How to launch a “4Leaf Potluck Supper Club”

Posted on 07/01/2012 by J. Morris Hicks

Background. In January of 2012, the world’s first 4Leaf Potluck Supper Club party was held at the home of Lisa and Jason Hicks in Holden, MA. It was a smashing success and inspired me to launch a Supper Club group in Stonington, CT. Maybe these guidelines will be helpful as you launch a similar club in your community. The events appeal to a wide range of people, including:

  • Super healthy 4Leaf eaters who enjoy socializing with like-­‐minded people, relish a very healthy meal, and share recipes & ideas with others
  • People who are just interested in improving their diet

Most powerful benefit. In addition to having a great time, eating delicious food and acquiring new recipes—most people are reporting that the informal “support system” aspect of sharing success stories with others is the “main course” at these parties.

In a world where over 95% of the population is eating some variation of the toxic western diet three meals a day, it’s a rare occasion to mix and mingle with 15 or 20 people and swap stories about eliminating medications, losing weight and the plethora of other benefits associated with taking charge of your health.

  Planning Guidelines

  1. The host chooses a date and emails invites to everyone. (Almost 50 people are now on my list)
  2. The host provides the venue—the crackling fire, the sunset view of the harbor, the music, the candles, the flowers, the plates, glasses, ice, mixers, flatware, etc. and prepares the salad.
  3. Dessert. One couple volunteers to bring the dessert for everyone.
  4. All other attendees (single or couple) agree to bring one 4Leaf side dish/tapas. There is no main course. With everyone bringing a dish, we find that we usually have way too much food, as guests load up on one or two small servings of as many as 10 to 15 different dishes.
  5. 4Leaf means mostly whole foods, plant-based; no meat, dairy, seafood or eggs and easy on the oil or salt. (When in doubt, go to 4leafprogram.com)
  6. BYOB. This feature makes it real easy and inexpensive for the host(s).

The party organizer keeps track of the RSVPs and informs everyone of the expected number of people a few days before the event.

Conducting the Party

  1. As the guests arrive, the hostess decides which foods lend themselves to snacking before the main dinner. Some delicious fresh veggie summer rolls (finger food) at one party fit the bill perfectly.
  2. The hostess oversees whatever re-heating needs to happen and assists the guests as they prepare their dish for serving.
  3. After 30 to 45 minutes of socializing and snacking on 4Leaf appetizers, the host brings the group together for a little show and tell.
  4. Each guest explains to the group what they brought to the party and whether or not they brought recipes to share. (Some guests order their dish “to-go” from their favorite restaurant.)
  5. The host advises that there are copies of 4Leaf Surveys that will help the newcomer as they move toward a truly health-promoting, disease-reversing, weight-loss inducing optimal diet.
  6. Let the dining begin and the good times roll.

Cookbooks and recipes were shared with all at the world’s first 4Leaf Potluck Supper Club party.

Helping your spouse. Oftentimes, one-half of a couple has discovered this super-healthy way of eating and wants to help her spouse learn to enjoy it. These Supper Club parties are great for helping that spouse experience the very best of 4Leaf eating. They see a large group of people having fun, eating from an extensive array of delectable culinary creations—and they can go home with the recipes that they particularly liked.

Want to know what happened at the very first 4Leaf party? World’s first 4Leaf Potluck Dinner Party–January 28, 2012 See links below for 4Leaf info that you may want to distribute at your own 4Leaf party.

Want to jump-start your 4Leaf experience? Order the following four items today and learn all about the why and the how for this way of eating. Bon Appetit!

Handy 4-piece take-charge-of-your-health kit—from Amazon.com

Want to find out how healthy your family is eating? Take our free 4Leaf Diagnostic Survey. It takes less than five minutes and you can score it yourself. After taking the survey, please give me your feedback as it will be helpful in the development of our future 4Leaf app for smartphones. Send feedback to jmorrishicks@me.com

International. We’re now reaching people in over 100 countries. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter or get daily blog notices by “following” us in the top of the right-hand column. For occasional updates, join our periodic mailing list.

To order more of my favorite books—visit our online BookStore now

J. Morris Hicks, working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

For help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4Leaf page or some great recipes at Lisa’s 4Leaf Kitchen.

Got a question? Let me hear from you at jmorrishicks@me.com. Or give me a call on my cell at 917-399-9700.

SHARE and rate this post below.

