Are You Raw Enough?

 

You can have your cake and eat it too! (Raw Jaffa Gateau)

What does it really mean to be raw? I want to say first up that it’s not a badge you wear with a percentage sign on it! If you can honestly be 100% raw, then power to you, but many people find this impractical and also their bodies just don’t handle it. It’s not a competition; it’s a very personal thing. What is clear is that eating raw food is of great benefit to your body, so we should all be doing more of it. You don’t have to be a ‘raw foodist’ to incorporate a good deal of raw goodness into your day. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. If you were to switch your breakfast to a smoothie, or add a green juice in to your day, a large salad at lunch, fruit and nuts for snacks and at least half your plate raw at dinner, that’s a huge percentage of your daily diet being consumed in a raw state. Now couple that with creating decadent desserts that more than sate any cravings and you really shouldn’t feel like you’re giving anything up, or that your diet is significantly different - assuming you don’t usually eat fried chicken 3 meals a day. What I love about raw food is the creativity, preparing beautiful meals made from plants: how anyone could look at a plate of vibrant , living foods and not be inspired is beyond me!

That said, many people go raw and go crazy, they take it all on, read all the books, make all the food and panic when they’re eating away from home, worried they are poisoning themselves with anything that compromises their commitment, “ hey, you killed my broccoli, I’m suing!” They worry about doing it right, about being raw enough. I believe the term is ‘orthorexic’ but I prefer ‘eeeediot’. Firstly, stressing about it does your body no favours and secondly, WTF! Chill out man. Life is short! (even though evidence suggests you’ll make it a tad longer if you follow a plant based diet..)

There is some evidence when we’re talking serious disease in the body, that a fully raw diet makes a big difference to the healing process. That’s another whole topic for another time.  What I’m talking about here assumes you’re just a regular guy or gal wanting to improve your eating habits.

I started as a vegetarian in 1992, I’ve slowly become vegan and over the last 10 years, more and more raw. I go through stages where I’ll eat nearly all raw, without really thinking about it and stages where I’ll just want to make a lentil stew. For you it might be a (happy) lamb chop (though I’ll do my darndest to talk you out of it!) It’s taken a while but I believe I just eat according to what my body is asking for. Novel idea? Not so much. There was a time when that’s all we did, eat instinctively. Nowadays, we are virtually co-erced into eating badly by the food industry, and then the diet industry is there to pick us up, dust us off and start us all over again.  Those industries aren’t going anywhere, but you can take control: it’s up to us to ignore the noise and get in touch with what our bodies are really asking for. So raw as much as you want to, there’s no right or wrong, ignore the nay sayers and those that stand on soapboxes proclaiming the 100% gospel. Do what works for you. Doing it is what matters.