“I try to invest any project with which I’m associated with a certain amount of social responsibility. In the case of “This Year’s Model”, my goal was to give young girls (and their families) a more realistic picture of what really goes on behind the scenes in a model’s life.

“It seems as if the image that’s being promoted by certain TV shows nowadays is that fashion models are constantly at each other’s throats. Some new girls who are just starting out may end up sharing apartments or hotel rooms, to save money. But seriously, can you imagine if a half dozen girls were thrown together and spent their entire day fighting with their roommates, or thinking and talking about nothing but sabotaging each other’s careers?! That may make for entertaining television, but it surely isn’t real life.

“In reality, if a modeling agency represents several girls who have arrived from out of town and have no place to stay, the agency will arrange for them to share a place. Knowing full well that these girls are in close proximity, the agency certainly isn’t going to send two or three of them to the same “go-see” (audition, in modeling jargon) at or near the same time. That really would be a recipe for disaster. Most of the time, the girls have no idea what the others are going up for. But if you believe what you see on TV, they’re all watching each others’ moves, just waiting to pounce and thriving on jealous rages. It’s ridiculous!

“Now, what probably will surprise most people is how things work for girls who have been scouted by an agency. Let’s say a potential model is discovered in Russia, for example. The agency will front the money to fly her to New York, put her up in a hotel, and also give her an advance so she can get set up - phone, food, clothes, etc. Well, guess what: The agency isn’t doing that out of the goodness of its heart. Not only will they expect to be repaid for the “loan” (which is what it is), but they’ll find very clever ways to add fees on top of the actual costs. If and when the Russian girl books her first jobs, the agency will pay itself back out of her earnings. It can amount to several thousand dollars, especially in the beginning of a career. That can come as quite a shock sometimes. What is an even bigger shock is if a girl does not book any jobs, she will still owe that money to the agency…!

“Then there are the photos for the model’s portfolio. Let’s just say, I find them useless. A professional modeling agent can size up a girl’s potential in the blink of an eye. That’s what he or she is trained to do,” says Carol. But, let’s say he sees a girl who he thinks is on the cusp – not quite perfect, but a ‘possibility’. The agent will set up a shoot to get some photos for the girl’s portfolio. He will send her to a studio with a photographer, hair and makeup. The session may cost $2-3000 but in reality, the photographer might only be charging a couple of hundred dollars and let’s say the makeup artist and hair stylist total up to another couple of hundred—but the girl is paying $2-3000! Where does the rest of the money go? Kickbacks!!! If the agency hired them on your behalf, they will get half of this upfront money for their “trouble” - and in the end, they may not even take this girl!! That kind of thing has always existed in the modeling industry. And yes, it’s underhanded and sneaky. Of course, as in any industry, there are the ethical professionals and these other types.

“Now, this naive girl thinks she has a professional portfolio - one everybody will respect - so she starts shopping herself around (armed with those very expensive photos) to other agencies. Another agency may decide to give her a try, but they will want to use their own photographer who shoots all of their girls. So now this poor kid has to decide whether or not to take the risk and spend another couple of thousand dollars just to please this new agency!

“This brings up another point I’d like to make: Modeling success or failure does not rest on a woman’s beauty. There are so many other factors that go into creating a successful model – height, bone structure, a certain look, an attitude – and all are necessary commodities, yes. But there are loads of absolutely beautiful women who never made it as models, while lots of offbeat looks have soared to the top of the heap. That’s why a modeling agent with a good eye for talent can look past perceived faults and find the gem that lies beneath - again, even without photos.”

But we digress. Or…do we?

“In my book”, Carol continues, “Melody Ann Croft (the heroine) works in Manhattan, but commutes to her home in the suburbs every night. She works, she goes home. This is closer to a normal scenario for a working model.

“I tried to show a more realistic picture of what really goes on, so that young girls and their families can understand what they’re up against. I really feel that any girl who thinks that she may want to model (and her parents, too) should read this book and not rely on the modeling shows on TV for their information.”

Carol is already well on her way to completing the second book in what is intended to be a trilogy, featuring the main character she created as the “star” of “This Year’s Model”, Melody Ann Croft.

“I need a title for this next novel. If anyone out there has a good idea, by all means I’d love to see it. You can send it to me via the comment box below this article. Obviously”, Carol laughs, “I can’t give you much help in terms of inspiration, since I don’t want to give any plot points away, so use your imaginations.”

ALSO…..

Another exciting event is taking place right now in conjunction with the publishing of this book. Carol says, “We are searching for the model who will appear on the cover jacket of my new book – even someone who might not have the opportunity to come to New York or L.A. can try out. Backed by Lord & Taylor and Avon Books, a search is being initiated in an effort to help out a novice model. It’s all being done via the internet.

