Howdy!

Hey all. I was in the kitchen today thinking about soup and saw a large bag of carrots we picked up at an organic market, and a minute later from google, I found an excellent soup by Kandace that led me to join up. So here I am! Looking forward to reading and trying out as many recipes I can.

I first heard about raw 3 years ago when my Grandmother was talking about Hallelujah Acres. Intrigued, I got one of their ‘un-cook’ books called “Thank God for Raw” and did a bunch of reading, but nothing really hit home. I was still on a SAD lifestyle at the time, and the thought of giving up meat and dairy was daunting. I was at the time considering a job in the culinary field with two years of training under my belt, taken part in competitions, and even landed a COOP job at a bakery which I soon took over the department and ran myself, so to me at the time, to make such a change was a little mindblowing. So I let that thought go. I still have the book, and have since read it again a few times.

Around Summer 2005, my family was talking about going vegetarian, because we were seriously looking at the meat issue, the way it’s all messed up. Horomones, drugs, chemical cocktails, etc etc. So I started going off meat slowly, and by October 2005, I was a Pisce-Lacto-Ovo-vegetarian. Although, to be fair, the only time the pisce title was actually used was on my 20th birthday, when I had some deep ocean crab, but before that, I was clean as a whistle. Around March 2006, my older brother and father went to a convention where they listened to a speech by David Wolfe all about the importance of raw cacao and goji berries. Of course, he put in a lot about the raw lifestyle, and that was one of the catalysts that got us to go raw. By April 2006, I did a master cleanse. It was a 2 week fast where the only thing I was to consume was a solution of water, lemon juice, cayenne pepper, and madal bal maple syrup. It is surprisingly effective at satisfying your hunger. A week after getting off the fast, I went Vegan for health reasons, because I knew that the dairy was whipping my pituitary too much, stressing me out.

By about May, I had heard enough about raw that I had decided that my life would be much better off living naturally, so I went 100% raw. I was in a pretty special situation at the time. We started growing OceanGrown Sunflower Sprouts and OceanGrown Wheatgrass at home, and I started my first week raw taking 1 ounce of wheatgrass juice in the morning, 1 ounce at noon, and 1 ounce at night. Each week, I proceeded to add an ounce each time, until I got to 12 ounces a day. But I soon found out that you detox when going raw. I was living wrong for 20 years, and it was deciding to come out in some pretty interesting ways. Within the first 4 weeks, 12 pounds came off. 6 months being raw got me to drop a total of 25 pounds. Around the 4 month mark I decided that drinking 4, 4, and 4 ounces a day was rather time consuming. So I changed it to only twice a day. 6 and 6. Morning and night. Around December 2006, I noticed that I was maintaining my weight, without any loss, when I still feel I have more to get rid of, so I increased my intake to 7 and 7. Around the end of December however, wheatberries become unavailable from the supplier because their demand remains the same, yet supplies dwindle out, and it was decided by my parents that the wheatgrass, though it’s good, is too powerful for most people, and thus they’ve stopped.

It’s rather discouraging when the thing that’s supposed to help you makes you feel sick at the thought of consuming it, and it breaks juicers pretty quick. The reason it breaks the juicer I’m told, is because it’s OceanGrown, meaning we water it with special ocean solution that has purified ocean water that provides all the minerals available, and thus is actually a stronger grass, and just rips apart juicers. I went through 4 juicers in the 6 month period. 1 only lasted a week before it actually melted! So yeah, it’s powerful. Some feel that it’s too powerful, and the stress related to it is more of a negative than not getting it at all. That’s not how I feel, but considering my position, where I’m not able to grow the grass, nor even juice it (Although in one situation where I was without a juicer for a few days, I did chew the grass, and my jaw was pretty sore after that), so I’m on a break from it until I make the decision to get back on it.

In the meantime, I’ve replaced my Wheatgrass juice with Green Smoothies. Powerful stuff they are. Just 3 ingredients though. OceanGrown Sunflower Sprouts, Unpasteurized Apple Juice, and Water. The amount I consume of that stuff is pretty commendable. If I didn’t have the sunflower sprouts, from a mineralization standpoint, I’d be in a pretty bad spot. According to research done by the OceanGrown company, Wheatgrass is able to assimilate 92 minerals while sunflower sprouts are able to pick up about 86. Therefore I’m still doing alright in that aspect. These little sprouts are loaded with protein, and an intelligence and strength that’s quite remarkable. In a salad, they replaced my Romain Lettuce. I eat at least one salad of these a day, and in my culinary experience, I have not, in all seriousness ever tasted a better salad than the ones I’ve made with my very own homegrown OceanGrown Sunflower Sprouts. If there’s one recipe I need to make, it’s definetly going to be about that salad. The ONLY bad part about the salad… is that it ends.

Well, that should be enough about me for now. I’ve written more in various places on the web about my lifestye, like my personal website, my Myspace, and even have a Natures First law page at eat.rawfood.com, although all 3 are rather behind because of what some would call a busy and/or hectic lifestyle.

Ray, I must say, you’ve developed a very nice site. I’m into web design/development stuff (Although I’m not nearly as good as you), and you’ve made a pretty nifty and well forming site. I do say though, pagination would be helpful in some areas in terms of load time and SEO. One area that I take interest in is security of forms, so we should have some interesting chats pretty soon.

Everyone here is in love with raw, my kind of people I want to meet more of, and learn from. If you’ll be here to support me, I’ll be here to support you, with the nice comment button. Stay positive!

More about my raw journey coming soon.

Comments

  • Hey, thanks for sharing your story! Very interesting.

    Thanks for your kind words about the site. It’s very much a work in progress, and we’re pretty busy these days (as Needmore Designs). That means that we’ve put off adding fairly basic features like pagination, as you mention, until there’s enough members/recipes to make it worth writing the code! Definitely something we’ll be adding soon. Still lots of work ahead…

    As for form security, that’s another area where I’ve put off worrying about it until it needs to be dealt with. If the worst threat is people making their profile pages more attractive, then I’m gonna keep putting it off. :) However, if you have suggestions, you’re always welcome to write me at ray at needmoredesigns dot com. Cheers!

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