WHY would someone.....

[katchmoleen]

tell you how healthy they are, and then also tell you they were just started on blood pressure meds and cholesterol meds????

My brother, who is extremely overweight and just started on the above meds, went on and on about how healthy he is. And he berated the raw food diet as being unhealthy because you have to chew so much and don't absorb any nutrients (apparently he heard a TV chef who is really down on the raw food diet say this). Oh yeah, he also takes Zantac for heartburn every day.

I just told him I no longer need any of those meds now that I eat raw, and I seem to be be absorbing many nutrients, judging by how fast my body is healing. He didn't have much to say about that!

[juliebove]

Who knows. People have differing ideas of what they think healthy is.

[EZ rider]

I think sometimes people become concerned that if they view cooked foods as being damaged by the cooking then they might need to change their eating habits and they don't want to do that so they go into denial about the effect their choices is having on their health.

[ViolinCyndee]

They are in denial...

[Green_Woman]

Because in reality he knows his own life is damaged by his habits, and he may feel guilt that he has not yet made the Changes he should in order to give his body the healing it desperately needs... and so out of this guilt, he reacts with condemnation.

It's a thought. My own family does it to me, but I am learning to laugh at them. :)

[RawSar]

I know many people like that... "I'm healthy but I have to take [drug] for [issue], but other than that I'm really healthy" :confused:

lol Common! If they are "healthy" than I am super human and will never die. :D

In denial is right. And just lazy. Its a sad sad story.

I really go into my lala land whenever people say stuff like that.

[rawintexas]

I love these folks to that are on medication but healthy. I've been blessed to not have to take any daily meds ever, even when on a SAD diet (pre raw). I recently interviewed an internist recently so I can have a 'regular' doctor if I ever get sick (which in the past is rare and hopefully on raw never) and she was surprised that at 44 I don't take any daily meds. Her response: "almost everyone is on something by their 40s." How sad is that????

[Rhapsody]

They are in denial...

Exactly! Somehow people are scared to hear that the way they've been living until now is wrong. I don't know if I should call that "SAD brainwashing" but my mom for example only swears by cooked food and can't imagine herself eating 100% raw (which would also mean that she'd have to let go of 500 years of korean food traditions)
The only thing you could do is introduce raw meals without mentioning the whole diet, and step by step they'll realize by themselves that raw rawks! (i know that's not something easy to do..)
It's quite shocking for someone to know that what the government has been telling them to eat (dairies, meats, transformed foods, gmos) has been killing them, so I guess that people feel "safer" when they blindly trust this huge corporation that we call government.

[rawrawks]

People (On sad food)have NO idea of healthy, what it looks like or feels like. On a scale with illness/sickness on one end to being on a couple meds I am sure he is healthiER than the others(in his mind).

Plus how many docs have said YOU ARE HEALTHY AS A HORSE AND THEY DROP DEAD THE NEXT DAY.!!!!!!

Acknowledging means they have to DO something different.

Razzing you for raw means they dont want to do it.

Or it could mean a million different things.

I let em be. Sad but true.

[Veganforlife]

We have an idea, don't we? Or at least we are learning. That is what is soooo cool about eating this way. What a concept! Eating to live...NOT living to eat...

Healing by eating.

Living by eating.

Absolutely amazing, but then again, it's how us humans were designed to eat and live. Why else does Mama nature provide for us to pluck and pick and enjoy?

[DopeRawAbundance]

http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/6678/rawiswar.png

[Aleesha Sattva]

When I was a SAD eater... if someone had come to me talking about eating only raw live foods I would have thought they were nuts. I could not have imagined that this choice of eating would first and foremost be yummy and satisfying, and second that you could actually live like this.

I totally bought into the "food group" mentality. That you needed certain things for your body to have fuel to get through a day. When I ate a salad for dinner, I was so hungry within 30 minutes, I didn't see that as a good thing. It wasn't filling me up. I didn't know my body was happily digesting it with ease (and a little assistance from the food itself).

So ya, I totally get why SAD food eaters don't understand why we do this. I wouldn't have believed it had I not lived it.

I leave everyone to their own. If they choose to take medications and eat SAD, it's their choice. The only people I get involved with is my hubby. He's diabetic and the doc wanted to put him on med. I insisted he go raw... he's about 80-90% raw now and his sugars are GREAT. As my children grow... I hope they follow our lead - but it's their choice completely.

After all... eating healthy, living free of drugs and lovin' life IS a choice. And some people's happiness comes from pizza and burgers. *go figure*

[Veganforlife]

Oh I don't agree with that picture! How can something so healing and calm be at war? That's just not right....