“Send in your photos (make sure your face is clearly seen and that they are not too ‘model-y’. We need a clear shot of the face!) It doesn’t matter where you live. We expect to have our cover girl by mid-November.”

GO TO WWW.HARPERCOLLINS.COM, ‘SEARCH’ DETAILS ARE THERE…..

“I must have tried every fad diet in the book – I was constantly dieting and the end result was, oh, yes - I was thin enough, but I was also becoming ill! I had colds and the flu all the time; my respiratory system was a mess; and I seemed to be allergic to everything. Hell! I was even allergic to myself! And I was really becoming sick and tired of being…sick and tired.”

It wasn’t until Carol turned to a raw diet and a lifestyle to go with it that her health improved. She hasn’t had any kind of respiratory or allergy problems since and she was in her mid-30s when she began this regimen. Her “discovery” of the raw diet was the result of a series of serendipitous events.

“I had a friend who had a friend and that young woman had been diagnosed at the age of 22 with cancer. The doctors wanted to remove just about everything that made her a female, from her entire reproductive system to her lymph nodes. In fact, she had been misdiagnosed as a teen when this first began, so her health had deteriorated terribly by the time the cancer diagnosis occurred.

Her boyfriend – and I really take my hat off to this man! – bucked all convention and battled with everyone to try to find her a cure. Meanwhile, everyone else, doctors included, was telling him he was killing her; she only had a couple of weeks left to have the surgery, etc. Instead of listening to them, he took her to another doctor that he had researched. Six months later, his girlfriend was pronounced cancer-free.

So, he called me up one day and said, ‘Carol, you’re the most health-minded person I know and you’re going to want to meet this doctor.’ Little did he know that I was going through my own problems: My weight was ballooning, my skin looked terrible, I was developing fine lines and wrinkles, and I just generally felt awful. I was no longer projecting youth and health, and energy, and I could see my career slipping through my fingers like grains of sand! Still, when he brought this idea to me, I literally was rolling my eyes, thinking, yeah, yeah, yeah. But he wouldn’t give up, so I finally told him to give me this doctor’s number – because I really just wanted to get him off the phone!

Truthfully, though, when we hung up, this little voice inside was saying to me, ‘You’ve been looking for something to help you. How could you be so stupid and too proud to try whatever comes your way? At least look at it, at least educate yourself about whatever it is.’

Well, fortunately, I remembered the doctor’s number (you see? I hadn’t even written it down when my friend gave it to me!), so I called and left him a message. When he called me back – and this I found very interesting – he did not say the usual ‘What can I do for you?’ or ‘What’s wrong with you?’. He said, ‘What do you eat?’! So, I answered this, this and this. He said ‘Oh, my god!’ and started laughing, but it was a very sad kind of laugh. ‘With what you’re eating, I’m surprised you don’t have this, this and this kind of problem’, he said. He listed sinus infections, colds and flues every few weeks, allergies, weight gain, being tired and moody, plus skin problems. Well, I also had a rash on my leg that I couldn’t get rid of and several doctors had been unable to diagnose it. The rash was spreading to other parts of my body.

The doctor finally said, ‘I want you to go eat this weekend’. ‘Eat? I’m a model. I have to stay thin!’, I told him. No – he wanted me to eat specific foods: Raw vegetables, cold-pressed oils, evaporated sea salt, seared fish, fresh fruits – with no restrictions on the amount. All I could think was, ‘This man wants me to eat. This is the most freeing moment of my life!’

That weekend, I followed his instructions and almost immediately began to feel better. That was 12 years ago and I’ve been following this regime ever since. No more colds, no more respiratory infections, no more skin problems, no more anything that bothered me before. Of course, my weight adjusted itself, too, and that hasn’t been a problem since that time, either.”

Carol is still astounded by the people who resist advice that is so easy to follow and makes so much sense. “When I talk to someone with breast cancer, who refuses to give up chicken, or someone with terrible allergies, who refuses to give up wheat products, I tell them, ‘Look, you can take a pill, but that pill is going to bother your liver, or cause some other problem, while your symptoms continue to get worse. Why don’t you just get to the source of all of these problems – the foods you consume and the various ways that food is prepared.’ After all, preservatives, pasteurization, etc., aren’t added to foods to help the person eating them; they’re put there to help the company that sells the food!”

As an example, Carol cites milk. For thousands of years, man drank raw milk and thrived. But then, quite rapidly in the overall scheme of things, big cities replaced small towns and farmers could no longer get their raw milk to the consumer quickly enough to prevent it from spoiling. Thus the need for pasteurization was born. That does not mean, however, that raw milk (which, of course, is still available many places) suddenly became bad for you. It just wasn’t financially feasible to market it in the good old way.

