Unconventional wisdom

Vivian Rice is anything but ordinary.

At 5 years old, she was shooting rifles. At 12, she was driving cars. She rebuilt an old Plymouth when she was 13, and had attended 20 schools by the time she was 15.

Is it any wonder that she took what some people might consider an unconventional career path as an adult, becoming an advocate for holistic approaches to health and nutrition?

This is a woman who says you should eat fruits only with other fruits. Who sings the praises of a clean colon. Who dispenses earth mother advice that might raise a few eyebrows, such as this recommendation she gave to one of her classes:

"Listen to the plants! I heard grass laughing because they are so happy to be the food for many other creatures - including humans. When I listen to plants I feel like I'm listening to God. And don't forget to bless every plant before cutting or cooking it. That will give them a chance to faint."

It's not very mainstream, yet Rice, who has been a health practitioner for 44 years, has a lot of loyal clients. Her 28-year-old Colorado Springs business, Wild Rice Nutrition, is thriving. She's written cookbooks with recipes that reflect her approach to food, and she regularly leads workshops celebrating the seasons.

"I just love her," says Lauren Stuart of Colorado Springs, who went to Rice for nutritional advice years ago and ended up becoming a nutritionist because of her. "Some of her practices may seem way out, but she is dead-on. It's her intuition."

Her roots

Rice's story starts in California, where she was born to 18-year-old parents Nov. 20, 1927. She and her father had an especially close relationship.

"I became my dad's firstborn son," she says. "I was his toy, and my sister, 15 months younger, was my mother's toy. He taught me everything he would have taught a boy, (like) how to shoot a gun as soon as I was old enough to hold a rifle. My first target was a white thumbtack on a tree."

When she was 13, her dad took her and her rifle to a firing range at Green Mountain Dam when it was under construction.

"My dad bet those men that I could put a bullet in the center of the target one after the other," she says. "The targets looked like a black thumbtack to me. I didn't miss, and he won a lot of money. It was the greatest gift he gave me - confidence."

Her father built roads, railroad tracks and dams, and kept his family moving around the West for his job. When she was 15, he was killed on a construction job. She dropped out of high school to help her mother with her three younger siblings, and took a summer job as a waitress in Lake Tahoe. When she was 17, she married her childhood sweetheart, who was 19. It would be the first of four marriages.

Earth mother

Marriage No. 1 survived 13 years and produced two boys and two girls.

The second time down the aisle was as the man's third wife.

"My story is more complicated than Peyton Place," she says with a laugh. "I ended up with six stepchildren, and we had a child."

That marriage lasted 12 years.

The third marriage lasted only months.

So maybe she didn't have the marriage thing down, but by all accounts, Rice was a great - if unconventional - mother.

"Mom was very much a '50s-'60s-type mom," says Beverly DuDash, the second daughter of Rice's five biological children. "She would come to school and help, doing typical mom stuff. But if one of us got hurt, she'd throw on white oak bark instead of a Band-Aid. She used home remedies mostly and very rarely let us have antibiotics."

It was a hint of where Rice would head professionally. She'd always been attuned to the natural world, a trait she says she got from her father's Seminole and Creek blood, and from other family members.

"What I do is a beautiful blend of what I've learned from my parents - my dad and his dad, my grandfather, my mother and her mother - about how to be one with nature for a healthy mind and body," Rice says. "I can't remember when I was not interested in herbs and making people feel better. I was born with this. It's genetic."

Finding her path

But it would be awhile before Rice would pursue a career. Mostly she was a stay-athome mom as she raised her children.

She eventually went to school to become a licensed practical nurse, and graduated in 1965. But she didn't go to work right away. When her marriage fell apart, however, she took a full-time job as a nurse - plus two part-time jobs to make ends meet.

Most of her life, especially during a time when she lived in Chicago, she suffered from severe hay fever and migraines. She took steroids, but they didn't help.

Then, because of her interest in healing with herbs and food, she went to Dr. Herbert Shelton's Health School in Texas, named for a holistic practitioner from the early to mid-1900s who was a leader of a movement that advocated vegetarianism, raw foods and fasts.

