View Full Version : Ravished by Raw
It has taken me by suprise that the thought of writing a raw diary/blog is now a interesting thought. I have never been a keen diarist; although I have tried to journal in the past without success I have done impatience with my own introspection. But the thought of writing about the raw food 'journey' seems good, and perhaps fulfilling.
I have been almost fully raw for about 18 months (although probably over 70% raw for over half my life without realising there was such a thing as raw and living food. It just seemed natural to eat things without adulteration) So I find that I do wonder about it a great deal, read much, and spend quite a lot of my time on my own with much room for thought and feeling. Documenting the learning experience (and the joy) will be a gift, and if others find it interesting, a bonus!
What I have found over the past few weeks is as time goes by it is less and less about 'food,' and more and more about whatever is behind the nature of the 'food.' The 'essence' I suppose: Whether it is sacramental to something or somebody. Whether it is a form of love: Whether it is loved.
I have learnt that everything can be 'food'...everything can nourish or mal-nourish our minds, therefore our chosen bodies. It is all a choice. Going raw is just an outward reflection of what we have chosen to focus on inwardly; a mirror of our inward 'choices.'
I find myself becoming less interested in what I am going to physically eat and experience being nourished by so much more than just food. Raw foodists nourish me before they have ever given me anything to eat. They are just so beautiful.
It is a strange experience to find that even the raw food you used to be attracted to has become a plaything rather than something to eat daily. Gourmet dishes are now my lego, my play-dough! I love creating them; need to create them; so grateful when others eat them, but astonishingly find them almost inedible myself at present (although I am conscious that nothing is set in stone and that this may change.) The richness of the experience is too much, which is the oddest thing. It has bought emotions to the surface which I have not felt before. A need to learn how to deal with being given everything: with being truly 'rich.'
There are definitely changes occuring. Whether they will be interesting or not I have no idea but I will attempt to come to my senses and document them for posterity, or my posterior. Who knows what's around the corner. If I ever pass by a box of honey mangoes, which to me are rainbows in food form you will know I've completely lost it!
Everything is raw. Why do I find that within myself? Maybe again an outside reflection of an inward picture. It's all fun and frolics and freeedom. Hope it's that way for you too.
Ha ha welcome to the diary section Ruth..........something I keep meaning to get around to, maybe when I'm imprisoned to the upstairs after the operation on Tuesday :5387:http://www.rawinuk.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
I have to admit though I haven't experienced the energy rush etc from raw foods that everybody raves about, but then at the moment I am on so many tablets maybe it's being dulled, and maybe that's a good thing as I'd be putting all the whiplash injuries out if not :9436:
Hi Jax,
What operation? Good luck for that. It would be good to hear your thoughts about your raw food journey. The reason I decided to start in this diary section is because I really enjoy reading other people's blogs, and almost always find them really motivational! When did you start, and what inspires you to continue?
I too have not fully experienced the HUGE energy rushes that people on raw rave about. Perhaps with my history it may take a while, although I have come quite close when living on juices in a tropical climate ie. Florida on a camping holiday (what a difference some truly hot sun makes!)
We all start of from different health positions so it makes sense that not all will experience the same levels of physical energy immediately. I actually wish there were some raw food authors speaking about this, don't you? That not everyone will go straight into living on a energetic high; and some may take years to detoxifiy their system, or recover from long-term health issues to get to that amazing state.
I like you have found I prefer to re-frame my thoughts on 'doing' energy! We are not all meant to be athletes (although I still would love to be running up steep hillsides like the mountain goat I feel I am) and I trust my body to take me where it wants to be....where it knows it can thrive long-term. I trust it's inate wisdom and healing capabilites so much more than my own thoughts on the subject. I know that if I give it gentleness and peace (no pressure to live up to other's experiences) it will be able to go much further in the end. The tortoise wins the race! That's my expectation!
Hi Jax,
What operation? Good luck for that. Aw thanks so much Ruth, it's bilateral arthroscopies and debridement in both knees, so going in and cleaning out the joint.........I'm hoping to get a copy of the video http://www.rawinuk.com/images/icons/icon10.gif
We all start of from different health positions so it makes sense that not all will experience the same levels of physical energy immediately. I actually wish there were some raw food authors speaking about this, don't you? That not everyone will go straight into living on a energetic high; and some may take years to detoxifiy their system, or recover from long-term health issues to get to that amazing state.YES, without a doubt, I'm beginning to think that most of the raw writers are going to be putting people off by either going OTT on this supposed abundant energy and spiritualism, OR by promising that it will happen to you, and people like you and I finding that isn't the case, and in extreme cases maybe becoming quite depressed that it hasn't happened for them. I envisage either incidence putting a lot of people back on to a SAD/SUKD way of life with the attitude 'what the hell, I tried it and it didn't work so back to Mucky D's' :(
I like you have found I prefer to re-frame my thoughts on 'doing' energy! We are not all meant to be athletes (although I still would love to be running up steep hillsides like the mountain goat I feel I am) and I trust my body to take me where it wants to be....where it knows it can thrive long-term.
LOL but I was meant to be an athlete I think http://www.rawinuk.com/images/icons/icon12.gif, I've swam, rode horses and motorbikes, did athletics, rowed and now a bit of snowboarding.............but I seriously don't have half the energy I need to do any of them to a half decent level and without hurting these days http://www.rawinuk.com/images/icons/icon13.gifhttp://www.rawinuk.com/images/icons/icon9.gif
The sea buckthorn where I live is getting super soft and ripe. Little golden pellets of tart golden juice which you can eat straight off the tree in an midst of golden rain. Today (wanting more vitamin c for the tiny weeny cold that I am presently saying goodbye to) I decided to gather as much as I could whilst it was perfect: juice some to put into the freezer in ice-cube trays; and eat the rest in various recipes and juices.
Firts stop, the pet shop in the village to buy a comb...the sort used for very long and coursely haired dogs. (It's very important to make the trees look beautiful before your plunder their bounty!) I found a comb perfect for the job and came back very excited to see whether this foragers 'trick' would work.
Actually I found 'combing' the branches to release berries less effective now that they are so very ripe. Warning: do not do this in white trousers, whilst looking up into the tree without glasses of any kind. Showers of golden rain flew round about me. Precious juice and bits of branch in my eyes, hair, ears...ear-wigs down my top, together with tiny spiders having the ride of their life...and clothes saturated with tiny yellow droplets which still tasted wonderful, reminding me of Laurie Lee's description of his first taste of cider.
Without using the comb it became easier to stop the flight of the berries and actually get them to go into a container. Fingers work fine to strip branches once they berries are ripe enough to 'tenderise' the hard woody spikes that cover the branch. Just take a branch in one hand whilst holding container underneath and pull tightly downwards. Some leaves will come off together with myriad insects which you can pick out. You won't get every berry in perfect globular condition, but if you plan to juice them it doesn't really matter that half of what you carry home is already squashed by your hands.
It's lots of fun on an grey October afternoon! The birds sing at you, invisible inside the trees, probably telling you to go away. The rabbits don't notice you, and it is blissful to look up into the canopy of golden-yellow stars dancing above you as you shake each branch... stained glass amber globuls as light passes through above your head.
Once home I made lots of juice to freeze; a juice to drink; some fruti leather; biscuits made with banana, apricot and sprouted sesame; and am presently marinading some dried apricots in buckthorn juice which I feel is going to work beautiully as in my dream last night (?Does anyone else dream of recipes?) I intend to stuff them with some sort of 'cheese' made with macadamias. If they are good I'll bring some to the pot luck.
Thank you sea buckthorn trees for living so close to my home and letting me love you. And thank you body for having a cold so that you want even more vitamin c and can eat even more fruit than usual.
Blessings from berries forever.
Warning: do not do this in white trousers, whilst looking up into the tree without glasses of any kind. Showers of golden rain flew round about me. Precious juice and bits of branch in my eyes, hair, ears...ear-wigs down my top, together with tiny spiders having the ride of their life...and clothes saturated with tiny yellow droplets which still tasted wonderful, reminding me of Laurie Lee's description of his first taste of cider.
