Raw food: the social aspects of eating & cheating

I think people adjusting to a raw diet binge on other foods because their body is still trying to detoxify & adjust. Keep at it, it gets easier! Do what you can, keep adding in the good stuff, the salads, the raw veggies, lots & tons of greens, green smoothies. And you can do lots with herbs to help your body detoxify.

I've been doing mostly raw for a few years now. I am 100% in the summer. In the winter I eat some cooked winter veggies (squash, asparagus, yam, eggplant) I like them better cooked & feel better. Sometimes, not too often I eat rice. Maybe in another year or 2 I won't eat any cooked foods, but for this winter anyway, I have found that I am feeling better eating a bit of cooked winter veggies several nights a week, I eat raw all day though.

It would be nice to hear what raw food people 'cheat' on. I do eat some cheese sometimes. I bet others do too. I do have a recipe for a raw vegan cheese that is pretty good. But sometimes I think about eating some cheese for several days & just go ahead & have some & then don't touch it again for a long time.

I had rice crackers at Christmas, I know those agree with me too. Christmas was great, I ate a fair bit of cheese, a lot of the wonderful raw vegan fudge stuff that I make (with cherry sauce on top), and balanced all that with a ton of greens in smoothies & spirulina, chlorella, E3 live. I felt fine, but was ready for lighter meals for a while after.

That's about it, I think anything else would put my body into shock. There's a lot of foods I won't touch at all: wheat is one. I had no idea how much wheat was causing me to have anxiety, until I was wheat free for about 6 months & then at some pizza. I had the worst anxiety for 3 days after. An experience like that is a gift: it shows you that you are on the right track with your diet and how badly you used to feel all the time, and you probably considered that normal!

I know it doesn't work well for anyone to eat mainly raw & then go on a binge of junk food or meat. It is just too hard on the body. During the first year or so you are usually all over the map as your body & emotions adjust to these changes. I had eaten a mainly vegetarian diet, but mostly cooked food, some seafood, some chicken, and very little junk food, lots of cheese. It was still a big change for me. I was able to use my herbal knowledge to do a lot of cleansing & detoxifying which helped immensely. With any toxic substance, whether it is a food or a drug, once you get it cleaned out of your body the cravings go away.

Keep this in mind if you feel the need to binge, often it is the state of acidity that is throwing your body into imbalance. Much more on this is discussed in my herbalist course.

I know what foods I feel best on, and when I think I want to eat something else that is not raw, I think about it for a few days & think about how that food made me feel last time I ate it. Its not a question of 5 minutes of pleasure stuffing my face with some food that I know will make me feel unhealthy. I think we all need to get over the emotional eating, the eating out of habit or out of a feeling of social obligation!

Another thing is the social aspect, we all need ways to cope with that. For me, I've stopped caring where I drag my raw food out of my purse -- restaurant, grocery store, dinner with friends. At a company formal Christmas party I pulled an avocado out of my purse to add to the only raw bits of salad stuff I could find at their buffet! When get invited to friend's houses for dinner, I just say 'don't worry about feeding me', and bring my own amazing meal.

It is even dangerous to tell them it is ok to make a salad, especially when you see them dumping a bunch of creamy store bought salad dressing on it, or adding parmesan or croutons. Safer to bring your own food, and if there's a dish that is raw & within your current eating parameters you can eat that too.

I think if we all support each other with the social aspects it might be easier!

I don't think anyone else should care what you eat, isn't the point of all sharing a meal supposed to be the social aspect of sharing each other's company? If I am eating a raw veggie patty & some salad and everyone else is eating meat & potatoes, that still should not impact a fun evening with friends!

Any information presented here is for informational purposes only and not intended to take the place of diagnosis and treatment by a medical practitioner.