Because I have propelled myself into the raw food world and based my business around it, writing an article like this has been a difficult decision to make. I’ve been toying with the idea for so long that it has been weighing me down and I figured it was time I bit the bullet and got some stuff off my chest.
There has been a little hype on some raw food forums in the past surrounding ‘raw food gurus’ eating cooked food. And I feel obliged to defend those people. I am definitely not a raw food guru but having a raw food business puts me in the spotlight. It is no secret that I eat some cooked food and that I have struggled and yoyo’d on my raw journey. I hear you gasp in horror. But my journey is real and it is what keeps me down to earth and approachable to other aspiring raw foodists. That’s not to say that there aren’t genuine 100% raw foodists out there thriving on this lifestyle and I look up to them and admire their drive. But if like me you struggle with rawfood and I know there are others out there that do, don’t be too hard on yourself you are not alone.
In the e-book
‘Me Raw You Cooked’ by Emma & Rod MacDougall Pete Vincent founder of
Raw Humour who wrote the foreword makes some very valid points and pretty much described my life at one point.
“So many people feel like once they have declared to the world that they are 100% raw, that they cannot go backwards and a kind of pressure builds up which begins to cause emotional stress. It’s also easy to become completely focused on protecting your 100% raw food record which becomes like a status symbol within the raw food world, despite the fact that you might not be feeling as happy or as great as you make out. Some continue to promote the fairy tale approach to raw foods conveniently missing out all the problems that they might have had themselves in fear that it makes them look like a lesser raw person than a raw foodist who might just happened to have been eating all raw food for longer than they have.”
As described above by Pete when I first went raw I jumped in head first into a 100% raw food diet, I raved about it to all my friends and every conversation was about food with me preaching the advantages of a raw food diet. When after about 6 months the weather started to change, I changed jobs and I had isolated myself from all my old friends things started to go down hill. My old eating disorder habits of binge eating and then purging started to creep back into my life. I was secretly binging on all things unraw while infront of everyone else pretending to be the raw foodists I so wanted to be. It was a dark time in my life, I felt depressed, trapped and didn’t know how to pull myself out of the bed I had made for myself. I ran away from it all and disappeared off to Greece for 6 months to work on an organic farm, here I came to terms with my eating disorder, my emotional attachment to food and the fact that no one is perfect least of all me.
Today I enjoy raw food, I believe in its powers to heal and make one feel alive, but I am not 100% raw, I do eat some cooked food which I try to keep to a wholefoods rule. Yes you heard it right I eat some cooked food. I have battled with my attachment to food for years and this is what works best for me. And I don’t pass any judgement on others for choosing this path or any other path.
In the early days on my raw journey I remember my good friend and renowned raw chef Chad Sarno telling me not to Judge anyone for their eating habits and it has stayed with me, soon after that I stopped preaching to friends and family about the raw food diet, I reserved my opinions for those who really wanted to hear them and when questioned about my diet I would simply point out that I wasn’t judging anyone for eating meat or dairy, everyone can do as they please, but I choose not to eat certain things and I believe in this way of living because ...
I found that this way people didn’t feel threatened by me and my beliefs and the conversation carried on as normal without all the focus being on me and the way I eat.
So just how raw am I?
Well that depends on how you look at it. In percentage terms it is difficult to measure because what do you base that on; the weight of the food you eat, the calories, the meals and honestly who has the time or energy to sit and work it all out? In reality I don’t tend to eat the same things every day or the same amount of rawfood, it totally depends on my day, where I go, what I do, how well my daughter behaves, what is in season and what I have in the fridge. If I had to give a percentage, at a rough guess, I would probably have to say on average 60%, but this varies and some days I do eat 100% and other days I probably eat as little as 40% raw. I start my day raw with a juice, smoothie or just fruit, and throughout the day I might have a raw banana sandwich (recipe coming soon), a carob shake, salad, more fruit, some olives, dried tomatoes or dry fruit. Because I still have to cook for my family there are times when I cook a vegan meal of lentils, buckwheat, quinoa or vegetables and sometimes I might have a small portion of that too.
How raw should one be to call oneself a rawfoodist or retain the benefits of raw food?
Who knows, there is so much conflicting information out there that I don’t have the answer for that. I can only suggest you find your own path and what works best for you. There are so many factors to consider when trying to follow a new lifestyle, whether you have others depending on you for their meals, the amount of time you have in your kitchen, the availability of good fresh produce and so on.
Do I call myself a rawfoodist?
I am actually a bit of a closet raw foodist, my close friends and family know and respect my decisions and they don’t question me. However when I meet new people I don’t bombard them with my dietary history and preferences, I introduce myself as a vegetarian and on the rare occasion that I am faced with cooked non-vegan food I put a tiny bit on my plate and move it around eating the vegan components and eventually leaving the rest. Living in a huge meat eating country and a small minded town this is an easy solution. I like to think of myself as a conscious eater, I am conscious of my dietary choices, good and bad, I know that if I overdo it on the raw chocolate I get a headache the same way if I eat anything with refined sugar in I feel like I have a hang over the following morning. In my opinion my diet is better than most but not as optimum as I would like.
Since my journey started many things have changed in my life that made it very difficult to stay raw at times; I moved country, started living with an all foodist (eats everything with no restrictions), I got married, went through pregnancy and breastfeeding and now I am in the phase where I cook for a cooked food family, and I am sure that over time my situation will change again, perhaps next time I will have the knowledge and experience to overcome the difficulties.
In an ideal world my husband would also be a raw foodist but in reality he is an all foodists. And even as an all foodist if he could cook for himself it would make my life and raw journey a lot easier, but unfortunately I married a classic Greek Man who comes home from work and expects a cooked meal everyday, so I do my best to balance mine and my families needs.
Nobody is perfect but imperfections are what make each person special and keeps life interesting.
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