60 day raw food log: day 28 If raw food is so great, why do I feel bad?

It’s Sunday in Palm Springs, 75 degrees out, beautiful mountain backdrop, happy friendly people and their pets are out enjoying the life…

And I feel like shit.

Why?

My first week eating only raw food was rough.  Imagine cutting yourself off cold-turkey from drinking over 100 adult beverages per week, abstaining from your morning cup of crack with the pretty mermaid on it, and suddenly refusing your body any access to pizzas and Mexican food…NOT a fun transition.

If you’ve seen New Moon, and watched Kristen Stewart’s “Bella” writhe and scream in her sleep over her lost Edward (who I still maintain looks an awful lot like Bert from Sesame Street), you have an inkling of what my first week raw felt like!

Weeks two and three were a different movie…I felt euphoric and “high” and ate up all the positive comments I was getting from friends and strangers.  EVERY SINGLE DAY I saw a thinner, sexier, happier, healthier, more in-tune version of me in the full-length mirror.

Having a cute young raw foods chef at a Santa Monica cafe ask me if I was “raw” the second I walked in the door surprised me.  When I answered yes, and she told me she “thought so, because my eyes were so clear and I really had a case of the glow” I was beyond flattered.

But here I am near the end of week four, a week of apathy and fatigue.  What’s up?  I feel like I’m doing this right…I’ve slowly been upping my intake of greens, I’m making sure I get natural fats like hemp oil, I’m still eating a lot of juicy organic fruits…

Also, I eat very little dehydrated raw foods (they make me feel as dry as they are) and most days just eat foods in their whole simple form without trying to “doll” them up.

I’m hoping that it’s just another cleansing level I’ve hit?  I would expect my recent toxic past to haunt me for awhile. Maybe it’s a little bit mental…one month is the longest I’ve ever gone before raw…? But Jesus do I hate the idea that some or all of the benefits of raw eating might just be in my head.

One interesting distinction I’d like to make: I’m not depressed.  I’ve spent much of my life in moderate to severely depressed states, this isn’t anything like that.  I’m clear about things–almost scary sober–but I don’t necessarily like how that feels…

Sometimes eating raw makes so much sense to me, and I see it as the answer to a lot of peoples problems both on a personal level and a collective one.  That’s how I mostly feel…at other times the whole thing seems ridiculous and absurd!  Not eat ANY cooked foods?  Not get drunk and stupid?  WHY?!?  What am I trying to prove? To whom?

As an example last night a guy at the bar wanted mashed potatoes.  We don’t have that on the menu, but Mike the Chef made some for him anyways, that’s the kind of old school cool we serve up.  When I bring him the potatoes I’m drooling.  When he adds a few dollops of real butter I’m butter.  So I try and remind myself that when I get home later I was actually going to make my own version of mashed “potatoes” which are made from soaked cashews and cauliflower blended up with salt & pepper.  They taste pretty good.  But they are NOT potatoes, and they are cold.  For some reason it just seemed stupid to me…am I too good for potatoes?

My intention with this blog is not necessarily to inspire anyone to do anything.  I simply want to reveal what eating raw is doing for me (now and in the future).  So please take what I say with a grain of pink Himalayan crystal salt.   I’m half-way through my trial and will continue to candidly share my peaks and valley floors with anyone interested…

60 Days raw food log: Day 9 Is raw food a religion?

Day 9

Is eating raw more like a religion than just a simple way of eating?  I hope not. Religion nauseates me.

It is interesting that RAW is talked about as a “lifestyle.” One where no matter how connected you are to other raw “fooders” {has it’s own lingo too…} you are still alienated from people in general.  And without question there’s a fair amount of elitism that enters into the picture, not altogether different from various religious groups who believe they are the “chosen.”

Even my girlfriend who is the healthiest person I know gets an inferiority complex every time I try to eat raw because she only eats “80% raw.”

But whose to really measure this health benefit against that social one?  Life’s short…then you die, right? And along the way the garnishment of pleasure is an A no. 1 priority. And that’s where it gets confusing.  It’s a genuine pleasurable thing to feel energy-charged and healthy and even to some extent sober.  But it’s also thrilling to get stoned and drunk and end up at some grease trap of a restaurant at 3am.

To each his own, ferschizzle, but still what fascinating choices present themselves in the raw, undercooked, cooked, and overcooked field of experiences we each translate as “Life.”

The only thing I really care about at this point in my existence is making sure that I don’t confuse being alive with living. In many ways I don’t feel like I’ve spent much of my time so far on earth really LIVING.  So if today raw foods tune me in, and tomorrow it’s psychedelics or a bridge to jump off–don’t judge.

What I ate today:

• cracked open a coconut and drank it before I spanked it, I mean before I spooned big hunks of it’s white luscious flesh into my veggie hole.
• wild blueberry and banana smoothie with barley grass powder and honey
• Asian cabbage slaw: today I mixed it up with pears instead of apples and hemp pistachio tahini instead of almond butter!
• Raw Pesto! I blended up basil, garlic, olive brine, olive oil, RAWMESAN, walnuts, and lemon juice.  Perfect beautiful pesto!  Used it as a dressing with a mix bowl full of spinach, baby tomatos, and kalamatas.