LMAO Ruth, I'd love to have seen you do that, you always look immaculate! :585:
Not when I'm picking any kind of berry Jax; the greed takes over. What does LMAO mean? By the way, good luck for today. I am really thinking of you and hoping it goes even better than expected. I'm sending honey for your knees honey!
Godders
20-10-2009, 09:53 AM
LMAO = Laughing My Ass Off ;)
I laughed out loud when I read that Karen was craving edame and boiled beetroot (A respectable conbination indeed) and I started wondering what my own body is 'craving' after 18 months fully raw. So here is...
...a list of 'cravings.'
A strong daily desire to wash my face and eyes with my morning juice (not given in to this desire yet..never make enough juice)
Needing to add spirulina to a bath; surplus to the nettles I have already added.
Desiring to wash my face with a nettle juice ice cube; very stimulating.
Getting excited..really excited mind... buying broccoli.
Quaffing back my first pint of morning juice in a matter of seconds, as if I have not drunk anything for years.
Kissing vegetables.
In fact kissing any fruit or veg that falls to the floor as I am preparing it. Apoligising to it. Not noticing I am doing this, and wondering why I get strange looks from any bystanders.
The need to cover fruit with algae.
The need for spirulina-everything.
The desire for more serious 'meaning' in my chocolate.
Greeting my food; even if it is still hanging on the tree or bush. Thinking, 'you're mine.'
Keeing avocadoes for a 'treat.' Sub-consiously waiting until I have 'deserved' one.
Ditto olives.
Wanting miso on everything; including bananas.
Seriously contemplating 45 mile round trip just to buy dried mulberries.
Seriously contemplating going to London (or Brighton) just to visit raw food cake sellers.
Eating my tea-time salad as a woman in love. Wanting to talk about how wonderful this new combination of vegetables is: not recognising that this is boring to others not in love with my meal.
Getting 'high' on above salad as I used to do only on cross country runs..or coffee.
Carrying tons of food with me wherever I go; always including one wrinkled apple.
Craving time to create new gourmet recipes and then not wanting to eat them because I have fresh salad greens.
Dreaming recipe ideas.
Finding I am 'eating' air and sunlight. Ditto emotions, thoughts, feelings. Becoming aware of the whole world of form as 'edible.' Understanding the use of the word 'quantum' as everything becomes 'food,' and the body lets go to the mind.
The thought of a salad without seaweed: unthinkable.
Needing peas-with-mint for a treat when I'm craving anything cooked. Always works.
Wanting to eat flowers and make perfume from petals, like I used to when I was a very little girl and wanted to be a flower fairy.
The thought of a bowl of red lentils being the most tantalisingly exotic thing ever.
Honey mangoes: greens: algae: more! more!
Holy man goes green. Elegy to raw x
Something really weird happened to me this morning. I woke up in a bad mood...
Bad moods are fortunately something that have never been a big part of my psyche. I have always had a generally consistent default 'mood' of inner joy and interest, whatever the outward circumstances of my apparent life.
The mood that surrounded my senses this morning was SO powerful and strange that it felt I was observing somebody else's life as in a peculiarly surreal out-of-body movie! Nothing I could do or think could shift the mougish mood, in fact I could not think through the feelings of bad temper; only wonder what on earth was happening to me!
I even at one point had tears in my eyes over nothing which made me very confused.
Once walking outside in a particularly beautiful place (always a panacea for any trace of negativity) I could see and appreciate the ethereal loveliness of the day whilst simultaneously feeling completely dreary, and even very angry. Again, at NOTHING! Only after a few hours when the clouds started to lift did it occur to me that the cooked chocolate that I was offered and ate yesterday evening could have something to do with how my brain was acting. I literally got out of bed feeling angry, terribly confused and depressed.
If this is how a small amount of cooked chocolate is going to affect a raw foodist I will never eat it again... for a few mouthfuls it's just not worth it! The sensation of being made into an emotionally different person and watching my brain try to readjust afterwards is too surreal to ever want to do again. I suppose it may be akin to taking a personality-altering drug. The effects took half a day to wear off and were replaced this evening by my normal experience of joy and inner bliss. God knows where the 'anger' came from or went to!
I have not eaten cooked chocolate for a long while now, so the effects were dramatic if that is what caused the peculiar mood change. It has shown me how sensitive you can become to certain foodstuffs. And not just physically. Mentally and emotionally as well. Whilst I do not want to become abnormally sensitive as a life-long raw foodist, I now accept that perhaps there is no way of avoiding this outcome. I also have become more aware of how others are having to cope with chemically altered brains in their daily lives. It has made me even more certain that I want to love apparent 'bad' moods into the nothingness where they originate. They do not belong to the person involved but to the chemical reactions taking place in their neurology. I hope that today's experience will make the me that is in me more compassionate towards others when they appear to be doing negative moods. I will know it is not them (or me) but their brain chemistry talking. If that is so, then a few chocolate covered cherries will have been worth it for someone who still has a lot of learn.
Do you know what, since I've been off work and doing more raw, I've been thinking along the lines you talk about in relation to bad moods and foods.
As some know I'm a sports lecturer, and work in a vocational college in a low socio-economic area. Not being snobby (and if you met I don't think you'd think I was a snob), but this means many of our students come from broken homes (again, not snobby as my 2 have too) where there is no stability, ground rules or recourse, generally the student is looking after many of his or her siblings for the mother to go out, no provision made for their studying, many medical 'conditions' such as ADHD, psychiatric problems, depression, headaches etc, poor schooling, and completely dire nutrition.
I've had many students who don't have a proper home prepared meal, it's usually microwave meals or takeaways, if anything at all, a lot are just left to fend for themselves or are out all day with mates keeping out the house, so buy crisps and muffins etc as a main meal. I had a student last year who thought nothing of eating 9 doughnuts for his breakfast, another who couldn't remember the last time he had vegetables, all of them drink fizzy drinks, lot of which are Red Bull and Lucozade, not just Coke. If any do bring in a lunch it's always white bread, pale cheese and pale formed ham (they look so unappetising it's ridiculous), bulked out with cake, crisps and chocolate. Many will just have 2-3 chocolate bars for their lunch and nothing else! Mind you the canteen food does look disgusting, and when I've eaten it in the past out of an emergency..................it just tastes of nothing or all the same. The other options near us are a fish and chip shop and a corner shop who's sandwiches are horrible but they do sell tasty samosas that are probably laden with ghee!
So anyway that's the background of the students I teach, and it's absolutely no wonder they are aggressive, rude, vile, miserable, argumentative and under performing. And absolutely no wonder I've been sworn at, punched, pushed fully clothed and with my mobile phone in a swimming pool, attempted to have my tracky bottoms pulled down, called fat, constantly disrespected as well as other staff. And yet it's the staff that are blamed for their under achievement and lack of motivation!!!! :mad: Especially when it comes to Ofsted and internal lesson observations..........I'm at a loss with it all really, how can we be hauled over the coals when the students have such a malnourished existence full of chemicals, processed muck, sugar, trans fat and preservatives that is sending them off the rails along with poor parenting skills???
It was tough enough for me to deal with before I was signed off, with even more research and knowledge of raw nutrition in my head, I absolutely don't kn ow how I'll cope with it when I go back. Our college did ban the sale of Red Bull, but they just go up the corner shop and get it anyway, so the argument of banning unhealthy foods won't be entertained anymore.
karen @rawchocolateheaven
24-10-2009, 04:08 PM
I just bought Victoria Boutenkos Green Juicing Revolution, not yet read it only leafed through. There is a picture of Victoria early in the book of her in a school doling out Green smoothies to interested kids....
Do you reckon we could start going into primary schools (charging) and demonstrating green smoothies ??? maybe target poor areas, weston, sholing, mansbridge etc
Show that because it's a smoothie it's very cheap, and as most homes have a blender, hand (billy) blender or similar it could and should be easy enough to change habits!
