Actress and health advocate Mariel Hemingway has made a name for herself that serves as a stark contrast to the legacy of her famous grandfather, writer Ernest Hemingway. Her exploration of health and well-being, Yoga, food and cooking have been public ones through her willingness to speak and through her bestselling books which include Finding My Balance: A Memoir and Mariel Hemingway’s Healthy Living from the Inside Out: Every Woman’s Guide to Real Beauty, Renewed Energy, and a Radiant Life. She has a cookbook and a company both called Mariel’s Kitchen, dedicated to sharing her passion for healthy and happy living.
Hemingway and nutritional expert, raw food movement pioneer and world-class adventure-athlete Robert (Bobby) Williams are currently working on a book, Project 99% Space, centered on how we can find vibrant health through connecting with nature. The two are speaking at the upcoming Health Freedom Expo in Long Beach and LA YOGA had the opportunity to preview their inspirational talk and ideas.
Felicia M. Tomasko: You both speak about the ways we can bring healthy practices into our lives. What do you do each day that is critical to your own health and well-being?
Mariel Hemingway
Mariel Hemingway: One of the things we both do is to go out in the morning and connect with nature in a deep way. That’s the most powerful and palpable thing we do that changes both of our lives. We listen and smell and feel the Earth and take our shoes off. People need that kind of connection more and more just because of the lifestyle we live.
Bobby Williams: We both believe that it’s important every day in some way, whether you catch a sunrise or sunset or take your shoes off at lunch and stand in the grass somewhere. It’s tough for people who have sixty- or eighty-hour work weeks, but they can stop, eat lunch and get outside. Before they leave the house, they can take ten minutes and go outside. If you’re in Manhattan, you can go down by the water, even just for a few minutes.
FMT: What if somebody does live in the middle of a city?
MH: We both spend a great deal of time in New York City and the fact of the matter is that there is an amazing park in New York. Being in the middle of any city, there’s always a park. There are ways to get outside, even when it’s cold, and find silence, so turning technology off is key at this time. Even if you’re not climbing the mountains of the Sierras, you can find that outdoor connection anywhere you are. When I’ve been on location for films, I make sure I have some connection to nature somehow, someway. It doesn’t take long to feel a sense of peace and self by just walking around the block.
BW: It’s a place to return to, to be still. National parks and the outdoors save us. We preserve them and they save us to be the best we can be as human beings. You get in there and you reconnect with yourself.
FMT: You are both invested in a farm. How can people connect to nature and themselves through the food they eat?
MH: We invested in this farm not because we think that everybody is going to go out and invest in a farm. We wanted to create a model. Communities need to find out where their local small farm is located and know where their food is coming from. When you start to understand where your food comes from, the field to the table becomes a shorter distance. Not only do you lessen the carbon footprint of the food, but you begin to feel an energetic connection with the food.
BW: I like to look at the facts and figures. A cage-free egg often comes from a hen who was twenty-three hours in the cage, one hour out. You look at the carton and you see these hens running around cage-free, range-free. Cage-free, range-free is a scam. We just saved 2,000 chickens who were cage-free: they had no feathers, their red tops were fallen over. We put them in our farm with the other chickens for two months and their feathers grew back completely. They produced more eggs naturally and their red tops were standing up.
Our eggs sit on the counters for up to six weeks and don’t go bad. There is a natural covering on the egg that doesn’t allow outside bacteria in and keeps the healthy, good bacteria inside the egg. As soon as you refrigerate it, that breaks down and the egg is actually open to air. Your eggs are not supposed to be refrigerated; cage-free fertile range-free eggs last on the counter for up to six weeks in moderate temperatures.
FMT: There are a lot of facts that people don’t know about their food. Some of us at LA YOGA recently watched Food, Inc and it was eye-opening to see how much our food supply has changed over the past few decades and how those changes aren’t widely known. We think of farms as places where animals run around free.
BW: No they are not and there is also the presence of genetically modified organisms (GMOs). This contributes to why bees are not going back to the hives; they collect pollen from genetically modified organisms from these farms and their radar is off. They are not living the way they used to.
