Some newbie questions!

[Anahata]

Hello, I am slowly working my way into more and more raw food eating.

I feel great! I am shocked. Today I went without coffee and ate a couple diffrent fruits instead. I feel better! No headaches or real issues of caffiene withdrawl yet.

1. I started this journey thinking I would just increase my raw food intake. As I continue I have started to notice a diffrence in my body when I eat meats and certian cooked foods. I don't like how I feel. I had never planned on being 100% or even 100% vegan but as each day goes by I am wondering if I will start to see greater and greater diffrences in my body with eating raw vegan and continueing my cooked animal products. Anyone else experiance this and go from wanting to eat meat to slowly weaning off animals and being 100% vegan? I can do fine without meat and poultry but I think fish and seafood will be a hard thing to part with. I love it so much!!


2. Fridges. Do you refrigerate your food? Is it better for me to leave my produce out on counter?? Does the cool fridge negativly affet the living enzymes?


3. I am starting to really rethink my goals and maybe switch to 95% vegan and just eat wild fish once in awhile. I would like most of my vegan diet to be raw. What are some really helpful books on being vegan and being raw? books with recipies and also that go into detail about dehydration, juicing, and sprouting! Also any book with great lifestyle and peaceful thinking would be good too!

4. I tried to be vegetarian while with my EX. I was never able to succed and remove myself from processed foods and meat when its all he wanted. I don't want to be in a relationship with someone that has very diffrent eating habits and lifystyle from me. I am in an new city and don't know anyone! How can I come across other vegans/raw eaters in my area??


5. I just want to say I have never felt so alive! Eating living food has giving me insight to how dead I was before! I don't think I could ever go back!! It is great!

Thanks ahead of time!

[RawkinM]

Hi Anahata ~ I like your screenname

I'll try answering, others may have other ideas too.

Your food is fine in the fridge. If you don't get many fruit flies and you can grocery shop every few days, they are better off not refrigerated though - for flavors and ripening mostly. Ripening gets more nutrition out of the food. A minor amount of enzymes might die, but they will be just fine.

My personal philosophy with food is that it is up to each of us what we can do/how we choose to live. (Everything is permissible.) There are no rules - if you feel better being 95% raw but still want to eat seafood then that's what you need to do. It's your path, and do what brings you peace and happiness.
:)

For books on vegan, if you do an amazon search on raw vegan, it will come up with a huge list for you. Or just go to your nearest Borders or Barnes and Noble, plop yourself down in the vegan section and see what you can find. (It's what I did when I first started.) Or do the same at your local library. Books on peaceful thinking? I would say, just start meditating. If you really want to cultivate a peaceful lifestyle, we are usually asked to go inwards - not look to externals. Books to me were always about looking outside myself for something I already had inside. (Personal philosophy -may not work for you so maybe someone else has book ideas)

As for your city ~ maybe google: vegan yourtown, state
That might bring up a list of things - also if you have a designated health food type store or a vitamin store they might be able to point you in the right direction. I think they'd totally understand being in a new city and wanting to find like-minded people to connect with. Good luck!

It's great to hear raw v. is working for you!

[SevenKindsOfCookie]

You might want to look foor meetups and potlocks at meetup.com (http://www.meetup.com/) there's a lot raw food events there. And there might perhaps be some people on this forum who live near you.

As foor food storage. Some produce is better left out in room temperature and some are better kept cold. Google "produce name + how to store" and you'll probably find the best ways to store them.
If you don't have anything in your fridge that requires a cooler temperature (like dairy and seafood) you might want to raise the temperature a bit. Veggies doesn't want it to be too cold.

[bing]

"I tried to be vegetarian while with my EX. I was never able to succed and remove myself from processed foods and meat when its all he wanted. I don't want to be in a relationship with someone that has very diffrent eating habits and lifystyle from me."

I totally agree with this. It's really hard to be living with someone who don't celebrate healthy living. How can you be happy with each milestone if your partner doesn't give a damn? I'm glad he's EX now, lol.;)