So much has happened since my last post and I feel I have grown in awareness greatly as a result.
Have you noticed how the world is waking up? The signs are all around us, and I find myself no longer being the 'eccentric one' at dinner parties as more and more of the people around us are realising we are beings of pure love and light with limitless potential.
Accompanying this awakening has been a growing need for truth and integrity and the exposure of any systems that do not hold these values (banks, governments, pharmaceuticals to name just a few). In fact it seems that a myriad organisations whose ill founded need to control the people are starting to crumble or their true motives are being exposed for the world to see. It's a joy to witness each week in the conventional media yet another new exposure of lies and corruption and the process appears to be quickening in synch with the awakening of our world. Now the stories that were once the exclusive domain of the alternative media such as Wikileaks, InfoWars, Natural News, etc are now filtering into the controlled mainstream, albeit in highly edited form!
So this awakening has brought with it a growing awareness of who we really are, and for me, I have realised that the world we live in including everything in it, our physical bodies, our thoughts, our emotions and yes even our food are just pure energy. It helps explain why we seem to be connected in ways we have until now not really fully understood (eg. sensing when someone is about to call, or picking up a feeling in a room when someone's had an argument). And it also helps us understand why raw foods help us so much more than cooked foods; because they are of a higher energy.
You see when you cook food you can actually see (using Kirilian photography) how the energy is reduced and this results in a measurable physical depletion in energy (eg. the nutrients are reduced, the enzymes are destroyed, the cell walls broken down, etc). What's interesting is that the more higher energy foods we eat, the higher our vibration (energy) and when cells are created from higher energy, their form is more pure and so our health is better. What's more I also notice that my consciousness raises with the amount of raw food I have eaten, so I have better access to the infinite wisdom of the universe and am better able to make decisions that are in true alignment with my soul. So raw food helps me be me and helps me listen to my intuition (ie, the infinite knowledge of the universe) much more easily. I find that people come into my life at the perfect moment and that opportunities that arise are perfectly in synch with my intentions.
I also notice the opposite effect in my children when they go to parties and eat a lot of sugary foods - they seem to lose their connection to their inner selves and become quite fearful, paranoid and even angry afterwards. Their normal calm demeanour vanishes with the excess sugars in their blood, and trying to have a rational conversation with them is near on impossible. Even the next day they reflect on their experience in a less than positive way, 'remembering' the bad things that happened and the minor issues that came up, rather than the manic happiness they exhibit whilst at the party. I'll never be a mum who restricts party food as food is such a social thing and to bring your children up so they are excluded from social activities is not something I believe is in their best interests (despite the detrimental effect the food has on their feelings). However, we do talk about the effect food has on their behaviour and wellbeing afterwards and I do encourage them to be more balanced with their choices at parties. We do also talk about the energy of food and what foods make them feel good in the long term.
Wednesday 27 December 2017
Thursday 17 June 2010
Learning how to eat from children
Again, another delayed post since I've been incredibly busy this year. So, onto the subject of children because I really feel we have a lot to learn from them.
Not only do they remind us how to live in the present; watch a young child playing and see how their emotions can switch from joy to anger and back to happiness in an instant. They truly live in the moment for this is our natural state of living. The past is no longer relevant for it has happened and bears no reflection on our lives anymore, other than if we attach ourselves to the memories of the past and use them to judge how our futures will be affected. Our future has not happened and so is not relevant; the future is a manifestation of our current thoughts, of which our emotions are a guide. That is, if we feel good, we are clearly thinking good stuff and our future will be the physical manifestation of that good stuff. TUT is a great site for reminding me of this.
Young children live a fairly natural life in that, for them the future is no longer relevant (eg ask any child how they got on at school and they will struggle to remember because they have done what we all could do - move on and forget). Young children are far more interested in the current moment for the shields that us adults have developed to hide our true soul selves have not yet been put up. I get great pleasure from watching my three girls as they offer a reminder of how I could be living (and indeed how I strive to live!)
Now the second lesson I learn from watching children is how their appetites are so balanced. This is because they have only been eating cooked foods, sugar and grains for a short while; all these foods interfere with body biochemistry and stop normal appetite from working properly. They are also fairly toxic free - how many children drink diet coke, alcohol, pharmaceutical drugs and other highly toxic substances on a regular basis? This means their bodies work as they are designed.
