I would also like to thank Michele for posting her interview with
Viktoras.

I too have spoken with Viktor at a few of his live food presentations,
as well as taking a few raw food prep classes with wife, Youkta.
I can concur that they advocated using grains as a way to maintain
weight and also for fuel in endurance/athletic pursuits. The list of
grains that she recommended that I scribbled down were buckwheat,
barly, oat, rye, amarath, quinoa, brown rice, wild rice, red rice,
and millet. They did indeed carry a mixture of all of these grains
with them, and let us sample the sprouts. The sprouts were palatable for
me, although nothing to write home about, and they recommended some
alternative prep methods such as grain milk/smoothees. Viktor said
that he had gained 15 pounds after adding these grains to his diet,
but he still looked quite slender to me.

Youkta did not go into detail with me on how she sprouted
these grains, but she did teach me how to sucessfully sprout quinoa,
and I have loved this grain since as a source of energy for my long
bicycle rides. [In case you are asking, we have a expert sprouter in
Tom Billings, who has published some great advice on how to
sprout various seeds, in the v-r archives].  Viktor claimed that
Youkta had been the one to get him to try the mixture of various
sprouted grains as a means for putting carbohydrates in the raw
food diet. Youkta herself is an interesting case, as she has been
said to be a raw foodist for over 18 years. Youkta is an avid jogger,
and belly dancer, and did indeed showcase her belly dancing skills at
GA State Univ a year or so ago.To me, she did not look either underweight
or overweight, and she looked to me to be in her thirties, although
she claimed to be from the hippie era.

Although I will have to agree with Tom's assessment of how old Viktor
looks, I must add that he appears to be an extremely brillant individual
from his lectures and conversations, though somewhat eccentric.
While his talks may center on diet and nutrition (and moreso recently,
his emphasis on blue green algae and enzyme supplements), he usually
has some interesting views on a variety of social matters, and
still glows with some of the creativity which was displayed in
SURVIVAL INTO THE 21ST CENTURY. I may elaborate on some of these
points in another post, as some are quite controversial, and I
don't really mean to get into it here. I will say this, that after
asking Viktor if he had remained faithful to the ideas put forth
in SURVIVAL, his answer was a strong affirmative. I can say this though,
if you have never heard Viktor speak, it is well worth your effort to seek
him out, and hear what he has to say.

I also have some general recipes which he showed us at his workshops,
as well as some of Youkta's. I am going to call them and see if they
will give me permission to publish them here, as some of Youkta's
bear copyrights.

I thank Tom, Michele, and Robert for getting a this thread going in
the list, and look forward to spending more time here now that some
of my new job related efforts ease.

Thanks and Best Wishes to ALL!

David Mayne
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