Evolving Into a Raw Food Vegan

 

Who would ever want to be a raw food vegan!?!  It’s so extreme!  No cooked food?! No veggie burgers? No Soy Delicious, No Vegan Brownies, no Daiya cheese, no bread, no crackers, and no  fries?  Who would want to live like that?  Just the idea is abhorrent!  The suffering!  Oh, yes, very true. There is a lot of suffering and I will get to that later; but who talks about the good things that happen?  Who talks about getting away from medicines and high priced hospital visits?  Imagine you could spend less than one ¼ of the $20,000 hospital copay on a retreat in Costa Rica or a spa in San Diego?  The extreme measures of the raw vegan lifestyle, pale in comparison the outrageous schemes of industrialized medicine.  Anyway, why suffer?  As they say, “Pain is inevitable, Suffering is optional.”  Let’s surround ourselves with loving people with sun in their cells, otherwise called: Biophotons! Let’s get outside, eat some fruit and meet each other.  Let’s get the like-minded together and share this abundant planet. 

 Well, I have already gone through a lot of suffering in 2004 when I went vegan cold turkey (Sorry turkeys! I used to eat you, though under duress. You never tasted that good to me.  Even if I smothered you in cranberry sauce and gravy, you were not delicious.  Still, I am sorry I used to eat you without a second thought.  Forgive me.)  As a cooked vegan, I was very unhappy at restaurants who had nothing to offer me.  It would make me so mad when people would say, “I can make you a salad?” 

 “A salad?!!!  I am healthy, not on a diet!” I would snarl and then I would take the salad.

 

Nine times out of ten, the salad they would bring would be be a terrible arrangement of white iceberg lettuce with a bland tomato and maybe a sliver for onion or carrot.  The dressing would be some high fructose corn syrup or MSG abomination.  I would rather go hungry!  Meanwhile my friends chowed down on greasy burgers and overly pink salmon.  You would think I would stop going out to eat but I was determined. I have to say, I have been enjoying eating out less and less.  The whole SAD way of life just causes me distress.  No one makes your food with love unless you are at Café Gratitude or The Spiral Diner or Karyn’s. 

I quickly saw that eating a cooked vegan diet was not a big change from the Standard American Diet (SAD).  I was still eating burgers and fries and vegan ice cream and some greens.  Correct, no animals were harmed but I was being harmed! My cholesterol was still not great. (Not that cholesterol is some great measure of anything but for this blog’s simplicity, I will use it.)  I still had terrible headaches and neck pain and this did not go away with a vegan lifestyle.  Contrary to popular belief, going vegan did not produce the wonderfully moving bowels that many had claimed it would either.  In short, I did not see any major health benefits of being a cooked vegan. The joy of not contributing to the meat and dairy industry and single-handedly saving hundreds of sentients a year was still amazing but I was disappointed that I did not feel any better physically. 

Lucky me, I met a wonderful health coach here in Houston by the name of John Rose in 2005.  He suggested I go on a juice feast or juice fast for 90 days.  I took his advice and I made it to day 30.  I felt great but hungry.  I broke the fast properly with salad and simple raw foods for two more weeks.  Worms crawled out of every orifice, but I did not have a big healing crisis.  The experience made me appreciate food and how great it can taste but I quickly went back to cooked vegan eating.  I lost touch with John Rose but remembered all he had taught me on juice feasting.  See his video lecture here.  If you were ever considering going on a juice fast, he answers all your questions here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04lhe1gzfgU

John Rose recently came back into the health scene in 2016.  His YouTube Channel extols the value of the raw vegan lifestyle.  He says we go raw vegan, not for the animals, they will benefit, but we go raw vegan to get connected to nature, to boost our biophoton levels, to re-open our 6th Sense.  He encourages us to, “Test an idea whose time has come”, and do a juice fast so we can see for ourselves the joy of living on plants.  We are all suffering from a disease he coined called: Hypoheliosis.  We are afflicted with this condition only when we cook our food, he says.  The less live food we eat, the more “disconnected from sun energy/nature and each other we become”; hence the term: Hypoheliosis. John Rose has many videos on this topic, I would encourage you to watch them on his YouTube Channel. 