That same principal can be applied to any and all fresh (“raw”) foods. Getting it from the farm to the distributor to you cannot be done quickly enough to prevent it from going bad. That is, when you’re talking about mass production for millions of people. Yet, Carol reminds us, “Whenever I’m in Paris, for example, I eat whatever everyone else is eating and I actually lose weight. Europeans handle their foods differently than we do here in the United States. The taste alone will show you how much better their methods are than what we’re doing to our foods.

Speaking of the taste of food, I understand that a lot of people are turned off by what they think “raw” foods are going to taste like. Let me tell you…I’m not a vegan, so I do eat all kinds of fish, meats, unpasteurized raw milk cheeses, sprouted breads – in other words, a wide variety of foods. But for me, the natural flavor of a food, which has not been killed by cooking or processing it, is amazing. The flavor of a raw tomato, for example, is unbelievable – sweet, juicy, delicious, all by itself! Compare that to a cooked tomato that requires all kinds of “additions” to make it palatable and you’ll know what I mean. On top of that, raw tomatoes are alkaline, so they don’t cause acid indigestion or canker sores.

Of course, a great thing about raw “cooking” is the use of spices, which are uncooked themselves, and which can really work beautifully to bring new and wonderful flavors to all of the raw foods you’ll be consuming. Cumin, thyme, garlic, onion, sea salt, all kinds of peppers, ginger – the list is endless and so are the possibilities…!

One other point: I, myself, don’t cook much. I know how – I just don’t have the time. I order many, many food items online and have them delivered, including the milk! I even order entire meals – a whole week’s worth – from a company on the other side of the country! It’s so easy. But no matter how you get it, raw foods are available everywhere to everyone, in every conceivable price range. So, there are no good excuses not to try this out, either cold turkey or little by little. I have never felt better in my life!”

Carol Alt’s popular book, “Eating In The Raw“, can be found at the following on-line location:
http://www.amazon.com/Eating-Raw-Beginners-Healthier-Raw-Food/dp/140005284X

And this will take you to Carol’s other book, “The Raw 50“:
http://www.amazon.com/Raw-50-Amazing-Breakfasts-Lifestyle/dp/0307351742/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1221695729&sr=1-1

NEXT YEAR’S MODEL SEARCH SWEEPSTAKES

Supermodel Pairs with Publisher and Lord & Taylor

To Seek Fresh New Face to Launch Cover of 2009 Novel

NEW YORK, NY; August 4, 2008 — Avon A/an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers is launching a interactive online contest, along with supermodel Carol Alt (author of This Year’s Model) and Lord & Taylor, to help discover the fresh new face who will grace the cover of Alt’s 2009 novel in the NEXT YEAR’S MODEL Search Online Sweepstakes.   The contest will launch on August 26, 2008, the date This Year’s Model goes on-sale.  From August 26 to November 20, potential cover girls from 16 to 25 years of age can submit photos to the contest feature page at www.harpercollins.com/nextyearsmodel.  (Meanwhile, a distinguished panel of judges will select finalists, with new finalist pictures posting weekly at http://www.flickr.com/groups/nextyearsmodel/.)  On November 21, the judges, led by Alt, will announce the 4 top Next Year’s Model entrants, launching all participants into an exciting fan-based voting contest at www.harpercollins.com/nextyearsmodel.  On December 11, 2008, NEXT YEAR’S MODEL will be announced, and arrangements will be made for the winner and a guest to be flown to New York City.  The grand prize winner will be awarded a professional photo shoot, a meet-and-greet with a top modeling agency, and a wardrobe prize from Lord & Taylor!  Avon A intends to feature the winner on the cover of Alt’s upcoming book, Next Year’s Model, in stores in 2009.

Alt, a savvy and innovative marketer whose creative skills were recently featured when she became a top-2 runner up on Celebrity Apprentice, concepted this contest as a way to help a young woman break into the competitive world of professional modeling.  In her debut novel, This Year’s Model (in-stores August 26), Alt  introduces readers to the high-stakes world of modeling – and gives valuable life lessons to all young women looking to break into the field.

“(Modeling) is one of the only businesses where a woman makes more money than a man,” says Alt, “and in which a young girl can achieve financial stability, meet great people, and travel the world – all while becoming famous and securing her future.”  Widely regarded as one of the world’s most recognizable faces after launching the supermodel industry, Alt believes that modeling can be a healthy and empowering career for a young woman — and wanted to offer a hand in helping a new talent into the industry with the NEXT YEAR’S MODEL online search.