You only have to watch a child at meal times to see this; give them a meal they hate and they will not eat it. But that doesn't mean they'll be weak/shaky or not be able to concentrate later on, for these things are signs of when your body cannot regulate its blood sugars properly. Normal hunger is felt at the back of the throat, not in the head (lack of concentration), or the stomach (excess acidity due to having consumed too much or the wrong foods), or in the body (weakness/shaking). Here are 3 great pages that describe true hunger by Herbert M Shelton. We are designed to go without foods for hours and if we cannot, then it is not because we have not eaten enough, it is because we have been eating the wrong foods that have spiked our blood sugars, that have sapped our mineral reserves and that have created acidic conditions that increase the parasite/candida load that, in turn, continues to fuel appetite. Richard Anderson has written lots of articles about how to maintain a good body biochemistry, to which I often refer.
Thankfully, children's bodies are in much better balance to adults and they also are able to listen to their in-built appetite control mechanisms: they will stop eating when they are full, even mid-mouthful, and go off and play, completely forgetting the meal that was on the table. They know what they need and listen to their bodies, rather than deciding in advance that they will be eating certain foods.
Of course, our natural desire is to eat large quantities of colourful sweet foods - this is a pre-historic survival mechanism and used to be fulfilled by eating fruit. These days, unfortunately, our natural desires are fulfilled by eating sugar-laden junk and, given the chance, our children will opt for the same.
So, we can both learn from each other here - we can be inspired that it is possible to have a completely normal appetite and can work towards this by cleaning up our diets, eating a large proportion of raw vegetables and some fruits, reducing parasite and candida load that fuels appetite, maintaining an alkaline state and a keeping stress and toxins low. Gradually, our appetites are restored to normal and we simply lose interest in food until we are naturally hungry.
And we can teach our children to keep their wonderful, natural appetites by feeding them nutrient rich, organic raw foods as often as possible and keeping them away from foods that rob the body of its balance (sugar, fizzy drinks, white flour). I'm not saying bring children up eating only raw food, since they find it hard to thrive on bulky, low calorie foods when they are growing.
I reach a compromise and try to make 30-50% of their diet raw by giving them side salads, adding raw vegetable purees onto cooked food and giving them fruit as a mid-afternoon snack. They eat mainly organic, vegetarian foods, vegetables with both main meals, rarely eat cows milk products (they eat goat's and sheep's yoghurt/cheese and drink rice milk) and they eat wheat based products at most once a day. Of course, they eat chocolate but I only buy the dark variety and just a small amount. We are increasingly eating more raw chocolate but as it is not available in France we have to order this and it gets eaten very quickly once delivered!
If they are ill, we use natural remedies (homeopathy, colloidal silver, Reiki (links to my Reiki Master), EFT) and they have never had antibiotics. That way, we achieve a balance of healthy eating and recognise that food is a social activity and I see that it is important for them not to feel too different from their friends.
Oh yes, and plenty of sunshine, taking care not to over-expose, but never using sunscreens unless we cannot avoid being out all day.
The result is that my children are rarely ill, they laugh constantly and they are a joy to be with. Thank you for choosing me my lovely girls!
What did I learn?
Not only do they remind us how to live in the present; watch a young child playing and see how their emotions can switch from joy to anger and back to happiness in an instant. They truly live in the moment for this is our natural state of living. The past is no longer relevant for it has happened and bears no reflection on our lives anymore, other than if we attach ourselves to the memories of the past and use them to judge how our futures will be affected. Our future has not happened and so is not relevant; the future is a manifestation of our current thoughts, of which our emotions are a guide. That is, if we feel good, we are clearly thinking good stuff and our future will be the physical manifestation of that good stuff. TUT is a great site for reminding me of this.
Young children live a fairly natural life in that, for them the future is no longer relevant (eg ask any child how they got on at school and they will struggle to remember because they have done what we all could do - move on and forget). Young children are far more interested in the current moment for the shields that us adults have developed to hide our true soul selves have not yet been put up. I get great pleasure from watching my three girls as they offer a reminder of how I could be living (and indeed how I strive to live!)