She went on a strict twoweek diet of raw food and was cured.

"It was the end of the headaches and hay fever," she says. "That's when I traded in the white uniform and drugs for illnesses and took the natural healing path. In nursing school, they don't teach you a thing about nutrition."

Raw foods - foods that are organic, unprocessed and uncooked - thus became the basis of her teachings.

"The live enzymes in raw food help with digestion of that particular food," she says. "When you cook food, you murder it. When I eat raw food, I feel so much better."

Raw food, however, is only part of the equation. The other: the importance of colon hygiene.

"Enemas need an honorable mention," she says. "You should have a bowel movement after every meal."

Wild nutrition

Rice moved to Colorado Springs in 1970. Ten years later, energized by her faith in the power of foods and holistic healing, she rented space in the office of a Colorado Springs chiropractor to work with clients, using herbs and food as cures. Business was so good, she eventually moved to her own office.

In 1982 she was nominated as nurse of the year by the American Holistic Nurses Association, an organization she was involved with in their startup years.

But her professional journey hasn't been entirely smooth. Her obsession with clean colons brought her under the scrutiny of the Colorado Attorney General in the early '80s.

"I was interested in giving colonics and wanted to find out about Colorado laws," she says. "When my lawyer called they said my name sounded familiar and thought a doctor had made a complaint about me. They couldn't find any evidence, and I was cleared."

So she kept right on doing what she'd been doing: offering nutritional advice and lauding the benefits of natural herbs.

"My nutrition counseling is for the body, mind and spirit."

Her career also led her to her fourth husband, David Barfoot, who is 18 years her junior. He works as a coactive life coach and also manages the supplement store at Rice's business.

They met at a workshop in Florida in 1989.

"I did an Indian talk about how indigenous people are one with earth mother," she says. "David was there because he was interested in herbs and Indian healing. We became friends, and bingo, we decided to get married. I had been single for 17 years and never thought I'd get married again."

In her nearly four decades as a holistic practitioner, she's met her share of naysayers.

"Absolutely I've had skeptics," she says. Her response? "I don't care what people think."

She's also touched - and changed - some lives along the way. Stuart went to Rice for nutritional advice when she and her husband wanted to start a family.

"I made some big changes in the way I was eating and started feeling better," Stuart says. "I started working for her and later went to school for nutrition education. Though I decided to get medical help with starting our family, I credit Vivian with putting me on the path to a more healthy lifestyle."

Olivia Norgard, a local massage therapist, credits Rice for helping her overcome a nagging health problem.

"I had candida albicans - an overgrowth of bacteria caused by taking antibiotics," Norgard says. "It's natural to have bacteria in the intestine, but mine was out of balance. For nine months I followed Vivian's diet recommendations of no sweets, no yeast and no breads. Vivian did get my system back in balance.

"She's worth going to for the laughs."

For Rice, it's just a natural approach to eating. "It's not the food in our life that matters," she says. "It's the life in our food that matters."

ADVICE FROM VIVIAN RICE

• Eat foods in their natural state instead of refined. Ideal foods are organically grown.

• Tap water in most cities has too much chlorine (which can contribute to thyroid dysfunction) sodium (which may elevate blood pressure) and aluminum (which may contribute to Alzheimer's disease). Use distilled, natural spring or purified water. Osmosis (charcoal purification) is acceptable.

• Daily intake of "slippery" herbs and foods nourish the colon and intestines, making the job of nutrient assimilation more efficient. These include slippery elm, coltsfoot, mullein, comfrey leaf, chia seeds, flaxseed and okra.

• Small, frequent meals require less energy for digestion, leaving more energy for assimilation, elimination and healing. Small, frequent meals can increase metabolism.

• Proper food combining is the key to changing body chemistry to maintain good health and proper body weight. For example, for that reason she recommends eating fruits only with other fruits.

• Meats, fish, fowl, well-cooked grains or starchy vegetables (such as squash, potatoes and corn) are best eaten with raw or steamed green vegetables.