Even getting one smoothie into a non veg eating child would be a step in the right direction!!!
re raw emotions anyone gor Stokes-monarchs Raw Emotions? would like a read of it.
I react horribly to close family if I eat cooked food, I turn into a very argumentative person..... Would you believe it mmmmm
I find dealing with negativity is best done alone, I walk up to our top field (i say ours in the royal "we" sense of the word, it's a public field!) and rant to myself!!!sometimes I attempt to run, sometimes this knackers me enough to not be angry anymore, other times it makes me worse as I realise I can not in fact run!!!
The last time I ate cooked Chocolate was 2 years ago, I had a 1 inch square of Green&blacks very dark one (i forget the %) all I could taste was the sugar!!! & yes it was followed by a long walk & rant!!
I had carrot & corriander soup from the market today, must try harder to make own food...I nearly threw it away before I started drinking it, as I had gone over to find out why it was taking so long, the staff nodded behind her and said "microwave" now I can barely cope with boiled or lightly steamed anything and the thought of "microwaved" well I initially thought "chuck it!" then I figured I've paid so have it, I had it.....
I've just got in from a lenghtly walk and rant, am sitting typing with a left brain headache.....really this is not at all good!!!
Really really looking forward to tomorrow, always inspires me having a friendly group of pot luckers sharing Raw everything xxx can't wait :party0007:
Thank you both for these posts. I find it helpful to read that you are finding the same relationship between what you eat and state of mind. It was quite a shock to me to have such a severe reaction: And it made me feel so sorry for those who go through their lives without good nutrition and may be unable to experience the truly lovely personality that may be there underneath all the junk food!
It would be fantastic to be able to go into schools, colleges or community centres to demonstrate green smoothies! I wonder whether we would be wanted! I am sure though that most children (and receptive adults) would love any fruity smoothie, never mind the green being 'good' for you! And that it could really take off in the classroom; particularly where schools have their own growing space. Children love highly coloured food so maybe they would find kudos in drinking greens in front of their peers!
I have just made some I think, delicious nettle/pine nut pesto for tomorrow's pot luck. I am sure that if you gave it to anyone on a standard UK diet they would like it without knowing it was raw. Why does there have to be a deliniation over raw food verses cooked? When I take my own food to my brother's family they will eat it UNLESS I have mistakenly told them it is raw!
I am sure that if we were to give people demonstrations of 'healthy' or just 'exciting' or 'flavourful' food without mentioning the raw word, people would be more willing to try things out themselves. Why 'raw' is frightning is part of the altered brain chemistry that promotes a mind-set of fear of our natural heritage. I think things are changing though...and like fashion, food moves on. It would only take one top chef to start serving raw food for it to take off in foody circles, a bit like seasonal and local food did a few years ago....for it to be the next best thing.
Feast the evening before a wild-food pot luck.
(Note to self. Best meal ever...I must do this more often!)
Sea buckthorn and honey juice
Nettle and pine-nut pesto on red pecan crackers
Dandelion, rocket, mizuna, wild parsley and red clover sprout salad with more nettle pesto and tamari seeds. WOW!!! The flavours!!
a while later
Dehydrated sea buckthorn and pineapple rings
raw chocolate foraged for at Sunnyfields market.
The life force in this meal!
sharonjones
25-10-2009, 07:36 AM
i read about indigo children and young people a couple of years ago. it was suggested that these young people are spiritually the evolutionary next generation, they have a different blueprint to the older generations. they seem to have a different understanding of things spiritually.
the book recommended feeding these indigos with fruit smoothies instead of the processed foods that are so common place as jax described. the smoothies are so full of clean energy and goodness that the indigo soul is nourished from the smoothie meal.
kinda makes you think dont it??
Debbie Took
25-10-2009, 06:54 PM
Ruth apologising to fruit as she drops it...I feel like that!
A while ago, I saw a grapefruit on the floor in the supermarket. I was walking over to pick it up when a woman KICKED it contemptuously out of the way of her trolley!
I was ridiculously affected. How could she KICK it?
i read about indigo children and young people a couple of years ago. it was suggested that these young people are spiritually the evolutionary next generation, they have a different blueprint to the older generations. they seem to have a different understanding of things spiritually.
the book recommended feeding these indigos with fruit smoothies instead of the processed foods that are so common place as jax described. the smoothies are so full of clean energy and goodness that the indigo soul is nourished from the smoothie meal.
kinda makes you think dont it??
Hi Sharon,
I don't know when you were brought up but it was all processed food in the 80's when I was a child; and very little nutritional advice for parents who were still doing the meat and two veg paradigm. My body craved fresh fruit and vegetables from an early age, plus a huge desire to choose for myself and graze rather than have huge meals at set times. I believe that most children would choose this way of feeding if they could. I would have loved to make my own fruit smoothies and dishes had the knowledge been there. The indigo soul certainly thrives on raw food...and it would have been perfect to start young but at least we have more knowledge for the next generation of children and can give them the choice. Thanks, it does make you think....instinctively...rather than staying in the rut!
This past week has been a revelation, ending in today's Southampton pot luck. The theme of the pot luck was 'wild food,' so all week I have been trying out various easily found wild foods in various combinations; the nettles, dandelion and berries that I normally pick plus other greens I have found along the way.
I don't know how to articulate what has happened except that it is like beginning the raw food journey all over again. My 'heart' is full of something more. Immense gratitude for food and fellowship and a return to the way of being that I have craved and sought since babyhood and known was there but not known the particulars.
This sounds melodramatic; but today's pot luck has opened previously closed eyes to the wonders of wild food and the outstanding way it can make you feel, and on a different level to even normal 'raw' experience.
I have to thank Karen for waking me up from sleep over this. It was in me but I did not know it until now. The wild foods that we ate at the pot luck, and that which I have been eating and drinking all week have imparted so much more life-force and love force into what I think of as me. It feels like I am exercising a muscle that has not been thoroughly used before... some kind of extra-sensory love muscle! It's very subtle but gently there within. I know that various raw food writers occasionally alienate people by talking about the 'spiritual' experiences which they have on the raw food pathway, but it cannot be avoided after you have gone a certain distance along said path that the choice starts to affect your inner as well as outer appearance.
When I first became raw I felt that it was completely 'right' for this one, and that I had been semi raw for years without knowing. Then came the green juice and smoothie revolution and my zest was multiplied. And now copious wild foods seems the next lift-up along the path. It has seemed today like being raised into another dimension of truthfulness and connectiveness and reminded me of tribal feelings deep within the psyche that only emerge once a need has been fulfilled.
Is it simplistic to say that we need each other to feed? That we need freshly gathered food? That we need to prepare and eat together; share ideas and thoughts about what we are eating? That we need to prepare food not for ourselves but for others; and they in turn for us? And that THAT is our real food?
I feel that we need each other just as much as we need the food we choose in this life; raw or not. Without the energy and love that goes into food prepared for other's bodies/minds we are empty of their loving vibe and their own need for US, just as we are. Perfect, accepted and whole.
My mother tells a story of something that happened when I was 18 months old. She was ill in bed and I had gone into the garden by myself. A short while later she felt me by her side as I thrust a giant dock leaf into her hand. I apparently said to my father that Mummy should have this as a tea because, 'It was very soporific you know.' I had got the idea (and the word... which made my parents smile!) from Beatrix Potter's 'Peter Rabbit' and it obviously made sense to an 18 month old to go out into the garden to find a cure and make a tea. Why do we loose this instinct? Even our pet rabbit Clover had the good taste to favour dandelions above any other food ever bought her. For a very sedate lady bunny she went uncharacturistically crazy when she so much as smelt a leaf. I spent my childhood picking them for her and never once thought to try them myself! She would have fought me for them though, so perhaps things work out.
I hope I shall continue to be inspired to learn more about the wonderful wild foods available all around us and be able to create things that other people will love and feel nourished by. What a wonderful gift. Thank you Karen. No money could ever buy this feeling of new wonder. You raise me up!