MH: People don’t realize, but bees are abused to get honey. They are being destroyed by GMOs, but also they are not treated well.
BW: For example, bees are starved in the winter. If this continues, well, after the bees are gone, it would take four years for all life to stop existing on the planet.
In seventeen states, in so many different counties and parts of the state, the bees have gone missing. And the government is saying, “Oh maybe it is cell phones or technology,” but they won’t look at the real problem.
FMT: Would you say that the real problem is how farming practices including beekeeping practices are actually being implemented?
BW: I talk about the three sisters: Viagra, Cialis and Levitra. You think those products were made because we are healthy? Our sperm counts are 70% less than they were in 1929 – what do you attribute that to? Of course you need to take these drugs because things don’t work properly. Men are not men anymore, they are changing. It’s from plastics, airborne plastics, all the pesticides and 75,000 chemicals in the food. When we’re drinking out of plastic bottles, the water leaches the petroleum when the plastic heats up and we’re taking in estrogen. We heard a statistic from a doctor the other day who said that there is half of a birth control pill in a glass of Los Angeles tap water.
My climbing partner who currently lives in Utah is having issues with his nine-month-old baby. He has seen me eat raw food for the past twenty years (I’m not a raw food vegan, I eat raw meat and eggs and honey and milk) and he’s eaten a lot of that with me. His wife just had a baby and she didn’t breastfeed because she’s taking a lot of pharmaceuticals. The nine-month-old weighs sixteen
pounds; he’s on powered soy formula and takes a prescribed acid-reflux medication to keep it down. I sent them information from the Weston Price Foundation which talks about how soy produces estrogen in children. So he’s trying to bring raw goat milk to the house and supplement that with Folic Acid. Mariel had the same experience with her daughter when she had a baby.
MH: When I was pregnant, I wasn’t vegan or vegetarian. But after I gave birth I went back to a vegan diet and was eating a lot of soy. When my daughter was six months old she only weighed nine pounds. She was allergic to soy and she wasn’t gaining any weight nursing because of what I was ingesting. So I weaned her and put her on raw goat’s milk supplemented with Folic Acid and other nutrients and she doubled her weight within a week. Soy formula – look at the ingredients – is there anything on there that you can understand or pronounce? Literally, is it part of your vocabulary? It’s all chemicals; it’s not real food. People don’t know these things.
FMT: There is a great deal of conflicting information. How do you recommend people sort through that to find out what’s right for them?
MH: This why we are writing the book Project 99% Space and it’s the biggest reason we invested in the farm. We want to educate people. We want to create a nonprofit so that kids from inner cities and kids who don’t know about their food can visit the farm.
BW: People don’t realize that there is so much significance and importance of where the animals come from and how they are treated.
MH: There’s a lot to be said for why people become vegan, because animals are abused. We understand that, but there are a lot of reasons to support local and small farms. Farming became this big business, but when it’s a small farm and animals are cared for, it’s part of the natural chain of life. Our point is to model it, show people it exists and to look for it and look into local farmers’ markets.
BW: We both agree that we have wonderful emergency medical care in this country. But we have no preventative medicine; doctors have no understanding of how food impacts the body. My dad came to me and said, “My eczema has gotten so bad, I get athlete’s foot, I have dandruff,” and I said, “Dad, you have Candida. You’re eating too much sugar, you have an overabundance of yeast and it gets out through the biggest organ, your skin. Cut sugar, processed breads and white rice out of your diet, cut back on your carbohydrates intake and see if you can find a local dairy.” He found a local farm in Jacksonville, Florida, and he found raw milk. So he’s eating raw butter, raw milk, getting their eggs from the property. After one month my mother called and said, “Your father’s skin hasn’t looked this good in twenty years.”
We have a hundred different products for skin eruptions like eczema and my dad used every product there was. Then he cleared it up completely with his diet. My mom and dad mentioned that they were doing this and their friends think they are crazy. All their friends have impacted colons, prostate problems and cancer, and my parents are pretty much disease-free; they just take care of themselves and eat well.
