I went raw in April. It's been a full two months, I've lost fifteen pounds, can finally wear a bikini after 32 years of life, have boundless energy, glow like a Mohegan sunset blah blah blah. People notice, they say stuff, like, "you are glowing", "you look amazing", and wow! I didn't expect eating living foods to impact my life so dramatically, that it would affect so intrinsically, the way I look, the way I feel and the way I live.
Going raw has impacted the amount of trash we produce. Eating only bulk nuts and produce, we soon realized that we buy hardly any packaged foods! After about a month, we are one less bag of trash per week. If I didn't have a tiny fire escape in place of a backyard, I'd probably be composting. But here in the inner city, the squirrels and pigeons would soon mess that up, let alone complaints from my neighbors. That doesn't stop me from growing herbs, tomatoes and peppers in my limited space.
OK, so you ask, what is the hard part? It is simply being able to interact with human society. Limiting what foods you eat, first as vegetarians, next as vegans and now as a
rawist, I'm about as far out there as possible. (I guess there are
fruitarians, but I'm not going there anytime soon.)
I find that I avoid going out to dinner with friends, or insist on Japanese or a place where I know I can eat things that are good quality.
For my birthday a few weeks ago, I couldn't avoid dining out and opted for Japanese both times. At least there I can have
miso, seaweeds and salad. Both times, though, I sacrificed a little of my ethics and chowed down on avocado rolls. The rice was surprisingly OK for my tummy, though later I regretted eating off my diet. In retrospect, however, I think I would skip the rice, ask if they can roll a roll sans rice, or just order another salad and hang in there.
I also ate at Horizons, the local vegan restaurant in Philly. My friend, while chowing down on tofu asked why I don't eat it, "is it because it's so processed?", she asked. I didn't want to get into a conversation about processed foods while she was eating a processed food, so I nodded and continued to eat my raw avocado-cucumber soup and chopped spinach salad.
The big deal is summer
barbeques. I can't manage, never really enjoyed, the smell of charred meat wafting in my hair, my clothes, making me smell like a bloody steak. It's become so bad that often, even on the most mild of days, when there is a BBQ in my neighborhood I am forced to close my windows and put on the air conditioning to keep the offensive smell out of my home. This year, I've been invited to a pig roast and part of me wanted to say I was insulted that I'd be invited to a party where a pig is roasting on a spit over a flame. Needless to say, I politely declined,
despite the fact that we are guaranteed a meat-free grill. I just can't be a part of this All-American tradition of eating roasted meat in the summer. Going raw has cemented this fact, and I simply choose to not take part.
My friends, I'm sure, find me a drag. I wonder if I'm just not invited out because I'm so difficult. I often wonder if they discuss what a downer I am, and I'm getting insulted at people's comments about my weight loss. People think because I found a successful diet that keeps weight down, keeps me healthy, that I'm a target for derogatory comments about the way I eat.
I say fuck 'em.
This weekend a trip to Atlantic City was preceeded by about an hour of prepping foods for the trip. A simple Almond pate, leaves of romaine, fresh tomato, avocodo and sprouts yeilded enough food to keep us sated for the day, along with fresh fruits, coconut water and a raw trail mix. Later in the evening, hunger struck, but luckily we were able to eat Japanese, yet again, subsiting on seaweed salad and miso, ending up happy and full. Earlier in the day we were foiled by buying smoothies off the boardwalk, finding that the peaches had been canned in a sugary syrup, making my smoothie inedible. Ew, did I just eat high-fructose corn syrup? We add sugar to everything in America, even the most perfect fruit, which should be relativly easy to obtain in fresh state this time of year in New Jersey. My new way of looking at things...if you want something done right, do it yourself.
It's been a learning process and I love preparing foods at home with my partner. We've grown together as part of this new lifestyle and I woudln't change it for the world. Now, will the rest of the world please wake up!