Something has happened in my life that has given me more joy than ever before!
Since I have gone raw my mother has been hitch-hiking on my raw food journey. She thoroughly enjoys any food I give her, she shares books and information, and makes her own raw food sweets at home with great delight. In the past few months she has become more and more interested in the wonderful benefits of eating raw. Whilst she has not decided to be a raw foodist she has started to incorporate much more raw into her day. It is the next step for this ex-nurse, having been an ardent follower of nutritional advice for a number of years and helped improve and prolong many people's lives through cooked food healthy-eating advice.
She has always loved any raw food I've given her: Even that which other people have not been so keen for she has never refused, and after staying with me in the summer and tasting the wonderful concoctions you can rustle up with a vita-mix she decided to save for one in order to make herself green smoothies every day.
Since receiving her vita-mix she has gained in strength and fitness to the point that every email or call I receive from her has a version of the phrases, 'I've never felt fitter,' 'I just feel fantastic,'or 'I feel so strong and have so much energy I don't know what to do with it all.'
This is a lady who has struggled all her life with many chronic conditions including arthritis, and she so deserves this perfect regeneration! I know that she won't mind me telling you how old she is at 70 years young, mainly because her attitude is so young, joyous and free...raw foods helps that as well! She is an inspiration to those who feel they can not conquer life-long ill health. She was literally ill all my childhood and teenage, and almost had to be treated as disabled. I never thought she would be well and move around like this. I can hardly believe it and can't keep up with her when we're together...literally.
This lady, who is classed as 'older' in our society has joined a gym, swims daily, lifts weights and does much more per day than I have yet to achieve, or see others half her age managing. She is not anywhere near 100% raw, yet who cares? Her quality of life has improved so vastly I could not have even wished this level of health for her when I was young, for we did not know it was possible. So even though I wait for more energy as I recover from ME, my mother, on green smoothies, salads and soups is blazing a trail for me to follow.
For myself at the moment I am finding all I want to eat is green and strong, or sprouted, or an exceptionally tart berry! My energy levels vary: One day I can be going about my businees for much of the day with rests (I'm supposed to have four to manage my energy) in between. Another day I will not even notice I am awake, and spend the day half asleep on any available surface, waiting for my brain to snap back into gear....it is like having had a stroke. Sometimes I am in ecstasy and profound levels of inner joy and bliss...not conscious that I have had a body. It is a very strange place to be...this world! I only know that raw foods increase my joy and that I love them.
I've been meaning to ask this question for a while. Has anyone else noticed that their cellulite (forgive me for expecting you to have some) is dissapearing effortlessly?
The last few weeks has had me amazed. It is just melting away and the top of my legs becoming smooth as silk.
I have not increased or decreased the amount of movement in my day; my weight has not changed for 14 years; and apart from eating more and more greens am not doing anything different apart from being raw.
The skin all over my body is baby soft and feels like cream or silk. This should be an incentive for woman all over the world to want to eat more fruit and vegetables. Aren't we lucky!
karen @rawchocolateheaven
01-11-2009, 09:14 AM
Sorry, but my first thought was immediately "you have cellulite!"
then I had a look at my own legs in the mirror, now I've not really suffered with the oranges, but I did notice my road map of milton keynes is fading!!
I've had a few surgeries on my tummy, and while the earliest is more than 5 years old I can still see scars! these are mostly horizontal added to the verticle stretch marks and hey presto my personal map!!
They are fading....I reckon by the time I emerge as a butterfly next early summer they should be all but gone.
Do you think our lack of cellulite is the high water content food that we all consume?:)
Could be that...and a host of other reasons. However our natural desire to know how and why things work hardly applys here, does it?!! I don't care why it's happening! Only that it continues to!!
I bet that within a few years your 'personal map' will have faded. You will have to paint your butterfly wings and colours on! With edible paint...
I can't believe how much green stuff I want at the moment! For the past few years, in fact probably most of my life my salads have been rainbow coloured with peppers, onion, courgettes, tomatoes, cabbage, beetroot...you name it... all vegetables, all fruit, if it was colourful I wanted to eat it in any shape or form.
My drinks (in fact my life) were mostly based on carrots (got told by a doctor once to give them up as my skin had turned a suspiscious yellow-orange colour) and the fruit I wanted most was almost always orange (mangos) or red or purple (berries.)
This year things have started to change. In the last few months I have been turned off colour almost completely and am craving more greens every day to the extent that drinks are now entirely green, 'pudding' now is green, snacks green; and of course the main event salad meal (which I look forward to all day as if I have never eaten) is totally green and sprouted with no 'colour' from other vegetables at all. Where did that come from?!
For instance tonight I had a massive bag of salad greens, fresh from Lymington's brilliant farm shop, with alfalfa and broccoli sprouts, garlic sunflower seeds, and a miso-spirulina dressing (sounds wierd but works.) Other food today: 2 little green 'burgers' wrapped in about 5 rainbow chard leaves each (still not enough); green juice; nettle tea; and a green pudding made with chard, rocket and an apple.
This is such a turn around for I used to live on carrots, especially at this time of the year when I would be spending most of my money on huge bags of them. I used to eat a couple of peppers every day, taking those long red peppers out with me if I went out. And most of my calories went on fruit.
It is a wonderful feeling to be able to eat what your body is leading you to eat. I feel really fortunate that I can afford to buy vegetables and also have so many brilliant places to forage for greens near where I live. I go out daily to gather fresh supplies and love the routine now of picking my salad from around my home. Although after a few meals of the same leaves I get greedy for stronger more bitter ones and have to find new places to forage. Strange that.
An added bonus of still not getting around to clearing our garden for the raised beds we've planned is that it is now chock full of edible 'weeds' which make wonderful pickings! I am watching it tenderly....there's a few months worth of green juices out there now! I almost think it may be worth keeping it unkempt so that I get the benefits of free salad. Strong, wild and free salad! I have at least 5 different type of edible leaf proliferating...much to be prefered than traditional weaker varieties!
I am slightly concerned that one day I may not want a honey mango, or will refuse a bag of raspberries. It's come to it that all fruit now is blended with tough, bitter greens so I suppose it is going to happen. Well at least I am enjoying food even more than ever before. Oh it just makes you feel so GOOD!!!!!!
Green for esctasy.!!
One side effect: You want to eat all the time you are out. Any tree in leaf makes your mouth water. You want to pick and eat everything you see. It's slightly exhilarating and slightly worrying at the same time!
You want to pick and eat everything you see. It's slightly exhilarating and slightly worrying at the same time!
LMAO you're not kidding Ruth, at the rate you're going they'll be no countryside left :p
Ha ha ha. Seriously though it is a bit of a nuisance to be driving along the road, my mouth watering continuosly as I gaze at the verges...the trees...the hedgerows....
I'm going bonkers!
Plus point, got good idea for greeeeeen cakes! Could start a trend. Watch out pot luck. I might be about the reinvent the gateux forever.
karen @rawchocolateheaven
03-11-2009, 05:06 PM
I am writing this again as I pressed a button and it all vanished....
we watched ms McKeith the other day training a fat family, and it struck me that families just dont buy veg as they "tried it once and the kids didn't like it" so they give up..at a fundamental level when shopping packaging looks nicer than soil covered spuds & fits better in our all the same cupboards...bring back larders & stores and suddenly loose veg has a place in the home thats not the bottom of the fridge!!!
I think unless a family saturates their kitchen with veg then kids don't stand a chance!!! Our little boy every day gets a whopping salad placed on the table for the whole family to take from...takes pressure off seeing a mountain on the plate...often he doesn't even touch it...other times like today, when the salad was wild green (sea beet & samphire) & watercress he ate loads...I reckon over the cause of a year he gets more than the gov's paultry rec. of "5 a day" easy in summer with fruit, winter with greens...our allotment with it's abundance...and me wild fooding everywhere we go!!!
but if a family doesn't offer haw can our children recieve????
our little fellow is currently snacking on his 3rd carrot!!:victory:
What do you do when you wake up with a mammoth cooked food craving coupled with ravenous appetite?
