I’ve been chatting with a marvelous man over the past few days… (oh! you sigh! she’s in love! Well, if a close alignment of minds counts, it is so… as it is, we are both electronic entities to each other, and that is likely the way it will stay… doncha just love our world?)
Never mind!!! I have been chatting with this electronic soulmate over the past few days and there has been such a meeting of the minds that I just must tell you, without revealing the object of my devotion.
We both share an interest in Ann Wigmore’s work and focus. Oh! That does make my heart sing!
The best thing is that he agrees with me that gurus are to be taken at face value (I think he has come up through the ! Surprise!!!! You are your own mystic!!!! school, as I seem to have done.)
Here I am talking about raw food gurus…. We may run into several raw food gurus in the course of our search for raw food information. I consider myself blessed that there simply were no raw food gurus when I started being raw by accident. Heck! There was one “cookbook”.
I survived. I did well, and I kept happy. Even more important, I have managed to stay on a raw track for several decades. One of the ways I have done this is that there has been no one to tell me what to do or give me rules. In the late 70s, I picked up on Ann Wigmore’s teachings and began doing what seemed sensible to me along those lines.
The next book I found, years later, in 1999, was Rose Lee Calabro’s Living in the Raw
Over the years, as new books have appeared, I have read some of the gurus’ works, and I have adopted ideas that seemed to make sense to me. My simple guideline has always been does it make sense? I would hope that this is the guideline everyone uses because it makes everything so easy, and it makes it much easier to keep on keeping on.
Things that don’t make sense to me are programs that tell me that I must follow their ideas exclusively, and to the letter. I have found substantial health benefits without following any one program to the letter.
I pick and choose among ideas that come to me. I think natural hygiene is a pretty good idea, and I have a chart on my refrigerator to remind me. I think 100% raw vegan is a good idea, but I know that humans are human, and I think that any raw is better than no raw…. Everyone has to start somewhere, and, unless a person is suffering a life-threatening challenge, such as cancer or MS, which, I think, will respond best and most effectively to a totally raw regime, I think that people should do what they can as they can. I also think that if you insist on 100% compliance, many people will lie to you (and I believe that many of the so-called gurus are probably not 100% raw/100% the regime they espouse 100% of the time. I did believe in Gypsy Boots, but I would not be devastated to learn that he, too, deviated from the straight and narrow. I know that T.C. Fry did, but I do not believe that detracts from the ideas which he espoused.)
In my nutrition counseling practice, I work with all sorts of people. Many of them are on a SAD diet. I work with them to change their diet to a healthier one, but I do not insist that they go raw, or vegetarian, or even organic…. I simply work out a plan that they will be most easily able to follow if they want to achieve the results they say they are after. If they ask me how I have achieved the results I have, I tell them, but I help them find ways that they can use. Some of them eventually come to me for more raw food information, and some of them succeed on an improved SAD diet. I think that all of this helps me be a more powerful counselor for people who are looking for help with a transition to a raw food lifestyle… I have more information, more tactics, more leeway to offer. I know what works for me, I know what has worked for my successful clients, I know what has worked for some of my friends, and I know what doesn’t necessarily produce results, although it looks good. Viva diversity!!!!
I have quit groups which proclaim a one-regime focus. That may have been a loss for me in the area of social contacts, but I think it is better that I not sit quietly and bite my tongue and inwardly sneer at their insistence and their claims, when I know that, for me, those things do not work and/or might be dangerous.
My focus is, as always, on long term positive results. I have maintained this weight relatively easily for more than 5 years. Yes, I am vigilant, but what makes the vigilance easy is that I am raw vegan and I eat a substantial amount of protein each day and restrict my carbohydrate intake (do not gasp too loudly!!!! Your shock comes from your SAD background, not from the reality of fruit, vegetables, and nuts.) That just means that I mostly eat low glycemic fruit and vegetables. Go look at the low glycemic list of fruit and vegetables and re-assure yourself that I have plenty of variety and plenty to eat.)
PRETTY SMART RAW FOOD IDEAS 