know what? At the end of two weeks I was sold for life right then and there. Well vegan did not last long. To be quite honest, every time I thought I had arrived, it was a shock because it wasn't where I was going. There was more. I bumped into a gentleman and I still stay in touch with him, who started explaining to me some of the benefits of raw food. And although I swore up and down that he was an absolute nutcase at the time, you know, you know you cannot get the thought out of your head once it is in.

Kevin: That is the truth.

Doug: I started eating more raw, and more raw and more raw. By the late seventies, I was eating a high percentage of raw diet which essentially was the raw diet back then and I got in touch with the various people who were promoting raw food. At the time, there were really only five major leaders in the raw movement and I contacted them and asked them about it, and all of them said the same thing about it. They said, look, we know how to get sick people well but helping athletes perform is really not our thing. So, it was reinvent the wheel, and reinvent the wheel over an

Detox With Decadence At New Raw Foods Spa -- Wonder Raw Retreat Offers New Twists On Old Favorites In Gorgeous Desert Setting

Wonder Raw Retreat Offers New Twists on Old Favorites in Gorgeous Desert Setting. Improve your health and well being while staying in your own private pyramid and enjoying a raw food diet. Wonder Raw offers an innovative approach to losing weight, feeling better, and rejuvenating the mind, body and spirit. We want to empower our guests with the knowledge that allows them to make healthy and informed life choices going forward. "Start Fresh to feel better "is our motto.

Wonder Valley, Calif. (PRWEB) February 25, 2008 -- Forty-five minutes from Palm Springs, and just next door to Joshua Tree National Park, is a unique relaxation retreat that rejuvenates mind, body and spirit through raw and living foods. Wonder Raw Retreat, opening March 1, 2008, features a variety of detoxifying and weight loss programs that will help clients lose weight, detoxify their digestive systems, and reinvigorate their spirits.

Nothing can be healthier than fresh, organic, raw foods. Wonder Raw Retreat transforms these foods into gourmet fare while providing a spa experience in an unforgettable setting. "Years of compromising dietary choices and too much stress often inflict chaos on the digestive and immune systems," states manager, Lucie Jourdan. "Our organic raw food menu cleanses the system and restores enzymes, vitamins and minerals essential for mental and physical health."

Raw food is vibrant with life-giving enzymes and packed with vitamins and minerals that cooking often destroys. Raw food enthusiasts credit their diet with imparting physical vigor, mental clarity, and exceptional health. By following natural hygiene laws through a raw food diet, the body is given the chance it needs to detoxify and heal from years of the standard American diet.

"Mankind originated on the raw food diet," said owner Philip Ittleson. "Nothing can be healthier than fresh, organic, raw foods. Wonder Raw Retreat transforms these foods into gourmet fare while providing a spa experience in an unforgettable setting."

New twists on traditional spa favorites complete the package at Wonder Raw Retreat. Guests stay in luxurious private pyramid-style room and enjoy Pilates, yoga, aerobics, tai chi and hiking through the pristine California desert.    Meditation, balancing labyrinth walks, breathing technique classes and more teach participants to manage stress and connect with their spiritual centers.    Guests can also indulge in pampering treatments such as massage, infrared sauna, and facials.

One of the favorite detoxifying programs available at Wonder Raw Retreat is a unique weight loss and detoxifying program built on raw-harvested Amazon chocolate. The Amazon chocolate used at Wonder Raw Retreat contains no sugar, dairy, caffeine or preservatives. It contains virtually ever vitamin the body needs, as well as an astounding amount of minerals, trace elements and antioxidants. Chocolate in its raw, natural state is an excellent food for detoxification and a delicious way to eat for health!

Wonder Raw Retreat opens March 1, 2008. Weekend rates start at $1,000.00 per person, double occupancy, with all meals and four-90 minute exercise sessions included. A full week at the Wonder Raw Retreat is $2,500.00 per person, double occupancy.    Call 760-361-3109 or email info @ wonderraw.com for reservation availability or visit http://www.prweb.com/pingpr.php/SG9yci1Mb3ZlLUZhbHUtUHJvZi1aZXRhLVplcm8=

BB, Ani 

Tried to link you to an incredible article, but...so...

Please go to www.swansonvitamins.com and investigate, very thoroughly, Epicor, the new organic-food based superfood/supplement.

BB, Ani 

Thanks Anne for all the wonderful and helpful information!

I found it to be super interesting. And although I am not vegetarian I am on a weekly basis trying to incorporate healthier eating routines in my life. Chia is definitely something I will be looking into!