You decide the only way to carry on is to have.....(trumpet please)...
A Day of Puddings!!!
I woke up this morning, the morning after the day before, when Best Friend and I had been caught out miles from home, hungry and thirsty, and needing to visit a cafe. He had eaten a massive chocolate chip cookie not designed in any way for a diabetic; washed down with a latte which I managed to sniff at in pleasure before sipping demurly on a peppermint tea whilst eyeing what everyone else had on thier plates. What I really wanted was a slice of carrot cake and a big mocha with extra water to make it go further.
It's looking at all that conventional 'treat' food that does it for me. I'm fine at home, but take me out to a cafe of any sort and my resolve falters. At the moment I want to eat everything anyway; think my body is making up for years on the anti-candida diet of tinned tuna and steamed vegetables; and whatever I see poses the un-conscious question, ' Does this have the nutrient I want?'
When taken to a cafe my eager childish self wants to join in... to be invited to taste all that lovely party food; to choose something that feels like fun with all these sociable people around...not be bothered with food that's fuel...
I know that if cafes served raw drinks and snacks I would be the first to choose them. Would I ever choose a coffee over a juice, or a sad cake over a glad cake? No...never! In fact I have worked out that my craving for coffee is not any such thing. It's the people in the cafe. It's the experince of buying something away from home; eating out; the pic-nic feel; the comfy chairs; the ambience; the talk with friends. It's not the food at all; or the caffeine fix. Aye there's the rub....I want to join in.
So this morning when I got up I knew that drastic post-cafe-exposure action was needed. Especially as I happened to see a tiramisu on offer in my local Waitrose yesterday...and mince pies, organic ones for sale, weeks too early with a sell by date of 9th November.
So the day was Christened, 'National Pudding Day!' The aim to create as many sweet and luscious puddings as possible, and to eat them of course.
Breakfast. I normally have green juice made with just 'greens.' So what's different? Aha I've got a watermelon that I was going to make into candy for my pot luck friends. Oh well, they will never know. I juiced it with celery and some beautiful chard and it was a sweet delightful pink-ish heaven in a glass. I followed this (because I had not time to make anything yet) with one of Karen's big date and oat bars. Breakfast like a King. And do I feel deprived?? NONONO
Mid morning. Hot chocolate made with spiced almond milk and brandy, I don't know if that's raw or not but I was having fun by now. I heated it to warmish in a saucepan and it was much too alcoholic, but I drank it anyway to show my determination.
Lunch: massive mango actually ripe today, so blended it with more chard, and for an extra special treat (and laughing to myself that I considered this SUCH a wonderful out-of-the-ordinary thing to do) 2 dried apricots! Wow! Oh and some nettle powder. Very luxurious and tremendously filling.
4pm: Blended the rest of the spiced hot chocolate (cold by now) with 1 1/2 bananas and some blackberries. The brandy worked really well in this! Oh my goodness. Invention heaven.
6pm: Sweet salad for a change. Made a sweet and sour dressing with (soaked) dried pineapple. Actually found it too sweet and missed my miso.
Couldn't finish it and am wondering what it would be like dehydrated.
7pm: Home made cookie, made from again spiced hot choc milk with almond butter, dates and oats. Was still soft and chewy.
Do I still want a cooked treat after today? Probably yes because I am realistic and know that my brain hankers after eating things way after my body actually wants them. But IF I can treat myself to a different type of raw food day when I get a craving and have such fun with it....well then I don't mind how many days of craving arise.. I'd look forward to them! Days like this are when adventures start and inventions happen. Most of all, if you can give yourself permission to have fun with food, however a singular activity it is until the mass population learn of it's wondrous appeal...well then... pudding is your oyster; and bliss your pearl.
Really am looking forward to tomorrow. Back to normal again.
LOL next time you go out to a cafe, invite me round for the pudding day afterwards http://www.rawinuk.com/images/icons/icon10.gif :7841:
In that case, why wait for a craving? I always have beautiful food here!
Seriously though, I can;t wait until raw food takes off in the mainstream because it's going to be so wonderful to go out to eat.
This week, as it has turned cold, I have gone back to craving green smoothies. This is peculiar as normally in the cold I want soup... or hot drinks... or more carbs. Perhaps after a longer time raw I am finally beginning to want what ulitmately will nourish me and get me through the winter!
I have had masses of greens in my smoothies including wild ones (samphire is gorgeous although I imagine an aquired taste) and it has really warmed me...though I don't know how! Drinking them has also given me an increased appetite which feels normal and healthy. OK to put on a couple of pounds to pass through the colder months. It all feels very safe, loving and apppropriate.
For most of my life I have found the cold (and cold wind in particular) very difficult to cope with; making me emotional and stressed, but in the past few weeks, as the temperature has dropped, I am delighted to find I am no where near as cold or in pain from it as this time last year. It feels as if my temperature regulation has altered and that I can cope with and even enjoy feeling a bit cooler! I would carry on being raw just for this! To be able to enjoy being outside in winter will be such a wonder! I am hoping the change will continue as we travel through the winter!
Funny how drinking greens and eating cool food can warm you up. I wonder if anyone else has found this to be true.
This week I have been playing with various ways of creating fillings for raw chocolate truffles. It is harder than I imagined, but when you get it right the results are out of this world... and extremely addictive! To date I have managed three sucessful fillings, two of which actually made it into chocolates. A dark ganache which just melts in the mouth and tastes a million dollars, named this The Harrods Truffle. A spirulina ganache (which I ate as there was not enough to make many truffles but will work some day) and a sweet hazelnut filling which was very sticky and would not pipe or swirl or pour or move in any way but did eventually get STUCK into a proper chocolate cup and eaten. I am still slightly peeved that it would not behave and led me and my tempered chocolate up the garden path, but as I made it I can't really blame it. I just don't want to name it until I can forget the dance which it led me today. One 'trying truffle,' but worth it in the end.
Also made some gorgeous fudge with brazil nuts and maca and various biscuits/layered bars experiments for the up-coming feast. I can't believe that normal non-raw eaters live without this!
At the risk of incuring rath or being deemed herectical I am hereby telling the raw world that if you want to know how blessed we are... truly phantasmagorically blessed: If you want to experience more joy and wonder: If you want to take in the most beautiful physical feeling in the world whilst eliminating guilt on many levels, eat some cooked food then drink some fresh water. You will find yourself in bliss wallowing in the indescribably beautiful feeling of quenched thirst made much more tangible by eating the cooked or dehydrated stuff. I find listening to the water enter your body an amazing experience of life and sensation and joy.
I have been led to eat a few cooked things this past week... mostly vegtables if I think about it, and have found the whole experience a kind of revelation in reverse. Some kind of marvel that I wasn't expecting.
I have learnt that nothing but nothing does it for you like water, or a green smoothie/juice...ever. And that, ironically nothing can help you stay raw as much as a weeny bit of cooked food. Once you're far enough along the way it can re-stimulate you to adore eating raw, and for love, actually, not for nutritious purposes but for love of it. After some cooked food (which doesn't do it for you like your normal raw meal) you want nothing else but to get back to fresh and raw, and the simpler the better. In fact it can re-charge your raw diet to be created in more simplicity. Thank you cooked!
It is the water that does it for me. After cooked it tastes more sublime than any wine or champagne. It is so fine and dandy and just perfect. But then it also feels like one end of the scale which is still on terra firma, or stuck in duality. Which is best? Only this which is giving me joy now which has been enhanced by the cooked a few minutes ago. They are both one and I'm sounding drunk.
I am so glad that I am no longer excessively anxious about eating 100% raw 100% of the time..because I find I am wholly raw in my response almost always now. It is such freedom.
And that even with flu I can be healthier internally through peace of mind, ceasing to worry about what's right or wrong because it is now All joy promoting and all forgiveness and that's raw enough for me. Even though we've both got flu over the christmas period we are not down and depressed as you can get with that pesky virus, we are joyful even so. You just can't be down when drinking green smoothies! What's been running through my mind is Kate Moss' mantra, slightly adapted you may notice because,' Nothing tastes as good as green smoothie feels.' Who needs to be skinny after that? Christmas comes every day and I'm high again. Feel to good to want to be 'skinny.'
