This instruction will contain no verbose introduction because all introductory items that I would be able to reasonably write will actually belong in the list. This text will be a good read before proceeding with the current tutorial. Well, how do you shift towards living foods diet? This is the way I can propose:
Make sure that your body and mind feel a mature intention to make a switch. At one point you will feel like you need to “shake it off“ and get rid of the ballast in your body. You realize that your mind is ready and is not in conflict. Let your intuition (that actually often becomes stronger if you observe corpse-free and dairy-free diet) confirm that it is a right choice and moment. The importance of feeling fully in harmony lays in the inner confidence and connection with your body’s deepest needs which will help you to build your lifestyle with minimum mistakes and will also help to tune in to receive the information that will resonate with your intuition. And yes, I realize that I went on the esoteric tangent here, but this is how it feels and I don’t want to invent a new language. Again, this diet accompanies a development of a totally different mind and cannot be successfully held without a deep intention and being in tune with the all-knowing awake self.
Research, research, research!!! You might say that this already contradicts the statements about connection and intuition above, but it does not. In fact, your intuition will be attracting the knowledge your way. So do not dismiss it - read it, listen to it, weigh it against logic, ask uncomfortable questions! Make sure that you build an understanding of basic physiology. You must know what foods to avoid, what foods to include, how to build your meal plan to avoid extreme nutrient deprivation and deficits, what supplements to take, and importantly, how to bridge your relationships with others and your new lifestyle and not be an extremist. The relationship aspect is hard when you start feeling the energy and light inside and want to share this miracle with others, who might not be there yet to be able to even think of the idea of such a lifestyle. This is something worth a separate text.
Give it a try. If you would want to go raw, but feeling timid to take an action, pretend that it is for a month only. One month will be enough to observe and appreciate the changes. Plus, making it something special in your life will help you to be inspired and to explore a wide variety of recipes and be more attentive to your body’s subtle changes, so you will be able to collect a database of favorite dishes, see what works for your needs, and start being comfortable with moving on. Even if you realize that going fully or mainly raw is not for you, you can still enjoy the new culinary horizons from time to time, while following your previous diet. The pleasant (which can end up being a misleading “pleasant“ on a long run if you don’t do your homework) part of giving yourself only 1 month of “free trial“ will not lead to some body damage if you make mistakes on the way and, at the same time, will be enough to feel the positive changes. Yet, you will not make any mistakes if you keep reading this text, so only the pleasureful part will remain!
Do not embark on extreme diets right away!!! Raw diet is not extreme because you can get a complete panel of nutrients (again, in a notion of conventional science that treats nutrients from biochemical point of view and not in a framework of subtle energetic matters) from it and even more so than on an average diet, if a raw nutrition plan is composed thoughtfully. However, there is a huge movement of mono-eaters, juicers, extreme fasters, and so on. The reality is that extreme diets applied to a non-prepared body-mind system are OK only for a short period of time, and even then you must be mindful of how to enter such diets and how to exit from them not to create hypercompensation conditions or eating disorders afterwards. Another thing that is important to know is that if you have internal parasites, it is not a great idea to stop eating because you (likely, your blood or liver tissue, to be specific) are the food for parasites (mmm delish!), and they already deprive you from nutrients (iron deficiency in males that can be diagnosed by monitoring ferritin is an absolute red flag because men don’t bleed regularly these days because they “hunt“ in the office space typically, so their iron store should be through the roof), so if you double down the impact by stripping away minerals and vitamins, it is safe to assume that you might be screwed as a result and will say “hell no“ to any further attempts to go raw just because you did not do it right in the beginning.
