Mung Bean Monologues, by Pat Delair

As this is the inaugural column of Mung Bean Monologues, I thought it might be a good idea to do a little introduction and lay a foundation before delving into an actual monologue. My background is corporate finance: accounting degree, MBA, lots of lovely numbers and analysis. But now I find myself plunged into an area that in school bored the daylights out of me: science. A cancer diagnosis forced my hand in this matter, but when you’re life is on the line science becomes extremely interesting and vitally important. As I pored over books, papers, and research on how to stop, reverse, eradicate, or otherwise learn to live with cancer, I started to realize that this involves not only medical science and pharmacology, but also complementary nutrition, food, soil, organics, water, alternative therapies, the sun, algae, herbs, food processing, and agriculture, to name just a few tangential subjects.

I also found that my political, advocacy, and educational leanings could be used in our community as I dove more deeply into diverse issues surrounding cancer specifically and wellness in general. As one topic led to another I knew that people needed to be educated, well informed, encouraged, and supported if they were ever going to become empowered enough to take back responsibility for their health.

I opened Conscious Integration in March 2009 as a way to share the elements of a Living Foods Lifestyle and the Hippocrates Health Institute’s Life Change Program with those interested in reclaiming control of their lives. I started a chapter of EarthSave (an international non-profit started by John Robbins the author of A Diet for a New America) in May 2009 as a way to share my social, environmental, and political concerns and issues about how our food choices impact our health and the health of the planet. It is a vehicle for like-minded folks in our community to come together monthly, share a vegetarian / vegan / raw dinner and watch a movie or listen to a speaker or experience a demo.

Why Mung Bean Monologues? Well sprouts have become a major source of not only my macronutrients, fat, carbohydrate, and protein, but also most micronutrients, vitamins and minerals. I get all this nutritional wonder in a beautiful, inexpensive, living food that I can cultivate in my kitchen. Nothing artificial added and nothing essential removed as occurs in most of our foods via the corporate food processing model. Raw, sprouted mung beans have become a staple in my diet along with lentils, adzuki beans, quinoa, millet, kamut, sunflower seeds, alfalfa, clover, broccoli, and chickpeas. I am feeding my body so much nutrition that my food cravings have disappeared. What’s left of my food issues are a few not so great habits, such as eating after 8pm, but I am slowly working on these. But, more importantly, a Cheez-it has not crossed my lips in well over a year.

Over the next few months as this column unfolds, I will be sharing with you what may seem on the surface to be extremely diverse topics but which ultimately merge and lead back to the same thing: wellness, or lack thereof. My hope is that, with the no-holds barred information I will provide, this column may assist you in challenging and surviving the allopathic/USDA Nutrition/pharmaceutical/big ag/factory farming paradigms that are rampant in our society. Perhaps like butterflies, you will break free of your processed and fast food cocoons; cocoons that have left you so dull, tired, and unwell that you can’t even fight for your right to be healthy, strong, and vital, with a clear mind, aging slowly, energetically and beautifully.

In Good Health and Gratitude,
Pat Delair
Hippocrates Health Educator
Conscious Integration
411 Chestnut Street
Wilmington, NC 28401 910-200-6884
www.delair1@bellsouth.net
www.consciousintegration.net

EarthSave SENC
Chapter Chair
www.senc@earthsave.org