Break the raw taboos and find freedom in many different ways of expression. It's healthy because it's simple healing. Thank good for Christmas.
I have just come up with a genuis version on the green smoothie/pudding, and one that will help anyone stay warm and raw over the winter.
Raw Green Porridge! Or in other words; a green pudding with nuts or seeds made with some hot water.
I really needed lunch today to be warm I'm craving hot soup because it's so icy outside and the heating isn't up to it...
Having soaked about 15 apricots I then blended them with a handful of almonds and incan berries..nice on it's own... then added some glorious parlsey and kale with a cup of hot, almost-boiling-but-not-quite water from the kettle. This blended into the most wonderful hot green porridge type pudding for lunch; felt fantastically good to eat and really warmed me right up!
This is the sort of food that keeps me loving raw more and more as cooked versions do not live up to it in any way. I am so glad to have found a warm version of the beloved green smoothie-pudding and am going to really enjoy creating different versions of this for the rest of winter. Roll on the cold snap..I am now ready!
Last year I stayed raw easily all winter and expected to this year too....it was fun creating warm spicy salads with burgers and blended soups. However...and I don't want to blame it on the cold snap...but I have been finding I have been wanting, needing, longing for something different this year; almost anything warmer. Even with my discovery of warm raw green porridge...I don't seem to be able to keep up with the amount of greens needed to make it often enough to only want it raw (if that makes sense!) Funny to think that after all this time almost 100% raw your body can still get shocked into wanting cooked or hot. I'm not judging it, just makes me ponder...
Whether it is a longer-term detox symptom, or a genuine freezing cold body it has been hard to say no to soup and cooked falafels this past fortnight which is actually wierd because they don't seem like 'food' anymore.
Isn't it also wierd that making a cooked version of a soup seems to take less time mentally even though a raw version would just be one blend and it's done?
Anyway, I'm letting it go and looking forward to the spring when there will be more fresh stuff. As a raw fooder who eats mostly fruit and greens (and sprouts) I have found this winter hard in terms of buying really good fresh produce. Fruit has travelled for hundreds of miles and local greens have been frost damaged and lesser quality. I wonder if the body really does know best and whether making soup out of root veg, lentils and leeks grown here is not better than crops picked off the tree before they are ripe, or flown in hundreds of miles. Somehow I do feel that we are fools when we let our intellectual learning override our commonsense or intuition. Well that's my excuse for now..i'm trying to make my thinking pratical and peaceful! But hopefully there will be some lovely chard and cox's apples in the farm shop soon. If anyone had an allotment in the Southampton area with surplus produce I'd be grateful to buy from you.
(By the way has anyone else missed cox's this year/ Does anyone know of any cox's trees local to Southampton?)
If I need anything warming, I love having a warm raw soup done in the vita-mix - the thai soup is awesome with it's spices.
Your apricot nog was also very comforting and warming Ruth http://www.rawinuk.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
And aren't you keeping warm tapping the keys for all those deliscious recipes we want??? :614:
Thanks Jax....I think!
I don't know...this is the most cooked I've had for years; and yet, and yet, it's felt OK... maybe I needed to put on a bit of weight to see me through the cold which is what has happened and feels natural. And if I really think about it, it's only about 5 % of my diet in the past fortnight. it just seems a lot to me!
I appreciate your nudge about raw soups and I do really love them!
I finished up the rest of that nog. Took me two days and was very warming although enormously tempting to warm it to boiling! (why have I been so cold!) I made some more then got a bit over-dosed on apricots and almonds. I think my body has had enough of them to last at least two months!
You will have to wait for your recipe book because I have had too much to do since we had our feast to contemplate starting. I will though, I promise and the timing will be just right!
See you Sunday? I am bringing the things I forgot to put on the table last Sunday...brazil nut and carmamon white chocolate hearts. and maybe something else....depends if you want the recipe book or a new cake...Love.
karen @rawchocolateheaven
12-01-2010, 06:18 PM
Well I vote (is is open for a vote?) for cake
I am juice feasting and am breaking it fortnightly for pot luck....so am rather keep for food...the book like mine is on the back burner...
maybe we should collaborate and send a giant manual dedicated to all things raw to eat!!!
or maybe we should race to get them out for a sizzling summer !!!
xxx
See you Sunday? I am bringing the things I forgot to put on the table last Sunday...brazil nut and carmamon white chocolate hearts. and maybe something else....depends if you want the recipe book or a new cake...Love.
LOL I leave it all in your capable hands :D I need to try and work out what to do for Sunday..........eeeek inspiration only comes at the nth hour for me, especially as I'm STILL wading through the aftermath of deceased relationship!!! :rolleyes2::rolleyes2:
Maybe inspiration would come if we all told each other what we fancied? Now we know what sort of food we are all capable of making we could ask favours of each other: just a thought!
I was going to suggest sometime Karen that we all bought what we would normally have for lunch but in quantity. That may be slightly boring though...what do you think of that for a theme some day?
I have tended to bring to pot lucks what I would call 'party food' but realised this week that I have never bought anything remotely resembling what I would eat mysalf at home, and maybe if we all did it it might be just as fun; particlarly in Ani's case! (although I understand the need for a fortnightly feast for you both at present)
Yes, lets talk about the recipe books some time. I don't seem to find it as easy to create recipes in word form as when I'm right-brain-storming in the kitchen. Maybe a joint venture would motivate us more. I wish I'd taken photos now because it is certainly helpful to have pictorial evidence that recipes work and also to remind myself of how I created them in the first place!
Forgot: could you reccommend an ice cream maker for me to start saving for? I don't want to go out and buy the cheapest just because I can't afford a good one yet. I have never used one and don't know much about them but have learnt with my kitchen gagdets that saving for the best you can afford is much more cost effective in the end. And I'd rather have the pleasure of delayed gratification than having a cheap one only last a few weeks before expiring.
I have so many ideas for ice cream this year!
karen @rawchocolateheaven
13-01-2010, 04:54 PM
Borrow mine...a bog standard Gaggia built in Freezer thing...lives in a work top...lol
If you have any sucess at all, that you couldnt get with making a mixture and freezing it then running it in either the Champion or Vita Prep I will give you the thing!!!
Thats the only condition....I have had Ice Cream makers for years and I still get the best results by making a mix, using icecubes for the "fluid" then returning the nearly ready "Ice cream" to the freezer....
I checked out Magrini a while back, they make a machine that turns the hard Ice Cream things we regularly turn out into soft whipped "Ice cream"
That is on my extensive and now very expensive equipment wish list, as the machine from memory retails at £2600 !!!
But as the famous hair ad states...."Because I'm worth it"
or Paco jet (i think) sorbet maker is rated ok?
karen @rawchocolateheaven
13-01-2010, 05:05 PM
Pacojet is the machine that I want!!! lol £2600
mmm....the clip on their web site has me drooling with joy at what I can make!!! must increase the bank balance!!!
Thank you; I'd love to borrow it and share whatever comes out. I haven't experimented with raw ice cream yet mainly because I've could never choose dairy when I could have fruit so never got into the ice cream habit. However going raw AND having a year with a vita-mix, suddenly I'm inspired...in the depths of the coldest winter in our life-time too..still contrary.
See you Sunday!
Got any good ice cream recipes? I dreamt one with spiced pear and ginger. Would that work I wonder...
Oh yeaaaaaaaaaaaah totally Ruth, genius flavour!!! :peace:
Ice cream party next summer here?
Cold weather over, back to craving raw raw and more raw. Funny that. Almost as soon as the snow was gone there's me feeling spring-like and new-born and wanting lettuce leaves and lemons. In fact it's been so warm today in comparism to the past fortnight that I wonder how I managed to eat hotish soup only last week! Interesting if you want to observe the vagaries of our body's needs. As wayward as the weather....