Blogging daily at hpjmh.com…from the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

—J. Morris Hicks, board member, T. Colin Campbell Foundation

Posted in 4Leaf for Life, Recipes & meals, Social Challenges | Tagged , | Leave a comment

From Lisa’s 4Leaf Kitchen—Indian Spice Cauliflower

Posted on 06/30/2012 by J. Morris Hicks

Karen’s Indian Spice Cauliflower Dish

Indian Spice Cauliflower

This recipe is from a good friend of ours, Karen, who brought this to one of our 4Leaf parties. With its many Indian spices, this dish is delicious, not to mention super easy to make!

Ingredients:

  • 3/4 cup onion, diced
  • 4 large cloves of garlic, chopped
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon cardamom*
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon curry powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt, if desired
  • 4 Tablespoons of dried currants or raisins
  • 8 cups cauliflower chopped, or about 1 1/2 – 2 heads
  • 4 cups chopped tomatoes
  • 2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger root
  • 4 Tablespoons dry red wine
  • 3 cups green beans, ends cut and then cut in half
  • whole grain optional

* Cardamom is expensive but worth the flavor. You can substitute cinnamon.

Directions:

  1. Place a large pan on medium and saute the onion and garlic until soft in water or liquid of choice
  2. Add the spices, salt and currants or raisins and mix.
  3. Add the cauliflower, chopped tomatoes and ginger root. Simmer, covered, over low heat until cauliflower is tender, about 15 minutes.
  4. Uncover, add the wine, and simmer until cauliflower is tender, about another 10 minutes.
  5. Eat as is or add over whole grain and enjoy!
  6. Makes 6-8 servings

For a “printer-friendly” one-pager, ideal on your fridge with a magnet—Just click here for a PDF.

With love from Lisa…

Click here for the page containing all recipes.

Be sure to tell your friends about our easy-to-remember website at www.4leafprogram.com and if you like what you see here, you may wish to join our periodic mailing list.

Let me hear from you: lisa@4leafprogram.com

If you like what 4Leaf eating is doing for you and your family, you might enjoy visiting our new “4Leaf Gear” store. From the New England village of Holden, Massachusetts — Be well and have a great day.

If you’d like to order our book on Amazon,  visit our BookStore now. Also some great recipe books.

Posted in Recipes & meals | Tagged | Leave a comment

A helluva rant for plant-based eating—from Australia

Posted on 06/29/2012 by J. Morris Hicks

Former Citibank executive delivers a fiery speech down under.

Philip Wollen—argues in Australia for taking meat off the menu.

Several people in my extended network alerted me to the video in this blog. In a nutshell, it is a powerful 10-minute “big picture” summary of the huge, world-wide problems associated with our typical western diet. He even threw in a little humor—but not very much.

He stayed on point for the entire ten minutes and delivered a powerful challenge to his “meat loving” opponents at the end. So who is this guy? From Wikipedia and the National Australia Day Council:

Philip Wollen (born 1950) is an Australian philanthropist. He is a former vice-president of Citibank. At age 34, Australian Business Magazine named him in the top 40 headhunted executives in Australia. In 2005 he received the Order of Australia and in 2007 he won the Australian of the Year (Victoria) award.

“Through his kindness and generosity, Philip Wollen brings crucial help to many charitable causes and inspires others to share his humanitarian values and ideals. His achievements in the business world mark him as a man of action and he channels this energy into practical outcomes for the causes he champions through the Winsome Constance Kindness Trust.

Although his message began with animal suffering, he did a great job of covering the entire “big picture” as it relates to the problems with our toxic western diet.

After watching Mr. Wollen’s speech, I went into a meeting with a CT state senator who represents my district here in Stonington, CT. We were meeting to discuss how the state of Connecticut might take a leadership role in showing the nation how to tame the health care monster, take charge of our own health, and dramatically lower the cost of health care.

And Since Senator Maynard is fairly new to the wonderful world of plant-based nutrition, I chose to introduce our meeting with a viewing of this video. Then, following a lively half-hour discussion, I showed him Forks Over Knives. Later, as he was about to leave, he said that our two-hour session really hit home as he is about to turn 50 and is thinking a lot more about his health these days.

