I've been doing a lot of reading on the RAW lifestyle and have learned this is a far reaching lifestyle.  Meaning if it's not 100% RAW then it does not go in or on the body.  This is including commercial shampoos, toothpastes, deodorants, cosmetics, etc. (And to think I was just getting into eye liner)  I read on one of the many websites I perused, where a Raw Person used honey and ground flax seed for shampoo, for example.  The more I read the more fearful, yet excited I became.  Fearful because I am afraid to change so much and excited because this is as close I can come to living off the land and nature, which has always been something I dreamed of doing.  When I am day dreaming, I don't day dream about winning the lottery, I dream of having a cottage in the mountains near a crystal clear river and meadows full of wild herbs, with trees bearing fruit and nuts all around and I'd have a garden so big, I wouldn't mind sharing it with the wild beasties.

 

Going 100% RAW is better than semi-RAW which is better than not Raw at all.  As long as it becomes a way of life, pointing towards eventual 100% RAW, taking it slow, one step at a time is probably the best pace to set initially.  I think it's interesting that I come across this RAW information just as I am involved in a prolonged juice fast, because I'm thinking the transistion to raw foods after a juice fast will be much easier than going directly from cooked foods to raw foods.  By the time I begin eating raw foods, I will not have eaten any food, including cooked food for 30 previous days.  I've known of the RAW lifestyle for a long time, but did not know anything really about it.  It didn't really interest me as a way of life.  I enjoy eating foods in their raw state very much, but never in the way Raw Foodists eat.  Or Live.  But now RAW is intriguing me enough to make me wonder if my body is not speaking to me and communicating through intuition that it wants to try this lifestyle of raw foods because there is a need there.  Interesting.  I'm certainly going to humor my body and give it a go. 

 

I'll start with eliminating my coffee.  I drink maybe one or two cups total a day.  It would be easy to give up.  It's probably my only source of white sugar and non-dairy creamer, because I don't drink my coffee bitter and black.  So giving up the coffee would also eliminate the sugar and creamer completely from my diet, which even though I drink only one or two cups a day, that amount adds up, especially if it's consistent.  I don't have a sweet tooth so there is nothing to eliminate there.  No cookies, brownies, cakes, pies, pastries, ice cream... I don't snack either, so there's no chips, rice cakes, Hot Pockets, or whatever people snack on, to eliminate. 

 

I can also eliminate the nightshade family veggies one at a time, beginning with potatoes.  (I read an article about Nightshade veggies and how they are toxic to the system via Wrenn, her blogs are terrific!).  I can also eliminate the white pastas, such as spaghetti, egg noodles, macaroni, etc.  The things I will have a problem with in the beginning are the cheeses (warm Brie on crispy french bread) and salmon and steamed brocolli, brown wild rice and sauteed mushrooms.  But if I can find things to replace the tastes, in time I can let them go.  I'm just thinking aloud here, playing around with ideas, hearing myself talk.  I'm going to invest in a few good books and listen to someone else talk. 

 

I wonder if a coffee bean grinder would be okay to use for grinding nuts?  Or is that silly?  I've already got the juicers, the blenders, the processors, but don't have the dehydrator or the Vita Mix.  I think I'd get the dehydrator first because I can use the blender and processor until I can get the Vita Mix.  I wonder if I can get my husband to build for me a sun drying rack and do it like the Natives did 300 years ago.  Just kidding.