Contest Description:

August 26 - November 20, 2008: Contestants, aged 16-25, can enter the contest at www.harpercollins.com/nextyearsmodel and send a photo for consideration.  New finalists will be posted daily at Avon’s contest feature page at http://www.flickr.com/groups/nextyearsmodel/. (Please note: entrants can also send a photograph of themselvesf together with a 5X8 index card with their name, address, telephone number and date of birth to Next Year’s Model Contest, c/o Avon Books/HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53^rd Street, NY, NY  10022.  Photographs must depict the entrant only, and photographs including other people will be disqualified.) About the photo submissions, Alt recommends contestants “do not waste money and valuable time, on a portfolio,” when selecting photos to showcase their looks on the NEXT YEAR’S MODEL contest website.  Alt continues, “My agents took one look at me, at my face, and made the decision right there that I had ‘it.’”  She recommends unposed, natural snapshots, pictures from family vacations and other settings where a young woman’s natural beauty and spirit shine through.

November 21: Carol Alt, with a panel of distinguished judges, will review all photo submissions, and select the Top 4 NEXT YEAR’S MODEL contest entrants, which will be posted online at www.harpercollins.com/nextyearsmodel!

November 21 - December 10, 2008: www.harpercollins.com/nextyearsmodel will host an interactive voting platform, where fans, friends and anyone interested in the glamorous world of modeling can enter into an interactive voting platform, selecting their favorite photos of contest contestants.  Poll results will be viewable!

December 10, 2008: Voting closes. A grand prize winner is determined by popular vote (in case of a tie-breaker, Carol Alt and the panel of judges will select a grand prize winner).

December 11, 2008: Grand prize winner announcement on www.harpercollins.com/nextyearsmodel!

Prize Package:

Avon A/an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers will fly the NEXT YEAR’S MODEL grand prize contest winner and a guest or chaperone to New York City, where they will receive two nights hotel stay in a four-star establishment.  The grand prize winner will also receive a professional photo shoot; HarperCollins will consider the image for the cover of Carol Alt’s next book.  The prize also includes a Lord & Taylor wardrobe gift valued at $500.  (Total prize package valued at $6000.)

25 Runners-up will receive a signed copy of Carol Alt’s This Year’s Model.  (Runner-up prize valued at $13.95.)

Panel of Judges:

Carol Alt - Carol Alt’s face has appeared on the cover of more than seven hundred magazines. Her calendars, posters, and exercise videos have all sold millions of copies.

LaVelle Olexa, Lord & Taylor - LaVelle Olexa is Lord & Taylor’s Senior Vice President of Public. As such, she is responsible for Publicity, Special Events, and the creative direction for the flagship’s Fifth Avenue windows. A consummate professional, LaVelle started her career modeling and has held a variety of positions in the fashion industry, including the marketing and fashion direction of Lord & Taylor.

Mumtaz Mustafa, Art Director, Avon A/an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers - Mumtaz started at HarperCollins as an assistant designer 6 years ago and is now the art director for Avon and Rayo.

About Carol Alt:

Carol Alt’s face has appeared on the cover of more than 700 magazines. Her calendars, posters, and exercise videos have all sold millions of copies. She was a recent contestant on The Celebrity Apprentice, is the bestselling author of Eating in the Raw and The Raw 50, is a frequent guest on talk shows, and has acted on stage, television, and in more than 65 movies. This Year’s Model is her first novel.

About This Year’s Model (on-sale 8/26/08):

Supermodel Carol Alt takes on the world of up and coming models in This Year’s Model, her biting, witty, and insightful debut novel.  Melody Ann Croft had a lot of plans for her life. Being a model was not one of them. Discovered while working in restaurant, whisked off to New York, and christened “Mac,” she soon learns that plans have a way of…changing. Stepping into her new life is easier than Mac expected. But once you’re on top of the world, all it takes is one wrong step to bring it all tumbling down. In the cutthroat world of fashion, it all comes down to who you can trust. And it won’t be long before Max learns that hanging on to her self will be the toughest battle she’s ever fought.

More information about the NEXT YEARS MODEL contest available at: www.harpercollins.com/nextyearsmodel.

About HarperCollins Publishers

HarperCollins, one of the largest English-language publishers in the world, is a subsidiary of News Corporation (NYSE: NWS, NWS.A; ASX: NWS, NWSLV). Headquartered in New York, HarperCollins has publishing groups around the world including the HarperCollins General Books Group, HarperCollins Children’s Books Group, Zondervan, HarperCollins UK, HarperCollins Canada, HarperCollins Australia/New Zealand and HarperCollins India. HarperCollins is a broad-based publisher with strengths in literary and commercial fiction, business books, children’s books, cookbooks, mystery, romance, reference, religious and spiritual books. With nearly 200 years of history HarperCollins has published some of the world’s foremost authors and has won numerous awards including the Nobel Prize, the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award, the Newbery Medal and the Caldecott. Consistently at the forefront of innovation and technological advancement HarperCollins is the first publisher to digitize its content and create a global digital warehouse to protect the rights of its authors, meet consumer demand and generate additional business opportunities. You can visit HarperCollins Publishers on the Internet at http://www.harpercollins.com.

