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I am a bit hesitant about setting up a blog to use as a journal/food/weight log, simply because of some of the food issues I have been dealing with for so very, very long. So I make no guarantees except that I will keep this up as long as it supports my raw journey.

I have been curious about raw for a long time, found all sorts of opinions about it while searching the net. Then it dawned on me - what's the point of READING all this stuff if I don't intend to do anything about it? With no guidance whatsoever I tried raw a few times three years ago, but it didn't last beyond a day. Then last November I became vegan in the middle of one fine day. No kidding - I was doing some research on my food issues, decided to check out vegetarianism and Christianity. Wow! Then that night, a Friday, I had a terrible reaction to MSG I'd put in a spinach dish. I mean, it was like I was drunk. My speech was slurred, vision blurred, felt all uncoordinated and just awful. That scared me pretty bad. I knew I also needed to give up Diet Pepsi - aspartame is just evil stuff - and the MSG scare for some reason helped with that. Saturday morning I had leftover barbecue beef before plunging into this website I had found on this devout Christian lady who had gone vegan. She was so gentle, so inspiring that I ended up writing her. By that afternoon I'd given up meat. Then I read about the pus counts allowable in dairy, and dumped out the quarter gallon of cow's milk remaining in the fridge. Ewwww . . . the more research I did on food, the more I found that I didn't want in my body.

To back up a little, it all started with my asking God "what is food?" I had a sense what food wasn't - but what it Was, what He meant for me to eat I was totally clueless about! After years of an eating disorder had given up on formal treatment, and I just wanted to be healed because I felt like that's what God had promised me. Hence the delve into Googling (can you believe that word is now a verb??) Christianity and vegetarianism. So I started reading, reading lots. Reading Eat to Live, Diet for a New America, Mad Cowboy, Judaism and Vegetarianism, Slaughterhouse, and The Hundred Year Lie. These books all promote veganism for different reasons, and the attitude towards raw varies a bit. But it was a strong start in the right direction!

So as I began to make discoveries through my reading, a whole new world of food opened up to me. I thought veganism would be limiting, and I was curious about raw food but didn't even know where to start. I'm still not sure I know where to start, but I can tell the difference between raw food and cooked food :) so maybe that's enough for right now. Also have some raw vegan recipes that I adore, and am open to trying new things.

The longest I've been raw was three days, just kind of floating on eating the raw recipes I'd made, learning not to be afraid of "fattening" nuts, seeds and my beloved avocado. Then I went on a short day trip and found myself without enough raw food. I didn't think eating cooked food would mess me up as bad as it did, but soon I found myself eating fast food (albeit vegan) burritos. Sigh. So here I am, going to give this thing a serious shot. My weight is down from November, it was 177 I'm floating at around 168 or so, and being short and small boned my goal is around 105-110. I've never been at my correct weight as an adult, and I have a tendency to seriously obsess about the number on the scale . . . another reason to start this blog and focus on the raw food instead of what a piece of metal tells me.

Can't go grocery shopping til tomorrow, have made a long beautiful list of things I need to stock my fridge with my raw goodies such as raw chocolate cookies, raw vegan cheese, raw garlic salad dressing, etc. I have found in the past that using a drawer just for prepared salad is good. My Dad has this plastic food drawer, not manufactured necessarily for this purpose but it does the job - simply prepare a few days worth of salad, pop it in the fridge, and you're good to go. This really works for me because by the time I realize I'm hungry I usually need to eat RIGHT NOW. Although with salad ingredients like avocado and tomato I slice up at the last minute. But mixing a variety of salad greens keeps well for several days. I have also modified my fridge temp so the greens don't freeze even if I keep them on the top shelf. I also love pine nuts and zucchini in my salads, with lots of organic balsamic vinegar.

I live in a small rural town where organic can be hard to find, and terribly expensive, so for the present my focus is vegan and raw, and I'll get organic as I can. I know it's important.

So there's a leetle history about moi, what I'm planning to do, but . . . not why. Oh, the why. My health: my hair is thinning, my skin has been breaking out pretty bad for the past four years (and I'm in my 30s!), my weight has been fluctuating by 40 pounds for three years, and I'm ready to be healthy. Hurt my back in the military, don't want to live on pain meds the rest of my life. It's a minor injury but the pain can get pretty bad, hopefully the goodies in a raw food diet will help heal that. What else? Would love to improve my eye sight, am darn near blind without my contacts . . . so lots of health reasons. The other thing is spiritual. I know my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and I want to honor and glorify God in how and what I eat.
I also want to be a good steward of Creation, and I know that not eating animal products is an excellent way to tread lightly on the earth. And I just like it! Cleaning up after raw food prep is easy, I love fruits and vegetables (though I used to hate the latter), and I want to set a good example for my young children. I'm also a single mom and need all the energy I can get! So, lots of reasons "why." These are the ones that come to mind at the moment.

Today so far I have had a handful of raw almonds, a few raw cookies of my own making, and some water. Did fresh carrot juice this morning but couldn't drink very much. We'll see how the rest of the day goes . . .