Mike Donkers is an English teacher from the Netherlands who started taking care of his own health in October 2006 because doctors couldn't help him. His interest in the connection between food and health has led to more in-depth research, particularly in the role sea minerals can have in the regeneration of cells. He is also a self-taught guitarist and singer. He is the songwriter and frontman of his own band, The Mellotones (www.nubluz.com).

bb, ani 

Ormus - Spiritual and Medicinal Gold With Incredible Healing Potential

by Mike Donkers (see all articles by this author)


(NaturalNews) Ormus, also known as ORMEs, m-state elements, white powder gold, or the Philosopher's Stone, was discovered in 1975 by an Arizona farmer named David Hudson. He discovered some material in his soil that he had never seen before. He laid it out to dry in the hot Arizona sun so he could have it analyzed. What happened next was absolutely remarkable: the stuff exploded in a big flash of light and disappeared! But when he dried it without the use of sunlight it didn't disappear.

Hudson was a very successful farmer and businessman so he could afford to have an expensive assay of the material done by a professor at New York's Cornell University. The stuff turned out to contain gold, silver, iron and aluminum, among other things. However, the gold and silver did not dissolve in fluid, as is usually the case. The iron and aluminum also did not dissolve in various acids and in their isolated form, they formed a strange black matter.

One by one the elements were isolated. Until the standard tests revealed there should be nothing left. But there was something left - a lot of it, in fact. The scientist told Hudson there was nothing, although after removal of the individual elements a staggering 98% of the material was still left! Hudson had spent a lot of money on the analyses and left the university completely disappointed in academic science.

Dissatisfied but determined, Hudson sought out a German expert who, together with him, was willing to analyze the stuff further and build special machinery to do this. The assays showed that it contained various precious elements such as platinum and variants thereof, like rhodium, iridium, ruthenium and osmium.

The tests also showed that this material reacted differently to various heat and cold treatments. The time period to which they exposed the stuff to hot or cold temperatures also produced different results. The turning point was at 70 seconds heat treatment. When Hudson stopped the process at 69 seconds the powder contained no precious elements, yet at 70 seconds or over it did.

Hudson then went to a specialist at the University of Iowa. They conducted several experiments and once again produced the most amazing results. The material expressions of the stuff magically changed depending on the degree of warming or cooling they subjected it to. Among these forms were a white powder but also glass. Elements such as iron spontaneously disappeared or morphed into other elements. The material also changed weight, particularly when exposed to air.

Hudson was advised to patent these elements to prevent others from using his findings and keep him from experimenting further. In March of 1988 Hudson patented these elements which he called Orbitally Rearranged Monoatomic Elements, or ORMEs. This has become known as Ormus and stands for what are twelve known elements which exist both in a material and an immaterial, energetic form.

Hudson found this out by getting in touch with one of the American pioneers of quantum physics, Hal Puthoff. Puthoff explained to him the strange phenomena associated with Ormus. Ormus elements are capable of losing their material form under the influence of warmth and sunlight, making them no longer subject to the laws of gravity and even capable of dissolving into sunlight. This is what Hudson had witnessed when he dried the material in the hot sun. The Ormus had literally become one with the light and transferred to another dimension in which there is no space-time. By cooling it down, he learned to bring back the stuff to the exact place where he had laid it to dry, back to the material world of space-time in which we live.

Ormus is a superconductor. These elements resonate with the primal energy, the zero point from which all life originates and which is a quantum potential of possibilities. Ormus is one with this endless source of energy, which can be found in the air, the soil, plants, stones and the sea. Hudson even showed by dissecting animal brains that they too contained Ormus. According to Hudson our brains contain at least 5% Ormus. This percentage can be raised considerably if we take in food and water with a high Ormus content.

It is exactly these foods that are so sadly lacking today. Hudson refers to Ormus as 'the light of life' and 'the Spirit'. He claims it not only makes us more spiritual but that it's capable of correcting DNA too. Now think of the experiments the alchemists carried out in which they tried to change metals into gold and made a white powder out of gold. The church persecuted, tortured and killed these people. What did they know that we're not supposed to know? The ancient Egyptians also knew. Gold has always been the true money and has remained so to this day. But the true value of gold may well be medicinal and spiritual instead of material.

There are, unfortunately, dark and powerful forces at work which are trying to keep us from realizing our true potential, our true evolution to a higher consciousness. They are spreading death energy across the planet. They do so by controlling our food and money supply. They are the inventors of NPK agriculture, which is based on growing crops with a bare minimum of three elements: nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K). This technique came out of the successes they had had in World War One with n

It is my firm belief, after almost 10 years 75% raw, that one MUST BE EDUCATED thoroughly in this lifestyle.  Just doing it can really do it to you. 