Loosely based upon Carol’s own brilliant and unparalleled career in the world of high fashion modeling, “This Year’s Model” follows the exploits, both professional and personal, of a beautiful young woman as she enters and conquers the intriguing world of agencies, photographers, runways and romance.

This novel is a “must read” for anyone interested in pursuing a career in the fashion industry, as well as for their families, or for anyone who’s just plain curious about this very glamorous - and to most people, mysterious - life.

Attached you’ll find the press release from publisher, Avon A, which offers more information on this fascinating novel, as well as some tips from Carol on how to safely navigate a budding career as a model.

Here’s what the L.A. Times had to say:

http://www.latimes.com/features/lifestyle/la-ig-books.0810-pg,0,1413205.photogallery?index=2

“This Year’s Model” can be ordered now at Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=this+year%27s+model%2C+carol+alt&x=0&y=0

Or at Barnes & Noble:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/This-Years-Model/Carol-Alt/e/9780061366246

What does seem to be seasonal, however, is the way many people think of summer vs winter meals.  In the wintertime, nothing seems more inviting that a hot cup of soup, followed by a rich, heavy, warming plate of…well, you name your favorite foods.

But who wants a heavy meal during the heat of summer?  Certainly not raw food enthusiasts and really, not too many other people, either.  We all want to cool off and a terrific, interesting salad, or a plate of fresh fruit, can be just what the doctor ordered.

Carol loves the variety of dishes available during the long, warm days of summer, and is happy to share a few choice ideas.  For example, a beautiful, yet simple salad composed of cucumbers, dill and cold-pressed olive oil.  She sometimes includes her own homemade kefir and a little sea salt in the dressing, for variety.

“I love kefir and since it’s so easy to make, especially during the summer, when it’s warm outside, I keep some going all the time”, says Carol.  “Ask your favorite Indian restaurant to sell you a kefir ‘bud’, which is just a scoop of their own kefir.  Heat your milk  (about a gallon) until just before it comes to a boil, let it cool, and add the kefir ‘bud’.  Set the bowl outside in the sun (cover it with a towel or plastic wrap), come back 8 hours later and voila! you have your own homemade kefir!  If the kefir isn’t quite thick enough, just leave it in the sun a while longer, until it’s the consistency you want”.  Carol likes to add granola to her kefir when it’s ready to eat and of course, you can add whatever fruits you prefer.  “Kefir contains more beneficial bacteria than yoghurt and by making my own, I know that the ingredients are not chemically altered”, something that fits right into Carol’s raw and healthy lifestyle.

Back to the salad dressing, Carol says there are countless variations on the cold-pressed olive oil and kefir base:  Curry, a pinch of cayenne (if you like things spicy), minced onion, garlic, etc., can all be added to suit your taste.  “Experiment with it.  You’ll discover a lot of different tastes that work beautifully with fresh salad greens, as well as other raw vegetables.  By using the cold-pressed oil, you also know that the dressing will be of the highest possible quality, especially in terms of raw.”

If you can’t resist eating pasta, Carol urges you to try rice pasta.  Chop up some fresh tomatoes, a little cilantro or basil, celtic sea salt and cold-pressed olive oil.   “Don’t cook the mixture - in Italy it is called ‘pomodoro al fresco’ or ‘cold tomatoes’”, Carol advises, “but even if you  HAVE to have a hot tomato sauce, which will probably give you heartburn, at least add the oil after cooking…” and toss it with the hot pasta.  “When I gave up wheat pasta, along with the other wheat products that I no longer eat, I never had another cold, or sinus infection, or allergy attack!”, she says.  “Before I changed that part of my diet, I was constantly taking aspirin, cold medicines, allergy medicines - I was sick all the time.  Never again.”

Depending on where you live, the myriad summer fruits - cherries, peaches, mangos, berries, pineapples, etc. - can be cut up, tossed together, and served with a kefir-based “dip” or dressing.  Add a little honey and some of the juices from the cut fruit to the kefir for a lovely, slightly sweet dressing.

