For Starters....

From a former blogging addict who's other blog is now lying dormant and deceased somewhere, I had to ask myself: Do i REALLY want to start another blog? Well, i don't really HAVE to. I just WANT to. See, I've always been drawn to documentaries that are critical of our current food production industry. Animal cruelty in factory farms as well as the ecological impact of rearing animals for human consumption (It takes 2500 liters of water to produce one pound of meat, I hear), to the McDonaldization of food mass factory production of lifeless food, GMO and pesticide usage in farm produce. Watching these, I cut out meat from my diet. But I still ate fish and consumed dairy...and still ate cooked food.

Then I saw Food Matters.In it, one guy in particular - David Wolfe - seemed to resonate with me. While he talked, all i could think of is: I want his glow, his joy. (I always found him good looking. I later learnt that he has Persian roots and both his parents are medical doctors...Ooh..Imagine the gene pool if we were ever to make delicious raw babies.;-)) David, ferociously, uncompromisingly and rather convincingly, promotes 100% raw food 100% of the time.

Says Chocolate Boy coz he's made a living preaching of and selling raw cacao.

Then there was Super Charge Me (Similar to the McDonalds' slamming Morgan Spurlock Super Size Me - only this time the presenter, a cute chubby Jenna Norwood shows what happens when you go completely raw for 30 days). Then I watched Raw for Life. The momentum was growing. So I started reading up on rawism through forums. David Wolfe's book The SunFood Diet System is amazing - a raw food manifesto + self improvement digest all rolled into one. Download it here.

So that's when I thought - WHY NOT?! Try it. What do you have to lose? So here I am:

• No sugar
• No salt
• No meat
• No dairy
• No cooked stuff

What i subsist on:
Juices:
half a pound of green leafy vegetables (spinach, coriander, dill, other ones I don't know the names of...Just go by whichever veggie looks really dark green in color) + 2-3 oranges
4 carrots + raw pumpkin + 2 tomatoes
1 kg of watermelon
I carry a liter of juice or smoothie to work with me, apart from my breakfast smoothie (No milk).

Raw fruits/veggies

Salads - I'm very salad inept. I just throw in whatever I have at home. The dressing's usually:
Pesto/Green chutney + lime juice + Olive oil
Olive oil+ orange juice+black pepper

As I mentioned, I am about 80% raw. In that, I am still transitioning away from cooked foods. For instance, I ate upma (oil free) for breakfast. Then a kilo of watermelon (BTW, foods in the melon family you should always eat alone -meaning don't combine with other raw foods - Its called mono meals.). And now for dinner a salad of raw papaya, carrot, cabbage, corn etc.

What have I gained so far?

• Incredibly soft skin
• Brighter eyes
• TONS of energy!!

Was it all easy peasy?
NO. You WILL get a powerful detox a few days into your raw diet. Meaning, all the gunk in your system - that you accumulated on your cooked food diet - will force itself out of every orifice imaginable. You'll possibly get headaches (Lord, I did!), runny nose, mucus, body odour (I'll let you be the judge of that - I don't think I smell), and possibly even lack of sexual desire. Now, now. Its only TEMPORARY. You've abused your body eating all manner of crap over many, many years. You cant seriously hope that there would be no remnants of that in your body. Let's put it this way - You have this crap inside of your body whether you go raw or not. The question is, would you like it to stay hidden and inside your body forever. Or would you like to get rid of all that junk once and for all and then begin afresh eating only wholesome (raw) foods? Your entire body- every single cell, tissue, organ - is completely reborn in seven years. In seven years, you are a new you! What kind of a body do you want in the next seven years - the same old? Or one with more energy, more clarity, more inner peace?

Will get into that later. But that still doesn't answer the question: WHY a new blog. Well. As I was Internet-mining for data on raw foods and raw foodies in my part of the woods, I surprisingly came up empty handed. There are no websites, meet up groups etc dedicated to a raw food lifestyle in Mumbai. Heck, even India, maybe. So, here's my stab. Hopefully, when someone else is also on this miraculous journey, they will have something that Mr Google will throw back at them.

Love,

RG