Mariel and I both agree that we could live longer, happier and healthier lives. Mariel and I are both going to be fifty, but we both look like we are thirty, and we feel like everybody can live this way. We continue this journey of being healthier and happier and finding the best ways to support people and inspire them to do the same.
A lot of people say organics cost too much money. But we say that in the last year of your life you’ll spend all your money on doctors trying to save yourself from all the bad foods that you’ve eaten.
We think that every county and every town in the United States could have a small local farm. We belong to a co-op called Rawsome in Venice Beach and people buy a membership for $25 a year and sign a waiver that says I have a right to healthy food. It’s a local place where people bring different recipes like wonderful hibiscus teas that are just made with hibiscus flowers, water and raw honey. They make almond milks and get raw dairy.
FMT: For somebody just starting out where is a good place to begin?
BW: Just go to Whole Foods, and get raw honey and start juicing: simple things like celery, parsley and/or spinach juice that you make at home.
MH: I say to people, “If you want to change your life, change your breakfast.” It’s a great place to start. Start with raw, good, clean food at breakfast. Inevitably, it will inform what you do for lunch because you feel so much better, you have a clearer head. And maybe you go to a local farmers’ market and you’ll find biodynamic foods.
BW: Biodynamic foods are another level beyond organic. They’ve done studies with rats and put them on conventional food and their fertility and sperm cell counts go to nil, and you put them on organic and it goes up fifty percent and you put them on biodynamic and it triples the organic.
Biodynamic is the process of growing food where and when it is supposed to be grown. It is like navigating with the stars. If something is supposed to be seasonally grown in the fall, that’s when you grow it. You don’t force it to grow in the spring, because if you do, it doesn’t grow properly and it weakens the food.
FMT: Mariel, you travel frequently. Have you found that your practices have influenced the people around you when you travel?
BW: Mariel and I take cooler on a plane wherever we go and people always ask us questions and we always share our food.
MH: I’ve always traveled with food but it doesn’t mean I don’t go to restaurants. I like to make sure I have things I know are nutritious
and nourishing.
FMT: Mariel, you’ve been a practitioner of Yoga for a long time. How does Yoga fit into this lifestyle for you?
MH: I talk a lot about yogic attitude. Yoga has been a huge part of my life and it always will be. But more than just doing postures and asana, it’s about the attitude, the sense of presence that you have when doing Yoga. Yoga taught me how to be present in my body. It taught me how to be mindful.
When I do anything, it could be hiking in the morning and connecting with nature, I may sit down to do some postures, but it’s really about the attitude I take in everything I do. How do I make my tea in the morning? How do I connect with the people around me and the people that I love? Yoga is attitude and breath awareness. I think that Yoga is nothing without breath so living is nothing without deep breath. Yoga is being conscious and aware of how you’re breathing during a day, taking time to observe your breath. People talk about taking Yoga off the mat. That’s what taking Yoga off the mat means. It means making yourself present during your day.
I think people have obsessed over Yoga. I’ve done it myself. I’ve been doing Yoga for twenty-five years and I used to think that I was not a valuable human being unless I did two hours of Ashtanga. Now it’s about connecting with the yogic attitude, the yogic intention,
rather than the asana, even though I love doing asana.
FMT: You can practice Yoga, but are you practicing with a yogic attitude?
Robert Williams
MH: Exactly. And what are you doing it for? I started Yoga as a competition. I was doing it because somebody said I couldn’t. I was doing it to get in shape. I was doing it for all kinds of crazy reasons, being in Hollywood. And then Yoga became something different. When I took Yoga away from the class, even though I think classrooms are incredibly beneficial, when I make it a part of my daily practice, it becomes much more sacred and much more personal. And I practice the things that are actually necessary for my health and well-being.
FMT: What does a yogic attitude mean to you?
MH: It means being present. It means being aware. It means being conscious of your breath and how you show up; how you walk into your life.
FMT: When you speak together at the Health Freedom Expo, what is the core of the message you want to share?
MH: Everything we’ve talked about so far. Connecting in nature is the biggest thing. And connecting to your authentic self: How to be the best you that you can be.