Now the second lesson I learn from watching children is how their appetites are so balanced. This is because they have only been eating cooked foods, sugar and grains for a short while; all these foods interfere with body biochemistry and stop normal appetite from working properly. They are also fairly toxic free - how many children drink diet coke, alcohol, pharmaceutical drugs and other highly toxic substances on a regular basis? This means their bodies work as they are designed.
You only have to watch a child at meal times to see this; give them a meal they hate and they will not eat it. But that doesn't mean they'll be weak/shaky or not be able to concentrate later on, for these things are signs of when your body cannot regulate its blood sugars properly. Normal hunger is felt at the back of the throat, not in the head (lack of concentration), or the stomach (excess acidity due to having consumed too much or the wrong foods), or in the body (weakness/shaking). Here are 3 great pages that describe true hunger by Herbert M Shelton. We are designed to go without foods for hours and if we cannot, then it is not because we have not eaten enough, it is because we have been eating the wrong foods that have spiked our blood sugars, that have sapped our mineral reserves and that have created acidic conditions that increase the parasite/candida load that, in turn, continues to fuel appetite. Richard Anderson has written lots of articles about how to maintain a good body biochemistry, to which I often refer.
Thankfully, children's bodies are in much better balance to adults and they also are able to listen to their in-built appetite control mechanisms: they will stop eating when they are full, even mid-mouthful, and go off and play, completely forgetting the meal that was on the table. They know what they need and listen to their bodies, rather than deciding in advance that they will be eating certain foods.
Of course, our natural desire is to eat large quantities of colourful sweet foods - this is a pre-historic survival mechanism and used to be fulfilled by eating fruit. These days, unfortunately, our natural desires are fulfilled by eating sugar-laden junk and, given the chance, our children will opt for the same.
So, we can both learn from each other here - we can be inspired that it is possible to have a completely normal appetite and can work towards this by cleaning up our diets, eating a large proportion of raw vegetables and some fruits, reducing parasite and candida load that fuels appetite, maintaining an alkaline state and a keeping stress and toxins low. Gradually, our appetites are restored to normal and we simply lose interest in food until we are naturally hungry.
And we can teach our children to keep their wonderful, natural appetites by feeding them nutrient rich, organic raw foods as often as possible and keeping them away from foods that rob the body of its balance (sugar, fizzy drinks, white flour). I'm not saying bring children up eating only raw food, since they find it hard to thrive on bulky, low calorie foods when they are growing.
I reach a compromise and try to make 30-50% of their diet raw by giving them side salads, adding raw vegetable purees onto cooked food and giving them fruit as a mid-afternoon snack. They eat mainly organic, vegetarian foods, vegetables with both main meals, rarely eat cows milk products (they eat goat's and sheep's yoghurt/cheese and drink rice milk) and they eat wheat based products at most once a day. Of course, they eat chocolate but I only buy the dark variety and just a small amount. We are increasingly eating more raw chocolate but as it is not available in France we have to order this and it gets eaten very quickly once delivered!
If they are ill, we use natural remedies (homeopathy, colloidal silver, Reiki (links to my Reiki Master), EFT) and they have never had antibiotics. That way, we achieve a balance of healthy eating and recognise that food is a social activity and I see that it is important for them not to feel too different from their friends.
Oh yes, and plenty of sunshine, taking care not to over-expose, but never using sunscreens unless we cannot avoid being out all day.
The result is that my children are rarely ill, they laugh constantly and they are a joy to be with. Thank you for choosing me my lovely girls!
What did I learn?
- Children's appetites are an indication on how our appetites could be.
- Eating clean, raw, nutrient-rich, organic foods, staying alkaline and reducing parasites/candida go a long way to restoring this natural appetite.
- Remember to live in the present and to keep your thoughts positive and happy. Your emotions reflect your thoughts; if you're feeling good today, then tomorrow will bring more of the same.
Saturday 13 February 2010
How I Eat Raw Food
Firstly, apologies for the delay in posting. Life has been busy (in a good way) but I never seemed to find time to update my blog.
This morning, there was an article at Dr Mercola about eating raw food. I made a comment and thought that it would be helpful to post a summary about how I eat raw food.
My first comment is that I follow no rules and have developed my own pattern that suits me. I got very confused about the numerous different "ideal" raw food diets that are recommended by raw foodists. Some of these appear very extreme, almost judgemental in their approach (ie, if you eat too much fruit, "it's bad", or if you don't eat enough green vegetables "that's bad", or if you eat unsoaked nuts "that's bad").