Blissed be, Ani 

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For the last few weeks Sedef Olcer has lived on the cover of a free magazine called YOGAChicago.  If you've been in a Whole Foods or one of the many shops that circulate the magazine, you may have seen the photo: a slender woman balancing on her hands, one foot hooked behind an upper arm. She's smiling.

The story inside is even more compelling. It's about a woman who led an unusual life and recently experienced a startling death, from a smoothie that turned out to be poison.

Sedef Olcer was 46, though with her tousled blond hair and radiant skin, she looked younger. She had started yoga in her early 40s as the remedy for a divorce.

"The divorce broke her down emotionally," recalls her friend Marina Scoles. "Because of that, she'd go to yoga in the morning, go to work, then go to yoga in the evening. Through yoga she rebuilt herself."  Olcer advanced quickly in her yoga practice. It helped that she had been a gymnast when she was young, though few people knew that fact until her memorial service.

You could know Sedef a long time, say people who did, and not know all the things she'd done. That she had studied economics at Northwestern. That she'd grown up an only child in Turkey and London. That she spoke Turkish, French, German and English. That the translation agency where she worked -- Global Languages & Cultures Inc. -- was, in fact, the business she founded.

"She didn't always reveal herself," says her friend Veronica Munoz. "It wasn't that she was hiding. She wanted to move forward and not live in the past." Olcer's friends recall her as modest, generous, determined, zealous, smart.

She sought out the best yoga teachers and peppered them with questions. She trained as a yoga teacher herself and gave earnings from her classes to a charity for women. Her teaching ranged from the West Side's Garfield Park Conservatory to the five-star Peninsula Hotel spa downtown.

"One time I asked her how she got into the Peninsula," Scoles says. "She said, 'I called and called and called until I got it.'"

As her yoga practice intensified, Olcer changed her diet. She gave up fish, alcohol, dairy. Eventually she became a raw foods purist, convinced that the fire of cooking killed the life in food. She especially liked smoothies made from plants she picked.

Foraging is hard in the city, but Olcer managed. She picked kale and Swiss chard in the Garfield Park Conservatory garden. At City Farm, a small organic farm on the Near North Side, she bypassed the vegetable stand and picked her own. "When you ingest a fresh plant without any invasive or intermediary procedures," she said in a radio interview, "you imbue your entire being with the power of sun."

Raw food still strikes many people as strange but it's no longer truly fringe. Whole Foods offers classes in its preparation. Chicago superchef Charlie Trotter serves raw food in his restaurant and called his new book "Raw."

Olcer learned how to prepare raw food at Cousin's restaurant in Chicago, tutored by the Turkish chef Mehmet Ak. On a trip to India, she brought greens that she spent days dehydrating in her downtown Chicago apartment.  "Every morning amidst the disbelieving glances of my chapatti-chewing fellow travelers," she wrote in an online newsletter, "I mixed two-three table spoonfuls of this powerful mixture with bottled water and a banana and enjoyed it for breakfast."

Some people who knew Olcer, including fellow yoga practitioners, felt that her cleansing programs and smoothie regimen had become extreme. Others saw her as extremely passionate.

"She was really searching for something," says Jim Bennitt, a Chicago yoga teacher. "When she got her mind fixed on something she thought was the right thing, she really stuck with it. The harder things were, the more she was attracted to them."

In November, Olcer went to the Himalayan Institute in Pennsylvania for her ninth and last teacher training with the prominent yoga teacher Rod Stryker. In the surrounding forest, she found a diversity of wild edibles unseen in Chicago.

On a Wednesday she picked what she thought was mullein, an herb used for sore throats and coughs. She came back to her room and made a smoothie. She drank part of it that night and the rest the next morning.  But in autumn, when plants don't flower, it can be hard even for a cautious and educated forager to tell the safe from the dangerous. During the Thursday morning yoga class, Olcer felt sick. By evening, she was in the emergency room.

What she had picked, apparently, was foxglove, also known as digitalis. Even a small dose can be lethal. By that Friday morning, she was gone. A while back, Olcer told her friend and yoga mentor Patricia Hyland how good she had been feeling. "Like a 10-year-old," she'd said.

Now Hyland and many others are sad and baffled that a woman so committed to health died in its pursuit. "She was not careless," Hyland said, "even though we could call it careless. She just made a mistake, this tragic, tragic mistake."

Every now and then, somewhere around town, Hyland glimpses Sedef on that YOGAChicago cover. She takes comfort in seeing her friend and in knowing others can still see her too.

Copyright © 2008,