It takes a village

According to my friend Arletty, a raw foodie Curaçao-Parisienne, there are 100,000 raw foodies in the entire world. This is not a large number, yet simply being able to count the size of this community points to the growing interest in consuming a living, plant-based diet. The Paris raw food community parallels the global dynamic--it is small and growing.

As with any diet and lifestyle choice, the reasons for choosing a raw food diet vary. For me, one of the reasons is I love food, and I love experimenting with food -- I was curious to make a raw lasagna. Second, I was also curious to see if the health benefits were really as life-changing and profound as raw food advocates claimed. Last year I did a 30 day raw challenge with support from Alissa Cohen's Raw Food Talk Forum. For anyone considering going raw, this is a great place to start.  The changes in my energy level, mental clarity, and skin were incredible. And finally, I believe that as individuals, each time we consume, we have the power to choose the economic and world order we want to see manifested. And a raw food diet does not support today's mainstream agro-business.

I think the desire for better health and greater vitality is probably the key factors that attract people to a raw food diet. And then the delicious variety of food keeps them hooked. Perhaps this is why Arletty organizes cru potluck (raw potlucks) in Paris.

Last week, we gathered together near the Seine on the eve of Bastille Day to share homemade raw goodies, and the food and conversation was so inspiring the next day I made raw pizza bread.  Check out my pizza marinara made with a raw basil/oregano/flax seed/almond flour crust, raw marinara sauce, and fresh basil from my balcony garden. Yum!

I am not 100% raw right now and when I travel, I tend to migrate back to cooked foods. But since our cru potluck, I have once again started experimenting with raw recipes such as zucchini-etti with raw alfredo sauce (cashews, fennel, shallots, lemon juice, and garlic) and banana carob pudding (banana, coconut oil, carob powder, cinnamon and lucuma). The joy that comes from eating raw food always raises the question as to why I choose not to eat it 100%. But that's another question for another post.

When I look at the pictures from the cru potluck, the saying: It takes a village to raise a child, pops into my mind. In this particular analogy, the village is the child -- 100k strong and growing. Tomorrow night I have been invited to a ladies night with a group of women I do not know very well. I am inspired to bring a raw dessert -- a combination of this raw almond cookie and cacao walnut cookie recipe with my own twist -- and spread the raw food vitality to a new community. I am amazed at how joyful I feel to do so. A year ago I was tentative to discuss raw food as I often felt as though I had to defend my choice, and being on the defensive is never enjoyable. I no longer feel the need to explain myself. The food will speak for itself.

Half-way point

I am now in my third week of the 30-Day Raw Challenge. Today I will use the descriptor challenge because it does not feel like a feast. The fall weather is chilly, the office is chillier, and the thought of cold food for lunch was making me grumble. But, I made it through lunch without giving into my desire for the three cheese pizza and its heavenly smell that wafted around me throughout the entire meal. So why did I want to eat the pizza, and therefore why did I choose not to?

I believe the desire to chow down on the cheesy pizza came from the association I make between its smell and past happy pizza-eating memories. I link pizza with relaxed, fun times with friends and family, with parties and late night talk sessions, and all of these memories are bathed in warm lighting. The urge to eat pizza is not for the actual pizza itself, but for the associative emotions.

So why didn't I eat it? I reminded myself of the simple fact that we eat (or we should eat) for nutrition. There is no nutrition in a piece of pizza. The crust is dead (sometimes rancid) grains stripped of all nutrition, the sauce is processed (heated at high temperatures) and therefore inactive, and the cheese is most probably pasteurized (heated at high temperatures) and therefore dead as well. There are no live, active enzymes in the pizza. It adds no value to your body, and, even worse, requires that you spend energy digesting it. So instead of giving you energy, it depletes you.

Yes, you can argue, but it tastes good. Does it? Our mouths are trained to enjoy the tastes we feed it. If you eat salt on every meal, you will need and crave more salt for the food to taste good. Likewise for sugar and fat. And it works the other way too! Eating crunchy fresh vegetables and juicy fruits trains your mouth to crave natural sweetness, textures and flavors.

So I steered away from the pizza and headed to the salad bar. Made a big bowl of carrots-cucumbers-tomato-lettuce-pumpkin seeds-alfalfa sprouts, and added lemon juice on top as I find its acidity really helps cut down on mouth cravings. One of my objectives for these 30 days is to retrain my mouth and break mental associations with food. I have made it for 16 days, I am more than half-way there! Just need to make it through today...