I take the view that, if you are like me, trying to improve your diet and end up eating unsoaked nuts in place of soya burgers, this is better than before! It's all relative and I'm sure that in 10 years' time of eating raw food, I'll prefer to eat soaked nuts. But, for now, I'm a newbie and, as the French say, ça va (it's OK).
Here are examples of what I may eat in a day - it's not typical, because I'm inconsistent and eat according to how I feel.
One winter day could be like this:
Breakfast - often nothing because I'm not hungry
Mid-morning - fruit
Lunch - mixed vegetables cooked in coconut oil, with lettuce, grated carrot
Mid-afternoon - nuts and raisins
Dinner - coleslaw, raw crackers, mixed salad, olives
Evening - dark chocolate, red wine
So, around 60% raw
And another day....
Breakfast - sheeps yoghurt with a raw green superfood, like MegaGreens
Lunch - Vegi burgers made with all vegetables, plus spinach and mixed salad
Mid afternoon - packet of organic puffy crisps (I know, not perfect!)
Snack - more sheeps yoghurt and greensuperfood
Dinner - raw crackers and grated carrot salad
Evening - dark chocolate
This is around 50% raw
Note about superfoods: I've yet to discover these properly so that I can do them justice in a blog post, but have found a couple of green superfood mixes that have been incredibly helpful. I live in France where organic leafy green vegetables are so hard to come by, unlike in the UK and US where you have a huge selection. But the discovery of pHresh Greens and Boku has been fantastic, because now I get enough leafy green vegetables simply by adding them to water or a little yoghurt.
Then during summer, things are lighter...
Breakfast - often nothing
Mid-morning - fruit (eg, banana, apple, figs in season)
Lunch - Green smoothie, made with courgette, carrot, peppers, dandelion leaves from our garden, xylitol to sweeten, spices to flavour as I feel like
Mid-afternoon - avocado with grated carrot salad
Dinner - raw crackers and coleslaw
Evening - fruit and always some dark chocolate!
Here it's around 90% raw
To the above, I add when I feel like it, coconut oil, raw nut butter, dried apricots and dates and plenty of alkaline water all day long. The warmer the weather, the more raw food I eat.
So what did I learn from eating raw food?
This morning, there was an article at Dr Mercola about eating raw food. I made a comment and thought that it would be helpful to post a summary about how I eat raw food.
My first comment is that I follow no rules and have developed my own pattern that suits me. I got very confused about the numerous different "ideal" raw food diets that are recommended by raw foodists. Some of these appear very extreme, almost judgemental in their approach (ie, if you eat too much fruit, "it's bad", or if you don't eat enough green vegetables "that's bad", or if you eat unsoaked nuts "that's bad").
I take the view that, if you are like me, trying to improve your diet and end up eating unsoaked nuts in place of soya burgers, this is better than before! It's all relative and I'm sure that in 10 years' time of eating raw food, I'll prefer to eat soaked nuts. But, for now, I'm a newbie and, as the French say, ça va (it's OK).
Here are examples of what I may eat in a day - it's not typical, because I'm inconsistent and eat according to how I feel.
One winter day could be like this:
Breakfast - often nothing because I'm not hungry
Mid-morning - fruit
Lunch - mixed vegetables cooked in coconut oil, with lettuce, grated carrot
Mid-afternoon - nuts and raisins
Dinner - coleslaw, raw crackers, mixed salad, olives
Evening - dark chocolate, red wine
So, around 60% raw
And another day....
Breakfast - sheeps yoghurt with a raw green superfood, like MegaGreens
Lunch - Vegi burgers made with all vegetables, plus spinach and mixed salad
Mid afternoon - packet of organic puffy crisps (I know, not perfect!)
Snack - more sheeps yoghurt and greensuperfood
Dinner - raw crackers and grated carrot salad
Evening - dark chocolate
This is around 50% raw
Note about superfoods: I've yet to discover these properly so that I can do them justice in a blog post, but have found a couple of green superfood mixes that have been incredibly helpful. I live in France where organic leafy green vegetables are so hard to come by, unlike in the UK and US where you have a huge selection. But the discovery of pHresh Greens and Boku has been fantastic, because now I get enough leafy green vegetables simply by adding them to water or a little yoghurt.