Please take ten minutes to watch this powerful message from down under:

In case you don’t have time to watch the video right now, here are a few of the key points; illustrating a sound, big-picture understanding of a disturbing global problem out of control:

  1. Environmental damage. CO2, Methane, and Nitrous Oxide from the livestock industry are killing our oceans with acidic, hypoxic Dead Zones.
  2. Biodiversity in peril. 90% of small fish are ground into pellets to feed livestock. Vegetarian cows are now the world’s largest ocean predator.
  3. Fish becoming extinct. By 2048 all our fisheries will be dead. The lungs and the arteries of the earth.
  4. Animal suffering. Only 100 billion people have ever lived. 7 billion alive today. And we torture and kill 2 billion animals every week.
  5. Mass extinction. 10,000 entire species are wiped out every year because of the actions of one species. We are now facing the 6th mass extinction in cosmological history.
  6. Animal Rights is now the greatest Social Justice issue since the abolition of slavery.
  7. Economy in peril. Meat is a killing industry – animals, us and our economies.
  8. USA is bankrupt. Medicare has already bankrupted the US. They will need $8 trillion invested in Treasury bills just to pay the interest. They have precisely zero!! They could shut every school, army, navy, air force, and Marines, the FBI and CIA – and they still won’t be able to pay for it.
  9. Water is the new oil. Nations will soon be going to war for it. Underground aquifers that took millions of years to fill are now running dry. It takes 50,000 litres of water to produce one kilo of beef.
  10. World hunger. 1 billion people today are hungry. 20 million people will die from malnutrition. Cutting meat by only 10% will feed 100 million people. Eliminating meat will end starvation forever. If everyone ate a Western diet, we would need 2 Planet Earths to feed us. We’ve only got one. And she is dying.
  11. Global warming. Greenhouse gas from livestock is 50% more than transport . . . . . planes, trains, trucks, cars, and ships. 
  12. A crime of epic proportions. Poor countries sell their grain to the West while their own children starve in their arms. And we feed it to livestock. So we can eat a steak? Am I the only one who sees this as a crime? 
  13. Weapons of Mass Destruction. George Bush was wrong. The Axis of Evil doesn’t run through Iraq, or Iran or North Korea. It runs through our dining tables. Weapons of Mass Destruction are our knives and forks.
  14. Plant-based eating is the Swiss Army Knife of the future – it solves our environmental, water, health problems and ends cruelty forever.
  15. What about farmers? They are the ones with the most to gain. Farming won’t end. It would boom. Only the product line would change. 
  16. Cost of health care. Health insurance premiums would plummet. Hospital waiting lists would disappear. Hell “We’d be so healthy; we’d have to shoot someone just to start a cemetery!”

He finishes up thusly, “So tonight I have two challenges for the opposition:

  • Meat causes a wide range of cancers and heart disease. Would they name one disease caused by a vegetarian diet?
  • I am funding the Earthlings trilogy. If the opposition is so sure of their ground, I challenge them to send the Earthlings DVD to all their colleagues and customers. Go on I DARE YOU.” (Click here to view the movie “Earthlings” on this site.)

The Killing Clock. Can you imagine how many animals are dying every minute if we’re killing two billion a week for our dinner tables? After visiting Mr. Wollen’s website, I found a page that tracks the “killing of animals” worldwide—right before your very eyes. It’s pretty impressive: Click here to take a look at that page.

The venue in Australia. The entire debate took almost two hours and features a panel of six—three for taking meat off the menu, and three against.

In case you’re interested, it is provided here in its entirety for your convenience:

Handy 4-piece take-charge-of-your-health kit—from Amazon.com

Want to find out how healthy your family is eating? Take our free 4Leaf Diagnostic Survey. It takes less than five minutes and you can score it yourself. After taking the survey, please give me your feedback as it will be helpful in the development of our future 4Leaf app for smartphones. Send feedback to jmorrishicks@me.com

International. We’re now reaching people in over 100 countries. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter or get daily blog notices by “following” us in the top of the right-hand column. For occasional updates, join our periodic mailing list.

To order more of my favorite books—visit our online BookStore now

J. Morris Hicks, working daily to promote health, hope and harmony on planet Earth.

For help in your own quest to take charge of your health, you might find some useful information at our 4Leaf page or some great recipes at Lisa’s 4Leaf Kitchen.

Got a question? Let me hear from you at jmorrishicks@me.com. Or give me a call on my cell at 917-399-9700.

SHARE and rate this post below.

Blogging daily at hpjmh.com…from the seaside village of Stonington, Connecticut – Be well and have a great day.

—J. Morris Hicks, board member, T. Colin Campbell Foundation

Posted in Activism & Leadership, Big Picture, Suffering of Animals | Tagged , , | 8 Comments