Yesterday, Allyson the Assistant and I laughed our butts off as we poured through the 70-plus #JERFing contest pics submitted by real foodies from around the world.
There were so many awesome, creative pics to choose from. Narrowing them down to a Top Ten was NOT easy.
But it sure was fun.
Actually, due to a few last minute entries we ended up with a Top Twelve.
Before I announce the finalists, I want to thank everyone who took the time to represent your JERF. Your enthusiasm has been amazing! Loved seeing all of the kids getting involved. Very inspiring.
If you didn’t make the cut, we’ll be running a similar contest in a couple of months, as we approach the launch of The Sexy Back Summit.
Hint: JERFing is sexy! (No kids, please.)
Without further ado, announcing the JERF12….
How We JERF – Baris Harvey
JERF n’ Juice – Maritza Christina
UW: I’m JERFin’ It – Melanie Couture
JERF in the Box – Eric Couture
Udderly Delicious – Emily Brooks
The Human JERF – Tanya Carroll
JERFing in the Gym – David Wu
My Kids Know Where Their Breakfast Comes From – Matt Boyd
Got JERF? – Julia Ochs
Here Chicken, Chicken, Chicken… – Lora Marr Schoenemann
JERFanatic – Shawn Jorgenson
Walk the Walk – Bobby Ray Medina
Congratulations to each of you!
Now it’s time to vote…
All 12 pics have been posted to The Underground Wellness Show Facebook page. You may cast your vote by clicking the “like” button on your favorite photos.
The 3 pics with the most “likes” will win these pretty rad prizes:
1st place – MacBook Air
2nd place – iPad Mini
3rd place – UW Schwag Pack
Voting ends Sunday night at 11:59 pm Pacific Daylight Time. Winners will be announced Monday morning.
Head on over to the UW Facebook page to cast your vote.
A few weeks ago I asked for your help in qualifying for some pretty awesome prizes, as part of Marie Forleo’s affiliate competition.
The plan was to win one of the prizes — a MacBook Air, iPad, or a $300 Apple gift card — and then run a contest of our own to give the prize away to one of you.
Unfortunately, we didn’t win.
But to show my appreciation for your incredible support, I decided to run the contest anyway!
Here’s the scoop…
Have you ever heard of Tebowing?
You know, those hilarious pics everyone and their Mama was posting online last year in full Tim Tebow prayer formation.
Maybe this will refresh your memory.
Or, how about the more recent trend of Teoing — posing with your girlfriend who doesn’t really exist.
Well, I think we should start a photo trend of our own…JERFing.
Here’s how it’s gonna work…
First off, if you don’t know what JERF stands how — how dare you, by the way — it stands for Just Eat Real Food.
From NOW until next Thursday, March 14th at 11:59 PST, I want YOU to represent your JERF to the very best of your ability. Snap a pic of it. And then post it to Facebook, Twitter, and/or Instagram.
On the morning of Friday, March 15th, Allyson the Assistant and I will pick our Top 10 JERFing pics and post them to the Underground Wellness Facebook wall for our fans to vote on using the “like” button.
Voting will end Sunday, March 17th at 11:59pm PST.
Again, “likes” equal votes.
The winners will be announced and posted here on Monday, March 18th.
Here’s What You’ll Win!
1st place – MacBook Air
2nd place – iPad Mini
3rd place – UW Schwag Package (DSFL, Paleo Summit, & Real Food Summit)
Twitter: Tweet to @ugwellness and use the hashtag #JERFing
Instagram: Tag @seancroxton and use the hashtags #JERFing and #JERF
Get Creative with Your JERF!
Have FUN with this. Get silly.
I want to see someone drinking raw milk from the teat of a grass-fed cow!!!
So, let’s review…
1. Contest begins NOW.
2. Post your #JERFing pic(s) to your social media feed with the proper tags
3. Contest ends Thursday, March 14th at 11:59pm PST
4. On Friday the 15th, our top 10 pics will be posted to the UW Facebook wall
5. Our FB followers will cast their votes using the “like” button
6. Voting ends Sunday the 17th at 11:59pm PST.
7. Winners announced the following day.
Last weekend, while watching my beloved Oregon Ducks take a loss, I somehow found my buddies and I in a debate regarding the role of meat in heart disease and cancer.
In their opinion, meat is something that should seldom be consumed. The saturated fat will kill you. Studies show that it causes cancer. It’s hard on “the system” to digest.
Blah. Blah. Blah.
But hey, I used to believe a lot of the same stuff. I can completely understand where they were coming from. I’ve been there.
I told them about the difference between grass-fed and grain-fed meats.
