si dawson

For a while now, & even though I use it to describe myself, I've been both­ered by the term 'raw foodist'.

This breaks down to three main reasons:

1. It implies that I only eat raw foods (ie, I'm 100% — & pos­si­bly mil­i­tant about it at that)
2. It misses the whole point of raw (more on that later) — thus treat­ing it as a diet, rather than a lifestyle
3. It seems to make my friends worry about whether & what they can feed me

I realised recently that if my friends are wast­ing their brain cycles think­ing about what I'm eat­ing, then some­thing is rot­ten in the state of Den­mark.

pic by LeoFa­giano

Umm, so to speak..

Hav­ing to keep the details of some­one else's diet in your head is a bit tedious, to say the least — par­tic­u­larly since there are so many vari­ants out there, veg­e­tar­ian, vegan, ovo-lacto-pescatarian, the list goes on. Of course, it's sim­ple to us, I mean "raw fruit, veges, some nuts & seeds", what could be sim­pler? Except it could also be described as "no meat, no dairy, noth­ing cooked. Yes bread is cooked, so is vine­gar, & most herbs, etc etc etc" And from the point of view of a host, 10 peo­ple vis­it­ing all with dif­fer­ent dietary pref­er­ences, some of them mil­i­tant ("Honey? Do you know how many bees died to make that?!?! AND YOU HAVE LEATHER SHOES!!") it's enough to make you pull your hair out.

pic by sugarpuss4ever

..or, you know, some­one else's.

The irony here is that raw food­ists (with the odd lumi­nous exam­ple) are gen­er­ally the most chilled peo­ple I've ever met with regard to their food. Which brings me to the sec­ond point. Most raw food­ists have slightly dif­fer­ent diets. Some eat more fats. Some are what's called raw pri­mal — ie, they include raw ani­mal prod­ucts, meats etc. Some eat honey or dairy, some don't. Some are super strict (no herbs, no cooked salad dress­ings, no choco­late), most aren't. Few are a super pure 100%.

One of the key rea­sons for this is that eat­ing raw isn't a des­ti­na­tion, it's a jour­ney. Even in the short time I've been on it, what has best suited my body has changed dras­ti­cally. My tastes have changed enor­mously. Juice fast­ing par­tic­u­larly altered my body chem­istry markedly — kale used to be way too bit­ter for me, now I can't get enough of it.

Eat­ing raw isn't about eat­ing one spe­cific way. It's about being con­scious of what you're eat­ing, and how it's affect­ing you. The com­mon refrain is "Eat what­ever you like, just be aware of why, and how it's affect­ing you". You want to have a cof­fee? Go right ahead — just watch what it does to you. Feel like pizza? Be my guest. Feel bet­ter after­wards or worse? And how? Keep that up long enough, and you'll nat­u­rally set­tle on foods that make you feel great. Voila, you're a raw foodist.

pic by dboo

Also, and here's a lit­tle secret about raw food. You want to have one salad a week, eat steak at every other meal & call your­self a raw food­ist? Go right ahead. The com­mu­nity will wel­come you with open arms. It's about lov­ing and sup­port­ing each other, not about who's eat­ing what. Peo­ple want to help you. Want you to suc­ceed. To find your own path. They realise it can be hard, and can take years to find that ideal bal­ance. I know I've sure as hell strug­gled. Yes­ter­day I ate an entire loaf of bread. Yes, by myself. Worse yet, I'm still not really sure why. Is there any guilt about that? No, even though it made me throw up, just curios­ity. Adding neg­a­tive emo­tion to food-that-is-bad-for-me only exac­er­bates the situation.

That's what raw food­ism is really about. Going easy on your­self. Being patient, under­stand­ing. Pay­ing atten­tion to what's hap­pen­ing to your­self — being con­scious instead of crit­i­cal. Los­ing all those neg­a­tive emo­tions around food. Instead, sur­round­ing your­self with love, and lov­ing peo­ple. It's a lifestyle, not a diet.

Mostly, eat­ing raw is just about eat­ing what makes you feel good. If you pay really close atten­tion, and hon­estly feel that eat­ing a spe­cific cooked food makes you feel bet­ter, then go right ahead and do it. After all, it's your body. Eat what you like, just be con­scious. Pay atten­tion. Think about what you're shov­ing in your cake hole. That's all that really matters.

If you're try­ing to eat as raw as you can, and a friend serves up some­thing that doesn't match your pref­er­ences per­fectly (a salad with dress­ing, fruit with yoghurt, what­ever) then go ahead and eat it, if you think you'd enjoy it. Why not? Is the world really a bet­ter place for mak­ing a huge fuss — par­tic­u­larly if you can see they've made an effort, even if they've screwed it up a bit around the edges?

I'm not sug­gest­ing being a push-over — it is impor­tant to have strong bound­aries (ie, self respect), and if your 'friends' are serv­ing bar­be­cue & get­ting upset if you bring a salad for your­self, maybe it's time to ques­tion how much those friends really have your best inter­ests at heart. But also, if you're spend­ing the whole time whing­ing about their choices, well, maybe you're it's time to ques­tion how much you have their inter­ests at heart. Every­one is on their own jour­ney, and judg­ing theirs is as wrong as them judg­ing yours.

The best term I've found (so far) to describe my choices is a 'con­scious eater'. Eat what I like. Take my own time on my own jour­ney. Respect oth­ers' choices. Do what I like. Just be conscious.

Of course, 'raw food' as a phrase has its own uses — it's a good way for peo­ple on a sim­i­lar jour­ney to iden­tify each other (hello twit­ter friends!). In terms of self-labelling, it will still have uses, but in terms of how I think of myself, con­scious eat­ing is def­i­nitely how I'm living.

The amus­ing part of all this, of course, is that as I said, it's a jour­ney. Right now, I feel I'm a con­scious eater. But in time, who knows? Can some­one who's fur­ther down this path shed any light where I might be headed? As always, I'm super curious.