Then during summer, things are lighter...
Breakfast - often nothing
Mid-morning - fruit (eg, banana, apple, figs in season)
Lunch - Green smoothie, made with courgette, carrot, peppers, dandelion leaves from our garden, xylitol to sweeten, spices to flavour as I feel like
Mid-afternoon - avocado with grated carrot salad
Dinner - raw crackers and coleslaw
Evening - fruit and always some dark chocolate!
Here it's around 90% raw
To the above, I add when I feel like it, coconut oil, raw nut butter, dried apricots and dates and plenty of alkaline water all day long. The warmer the weather, the more raw food I eat.
So what did I learn from eating raw food?
- That I have more energy and less hunger, as long as I eat a balanced diet
- That I never get ill eating at least 70% raw food
- That I like it (that bit's important!)
- That I listen to what my body needs, and not what others tell me I need
- And, that mixed green superfoods, such as pHresh Greens.
Monday 14 September 2009
Cooked Foods and Parasites
After 3 weeks eating raw food I gave up, because I was just too cold. I later found out that it can take several months to adjust to eating just "cold" foods and my attempt in November, whilst surrounded by snow-topped mountains was not the ideal time!
Over the next few months, I decided that, if I couldn't eat raw, at least I could aim for less junk and more vegetables. So I lightened up my diet, tried to avoid chocolate (failing miserably at least 3 times a week!) and added some detoxifying herbs that tasted disgusting but really did make me feel better! The herbs were inspired after my youngest got worms at school (yuk!) and I really didn't want to give her the worm-killing pills. So we bought some children's worms herb pills that tasted sweet, lemony and a bit horrible at the same time, plus some wormwood, walnut and cloves (Hulda Clark's protocol).
Eventually after 3 months, the worms had gone, but it wasn't as easy as I'd thought, since worms are tenacious and do their best to stay hidden from the herbs. Just as we thought they'd gone, one girl would get a "tickly bottom"! Then another 2 months later and the worms were back - probably being re-infected from school, so back to the herb pills for the girls and herbal tinctures for me. What I did notice is that I was actually feeling very calm as a result of the herbs (or maybe less parasites!) and so continued to take them even after we were all clear.
As the summer months approached and the weather became kinder and warmer, I decided to give raw food eating another go. By now I'd been helping to sell Biscru for 8 months and had encountered lots of raw food selling websites and their lovely, inspiring owners. One such site is Raw Living, run by Chris Wood and Kate Magic, who buy raw food for themselves and also sell it to the public. As I discovered, because of this, the food they sell is wonderful and of an incredible quality. Chris started selling Biscru for me and I started asking him questions about raw food, which inspired me to join some raw food forums to see what other raw food eating people did!
This exposure and the additional knowledge I was learning gave me the confidence to try eating all raw food again - I realised that there were other foods I could include other than vegetables and fruits, that would help stave off the hunger! More about that in another post....
What I learned?
Pinworms and parasites are incredibly prevalent, and amazingly tenacious when you're trying to remove them. I eventually tried EFT to help support the herbs, with great effect
Walnut is a great blood sugar balancer, in addition to being an anti-parasite
I think that wormwood tastes disgusting but thankfully so do the parasites!
The raw food community is a very supportive one with some wonderful people who share a very gentle and loving approach to life.
Over the next few months, I decided that, if I couldn't eat raw, at least I could aim for less junk and more vegetables. So I lightened up my diet, tried to avoid chocolate (failing miserably at least 3 times a week!) and added some detoxifying herbs that tasted disgusting but really did make me feel better! The herbs were inspired after my youngest got worms at school (yuk!) and I really didn't want to give her the worm-killing pills. So we bought some children's worms herb pills that tasted sweet, lemony and a bit horrible at the same time, plus some wormwood, walnut and cloves (Hulda Clark's protocol).
Eventually after 3 months, the worms had gone, but it wasn't as easy as I'd thought, since worms are tenacious and do their best to stay hidden from the herbs. Just as we thought they'd gone, one girl would get a "tickly bottom"! Then another 2 months later and the worms were back - probably being re-infected from school, so back to the herb pills for the girls and herbal tinctures for me. What I did notice is that I was actually feeling very calm as a result of the herbs (or maybe less parasites!) and so continued to take them even after we were all clear.