Avoid fruit juices. It might be so appealing to pretend that raw diet is primarily about juicing everything “to get all that goodness in 1 glass!“, but it is not. Raw diet is about feeding your gut flora with plethora of fiber, about receiving enzymes and subtle vitality and pure energy, about receiving non-degraded vitamins and organic minerals, receiving non-denatured proteins and amino-acids, about breaking free from quick energy, about consuming non-oxidized fats, about avoiding carcinogenic compounds that are formed during thermal treatment of protein- and carbohydrate-containing substances. Fruit juices fall into the “quick energy“ category. While, of course, they provide a convenient way of consuming a concentrate of vitamins and minerals that may be present in them, juices are a fructose bomb that explodes in your liver. Consistent consumption of pure fructose not buffered with fiber and not encapsulated in a cellular matrix can lead to development of the non-alcoholic fatty liver syndrome. In addition, if you have persistent fungal or microbial infections or parasites, these guys will make sure to thrive off of the stray sugars you stuff your body with. If you bought that juicer imagining how you have a flat tummy like an ageless photoshoped lady on the picture, that the juicer manufactures made sure to supply with the appliance, by sipping on the nectar of youth and thinness, juice vegetables! I personally don’t own a juicer, yet my parents have one (but they live on another continent and not that I travel there ever, but I just put this piece of knowledge to appear relatable to you and my advice to come), but if you do, juice (hype item alert) celery, cucumbers, bell peppers, kale, spinach, parsley, and so on.
Acquire the equipment that will help you bring more creativity and pleasure to the process. Dependent on your budget, this list can vary, but I found myself quite well sustained with a couple of ceramic knives, a glass cutting board, a huge mixing/salad bowl, some cute dishware, a blender, and a dehydrator. I have a separate post about the significance of each item I use in the kitchen.
Start by NOT cooking things that can be easily eaten raw. This category includes all fruits, leafy greens, herbs, vegetables, microgreens, seeds, and nuts. I recall the days when I would toss a bunch of fresh and lively vegetables into a pan and make a vegetable ragu… or spend 3-4 good fresh apples to make an apple crisp with a light crust on top. Now, it does not make sense to me and I feel averted from such foods. For real. I am not just saying it - preferences change in mere weeks of doing raw foods and our bodies start screaming pretty loudly for what is good for them as soon as you introduce them to the goodness! Be creative and resourceful at first to see how you can spin the customary dishes into their raw doppelgangers OR rather something 1000 times better.
Stop teasing yourself by buying packaged, processed foods and refined sugar-containing items. (In this section, prepare for a pile of thoughts not necessarily flowing one from another because my puppy was jumping all over me, additionally trying to eat my bag and gloves - just a heads-up). Vegan pre-made food scene, including meat and dairy substitutes, snack bars, and “complete meals“, has blown up over the past decade, and even generic food markets now have at least a couple of alternative options. This is definitely a positive change for ethical plant-based eaters and for vegan-curious people who would want to diversify their diets by substituting their ordinary meals. At the same time, often labelled as “health“ foods, such items, even if they are certified organic, are packed with sugar, salt, “natural flavors“, texture-enhancers, preservatives, weird oils, and starchy filler ingredients to lower the cost per calorie. You would slip off of your raw journey on a day when “you are lazy to make that salad“ and “oh! good thing I bought that TV dinner“, so do not provoke yourself in the beginning because, in essence, going raw means steering away from the addiction to consume fast energy and inefficient fuel. Being proficient in reading the labels and distinguishing the components that are not found in nature would help and, in my valuable opinion, everyone should be skilled in that. And just from an energetic and, again, esoteric point of view…imagine, someone was sending the beautiful bulk components to a random factory, where they get milled, tossed, spun, mixed, oxidized, losing their nutritional benefits upon every step and in contact of their naturally hidden and protected parts with air or metal blades… And now imagine that you walk in a beautiful sun-lit garden where thick and juicy leaves harvest sun energy and rise minerals from the earth through their stems, how moist and plump fruits invite you to pick them and run your teeth into their sugary flesh, invigorating you with vitamins and sun power with every bite, nurturing your cells and giving you the purest energy on Earth, how oily. Imagine a supple, oily seed that is so ready to impact should you give it some water, it has all essential vitality to spark a beginning of a new plant from this tiny bundle of nutrients. Of course, whatever we can find in the bulk section is a compromise between the natural way and convenience of the progress, and we should always choose the best available option, but these associations of the machine processing juxtaposed with the blissful pictures of foods as they come from nature always help to keep me away from flashy-looking packages of pre-made items and give me inspiration to proceed to the bulk section. I promised a pile of thoughts above, so here it ends.
