A lot of people are saying that they have struggled to maintain a mostly raw diet. I can say that I, too, have run into this problem, but I have an idea why most people cannot stay mostly raw.
I believe that most people cannot stay on a mostly raw diet because they have not truly dealt with what is going on within. The root of the problem usually is not the food. Rather, it is what is going on inside of our bodies. For this reason I find that staying mostly raw on a consistent basis can be hard. We definitely use cooked food as a crutch.
I’ve faced this problem many times, continually falling off track. Finally, I realized why! For me, food has always been something I could count on in my life. I couldn’t always count on people to be there for me, but I could count on food to be there. So, naturally, I always gravitated toward food whenever I was feeling emotionally down. This not-so-great act went on for more than 20 years. Don’t you think that after two decades-plus of stuffing emotion-laden food into me that it might not be so super easy to just switch gears on my diet just because I am eating healthier? This takes work.
I think that as we work toward our ideal eating lifestyle, we have to start doing some inner work. I’ll be honest, I did a lot of that on my own. Still, it takes 10 times longer to do this alone. I wish I would have gotten some help along the way. Looking back on my journey, I can tell you that cooked food really doesn’t do anything for me emotionally. I can say this now, but it first required doing the inner work.
I believe that once you have done this work, you will find that you can be a lot more stable on a mostly raw diet.
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Nice to find your blog!
I think that you are on the right track. i would like to add, that most people think of RAW living as a diet. something to do a while in order to loose some weight.
In order to get truly raw, one need to udnerstand that raw living is a lifestyle and a way to think about food, health and environment.
I agree Johan and I wrote about that in this post —-> http://raw.tanishamarshall.com/diet-vs-lifestyle-change/
Thanks for stopping by!!
Tanisha, every time I feel like 100% raw is a million miles away, there you are to pull me back to reality! For that you have my heartfelt gratitude. I struggle so much with “why can’t I eat like everyone else?” and “everybody’s looking at me drinking a jar of green liquid at lunch.” It’s a powerful maturing process that takes me out of my junior-high like mentality and requires me to make rational decisions about what I put in my body every day. Thanks!
Glad I could help Japooka. I’ve been through that battle and once I realized that I was trying to eat in a way in which I did not want to eat I found peace. I bet you’ll find peace with your diet as well.
Yes, great insight, Tanisha! We rely on food to do too many things it was not meant to do, including comfort us when we are down. Eat for NUTRITION and look to your friends, exercise, or other enjoyable activities to get your mood up!
To Your Health!
James Reno (editor)
Raw-Food-Repair.com
Glad I found your website, the articles are really great. They give us another perspective to think about in the raw food lifestyle. pjsrawcuisine.com