As the summer months approached and the weather became kinder and warmer, I decided to give raw food eating another go. By now I'd been helping to sell Biscru for 8 months and had encountered lots of raw food selling websites and their lovely, inspiring owners. One such site is Raw Living, run by Chris Wood and Kate Magic, who buy raw food for themselves and also sell it to the public. As I discovered, because of this, the food they sell is wonderful and of an incredible quality. Chris started selling Biscru for me and I started asking him questions about raw food, which inspired me to join some raw food forums to see what other raw food eating people did!
This exposure and the additional knowledge I was learning gave me the confidence to try eating all raw food again - I realised that there were other foods I could include other than vegetables and fruits, that would help stave off the hunger! More about that in another post....
What I learned?
Pinworms and parasites are incredibly prevalent, and amazingly tenacious when you're trying to remove them. I eventually tried EFT to help support the herbs, with great effect
Walnut is a great blood sugar balancer, in addition to being an anti-parasite
I think that wormwood tastes disgusting but thankfully so do the parasites!
The raw food community is a very supportive one with some wonderful people who share a very gentle and loving approach to life.
Tuesday 11 August 2009
About Soya
This has very little to do with raw food but I wanted to follow up from my comment in my last post. Since moving to France a few years ago, I started relying heavily on soya as a source of vegetable protein. This was before I realised that the best source of protein is, in fact, raw green leafy vegetables, which I now eat every day. In fact, I've discovered dandelion leaves as being a free and readily available leafy green and put them in a raw smoothie everyday!
Getting back to soya - after 2 years, I found that my weight was going up and so I thought I better start counting calories. Horrifyingly, I discovered that I was eating around 1200 calories a day (and very active too!), but still putting on weight. I assumed that my metabolism must have been slowed right down after I lost my baby weight after my 3rd child - the first and only time I actively dieted to lose baby weight. So, I simply cut back more and ended up eating around 800-900 calories a day. I also cut out chocolate, which shows how committed I was!
This didn't feel good - I was hungry all the time, felt tired, sluggish and couldn't concentrate so I started doing some research on the internet.
What I found made a lot of sense. Apparently, soya (the non-fermented variety that I'd been eating), interferes with the thyroid function (this is one of the key glands involved in regulating metabolism). It can also take several months for the thyroid to repair. So, I immediately cut out soya from my diet and started supplementing with coconut oil which I'd discovered helps increase metabolism.
Nothing much happened for a while, but I did start to feel more alive and alert and I also stopped gaining weight. Then after about 4 months, I noticed that gradually I started to look a bit less puffy! I never weigh myself and had stopped counting calories (it's so boring!) but I did a check one day and found that I was now taking in around 1800 calories, being less active if anything and seemingly losing weight.
So, that's why I don't eat soya!
So, what did I learn?
Soya is not that great a food - in fact, for me and many others, it proved to be detrimental to health.
Fermented soya products, such as miso (which I think tastes disgusting) are fine if you can tolerate their cheesy feet/rotten food flavour (which I definitely can't!)
Coconut oil is a great and underrated product, touted by most raw food eaters as being wonderful (it tastes great, full of natural anti-bacterial/anti-fungal agents, and helps speed up metabolism. It certainly helped for me and it deserves a full post, since its something that is used to make raw chocolate and to add to many raw food meals in a really quick and easy way.
Getting back to soya - after 2 years, I found that my weight was going up and so I thought I better start counting calories. Horrifyingly, I discovered that I was eating around 1200 calories a day (and very active too!), but still putting on weight. I assumed that my metabolism must have been slowed right down after I lost my baby weight after my 3rd child - the first and only time I actively dieted to lose baby weight. So, I simply cut back more and ended up eating around 800-900 calories a day. I also cut out chocolate, which shows how committed I was!
This didn't feel good - I was hungry all the time, felt tired, sluggish and couldn't concentrate so I started doing some research on the internet.
What I found made a lot of sense. Apparently, soya (the non-fermented variety that I'd been eating), interferes with the thyroid function (this is one of the key glands involved in regulating metabolism). It can also take several months for the thyroid to repair. So, I immediately cut out soya from my diet and started supplementing with coconut oil which I'd discovered helps increase metabolism.