• Milk contains the enzyme phosphatase, which is necessary to metabolize calcium. Pasteurization kills this and all other enzymes in the milk. This is one of the reasons why calcium in pasteurized cow's milk is not properly utilized by humans. Raw goat's milk is closer to human milk chemically and, therefore, more easily digested.

• Try to avoid margarine, which contains trans-fatty acids that are hard on the liver. Canola margarine is especially bad.

• Consuming caffeine in coffee, black tea, caffeinated sodas and chocolate on a daily basis interferes with the central nervous system and hormonal function.

• Cooking by microwave is the worst way to preserve a key nutrient in vegetables, while steaming is the best, according to a Spanish study reported in New Scientist. Source: "Handbook to Health with Menus & Recipes," by Vivian Rice and Edie Wogaman

ONION REMEDY FOR CONGESTION

Feeling stuffy and congested? Forget taking two aspirin and calling the doctor in the morning. Vivian Rice has a solution that one of her clients, Sharon Hamand, swears by.

"Vivian taught us how to do this when our boys were 2 and 5. Now they are 28 and 31," Hamand says. "My son's friends thought this was wacky, but it has worked for us any time we are feeling congested."

Here's what you do: Pour boiling water over a sliced white onion in a bowl. Allow the onion to cool until you can handle it. Have the patient lie down. Place the onion slices over his chest and neck. Use a 100 percent cotton towel (it must be 100 percent cotton) to soak up the water remaining in the bowl. Place the wet towel over the onion slices. Cover the patient with more 100 percent cotton towels or blankets. Rest for 15 minutes.

"It's amazing," Hamand says. "I've been doing this for 26 years and it has worked every single time."

We can't vouch for it, but it can't hurt - unless you detest the smell of onions.


CHICKEN, BROWN RICE AND GREEN BEAN SOUP
Yield: 4 servings

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 piece chicken, breast or thigh, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 stalk celery, sliced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
3/4 cup brown rice (preferably basmati)
1/4 pound green beans
2 cups chicken broth
3 cups water

Procedure:
1. Heat oil in soup pot. Add chicken, onion, celery and garlic. Cook 10 minutes.

2. Add remaining ingredients. Cook 1 hour.

Source: "Handbook to Health with Menus & Recipes" by Vivian Rice and Edie Wogaman


SPELT BISCUITS
Yield: 10-12 biscuits

1/2 stick butter
2 cups spelt flour
1 teaspoon sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup water

Procedure:
1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

2. Cut butter into flour until it resembles coarse meal. Add rest of dry ingredients. Stir in water and mix lightly.

3. On flour-covered board, fold over and pat down 2-3 times. Pat dough out and cut into biscuits. Place on greased cookie sheet and bake 10-12 minutes.

Source: "Handbook to Health with Menus & Recipes," by Vivian Rice and Edie Wogaman


TOFU AND EGG OMELET
Yield: 8 servings

3 tablespoons oil
1 pound tofu, mashed
4 eggs
4 scallions, chopped
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
1/2 teaspoon each thyme and dill
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 cup grated rice
Parmesan cheese (available at health food stores)
Black pepper, to taste

Procedure:
1. Heat oil in large skillet. Add tofu.

2. Crack eggs into bowl and beat lightly. Stir in scallions, bell pepper, thyme, dill, soy sauce and garlic powder.

3. Pour eggs into skillet. Cook over low heat 10 minutes. Top with cheese. Place under broiler until cheese is browned. Sprinkle with black pepper, to taste.

Source: "Handbook to Health with Menus & Recipes" by Vivian Rice and Edie Wogaman


RASPBERRY BARS
Yield: 18 bars

2 cups organic whole-wheat pastry flour
1 1/2 cups brown sugar, or 3/4 cup fructose plus
1/4 cup molasses
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup organic sweet-cream butter, unsalted
3/4 cup raspberry jam, fruit sweetened

Procedure:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly oil a 9-by-13-inch pan. 2. Mix all ingredients except jam. Blend until crumbly. Sprinkle half into prepared pan. Pat down and cover with jam. Place remaining crumb mix on top and bake 30-45 minutes.

Source: "Handbook to Health with Menus & Recipes" by Vivian Rice and Edie Wogaman