Yesterday our order for a vortex jug arrived! This spins ordinary filtered or tap water in a vortex for a few mintues in order to re-vitalise it back to 'mountain-stream' living water, with highish bovis levels. I have wanted to try energised water since a teenager, being mindful that water from the tap made me feel tired and lack lustre, giving me a sore throat, as well as tasting chemicalised and grey. My tap water in Cornwall came out brown and had to be left in a jug for up to a day before the chlorine would evaporate. Sometimes I would just fall asleep after a cup of herbal tea and that seemed too peculiar to not warrant investigation.
So at last we ordered a vortex jug to see for ourselves, willing to return it if it proved useless. I have to say we are amazed at the difference in quality of water, and the effect of drinking said water. First of all it tastes incredible! So soft and sweet and melodic (if I can use that word to describe a taste) The 'texture' feels changed. Soft but yet vibrant; as if it is sparkling or singing in some way....it makes you tingle. The tongue feel is similar to the feel of that fizzing sherbet many an eighties kid played with.
After one glass you want to fill up; and then drink again and again! At last a positive addictive drink!
It feels ravishing...really pure liquid..somehow 'wetter' than the stuff that comes out of the tap.
It feels like food instead of drink. It feels like you are taking in nutrients rather than just quenching thirst in a mechanical way to sort out the 'problem' of being 'thirsty.' It seems as if we have never noticed what thirst truly is before this.
The best thing about buying this jug is that you genuinely want to drink a lot more water in preference to anything else. Even in two days we have got through much more than usual and that feels a wonderful thing. Not to mention being mentally and physically excited about water! Who would have thought their could be more pleasure to be had with old H2O. But there is!
I shall report how my sprouts decide to do with energised water; and if it makes a difference in any other way.
Thanks to Helen for turning me onto this. She bought me some tea made from energised water and it was so beautiful that I was finally bought up to date with my life-long desires to drink properly. So thanks Helen. I didn't expect such a gift!
Ruth i dont know what you mean :O
i am terrible at home past 4pm i eat absolute rubbish
roma pizza, egg and soldiers to name just 2 of my sins :)
i was 100% for about 18mths
but that seems like a life time away
and now i have just had a little thought.
if anyone is having trouble staying 100%
and want to change that mindset
hows about we go into another room
for 10 mins and all do an EFT session on 100%.
groups are really powerful
and i would be willing to facilitate one.
i am not beating myself up being cooked
but am aware my stomach has grown 100%
as my raw has decreased.
and my immune system is at a low point at the mo
so i could do with some inspiration to build it up.
just a thought for tomorrow xx
Ani, I would LOVE to do an EFT session with you anytime....only having the barest bit of knowledge about what it is, I would be glad and rejoiced to learn! And anything that we can do together to help each other (!) and have more fun (!!!!!) would be up my street.
Seriously though, I understand the thing about being so much better on as high raw diet/deity as poss. It is so obvious.
Alas also obvious to me personally is the knowledge that I could so easily...SO EASILY... get totally addictively obsessive about 100% raw being a cure-all for everything and everybody. I am so aware of the way my ego could get hold of it that I hold myself off from going there in my thoughts; even if most of the time I am being almost 100% I've made it not matter. To me that at present is emotionally healthier.
Besides I can see more beauty and interest in people who DON'T think they have got it all sussed in thier lives than those who DO think they are doing everything perfectly. I'd hate to turn into one of those perfect people and would rather mess around with the imperfect ones. (implied compliment)
You who are SO MUCH of an inspiration that you give it all away and don't shine your face upon yourself!!!
Hello People!
As a being who loves to eat raw food and a raw food eater who loves to Be, I felt this holiday passing through some of the world's top raw-foody spots would be interesting; but I did not imagine it would be quite so hard (alas!) within one week to stay wholly raw!
My goodness the food here is so good! I always forget how amazing it is! The quality of the fresh produce is truly exceptional, even when not organic; and it is patently hard to resist cooked ingredients when offered, particularly when really hungry!
I 'accidently' had roasted sunflower seeds from a salad buffet yesterday and wondered why they were giving me palpitations of delight. oh my goodness. Live in America as a raw fooder and you have to be seriously fixed on making everything yourself, and not get caught out hungry. The temptation and abundance is too great otherwise.
In our first few days here we visited the florida Publix chain of supermarkets which have a reasonable selection of produce; and then my Nemesis...the 'Wholefoods' store. 'Nemesis' because it is total shopping PARADISE to a raw fooder (why you can even buy dandelion greens washed and bagged up; kombucha in every flavour, raw cookies, every kind of sprout etc) but it comes at an equally outstanding price. It is SOOOO expensive that it is possible to undo all the delight of finding 12 different kinds of freshly picked green in the worry of not being able to justify the expense in any way whatsoever. I wish I could for health reasons but do not feel food should take over my life. Wholefoods also has the most amazing selection of (healthy-ish) cooked foods, together with incredible array in the salad bar, soup bar, hot food take-a-away, chocolate and tea..it goes on. My Nemesis. Temptation too much.
I remind myself that energy soup does not need many vegetables and I could buy a cabbage for a few cents. It's just not quite the same.
We both succombed in the end to a tahini cookie each from th bakery and have been wanting another ever since. BUT we did end up with a fridge full of greens, 4 mangoes (fainting with delight..last mango eaten in august of last year!) a packet of spirulina chips, 4 kinds of sprouts, sme mixed berries and some raw ice cream made with coconut. I would post some photos but have not yet worked out how to make my old camera download them in the right size. Suffice to say we have enough food!
Juicing on the RV: Quite easy; in fact easier than at home once I had cut up an old gallon water bottle to squeeze my vitamixed juice into. Top tip for home; less mess than squeezing into a jug.
One of the reasons it has been hard to resist the lure of food other than raw is (this is an excuse!) it has been really seriously cold! We were led to believe that is was warm at this time of year but apart from one afternoon last weekend when the temp climbed to 29oc it has been about 11oc with a freezing wind coming from the gulf. Very funny photos of us on beach trying to brave the wind but almost crying with cold...I bought no winter clothes at all. The locals are saying it is the coldest winter they remember. I wish we'd known and come prepared! We are now in Mobile, Alabama getting ready to move off into Louisiana tomorrow and on to Houston for a few days where we trust the warmer weather will spoil us anew. Hopefully I will find a health food store there for am missing spirulina and seaweed more than anything. Salads just don't taste right without seaweed anymore!
Love from America!
OOOOOOOO just you wait til you get to Arizona Ruth, the temps are like boiling! :D I remember being out in Florida one February.............it was their winter and they were moaning about the cold, yet it was still really hot for us Brits!!
I'm expecting that the raw scene will be bigger in California, and I'm learning that some states are better than others for veganism, so maybe that's what you're experiencing at the mo?
Good to hear from you again, hope OH is loving the food ;)
Thanks Jax. It's slowly beginning to warm up and we are enjoying the food albeit in different ways! At present I am living on veg/sprout soups as they are so easy to make (when you have a blender on your RV that is!) and trying to avoid the plentiful cooked bisuits which always seem to be situated at supermarket entrances.
How was today's pot luck with tropical fruits? I have got the day right have I: It is Sunday isn't it? We've both lost all track of time.
Houston soon.
karen @rawchocolateheaven
28-03-2010, 04:43 PM
Pot Luck was awesome!!!
We had so many different fruits...6 different mangos, 5 different avocado, 2 amazing oranges, 2 different coconuts as well as durian, sapotille, custard apple, durian pie!, pineapple, it went on & on!!!! LOL very lovely!!! xxxx
Yeah Ruth it was today, there was a massive abundance of fruits, will post some pics soon http://www.rawinuk.com/images/icons/icon12.gif
I did think of you!
Apart from some mangoes I have been eating mostly veg this holiday so all that fruit looked totally irresistable. Did it give you a high?
I have just eaten a massive bowl of soup made from far too much fresh garlic, together with rainbow chard, onion and broccoli sprouts. I am breathing fire!!
