The Raw Food Experiment

Several weeks before our fabulous road trip, I was visiting friends of mine that had started a local informal, information-exchanging group of holistic doctors, practitioners, patients and those just plain curious about alternative remedies. They introduced me to the concept of raw vegan foods and juicing, especially wheatgrass juice. It immediately struck me that this could be my ticket to the illusive weight loss I had been seeking for so long, as well as regaining my health. Overnight, my daughter and I took on the raw vegan diet 100%! I even purchased a dehydrator to make raw vegan crackers, nuts, veggie burgers and cookies. We ate a lot of olives, avocados, coconuts and nuts to give us a feeling of satiation; a feeling which fruits and veggies just didn’t accomplish on their own. I purchased wheatgrass from a local woman and juiced it to drink it’s health-giving juice daily. My daughter and I even did our entire cross-country trip as raw food vegans! We brought many dehydrated foods along with us, as well as a cooler stocked with fruits, veggies, and olives. Once in California, we were thrilled to find a number of Whole Foods markets in which we were able to stock up on guacamole, salads, dehydrated foods, nuts, organic fruits and olives. We were excited to find that California had a large number of raw food restaurants and I swear we visited every single one of them on our trip! A particular favorite of ours was Juliano’s Raw restaurant in Santa Monica. We ate lunch and dinner there three days in a row . . . that’s how delicious and filling the raw food was, yet never left us feeling “stuffed”. Raw served fabulous menu items such as “cheeseburgers”, burritos, Spring rolls, fettuccine Alfredo, pasta marinara, Pad Thai, and lasagna which were all made with fresh, raw organic produce, nuts, seeds and spices. “Cheeses” were made from cashews and tasted just like the real thing! Desserts here were non-guilty, healthy delights! We feasted on puddings, cashew gelato, raw tortes, carob and vanilla mousse, carrot cake, raspberry tiramisu and blueberry cheesecake!

You can’t imagine my excitement when, upon our return home, I discovered that there was a 3-day Raw Food Festival about to be held not far from my home. I immediately bought tickets for myself and my daughter to attend. The actual event did not disappoint! It was held in a wooded, rural setting that required attendees to be transported by truck up a very steep hill. Once atop the hill, I was amazed to see the large number of attendees, as well as the plentiful vendors selling their raw food edibles. But what impressed me the most of all was the list of speakers for this 3-day event; a veritable “who’s who” of the biggest names in the raw vegan food movement at that time: Victoras Kulvinskas, Doug Graham, Fred Bisci and Paul Nison. I found each of their presentations fascinating and I longed to know more about this healthy way of living!

I continued to follow this raw vegan path for several more weeks and was thrilled to realize that I had lost 17 pounds!!!! But, sadly, by the end of 10 weeks, I had had my fill of the raw food lifestyle. Unfortunately, all the raw vegan foods that made me feel satiated all started to taste the same. I was tired of olives, avocados and dehydrated nut concoctions. The organic raw food diet is extremely expensive and time-consuming. It requires frequent shopping trips to make sure you have a constant supply of fresh produce. It also requires an enormous amount of time to prepare and dehydrate sufficient quantities of food to live on for several days. To say that my cravings for animal foods kicked into overdrive would be a vast understatement. Suddenly, I became a red-blooded carnivore who had to have meat at any cost! I’m ashamed to tell you how I ended my raw food adventure, but here it is: I bought a turkey dinner with mashed potatoes, gravy, mixed vegetables and cornbread at Boston Market. It was sheer heaven!!!!! It tasted like the very best thing I had ever eaten in my entire life!!! But there was hell to pay. After eating a very pure diet for 10 weeks and then succumbing to my taste buds, I felt deathly ill for what seemed like an eternity (probably no more than overnight). Of course, now that I had once again tasted the deliciousness of “real” food, there was no going back to my raw food life. While I applaud and truly admire those that can stick with a raw food diet on a permanent basis (and actually thrive on it), I had to face the fact that I was not and never would be one of those people. Luckily, I didn’t go back to the SAD (Standard American Diet) way of eating. I adopted the more moderate and doable (for me, anyway) Paleo Diet which consists of meat, poultry, fish, eggs, fruit, vegetables, seeds and nuts, but no dairy or grains.