Nothing much happened for a while, but I did start to feel more alive and alert and I also stopped gaining weight. Then after about 4 months, I noticed that gradually I started to look a bit less puffy! I never weigh myself and had stopped counting calories (it's so boring!) but I did a check one day and found that I was now taking in around 1800 calories, being less active if anything and seemingly losing weight.
So, that's why I don't eat soya!
So, what did I learn?
Soya is not that great a food - in fact, for me and many others, it proved to be detrimental to health.
Fermented soya products, such as miso (which I think tastes disgusting) are fine if you can tolerate their cheesy feet/rotten food flavour (which I definitely can't!)
Coconut oil is a great and underrated product, touted by most raw food eaters as being wonderful (it tastes great, full of natural anti-bacterial/anti-fungal agents, and helps speed up metabolism. It certainly helped for me and it deserves a full post, since its something that is used to make raw chocolate and to add to many raw food meals in a really quick and easy way.
Monday 10 August 2009
My first attempt to eat all raw foods
My first attempt to "go raw", as raw food eaters would say, was in November 2008, which was a silly time of year to start in hindsight since I realise that your body takes a while to adjust to eating raw food and I ended up feeling pretty cold for most of the time (I live on the edge of the French alps)!
My other mistake was to think I could survive on salads and fruit all day long (after all, the raw foodists seemed to, so why couldn't I? After 3 days, my stomach was so full but I felt weak and couldn't concentrate. I was starving! One evening, I worked out my calorie consumption for the day - just 750 calories - no wonder I was hungry!
I started filling up on nut butter and tahini (not raw) in between my main meals of salad, but my tummy felt a bit better and I did feel very healthy, albeit cold and definitely craving some warm food.
About 2 weeks in, I spotted some new raw biscuits on sale in our local health food shop. "Raw and not salad!", I thought and so I grabbed a few bags, thinking this could be what I was looking for. I couldn't wait to get home and opened one of the Tomato and Paprika flavour bags. They were delicious! In fact, I was overjoyed to have found something that tasted so good and was also raw.
After 3 weeks on my raw food diet, despite the raw crackers, eventually hunger and cold got the better of me and I cooked a soya burger and some stir fry vegetables - they tasted delicious! Looking back, I also remember feeling pretty awful a couple of hours after I'd done this - tired and heavy feeling, but put it down to needing to adjust to cooked foods and carried on regardless. Then later that evening, still feeling hungry, I ate a whole bar of Lindt 85% chocolate (and was awake all night as a result!!!)
Now I know that soya is one of the worst things I could have broken my raw food trial on.... but more of that in another post.
What did I learn?
Raw food did make me feel better, but I needed to find a different balance of foods.
The timing wasn't right - I resolved to try again when the weather was warmer.
That raw crackers are delicious.
I still love chocolate!
My other mistake was to think I could survive on salads and fruit all day long (after all, the raw foodists seemed to, so why couldn't I? After 3 days, my stomach was so full but I felt weak and couldn't concentrate. I was starving! One evening, I worked out my calorie consumption for the day - just 750 calories - no wonder I was hungry!
I started filling up on nut butter and tahini (not raw) in between my main meals of salad, but my tummy felt a bit better and I did feel very healthy, albeit cold and definitely craving some warm food.
About 2 weeks in, I spotted some new raw biscuits on sale in our local health food shop. "Raw and not salad!", I thought and so I grabbed a few bags, thinking this could be what I was looking for. I couldn't wait to get home and opened one of the Tomato and Paprika flavour bags. They were delicious! In fact, I was overjoyed to have found something that tasted so good and was also raw.
After 3 weeks on my raw food diet, despite the raw crackers, eventually hunger and cold got the better of me and I cooked a soya burger and some stir fry vegetables - they tasted delicious! Looking back, I also remember feeling pretty awful a couple of hours after I'd done this - tired and heavy feeling, but put it down to needing to adjust to cooked foods and carried on regardless. Then later that evening, still feeling hungry, I ate a whole bar of Lindt 85% chocolate (and was awake all night as a result!!!)
Now I know that soya is one of the worst things I could have broken my raw food trial on.... but more of that in another post.
What did I learn?
Raw food did make me feel better, but I needed to find a different balance of foods.
The timing wasn't right - I resolved to try again when the weather was warmer.
That raw crackers are delicious.
I still love chocolate!
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