I explained how the CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) in grass-fed meat actually fights cancer.
I pretty much performed a YouTube bit on the lack of evidence demonstrating that saturated fat causes heart disease.
In one ear. Out the other.
You know how it goes. Friends and family rarely change their minds about anything if YOU are the one relaying the information. But if a complete stranger tells them the same thing, they’ll believe every word of it.
Weird how that works, huh?
In hindsight, I should have probably just kept my mouth shut and sent them John Wood’s presentation from this year’s Real Food Summit (RFS).
As the founder of UW Wellness Meats, John is well-versed on how a properly-fed
animal is superior in nutritional value and has been scientifically proven to fight modern diseases like heart disease and cancer.
If your friends give you a hard time about eating real meats, this presentation is perfect for you to share with them. John and I cover…
* Exactly how grass-fed meat prevents cancer
* What the pH of a cow’s stomachs have to do with nutritional value
* How consumption of grass-fed meat slows the aging process
* The difference between grass-fed and grass-finished
* The connection between climate change and a lack of grasslands
This was certainly one of my favorite RFS presentations. It’s short, to the point, and packed with knowledge.
Although the Real Food Summit is available for sale, I have embedded John’s video presentation below. I’ll leave it posted for FREE viewing for a week or so.
HINT: If you’re interested in order the summit today, DON’T DO IT! Our annual Cyber Monday sale is a week away.
You can also listen to the audio version below. Since there’s no UW Radio show tonight, I uploaded this presentation to Blogtalk Radio.
The next time you find yourself in a Great Meat Debate, don’t waste your breath. Just send your friends or family the link to this blog. The likelihood of them changing their minds will shoot up like the cancer-fighting CLA content in a grass-fed cow!
We finally got back to our roots, making some killer online video on YouTube.
We broadcasted TWO episodes of UW Radio with guests Drew Canole and JJ Virgin.
We gave away almost 2000 free copies of JJ’s new book The Virgin Diet.
Over 1800 Just Eat Real Foodies joined the new JERFing community of Facebook.
And I celebrated my 35th birthday with an easy Chocolate Coconut Cookie recipe. It doesn’t get much better than that.
So to close out this week of UW awesomeness, I’ll leave you with a video I shot with juicing expert Drew Canole.
In my 4 years of hosting UW Radio, I had never received so many email/Facebook questions for a single guest — there were actually too many to ask Drew on the air! So I asked him to stop by the studio for a Q&A session to answer some of the questions we didn’t get to on the show.
Drew’s appearance on UW Radio was the second most listened to show ever — second only to the episode with Paul Chek and Joel Salatin.
We covered topics like blending versus juicing, potential problems with plant toxins, how juicing improves digestion, and the best juicers YOU can use at home.
Drew even went Oprah on us, giving away a juicer to one of our callers!
Click the player below to listen to the ENTIRE SHOW.
I’ll be sure to have Drew back on the show really soon. I plan on filming a set of vegetable juicing videos in the next couple weeks. You’re gonna dig ‘em.
If you’re looking for some juicing recipes to make yourself, check out Drew’s Juice Up Your Life system.
On this day thirty-five years ago my Mom gave birth to a little nerdy kid who rarely spoke and liked to read a lot.
I still like to read, but these days I can’t seem to stop running my big mouth!
So today we celebrate my 35th birthday with a super awesome (and healthy) chocolate coconut cookie recipe, courtesy of Diane Sanfilippo’s bestselling book Practical Paleo.
Here’s what you need…
* Organic cocoa
* Maple syrup (grade B)
* Coconut flakes
* Vanilla extract
* Butter
* 2 Eggs
* Baking soda
* Baking sheet
* Parchment paper
I’ll be honest, I ate 8 of them yesterday. Whoops! My bad.
Check out the video below and follow along as Allyson the Assistant whips up a batch. Enjoy!!
Over the years, I have gotten my fair share of email from readers, viewers, and listeners wondering what they can do if high-quality (grass-fed, free-range, wild) protein sources aren’t quite in the budget.
Well, here’s a pretty cool option — you can drink more bone broth!
It’s cheap. It heals the gut, thus improving nutrient absorption. And apparently, when consumed in sufficient quantities, it reduces our protein needs. In other words, we can get away with consuming less protein.
Sarah Pope covered this topic pretty thoroughly in her Real Food Summit presentation, which I have posted for FREE viewing as part of yesterday’s blog.
Check out the video clip below in which Chef Lance Roll and I discuss this fascinating benefit of that magical elixir we call bone broth.