Speaking of something sweet, Carol will combine a fresh banana, some fresh fruit, perhaps a little freshly squeezed orange juice and kefir, all whirled together with a little ice in the blender, for a delicious slushy.  And to cover her bets during the winter, or if she forgot to go to the market for fresh items, Carol freezes some fruit (including cut-up bananas) for emergency use.  She also recommends keeping commercially frozen fruits in the freezer year-round, with the caveat that they not be processed with added sugar or syrup.

These are just a few of the ideas and recipes included in Carol’s book, “The Raw Fifty”.  The book covers nearly 130 menu ideas and recipes, which help raw enthusiasts (and anyone else looking for delicious additions to their usual fare) come up with easy, tasty, family-pleasing dishes.

In case you’re wondering - and who doesn’t? - how the calorie count in raw fruits and vegetables stacks up against that of the same foods when they’ve been cooked, Carol has a great analogy.  “I compare the foods we put into our bodies to the gasoline we put into our cars.  It’s all going to be burned up, but if you put cheap gas into your car, it’ll leave a residue and not burn cleanly.  That will ultimately damage your car’s engine.  The higher quality the gas, the cleaner it burns.  With our food, the purer it is going in, the cleaner and more energy-efficient it will be.  What can be more pure than raw fruits and vegetables?”.

One of the things that Carol emphasizes is that “raw” really means “unprocessed”.  Every time you open a can of something - anything! - the food in that can has been processed, meaning that in a very basic way, it has been altered molecularly.  The human body then has to process the altered food differently (and less efficiently) than it would if the same food were raw and unaltered.

Carol has given lectures and even spoken to doctors and other medical professionals about the molecular changes that occur when raw food is cooked.  She is trying to teach everyone that by eating raw, your body receives the purest possible energy source and is really forced to burn it all off in the cleanest, healthiest way.

In a future article on this website, Carol will explore what it was like being a fat - yes! you read correctly! - kid.  But for now, she hopes you’ll push back from the computer, and take a walk…maybe to a fresh foods market nearby, for some of that luscious summer produce she’s been talking about

Carol has decided to stay away from flash/multimedia sites that are all the rage among actors, models and individuals who don’t know any better. She decided to go with an informational-based portal that will achieve a high Google ranking; immediately index all news and updates with Google; immediately update any news on her through Google News and other news ventures; and capitalize on the ads associated with the content on her web pages.

The new web site will eventually feature most of Carol’s magazine covers and articles about her, gathered over time - but not all of them, since it is nearly impossible to locate all of the photos and items written about Carol over the past 30 years.

To assist us in that effort, Attention Interactive, Carol’s online marketing agency, encourages submissions from all of Carol’s former associates and fans to submit whatever content they have on Carol so that she can grow her brand new site.

The Carol Alt portal is loaded with the latest news and each article encourages user submissions and comments.

The movie, written and directed by it’s prolific star, Adam Rifkin, is, as Carol puts it, an “A” movie takeoff of a “B” caveman movie (was there ever any other kind?). It co-stars Ali Larter (”Heroes”), David Carradine, Talia Shire and Gary Busey. If that eclectic combination of talent doesn’t give you a hint that there’s something funny going on here, Carol’s decision to finally portray an Amazon (the literal, not figurative, kind) based upon the script alone should be enough to send her fans in droves to theaters when it opens across the country. Her cameo role still has her in stitches…although there weren’t many of those in her costume…!

As any good Amazon scholar surely knows, 5′10″ still isn’t tall enough, so Carol had to wear high heels throughout the shoot.

“We shot in a rock quarry, which was scary enough, but they had me running around in these high-heeled boots and I had to keep up with everyone else who was running in sneakers. By the end of the day, I had sore muscles everywhere!” The fact that she was wearing only a fur bikini and those high-heeled fur boots obviously did nothing to lessen the physical exertion - dodging rocks, sweltering in the heat, all the while trying to keep up with Ali Larter, who was running in flats. Still, she had a wonderful time working on this crazy comedy.

“In post-production, I had to go into the studio and record some new lines, because when National Lampoon bought it, they wanted to expand my role. Well, while I was looping my lines, the recording engineer and ADR director were sitting in the booth laughing their heads off. And they were only watching my scenes at the time. I thought then that if these pros were laughing that much, this film was going to be a huge hit.”

“National Lampoon’s Homo Erectus” had its world premiere at Slamdance in 2007. It’s currently scheduled to open in various cities in the summer of 2008. Everyone knows that National Lampoon doesn’t add its name to anything that isn’t funny and, since their branding generally assures the “golden touch”, Carol (and of course, everyone else involved in the project) is anticipating a summer hit!