Miss you all x
LOL as you know.................I just don't get these highs from food http://www.rawinuk.com/images/icons/icon11.gif I did get a migraine though, but can't say it was the fruit, probably more to do with the massive stress I'm under right now :rolleyes2::rolleyes2: :mad:
I wish I had more to tell you! We are half way through our Southern American journey (at present crossing West Texas; moored up at Fort Stockton for the night) and the only thing of raw food interest was back in Orlando, with Central Market in Houston coming in as 'quite' good; there being a lot of fresh greens, nice fruit and sprouts. Only quite good because the range of healthy-looking cooked foods was so tempting that is was increasingly hard to walk past all the prepared salads and carrot-muffins, chocolate fudgy cookies etc. In fact every supermarket here turns out to be a place of agony/ecstacy when you love food like I do. I have not been able to resist said carrot cake or the Asian slaw which Phil bought from central markets deli counter, which looked raw but was in fact cooked or at least dressed in somthing cooked! It was heavenly on top of my green soup that night!
I am telling myself not to be overly concerned about staying 100% because it is easy to fall back into a better routine at home. I am still eating a lot of blended soups on this trip which are incredibly satisfying. I just wish they would satisfy mental cravings too!
We have not been to any raw or vegan cafes or resturants yet. I am holding out for California for those. Cafe gratitude is high on the list, maybe Julianos. I have to confess we don't normally make the effort to eat out. Going out to eat seems to be adding in more when we want to simplify our life. We eat so simply at home, and it seems more than enough. Besides my fridge always contains far too many delicious things to warrant leaving whilst we eat out. However as we are coming to the birthplace of raw food culture we really should make more of an effort to
taste proper raw creations and report back!
Any recommendations for easy to reach raw food places (by that I mean ones that don't involve driving for hours in a city) would be gratefully received! Love to all.
Forgot to say that Lara bars are going from strength to strength over here. Why we can't buy them easily in England I don't know. They are the premier raw food bar still, and I have found them in almost every supermarket.This year they have some gorgeous new flavours which I shall try to bring home for the Southampton pot luck, or maybe make myself when home!!How about:Peanut butter and jelly...peanuts, dates and cherries...really does taste like that old favourite of peantu butter and jam on toast!Tropical fruit pie...pineapple, dates, coconut, almonds, cashews, orange juicecoconut oilGerman Chocolate Cake...pecans, dates, almonds, chocolate, coconut and coconut oilChocolate Coffee...dates, walnuts, hazlenuts, cacao, cashews and org. coffee extractPeanut butter Cookie...dates, salt and peanutsAll really gorgeousI have also tried the new, 'Baracka Bars,' one spirulina-goju berry and one with maca and golden-berries which I presume are incan berries.They are very high in calories and not as nice as the lara bars or homemade bars. Calorie count is 283 for a bar with 16 g fat. I would eat them as a meal replacement but this sort of very concentrated bar does not feel like food anoymore. Not enough water!The spirulina-goju one has dates, coconut, sunflower seeds, sesame, flax, hemp, gojus, spirulina, agave, coconut oil, pink salt and lemon oil.The goldenberry one has pecans, figs, coconut, maca, goldenberries, agave, coconut oil, cinnamon, vanilla and pink salt.Hope this gives you some ideas for home made bars!Oh and this may interest you Karen. Wholefoods stores have stopped selling Glasner farms produce. Last year you could buy their cakes, deserts, cookies, savoury sprouted and dehydrated products. They also seem to have less raw items than previously and what they do have has increasesd in price; eg, agave or seaweed. Whether this is because raw fooders after transitioning tend to live on purely fresh produce not needing other items, or whether there is just too great a demand and they can't keep up; I don't know. The guy I asked just said they don't stock them anymore. They do have sunflower greens now though...a bonus!
karen @rawchocolateheaven
08-04-2010, 03:45 PM
I still will fly to Miami just for the market!!! lol maybe have a pot luck fly day?????? 10 hours on a plane!!!! great raw market!!!
maybe we could source a high raw area maybe Spain? a holiday place somewhere...tipee camping??? and fresh oranges mmmmmm
Carrot Top
08-04-2010, 10:50 PM
Hi Ruth. All those Lara Bar/Baracka flavours sound grrrrrreat! I stocked up on loads of goodies (fruit!) today, so am planning to make my first ever batch of fruit leathers tomorrow.
I'm sure they'll be delicious carrot top! And it's so satisfying making your own!
I am in California now with 2 weeks to go before we fly home.
We went to the Tree of Life on Sunday. I will post about that when I have time!
This past week a good friend asked me what I had been eating. I thought it might be interesting to list every item. I am not one for food diaries... don't normally need to think about everything I consume, but it did prove to be thought provoking in a good way. A gorilla would be proud; hopefully Gillian Mc Keith too!!!
This list does not include stuff used for juicing or the juices or liquids i had. It is literally eating. i cannot belive my body can get so much in it's 5 foot 2 frame! Does anyone else eat this much?
A question to you follows.
Sprouts:
3 boxes of sunflower greens
2 boxes alfalfa and broccoli
2 boxes pea greens
1 box alfalfa and radish
1 ½ pint mung bean sprouts
1 ½ pints chickpea sprouts
1 ½ pints puy lentil sprouts
Greens:
1 bag kale
2 bags wild rocket
2 bags mizuna
2 bags spinach
1 lettuce
Dandelion leaves from garden
Vegetables:
1 head celery
1 head broccoli
6 tomatoes
1 cucumber
4 red peppers
1 yellow pepper
2 courgettes
Some cauliflower
2 sweet potatoes
Bag carrots
2 heads sweetcorn
1 head garlic
3 onions
Some ginger root
Sauerkraut
Fruit:
3 punnets blueberries (were on offer amazingly, hardly ever are so indulged!)
½ punnet raspberries
4 apples
4 bananas
6 pears
6 lemons
Few grapes
Fats:
Chia and flax seeds
Sunflower seeds
Hemp seeds
Walnuts
Almonds
Macadamias
Extras:
Nutritional yeast
Pink salt
Spirulina
Chlorella
Buckwheatie cereal with incan berries and vanilla
3 lara bars
2 buckwheat bars
Bit of lucuma/purple corn and ginseng
And a slice of cooked carrot cake because I’m not perfect and got tempted.
Obviously hadn’t eaten enough!
My question is this. My sleeping patterns are changing. Because of the history of ME where I didn't sleep for 10-12 years I have been needing more than normal these past 2 years; sleeping 8 hours a night and 4 in the day. However this has been slowly changing since last year and now I am using a meditative device during the day for an hour or two which keeps me from sleep but rests and calms my body; and then having only 5 hours at night from about 3pm until 8am.
Is this a normal thing to happen to a raw fooder? I have been high raw over 2 years now, but transitioning for several years before that. It is very strnage to go from a few years of needing so much sleep to being awake again most of the night. I have even spent whole nights awake. Any ideas about the physiology?
My raw food eating patterns are definitely changing over time. For the last few months I have only eaten fruit if it's blended with greens and/or sprouts and much prefer it that way. Also am wanting/needing hardly any deydrated or condensed food at all. and if i do go ahead and choose that find it most strange; not like food any more. Wonder of wonders I haven't eaten cacao for 8 weeks now (mainly thanks to being in America and there being none around) still crave it but am trying to break the feeling of having to fill every apparent hole with a bite of chocolate. I actually miss making it more than eating it and will have to find something else to do instead! Am growing far more sprouts and eating more of them than ever, in almost everything. There's certainly been a differenc in my health and energy levels since adding in more sprouted foods.This year's big ambition is to grow my own tray greens as well. Hopefully i can find some space and get going on that soon!
wild foods have also taken pride of place in salads since last summer. In fact I prefer a wholly wild salad with just a sprinkle of spirulina salad topping than any other meal at present, particularly with all the fresh young growth at this time of year. All in all food is blessing this one and I am so grateful for this way of eating. It's so brilliant!
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