Watch out for the physical changes. If you went raw and, say, in a month noticed that you not only got thinner, for example, but along with that your hair started falling out, or teeth sensitivity increased, or nails became extra-brittle, or menstruation stopped with no signs of ovulation during the cycle, or you noticed consistent paleness and dullness of skin, or your athletic endurance became much lower, or your psyche became unstable, make sure to note that right away and remember that these are not detoxification symptoms! They are the signals that your body is experiencing stress and can no longer support “extras“, such as the attributes of our bodies demonstrating the vitality and strength. The body becomes busy redistributing the scarce incoming or stored reserve resources between the vital organs and tissues that need repairs. The S.O.S. signals must be addressed immediately by URGENT modifications of the diet by including the most potent foods found on Earth! Along with that, it would be a great idea to get a medical checkup and look for a nutritional advice based on the blood work results. A so-called detoxification, if it occurs, is a mild and rather pleasureful process and should not be in any way painful or degrading.
Especially in the beginning drink a lot of water. If your body needs to detoxify, it is a good idea to embark on a smart watering routine. I made a video about water where you can find some important information about functional hydration. Basically, make sure that you are drinking a solvent, not a solution! This will help to carry away intercellular garbage accumulated over the years mostly seamlessly.
Plan your diet and shop for groceries strategically: here is a concise advice (and more to come)! Calories aside, make sure that you consume not just “vitality and concentrated sunlight“, but enough wholesome fats coming from avocados, seeds, and nuts. This will help you keep your hormonal health in check and avoid a mysterious disappearance of the menstrual cycle or developed frigidity (that can be easily confused with being enlightened AF). A large avocado a day along with a handful of seeds and nuts will do! A large potent salad can easily accommodate all of these ingredients. Actually, when it comes to avocados, stay away from the “bundle deals“ and buy individual assorted fruits because this way you can select unripe, almost ripe, and ready to eat avocados, so you will have a perfectly ripe fruit each day of the week. Another advice is to switch from boxed salads to large leafy greens. I discussed it a bit more in this recipe video. When it comes to protein, it might be a simple solution to supplement with protein powders, yet if you want to get truly wholesome living food experience and bump up the protein intake, stock up on organic hemp seeds. Any seed that is broken down long before the consumption not only loses its nutritional value through oxidation, but even becomes harmful, so powders are OK, but whole seeds that, say, are milled just before the consumption or just chewed thoroughly are the optimal choice. An additional problem with the powders is that there can be ANYTHING in them ranging from non-edible parts of the plants to heavy metals. So get hemp, whole flax seeds, and chia as well. A fun source of B12 that I discovered is raw nori with each sheet containing up to 50% of daily vitamin B12 (an average supplement contains ~4000%, so it is up to you to control your B12 levels to prevent anemia, dementia and other kinds of degradation, and it is totally individual for each person). So your pantry will not be empty on a raw diet! One of the most important things on a raw diet is to employ as many fermented foods, which you can make yourself or get them at the stores, but make sure that store-bought items are labelled as raw, non-pasteurized, they are refrigerated, and their lids are not indented/do not pop upon opening.
Make sure to move as much as possible. While transitioning, it is important to help your body purge the joints, liver, blood vessels, kidneys, and lymphatic system. Movement is essential for that! Include the physical activities that make you sweat, while hydrating and supplying electrolytic salts from organic produce, and also absolutely do core twists to stimulate the gallbladder, liver, and pancreas. You also will be able to enjoy an ever increasing elasticity of muscles, ligaments, and mobility of joints, so you can include more stretching activities.
Do energy work. Be observant of the energy changes that go hand in hand with the dietary change. Own your mind and emotions - with the raw discipline, it is very easy! The awakening creative energy will be growing each day, and you need to find a great outlet for it to avoid blockages. It is imperative to start giving to the world either by some creative means or by helping others. Your abundance is enough for that.
I guess, I wrote too much in a single post and I should continue in discrete texts, but I enjoyed it a lot. There is really a lot to experience on this living journey!
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