I am thinking that if cooked food is heated to high temps (in this case, anything over 115 degrees F is considered “high”.);

and if the heat kills ‘most’ of the enzymes(I guess the hardy ones survive?);

and if the heat also denatures some or most of the vitamins and minerals-meaning that vitamins and minerals are changed fundamentally in their chemical makeup so that they are less able to be absorbed by the body;

and if the heating of food effects the PH of the food- changing it from alkaline to acid;

Then the question I have been pondering is: does changing our food this way by cooking it, age the body?

The only conclusion I have come up with is that, yes, it must age the body-it has to; and it probably changes it a lot!

Ok, so again, I am not a doctor, nor a scientist. I am just a woman who is concerned about the effects of aging on her career, life and body. So I, too, am looking for “The Fountain of Youth”. The question is: Is there one and if so, where?

Come on, who isn’t concerned about the effects of aging? Who isn’t concerned about the effects of the ‘degeneration ‘of the body? I think degeneration even effects how susceptible we are to disease in the body. I think as we age, disease has more opportunity to attack our weaker and weaker bodies.

But even so, disease aside, it is such a “young” society and it seems everything is geared toward the young and sexy in this society. Magazines, books, music, movies advertisements- all cater to the younger generation or the desire to be or feel young.

The older I get, the more I notice this: the young have no idea how great it is to be young. I mean, as I got older, every spot, pimple, ache, or pain becomes cause for a call to the doctor.

Your hair, skin and body all change daily-and most times for the worse.

But I don’t mean to be morbid here, what I am getting to is my ‘beacon of light’. I am trying to paint the picture for you: If you don’t know you are in the darkness, how do you know when the light is shone?

Ok? So we are in the darkness of aging and disease.

The light that I shine is raw food and good nutrition.

Ok hand off the clicker!!!

This is really not boring-believe me, and it is not scary or confusing.

Let’s go back to the top of this blog where I said the following:

I am thinking that:

• if cooked food is heated to high temps (in this case, anything over 115 degrees F is considered “high”);
• if the heat kills most of the enzymes(I some of the hardy ones survive, I suppose?);
• if the heat also denatures some or most of the vitamins and minerals-meaning that vitamins and minerals are changed fundamentally in their chemical makeup so that they are less able to be absorbed by the body;
• and if the heating of food effects the PH of the food- changing it from alkaline to acid;

If all this is happening to our food when we cook it, then does eating this food affect our aging process?

And, if we find out the answer to this, will we be better able to control some of the effects of aging?

My opinion is absolutely “yes”!

Here is why I think that:

Let’s start with the last point on the list: PH of food.

First of all, if the body only produces acid (like lactic acid in muscles that make us sore after a work out or hydrochloric acid in our stomach to digest food) and if food gets more acid if you cook it, and acid eats things up-like rust can disintegrate a car or nail polish remover can eat away nail hard tough nail polish- and if our body needs to stay pretty neutral because our organs like to sit in neutral PH, then all that acid running in our blood and being stored in our tissues HAS GOT TO BE EATING THE BODY!

How long can something sit in acid and not basically melt away?

I mean, just in terms of a natural occurrence and common sense, acid on soft tissue has got to be damaging.

So go ahead, drink your ‘acid’ coffee, and eat your ‘acid’ cooked food and pile the acid into your system.

You will give yourself indigestion-yeah.

But you will also wear away at your body. And hey, when the body wears down more and more, then you know what? You may end up looking like what you eat.

Eat acid-look ‘eaten’ up and worn down!

I think that is pretty simple idea- or am I wrong in my thought process?

Think about it yourself and come up with your own conclusions.

Anyway, since this blog has turned out to be so long, and I want to go into more effects of food on aging and what we can do about it, you will have to wait until next time I blog-as I am doing two movies at the same time in Europe, I am blogging around my shooting schedule. So the next time I will go into molecular structure and why when you cook food changing the structure of it can age you

But for now:

Eat well-stay young!

Just to re-mind you of the facts we established in my last blog:

I am thinking that:

• if cooked food is heated to high temps. (In this case, anything over 115 degrees F is considered “high”)
• if the heat kills most of the enzymes(I supposed this means some of the hardy ones survive?)
• if the heat also denatures some or most of the vitamins and minerals-meaning that vitamins and minerals are changed fundamentally in their chemical makeup so that they are less able to be absorbed by the body;
• and if the heating of food effects the PH of the food- changing it from alkaline to acid;

If all this is happening to our food when we cook it, then does eating this food affect our aging process?

Let’s begin here

So, if in fact, when we add heat to anything we change the molecular structure, then by law of the universe, when we heat food we change its molecular structure, too

For example, in chemistry, you know if you boil water, that its molecular structure changes from a liquid to a gas (water to steam).

That is a chemical change.