I certainly don't want MY Raw goodies colliding with that SAD/CRAP!!!

[T-Bird]

They just really don't want to know.

Like a smoker avoiding everything negative about smoking and then they hear one study that smoking isn't "that" detrimental to health and they are quoting it left right and center.

My bro and I have always been opposite sides on this:

Atkins vrs Vegan

to end the arguing when it become futile, my line is:

Who ever dies first loses!

And we're sticking with that. I suppose as he is 16 months older and a male I should handicap him about 7 years or so....

If we are both kicking it @ 80+ we will tweak the rules......

My mom is currently 86, Dad 92, so likely we will both be long lived. Most Aunts/Uncles lived into late 80's/90's.

[RawHealthyBeauty]

Maybe he desperately wants to be healthy by voicing it out loud and he's in denial that he's not.

And you're setting a really good example for health and opening up a road for him that may feel uncomfortable for him because it is a new thing and a change of lifestyle.

I had to break out of a lot of old ways of thinking that I was so set in. I had to truly accept the way I was eating wasn't all that great! And that raw food would drastically improve how I feel overall in my well being.

I think he knows you're right but maybe too scared to face the truth...

I was scared at first for a little bit before I went raw. Hope this helps.

[revdrcyn]

Katchmoleen,

Your brother sounds like my husband. He brags about how well he is doing health-wise when he is currently suffering from diabetes, obesity, emphysema, osteoporosis, acquired hemophilia, and high cholesterol and taking almost 20 prescription meds. His diet is horrible.

And, of course, he thinks my way of eating is bizarre - go figure!

You are doing so well! Just keep shining the light of health!

[T-Bird]

I think it's also frightening to think what people imagine "healthy" is!!!!

I guess if they're walking and talking and not planning their service for next month they're "healthy"

[rawlight]

tell you how healthy they are, and then also tell you they were just started on blood pressure meds and cholesterol meds????


I think your brother said this because he lives in a society where we've become accustomed to taking pills to make us healthy...or so we think. That's the mentality, take a pill and it will make you well. So in your bother's eyes, he IS healthy: he is doing what he has been programmed to believe is the way to health: that little green, blue, orange whatever colored pill.

That's why the kind of lifestyle we are promoting on this site can be so foreign to most folks. Most traditional doctors will only pay lip service to 'lifestyle changes,' but instead pull out their pretty colored pill collection. Luckily for me, when I developed high blood pressure, I was so glad that my doctor let me do lifestyle changes, before she started talking pills. Most of diseases are caused by what we eat (and other things of course, like a sedentary life) but I figured food hurt me, why couldn't it heal me? So now this food thing is kind of the foundation of my life! I exercise, have a spiritual practice, try (!) to sleep enough, but food for me is the real healer....

Anyway, don't be too hard on your bro. Our culture did a good job of programming him. Now you just have to be the example of a different way to be healthy and maybe he will see the light!

[laura-jane]

http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/6678/rawiswar.png

Lol, love this picture!

It is tough. I just want to convert everybody but I've stopped trying unless someone else brings it up and wants to know more.

The best we can do is lead by example and share everything that we know when the person is interested and genuinely wants to know more.

[katchmoleen]

I should have made it clear that I never preached at my brother. He dissed raw before he even knew I ate raw, and after he realized that I did, he was not quite so strident about it. I only talk about raw if people ask me about it, but I got asked about it a lot because we were eating out just about every day and the salads got pretty obvious. :D

[margoss]

I think for some it's easier to run to meds than to adapt ourselves. AT times, we may need meds. My sis is similar. She had double stint 4yrs ago. She's gained close to 20 lbs, eats worse than b4, drinks an abundance of coffee, no water bc she doesn't like it, no herbal teas or fresh uncooked produce. She will eat a salad with 1/2 a cup of dressing on it..seriously. She's on cholestrol meds/bp meds too. I think she thinks the meds will counteract all she's doing. She gets upset when her 'meds are not working'.
She looks at me losing wt but will not comment about it, gets upset when she eats a small salad & I eat a HUGE one with vinegar, lots of fruit. She told me it's about time I lost some wt be I had gotten so huge:eek:. I tell her mine is not from stuffing my face but depression...my body shuts down when I'm depressed. I never say anything to her. She tries to feed my dd 'her' stuff & gets mad bc I won't let her. I did tell her that I'm teaching to take care of her body now so hopefully, she won't need meds later.

[EZ rider]

I think if a person goes with the idea of "making food your medicine and medicine your food" thats a better place to hang your hat then "better living through chemistry". I like the way eating garden foods makes me feel.