I just wanted a write a post to explain things after having made the decision to remove myself from several rawfood communities I have been a part of recently. Its nothing to do with the sites themselves it's more to do with the whole raw food thing itself and me not feeling right within the "raw world" that has been created by "the raw powers that be"!
After over ten years of having discovered raw food myself, and having experienced the many highs and lows, and have spoken with hundreds and hundreds of raw foodists over the years, I am becoming more and more convinced that the whole "raw v cooked" debate is just the tip of the iceberg and that for most people the whole pursuit of 100% rawness is actually leading them further away from health and preventing them from discovering their actual truth.
There is more to health than just eating raw food and striving to find that "perfect" diet! Any raw expert that says differently is leading people down a dangerous path. Nobody has all the answers...anybody who claims to know all the answers, hasn't asked or found all the questions yet! BUT.....Does raw food have "the potential" of helping people heal themselves? Yes, if the cause of your health concern is nutritionally based, it certainly does.
Am I saying that raw doesn't doesn't work? NO I am not. But that is how many raw foodists will see that statement despite everything I might say to try and explain it. Its not raw food that doesn't work, its that some people's bodies can't utilize the raw food that is the problem, after years and years and generations and generations of humans eating a different diet and more recently a deteriorating diet consisting of chemicals and preservatives and toxins and less minerals. A fit strong human body is able to do amazing things when its working 100%. Eating a bit of sensibly cooked cookedfood wouldn't affect it in the least, no more so than eating some poorly grown microbially infected raw food anyways. And yet you hear some raw individuals becoming so cleansed and hyper sensitive they get headaches and detox symptoms if someone who has just eaten fish and chips walks within three meters of them in the street!
COOKED V RAW
Just because a food is raw doesn't necessarily mean that it is going to be good for "YOU". It might be good for some people, but isn't guaranteed to do"YOU" any good.
The same goes for cooked foods. Yes cooking alters foods and breaks down cells, alters enzymes, kills some enzymes, kills some microbes, and alters the digestibility of the food. But their are many different degrees of cooking so not all cooked foods are "as dead" as others.
A lot depends on what our bodies can do with the food we ingest. We are all at a certain stage of health or disease and so not all our internal systems may be working as optimally as we may hope. This alters the way we can digest and assimilate the food we eat. Just because you eat a perfect diet on paper doesn't necessarily mean that you get all the anticipated benefits of that food.
You still hear raw gurus telling people that if they eat the right raw foods then their body will heal itself. This might be the case...but there is more to it than that...get real..come on...I know its a lovely thought to have found THE ANSWER to EVERYTHING...but come on...if it were that simple then you wouldn't see so many unhappy raw foodists struggling to be raw on so many raw food forums!!!!!!!
There are many other factors that a great number of raw foodists who buy into the whole "raw food is the whole answer to everything approach", completely forget to think about. Emotional health and how that affects our internal systems, our external environment, microbial infections that are already within us before we even think about switching to raw, poor food quality, chemical exposure, toxicity and probably a whole lot of other factors yet to be discovered that all affect how the raw food we eat gets used or not used.
PURSUIT OF 100% RAWNESS
This is hard to explain without it sounding like I am against people being 100% raw. I am not. But when people are set on being 100% raw even though it is not working for them, or doesn't feel right to them, or their body can't deal with it, or for what ever reason, then that is not a healthy thing and can actually be dangerous. Lets get one thing clear...100% RAW FOODISTS STILL DIE AND GET SICK! Don't buy into the whole raw food will make you superhuman philosophy. There are trillions and trillions of microscopic critters who would love to prove you wrong on that point. The whole pursuit of being 100% raw is fueled intentionally and unintentionally by some raw gurus who obviously benefit from people buying their information and their products. This in itself is not a bad thing. Many of the products have great potential to help a lot of people. But sometimes people are led to believe that those products have powers and benefits way beyond what they are actually capable of. At the end of the day it is how your body can use those products that determines how effective they are.
PERFECT WORLD
I still think that in a perfect world Raw food is what we maybe should be eating. But this is not a perfect world, and a lot of imperfect things have happened that have altered the playing field for now. Survival is key. Incorporating raw food into our diets is vital in order to begin heading back to the way things should be.
The danger is that not everybody has the ability to switch back to an all raw diet diet right now over night and this is evident everywhere you look but gets ignored or dismissed as "anti raw foodist banter" by those who are flourishing and who have managed to go all raw right away.
I reached a point on my raw journey when I almost felt like detaching myself from it because of all the unhappy, extreme, anti everything conventional, unhealthy, angry, uncaring people I seemed to be coming across, which is such a shame, especially when you hear some people talking about how blissed and full of love they are to everybody on-line simply because they are raw foodies.
Of course there are a lot of lovely people too and a great number of people for who raw food has saved their lives. What this tells me is that raw food is not the whole answer. I have known people who seemed to be doing everything that a person could be doing on raw to try and beat cancer and yet still die. I have friends who seem not to be doing any raw food and yet run marathons all over the world and are some of the happiest people I know.
The common factors I have seen in the people for whom raw food works is that they have a happy well balanced lifestyle. Raw food is a big vital part of their life, BUT IT IS NOT THEIR ENTIRE FOCUS! They do raw food at a level that feels right for them...it may be 100% it may be 50%...but their body is getting what it needs from what they are eating.
Don't waste another second worrying about how raw you are and worrying about how long it'll take you to go 100% raw. When its right for you, you'll be doing it and simply not thinking about it..you'll be too busy doing other exciting things to be thinking about how raw you are.
As a direct result of my approach to raw food had to start calling myself something other than a raw fooder. I am not about being 100% raw, although quite often I am. I am just totally relaxed with it all.
DOES THIS RESONATE WITH YOU?
I decided to call myself an ACCEPTING CONSCIOUS EATER (A.C.E.)
I have also started an on-line club for like minded people to meet. People who use raw food as the fuel for life. Come and join us at THE RAW HUMOUR CLUB
Am I turning my back on raw food ...HELL NO...I am just gonna do it my way.