So, a heated fat and a heated protein then is not the same as a raw fat in that when you heat them, you change its molecular structure, too-just as it happened with the water.

So, you have a food, perhaps a protein-which is an amino acid and you heat that protein. The heat does ‘its thing’ and changes the molecular structure of that protein.

Now you don’t really have an amino acid any more do you? I mean, how can you? If the structure of an amino acid is specific, then to change that structure is to change that amino acid.

Ok, that established, we now have this non-amino acid that WAS an amino acid before it was cooked going into your system.

The body looks at it and says: what is this? I have enzymes for an amino acid, but this is not an amino acid. What do I do?

The body decides then to break down the non-amino acid into its component parts, looks at it, then recognizes bits and pieces, puts those pieces together again as an amino acid, storing in the process the bits and pieces it cannot use.

Then when it recognizes the re-built amino acid, the body then makes another set of enzymes to break down the amino acid that it just re-built. Once, finally broken down into its component parts a second time, it can now be used to re-build and maintain the tissue and organs in the body or to make new enzymes.

Phew! A lot of work for the body-that creates stress and stress is more acid (see my last blog about the effects of acid on the body)

Ok so what does that mean to your body now?

1. You store whatever it is you don’t use of the original non-amino acid (oh, could this be stored as weight on the body? carrying around all that extra weight is stressful on the body and stress is acid forming-see the effects of acid on the body from my last blog!)
2. You have stressed the body to do all that work breaking down the non-amino, rebuilding it and breaking it down again so you can now use it-just to have a hamburger! (See the effects of acid on the body in my last blog.)
3. you have used up two sets of enzymes

since point 1&2 are about acid which I dealt with in my last blog, at this point, I want to talk about #3 above-Using up two sets of enzymes:

This next thought is simple to understand! (Just relax and follow my thought process to the end. I wrap it up I promise!)

OK here goes!

If enzymes are created from vitamins and minerals and our body is made up of and needs vitamins and minerals too, then our body has to split the vitamins and minerals it does get from any foods you eat.

And if we have established in my last blog (repeated above) that cooking food ‘denatures’ vitamins and minerals preventing the body from absorbing the most it can, then there are very little vitamins and minerals around for the body to use to make enzymes or to even rebuild and MAINTAIN itself.

If you eat only cooked food and there isn’t enough vitamins and minerals to make the enzymes the body needs to digest all the cooked food you eat, then the body will pull vitamins and minerals from the most available source-bones for calcium and teeth, copper from skin and veins (elasticity) vitamin E from cologne (wrinkles) and the list goes on and on because we need a lot of different vitamins and minerals to maintain the body and we need a lot of different vitamins and minerals to build enzymes.

Since the body is an eating machine (think about it, without eating you die; so the #1 purpose of the body is to eat and digest food) then all the other things like maintaining and re-building the body, keeping the immune system up etc., come second to making enzymes.

Here is where I start to wrap it up:

So the body will pull the vitamins and mineral it needs from your body systems and organs thereby degenerating them so that it can make enzymes to digest food that has no vitamins and minerals in it! Degeneration of the body is also called aging-it is also called disease!

Wow!

How silly is that circle?

WRAP-UP

heat=cooked food=denatured, acidic food= making lots of enzymes=pulling vitamins and minerals from body to make enzymes=degenerating body= aging/disease

Yet people insist on eating cooked foods because they like them or just because they are in the habit of eating them.

Well smoking is a habit, too. I would not want to do it! It is bad

And in order to have a healthy life, one must decide to have a healthy life and then do it- quit smoking.

The same with breaking the habit of cooked foods; one must decide what is more important:

Eating cooked foods or have a healthy life.

‘Staying young” for as along as you possibly can or eating cooked foods?

In my book, there is no choice! Be healthy stay young and eat fab. Raw Foods!

However, most of the time, people only change WHEN THEY HAVE TO.

Usually that is when they get sick and are faced with a terminal illness.

But why not prevent all this silliness? Especially when my books: EATING IN THE RAW and the new RAW 50 (which will hit the stores in May) tell you how ‘fab’ raw foods are and they teach you to make some easy and familiar recipes?

I always maintain: anything you eat cooked I can find you raw-

Raw is just a different process then cooking, but the foods taste the same or better-raw unpasteurized milk right from the cow is sweeter and better then it pasteurized counter part. The same goes for cheeses: raw milk cheeses taste great!

Come on, just substitute some raw foods at least and get on your way!

If any of this is confusing, my books explain in more detail especially raw 50 due out in book stores in May. (Eating in the Raw gives you my story and the HOW-TO on eating raw: how to shop, how to eat out etc.)

Next blog, perhaps I will talk about how raw foods stopped my indigestion?