Last Saturday, I had the privilege of presenting at the Black Male Empowerment Summit at Georgia Southern University (GSU). In the hours leading up to the first of my two talks, I wondered if these young men (and a few women) would even be interested in listening to me babble about holistic health and wellness for an hour. Turns out they were.
They raised their hands and asked great questions.
They shared their own experiences.
They expressed their frustrations with the limited access to healthy food.
These young people really cared.
Despite their interest in the topic, I wondered if I had really made an impact — would any of my attendees actually put the information to use?
Then this week, while I read Will Allen’s book The Good Food Revolution for the second time, I came across a passage regarding a recent study of one hundred sixth-graders who had participated in a hands-on, garden-based nutrition education program. Allen writes,
“(These students were compared) with two other groups: students who were taught nutrition lessons in a classroom and those who were given no nutrition education at all. The researchers found no significant difference a year later in the vegetable and fruit consumption of children without nutrition education and those who received nutrition classes. The students who received hands-on training in a garden, however, increased their fruit and vegetable intake by more than two servings a day.” (Allen, 160-161)
No, I don’t typically work with sixth-graders (then again, maybe I should), but I can’t help but wonder…
Does the power of the real food message reside in the information alone, or is the most powerful impact sparked by a real life physical connection with the soil and where our food comes from?
Is spending a day on a farm infinitely times more transformative than reading a book or a blog?
Will Allen seems to think so, and I tend to agree with him. The urban agriculturalist writes, “My own experience tells me that if we can expose young people to more fresh, delicious food — and create positive emotions around those experiences — that we can increase the chances that they will adopt more fresh food into their diet as they begin to make independent food choices later in life.”
But this begs another question…
In the Black community — or any other neighborhood where healthful food is scarce — where does one go to come into contact with these fresh, delicious foods, and to experience these positive emotions?
In these communities, food is seldom associated with soil but with drive-thru windows and cellophane packaging. Instead of food being the source of positive emotions (and thus healthful choices), food companies link their health-less products to the consumer’s positive emotions for Kobe Bryant or LeBron James. It’s actually quite brilliant.
What is even more brilliant is what Will Allen is doing to bring agriculture back to the inner city. Each year, Will and his Growing Power team — located in Milwaukee, WI — produce 40 tons of vegetables and raise 100,000 fish on just three acres of land, and in an urban area where soil quality is typically poor due to the lack of animal life and organic matter.
Even more amazing than the immensity of Mr. Allen’s food production is the effect his organization has had on the surrounding community, where disinvestment has led to an exodus of supermarkets and an influx of fast food joints and corner stores.
Growing Power is a place where visitors can literally reconnect with their roots. People of all races can dig their hands deep into the soil and feel where real food comes from. African-American men, women, boys, and girls can recapture the generational wisdom of growing and cooking their own food. The shameful emotions of slavery and sharecropping are replaced by a brand new enthusiasm for self-sufficiency and community.
I can’t stop wondering…
What if those students attending my presentation knew how to use earthworms to turn waste — discarded vegetables and fruits, meat scraps, coffee grounds, and paper products — into the most incomparable fertilizer?
What if they knew how to create an inexpensive system for growing fish while at the same time raising plants by using their roots to clear toxic nitrogen from the water before returning it to the fish via gravity?
What if they had spent just a few days of their youths preparing affordable fruit and vegetable baskets for impoverished families?
What if they had, just once, risen at 4am to harvest organic asparagus, collards, spinach, and carrots, and taken them to market the following day to earn income through nourishing the bodies of their neighbors?
If they had had these exposures and experienced the accompanying emotions…
Would they still consume junk food, order meals through a talking menu board, or give two sh*ts about what LeBron and Kobe have to say about anything other than basketball?
Would they need me to fly across the country to tell them what real food is?
Probably not.
At the conclusion of each of my sessions, I challenged the students to be the ones who change the health of future generations of African-Americans. Empowering health habits are just as easy to pass down generationally as poor ones. Be the change.
The world needs more Will Allens. He exemplifies the change more than anyone I have ever come across. His story has inspired the heck out of me. I suggest you read The Good Food Revolution. At the very least, watch the video below to learn more.
Join us for a LIVE question-and-answer session with our Day 5 SexyBack Summit presenters, including:
* Dr. Daniel Kalish - Get in the Mood, Stay in the Mood
* Dr. Jen Landa - Rewire Your Desire
* Dave Asprey - Bulletproof Sex: Upgrade Your Orgasm
* Dr. Anna Cabeca - Rejuvenate Your Vagina!
Register to attend this FREE weeklong online event at www.sexybacksummit.com.
by Sean Croxton
by Sean Croxton
by Sean Croxton
by Sean Croxton
