Love Of Zines

All my life I`ve loved making little books and panflets about various things – When I was a kid I made a nice little book on our galaxy, with color pictures and everything, using my dad`s computer. Unfortunately I lost it, but I remember the great joy that I had in making it and in informing people about various stuff. Many years later I made a zine on how to care for gerbils, when I used to have a dozen and couldn`t keep them all anymore. Although it was a simple little beefy zine printed only on one side of the papers, I had a blast making it and I knew that thanks to it, my gerbils would always be in good hands and the owners wouldn`t get any nasty surprises.

Since I changed my eating habits over 3 years ago I`ve often had the desire to make zines dedicated to food. I wanted to help people start making good choices in their life with something I had experience in. I wanted to inspire people with new ideas, but for various reasons I just couldn`t put my zines togehter. At one point I printed out a 22-full-page, one-sided food zine of this blog but it wasn`t quite what I wanted. While those I gave it to were highly pleased and appreciative, it wasn`t made the way I wanted it and it didn`t contain all the information I would like to have in it. Now that I`m settled back in Montreal and am getting serious with food again, and after being inspired from going to Montreal`s zine fair, I`m happy to say that I`m finally putting my food zine plan into action!

At first I thought about making a big fat zine that included everything, but now I`ve decided to make a Food Zine Collection of 12 zines. With time I will evaluate which are most popular and make a higher-quality, beefier recipe zine with more information from the more popular zines. For now, these are the 12 food zine topics that I plan to put into print:

#1 UnReFiNeD Recipe Book: About 50 wholesome recipes of mixed variety, meaning some will be vegan (all will be vegetarian), some will be raw, and some will be gluten-free (and easily labeled as such). There will be photos and some nutritional value information. Knowing me, there will probably be a bit more desserts than anything else, but still a nice mix =P. The zine will also include an informative summary of my other food zine topics.

#2 Fundamental Food: This zine will talk about the importance of eating wholesome food, eating locally and seasonally, and using quality ingredients. It will also talk about the benefits of eating a more vegetarian/vegan/raw diet.

#3 Food Politics & Dangers: A look into today`s problematic food system and what to consider with the growing, shipping and packaging of what becomes our food. Also, an informational list of dangerous ingredients.

#4 Food & Kitchen 101: Basic cooking and food storage tips, plus a glossary explaining less-common ingredients and kitchen equipment.

#5 Eating On A Budget & On The Clock: Various tips on eating inexpensively while eating healthy, and trying to do so in not too much time. This zine will also include an informative summary of several other food zine topics.

#6 Growing Greens: A look into growing a garden and an introduction to growing herbs indoors for food and teas. There will also be a big section on growing sprouts, along with a handful of sprout recipes.

#7 Dumpster Diving & Foraging: This zine will be about dumpster diving etiquette and the dangers to watch out for while doing so. There will also be an introduction on foraging for food. There will not be specific dumpster diving locations included =P.

#8 Traveling With Restrictions: Tips on eating healthy/vegan/raw/gluten-free while traveling, plus a quick look into several coutnries` eating diets and habits. This zine will also include a few short stories of my experiences eating a very restricted diet while backpacking in Canada, the United States and Mexico.

#9 Rawsome!: An introduction to eating a raw food diet and the benefits of doing so, without the need to buy extremely expensive ingredients and kitchen equipment. This zine will include various tips for beginners, as well as a big handful of simple raw recipes.

#10 Remedial Foods & Herbs: A list of various foods and herbs and their remedial values, as well as how to use them in food and teas. There will also be a section on homemade health-care recipes.

#11 Kitchen Disasters: A comical look into bad food combinations, a few funny and scary kitchen disaster stories, and what Not to do when the kitchen is on fire.

#12 Be Proavtive!: Suggestions on how you can help your community by gathering, cooking and serving food to the public, and teaching good food habits to those you care about.

I hope you`re as excited about these as I am! As you see, they will basically be a nicely-categorized, updated version of my blog with added goodies, in paper. I plan on printing them into the usual half-page-sized zine and hope to color code the covers. The inside will most likely be black and white to cut down on costs. They will be available in person and by mail once they are completed and will cost approximately 1$-4$ each, with a special price for all dozen zines purchased together. Stay tuned for the release date!

If you want to help me decide which recipes I should include in my recipe book, you can review my recipes you`ve tried on food.com (under the name Ravenhood) and allrecipes (these are waiting approval right now), or simply review them on the pages they`re on here. I`d also be really appreciative of your thoughts on my food zine collection and topic selections. Thanks in advance!

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