Tornado

I've been thinking lately about how to best convey Raw and Living Foodism. I'm so excited about how great I'm feeling that I don't realize it when I ambush someone. My tact needs a little refining. My dad has had a triple bypass and then a heart attack in the last ten years so I feel that time is of the essence. Why don't people understand the destruction of their food choices? More importantly how do we tell them that an internal tornado is killing them one meal at a time? This isn't about trends. This isn't about a privileged diet of affluence. This is about the people we love, the world we love, and their redemption. Raw food enthusiastist and amazing musician Jonsi's song Tornado brings streaming tears when I ponder the full depth of it. My hope for us is that we find our way, lead by example, and let the inner light we all have be shared. Happy Holidays everyone.

Paradise Found

As I approach the two month mark of eating an 85% to 90% Raw Vegan diet, I thought a check-in was appropriate. If I were to sum it up in one thought: The initial fogginess, stress, and lethargy with brief feelings of energy, vitality, and calm are now flip-flopped. Now I'm happy, peaceful, energetic and sharp with brief waves of anxiety and negativity which I still attribute to subtler detox symptoms. Although it's a much more gradual change in mood. I don't fall off the emotional and spiritual cliff anymore. It's something I sense is coming which makes it easier to be aware of and neutralize. As David Wolfe would say, I'm out of my comfort zone but not into my shock zone. The emotional and spiritual side is what is most unexpected. I'm aware, maybe for the first time, how intimately I'm connected to the biorhythm of the Earth and Nature. I feel like my membership to our planetary ecosystem and consciousness has just been approved. It's rubbing off too. People with whom I spend the most time are incorporating more natural, fresh foods into their diet. It's as if my residual energy is influencing their personal choices. I feel that what is healing me, can heal our culture from the inside out, both literally and figuratively. It takes seven years to completely renew one's entire body. I hope you'll stick around for the ride. All aboard!

A little background and the future of T.C.F.C.

I feel a little background is needed. I'd also like to address where this blog may be heading. I've personally been some variation of Vegan/Vegetarian for 10 years now. I've slowly integrated more and more Raw and Living foods into my diet and for the last 4 weeks am around 85% to 90% Raw Vegan. Though I try not to get too caught up in labels and definitions, I feel as the author, a little information is warranted. Also I've been reflecting this week as to where this blog can go. This is my first attempt at anything like this. I feel creativity must be the foundation here as there are a slew of Raw Food blogs out there. So as much as my limited (yet growing) knowledge will allow, I'm going to let it be whatever it wants to be without compromising what I hope is an original endeavor. I'm not a doctor. I have no formal training other than Self-Education. I'm just a guy rediscovering my own good health and I hope you'll tag along for the ride.

Acrylamide

Often when you tell someone that cooking healthy, nutritious food will kill its enzymes, life force and create carcinogens, they look at you like you're from another planet. People's level of denial of what they think is good for them is deeply rooted. It's clear why someone would take this so personally. No one wants to hear that what they put in their bodies three times a day could kill them. However, several cooking methods have been linked to everything from Cancer to fertility rates. Browning during baking, frying, or deep-frying produces acrylamide, and over-cooking foods may produce large amounts of acrylamide. They can also be created during microwaving. The FDA has analyzed a variety of U.S. food products for levels of this carcinogen.The European Chemical Agency added acrylamide to its List of Substance of Very High Concern in March 2010.                                                                                                               

 I realize that one's choice of diet is a personal, somewhat private choice but now, more than ever, it's important to remember the choices we have. How many commercials do you typically see promoting fresh fruits and vegetables, organic produce and holistic lifestyle options during a given day? Now think about how many you see for fast food and pharmaceuticals. The two go hand in hand. There's no money in health. There's no money in a cure. Entire global industries would have to shift or disappear completely if people, en masse, began eating what's actually best for them. That's the power we have. Yet every meal we give that power away to global industrial agribusiness and eventually mainstream medicine to patch over our dietary-induced symptoms. Acrylamide is only one of several things slowly killing us. Yet the food you pass over, right in front of your eyes can heal. Deeply ingrained, mental product placement and a concerted effort of what "they" think is best for you is a prison from which you can free yourself. For it's the ones that never move that don't notice the shackles.

It's not a meal, it's a revolution

If you're reading this I have to assume you sense some sort of internal curiosity that can't be quelled by our consumer society. You are not alone. There's been a subtle, steady campaign under way for sometime now for our hearts and minds. While much blame can be assigned, there's one thing I keep coming back to again and again: The food we put in our mouths three times a day. People have lost touch with what goes in their bodies to such an extent that fast food value meals can be marketed as appealing and nutritious to a complicit American society. Now, I don't need to be a mouthpiece for Michael Pollan for he has quite a large enough following as it is. However, the Standard American Diet(S.A.D!) is marketed to us as "convenient" and "normal." Meanwhile consuming simple, wholesome food in it's most natural uncooked state is labeled as "fringe", "primitive", "expensive", and/or "complicated." Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm still waiting to hear how fresh fruits and vegetables are fringe and a Whopper combo meal is normal. Normal for whom? The customer, whose body has to work hard to realign the amino acids in the meat to make them optimal to build protein? The employee, who has to work for slave wages at a job she hates just to get by? The cow, who has to spend its entire unnatural life standing on concrete, eating a diet it was never meant to eat, being abused and pumped full of hormones and antibiotics? Wait! I know for whom it's normal. The Industrial Agriculture Complex that's been getting rich off our ignorance for many a decade now. They don't dare inform us enough to make intelligent food choices that may possibly threaten their almighty shareholders. Wake up. Rub your eyes and come out of that food coma they've had you drugged on for so long and think about this. Food is a weapon. Food is a right. Food is political. Your breakfast, lunch and dinner can be a revolution if you so choose. Often when I talk to folks about this I get the sense that I'm somehow talking down to them or admonishing them for their personal choices. This has never once been my intention. I only seek to help them become healthier, more socially-conscious eaters if they so choose. If only someone could've told me about raw food when I was a youngster I may have avoided the unnecessary weight gain and mental haze that shaped my youth. If only I'd known a vegan who wasn't so holier than thou went I first expressed an interest in it, I may have prevented the deaths of those I ate during my years of conflicting ideologies. So take a little stroll through the produce section the next time you do your grocery shopping. Your body has a way of leading you to what it wants. See what catches your eye and ask yourself, "What do I want for dinner?"