My raw hiccups

I am now into week 2 of the 30-day raw challenge/ feast. Attempt number 1 failed after 6 days for a combination of reasons, all of which I seem to have magically resolved! I expect a new crop of obstacles to pop up shortly, but so far, attempt number 2 is going remarkably smoothly. I thought others might be interested to hear, and perhaps discuss?, the first set of issues I faced, so here is a quick recap.

• Integration of raw and society. My first hiccup was self-consciousness. This came to the fore most prominently at work and when eating out with friends. There is a long discussion thread on this topic at rawfoodtalk so I will not go into all the aspects of this topic, but I have two key takeaways which I hope will be helpful to others. One, the individual constitutes society, and, therefore, society takes the form and substance that we individually give it. And two, most people are not concerned about what others eat. Of  those who are concerned, some will be genuinely interested to learn about the decision to go raw, and others will feel threatened and challenged by a choice that is different than their own. But this will happen with any topic that is based on a personal decision. So I got over myself and scratched self-conscious from the list.
  
  
• Eating in restaurants. This is related to issue #1 above. Ordering raw on a menu in Paris can be difficult, and raw vegan is extremely difficult. The options are less (if any), and ordering a small green salad for dinner while your friends eat savory, larger meals can make you feel isolated. Eating together is a social behavior, and changing this behavior is not easy. You are breaking years of habit and associations you have formed between food and friends. As I have done several cleanses in the past, I do have experience breaking food habits, so I immediately recognized the thought process and questions I had to address to get over this one. In the end it boils down to one question: Do you choose to eat this food? If yes, then be happy about your choice. And spending time with people is what makes memories, not the food that is on your plate. (Ok, in some instances this will not be true - if I am ever lucky enough to be at Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck, I will probably not be eating raw...).
  
  
• Chocolate cravings. No need to go into details on this one! But there is raw chocolate, and from what I have read about it, it is a superfood high in anti-oxidants and rich in essential minerals. So I have ordered raw cacao powder as well as raw chocolate bars from Mamma Earth, a UK-based website selling raw food products. It is suppose to be delicious, stay tuned for a future post!

Day 1

Today was a great kick-start to the 30 day challenge/feast. As I was working from home, it was a bit easier too as my kitchen is stocked with fresh fruits and veggies, sprouted quinoa, fresh herbs, and soaked nuts and seeds.

Before breakfast I hydrated with water touched with a drop of food-grade Hydrogen Peroxide. Yes, it's healthy (diluted!), and it adds free radicals to your blood which is a good thing! Adding extra oxygen helps stabilize all those free bad radicals in your body. And you will notice the change, such as clear eyes and skin. A touch of oxygen is especially great for urban dwellers like moi-même.

Breakfast was a green juice: 2 turnips, 1 cucumber, 3 carrots, 1 tomato, knob of garlic. I always fill a shot glass with the fresh juice and mix it with spirulina. I call it the Good Morning! blue green energy shot.

Mid-morning snack of banana.

Lunch was a maki roll of mock salmon paté wrapped in nori, and a pear-strawberry-mesclun salad. I had the mock salmon paté already prepared, so it took 5 minutes to whip up. Recipe for the paté is from Jennifer Cornbleet's book: Raw Food Made Easy for 1 or 2 People Great book! Simple, easy recipes that don't require a dehydrator or fancy (expensive) ingredients.

Mid-afternoon snack of avocado boat (1/2 an avocado) overspilling with tomato-cilantro-redeyechili salsa. Yea, it was spicy. And a handful of dates to satiate my sweet tooth.

Dinner is going to be zucchini soup; also a recipe from the above lauded book. Deelish!

See you on Day 2, and until then, be sure to do something to celebrate your health.

Prologue

Hi! Today is Day 1 of my embarkment upon the 30-Day Raw Challenge. Errr, let's cross out Challenge, and replace it with... Feast! Yes, the 30-Day Raw Feast! Why look at the next 30 days as a challenge?

Rawfoodtalk.com is a great discussion board for all interested in a vegan raw lifestyle, and I would not be able to undertake this journey without the support of this site, so thank you Alissa Cohen!

Now that props have been given, onto the good stuff. I will be recording my raw food journey here, so happy that you want to follow along. Feel free to join me on the raw journey!