BW: We’ll also take questions and answers; we like to get people involved to make it about community.
FMT: Tell me more about the book you’re working on.
MH: It’s about showing up in life with intention and how you do anything is how you do everything…and laughter and food and sunrises and sunsets.
BW: It will include what the early morning and early evening light do to your endocrine system and how they turn on different parts of your brain. It’s important to catch sunrises and sunsets. Often people think they are watching the sunset because it’s such a pretty thing; but really, it’s changing their endocrine system and helping them feel better. Mariel mentioned laughter. Children laugh over three hundred times a day; adults less than fifteen. That produces serotonin. We love children and puppies because they are so present.
Technology shortchanges people from being present. The original instant message is you and I looking at one another and having a conversation. That needs to happen more. People are so disconnected in Los Angeles, especially, because it’s such a broad city and people drive everywhere by themselves.
FMT: Yet we can look at how, for instance, someone can use Twitter to connect with a lot of people. Do you suggest turning it on and turning it off?
BW: We both agree that we don’t look at it before we go to bed and we don’t look at it when we get up. But we think it’s fantastic to get information out.
MH: You have to use it moderately, like anything else. It’s like overeating chocolate.
FMT: How did you get involved with this particular farm?
MH: I got involved through Bobby, who has been involved with the farm and the co-op.
BW: We wanted to create a model farm, off the grid to show how it can be done. The more people understand where food comes from then the less regulated it is by all the corporate interests who have put the chemicals in our food and mass-produced our food for money. We just put in two wells and we’re setting up the whole place for solar and wind. We’re having all biodynamic and organic fruits and vegetables and the animals will be cared for. It will be a model farm for community.
FMT: This is important as we look at building more local economies and knowing where things come from. This encourages us becoming more community-reliant rather than more corporate-reliant.
BW: The government works for us, but it’s turned around in the last hundred years. We’re the ones who are supposed to be asking questions and doing something and we don’t. We allow the government to run us; meanwhile we’re paying them to help us become better. But it hasn’t been working like that for a long time. Mariel and I wonder how we can be political so we decide to be political by starting with the self. And to be political with groups of people so we can get more control of our own lives.
MH: A way to be political is to be aware of your own personal choices.
BW: We think we’re being extremely political by helping people be more of themselves instead of being told how or what they’re supposed to be. We accept so many things without questioning. Just because one hundred thousand people are doing something a certain way, if that way is not beneficial, it doesn’t mean it’s right just because that many people are doing it. If it seems like you’re following, step back and question.
Nothing is one size fits all. I can’t tell you that you should drink raw milk. You need to find that out for yourself. We want to inspire people to think for themselves since people have gotten so lazy in their questioning. One of the questions I ask people is, “How many of you have asked yourself this question, ‘What am I supposed to be doing on this planet? What do I want to do on the planet?’” We have to go back to the source to figure out what that is. Yoga, food and connecting with nature are tools to help you reconnect to yourselves.
Have a conversation with Mariel Hemingway and Robert Williams at the Health Freedom Expo in Long Beach, March 26 – 28 where an impressive line-up of speakers will be sharing empowering information on creating health and well-being: healthfreedomexpo.com.
By Felicia M. Tomasko, RN
Felicia Tomasko has spent more of her life practicing Yoga and Ayurveda than not. She first became introduced to the teachings through the writings of the Transcendentalists, through meditation, and using asana to cross-train for her practice of cross-country running. Between beginning her commitment to Yoga and Ayurveda and today, she earned degrees in environmental biology and anthropology and nursing, and certifications in the practice and teaching of yoga, yoga therapy, and Ayurveda while working in fields including cognitive neuroscience and plant biochemistry. Her commitment to writing is at least as long as her commitment to yoga. Working on everything related to the written word from newspapers to magazines to websites to books, Felicia has been writing and editing professionally since college. In order to feel like a teenager again, Felicia has pulled out her running shoes for regular interval sessions throughout Southern California. Since the very first issue of LA YOGA, Felicia has been part of the team and the growth and development of the Bliss Network.