Seeing John Rose again on YouTube really helped me to see that I could go let go of cooked food. Going raw vegan seemed so much easier than a juice feast.  (I don't think I can face the worms in the near future!)  Also, I would be less disconnected from the general public.  (I'm very social.  I don't like not being able to share a meal and being tied to my juicer.)  So, I decided on May 23^rd 2016 to go raw vegan, a feat I have never before pulled off.  Believe it or not, going raw was a lot better than doing a juice fast.  I was ready! 

I made my mind up to do things a little differently than I did when I went vegan.  I made some changes:  

1. No whining!  I have accepted the fact that when I go out to eat with friends, there will not be a great selection of foods to eat.  I will be appreciative for whatever is served. Best of all, I will eat ahead of time or bring food with me. 
2. No Boasting!  People don’t want to hear how I feel so good, nor about what I had to do to look so happy and feel so energetic. I would not tell a soul.  I will say nothing unless someone shows genuine interest.  Even then, I will say very little and I will keep the raw vegan repartee to a minimum. 
3. Accept the Detox – going raw is rough.  I would feel sick!  Headaches, stomach aches, diarrhea, constipation, blurry vision, toothaches, burning urination, and a host of other delights await those who goes raw.  It is The Hero’s Journey, as John Rose puts it.  It’s not for everyone.  My friends and family will say and do things that could possibly throw me off course.  I will have my resolve ready!  I know the feelings of illness will pass. (See No. 1!)
4. John Robbins or Tony Robbins suggest that we generate a list of five reasons why are embarking on this new journey.  Why am I going raw?  I have written them down.  I will have this anthem of my resolve written and ready for the times when the SAD way of life calls my name.

Ok, so all this said, I am really raw!  At first I had to have my espresso but now I can’t touch it. The smell is not tempting.  The other is sweets.  So far I have not been tempted to touch sweets either.  Beans! I did have my friend Raquel from Cuba’s black beans.  I ate about ¼ cup and loved them.  Very delicious!  I ate them slowly and with reverence.  However, after just a little taste, I was happy.  That’s what I have found so far about raw. I am content. I don’t have this feverish need for food.  Raw food is so plain at first but your taste buds regenerate, they come alive again!  Everything tastes good and smells good.  I smell my food before I eat it.  If it doesn't smell good, I don't eat it.  Also, I notice that once I am satisfied, I quit eating.  This was never the case with cooked food.  Lastly, it is all so simple and easy.  It’s really about eating to live and eating with love.  Eating out is not a gluttonous event with raw food.  Eating become a reverent act.    When raw, I find that love and respect are key.  It's the key to everything!

 Now that I am eating raw food, I am beginning to feel the connections with all things. John Rose said this might happen.   Imagine, nature and humans can unite once again.  Imagine getting our 6^th Sense back?  Ralph Smart alluded to this (though he is not a raw vegan) in his fabulous video about decalcifying your pineal gland.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTC_eeJj7zE  The very title of his video spoke to me.  That's how my brain feels sometimes: Calcified!  The idea that live food living can invigorate the whole human's energy system is an outstanding fact. 

I really never thought this phenomenon of High Vibrational Living could really happen for me in such a big way but I am starting to see it may really be so.  John Rose and Ralph Smart got me interested in really experimenting with this.  Raw food could well be the way to higher consciousness.  If more of us would try this way of life, the higher vibrations we all would have. 

Since May 23^rd I have noticed the following changes:

 

1. My sleep has improved.
2. My skin felt great!
3. I have food in the house all the time. Mainly it is fruit. Lots of it!
4. I'm never hungry!
5. My dentist tried to clean my teeth but they were clean!
6. My general physique looks better.  I have probably lost weight but I don’t want to lose weight, I want to look good. 

July 20^th I get my cholesterol checked.  I am hoping my total cholesterol is under 150. If so, this will be the first time ever.   Again, I know that cholesterol is a useless measurement tool but our medical system has not caught up with this fact yet.  So, I am using it.  Also, I am hoping that I my weight is still 120lbs. I do not want to lose weight like I did when I was first vegan. 

 So that’s my evolving Raw Vegan Journey so far.  It’s very exciting. I am amazed that I am almost at two months and it’s easier than I thought. Big thanks to John Rose, Ralph Smart, Tannyraw and Janis Hopper (see her Blog: www.simplerawandnatural.com) for helping me on my raw vegan road.