Choosing A Health-Style Life
Raw living food is a life style change, an holistic journey, it is not a ‘diet’. To achieve optimum health we also need to ‘clean’ our minds and spirits, as well as our physical body. This process offers a delicious opportunity for the development of personal discipline, through which we can begin to transcend our unhealthy patterns, cravings and insecurities.
My Raw Journey (So far!)
My raw journey began with attending a Raw Food Mastery Course run at the Nub (East London, UK), tutored by Derin Bepo. What appealed most to me about the course was that it covered exactly the kind of foods and flavors that I am used to as someone coming from and African Caribbean and Indian background. Anyone new to the world of living raw food could be excused for thinking that there are few teachers catering to these specific needs, which of course is untrue.
For many years I’d suffered with lack of energy and poor digestion. I’ve tried being vegetarian, cutting wheat out of my diet and taking nutritional supplements; but these attempts did not seem to make any sustainable or marked difference to my sense of wellness and vitality. Set against a family background where diabetes and hypertension are prevalent, I knew that I would need to make some radical life-style changes in order to overt what felt to me like inevitable health outcomes. Like a woman on an urgent mission, I have pursued the spiritual path with vigor through training, teaching and Interfaith Ministry. Then in discovering the world of living and raw food health, I realised that this was the additional gift I needed for the changes I have been seeking. At that stage the raw ‘concept’ immediately resonated within my understanding, making perfect sense to me by addressing my unanswered health questions.
Now as with many new journey’s or learning processes, I have found I’ve progressed through different stages in my development and practice of a raw and living food health-style. At an earlier stage of my own raw journey, I discovered that I was trying to duplicate the cooked flavors I was accustomed to, into my raw meals. Needless to say I was disappointed over and again and that experience on it’s own, was enough to make me feel like throwing it all in. At times I felt desperate and very hungry trying to be 100% raw in one go. My hunger was a divine gift that spurred me on to find sources of inspiration and I was fortunate enough to have a thoroughly experienced teacher, who helped to keep me motivated.
Its great that every time I visit ‘The Spirited Palace‘ for a meal (an eating place in South London, UK), I learn something new about living Caribbean-type meals. Yesterday I had a simply delicious dessert made from ground dates, desiccated coconut and nutmeg, made into balls…. I’ve since discovered the recipe is for ‘Date Balls’. I find that when I get stuck for ideas and need inspiration, I have always been able to access it by taking a trip there.
However, I’ve found that the further I progress on this raw living food health journey, the more sensitive my taste buds have become and I have at times found that my desire for certain ‘traditional’ cultural food flavours has been evolving (sometimes I prefer a mono-meal) and I now know that they are likely to change completely as time goes on.
This current stage is still a steep learning curve for me, due to the lifestyle changes I must make around planning for fresh organic shopping (not just a weekly jaunt), meal preparation, eating on the run and while traveling, at work, with family, children and in social settings. One great thing is that I’ve managed to inspire my daughters to explore raw too, through smoothies and juicing, even my one year old granddaughter loves the taste of my green smoothies!
More later…
