About Practically Raw We

Marie

Hi! I’m Marie and let’s get this straight from the start: most of the time  I’m not 100% raw when it comes to what I eat. My degree of raw changes with the weather and it’s completely cyclical: in summer I barely even consider eating anything but raw food and by winter I’m eating a hot vegan meal every night that i take great joy in preparing myself. I don’t beat myself up for this non-perfectionism…it’s probably the most natural thing there is. I really am a practically raw woman.

All these raw foodists will advocate that man is naturally raw but no one can deny that man was always opportunistic: she (or he) ate what was there and ate according to the seasons. Pretty much like me. I don’t believe in excess. I don’t believe in diets. Absolutes are a recipe for failure. If there’s one thing I’ve learned through my experiences raising children, it’s that when you tell them ‘absolutely not to do something’. they are for sure going to do it!

I believe in listening to my body because nine times out of ten it’s a lot smarter than me and will automatically let me know if I’m doing something right – or wrong. So I describe the way I eat as mostly raw because that’s how my body is happiest and healthiest.

But there’s another side to Rawness that has nothing to do with raw food. When you look up the word ‘raw’ in the dictionary one of the most potent definitions is : simple, powerful, real. And that’s the part of raw that I try to live up to 100%..

I love raw food.  I also love yoga, gardening,  meditation, good books, bad movies. night skies and pickles. Especially pickles. I wish there were more hours in a day to do everything I love and if there were I would definitely eat more pickles!

I am a certified raw vegan nutritionist, chef, educator and innkeeper as well as having a degree in Controlled Environment Agriculture. I was co-founder of Raw Woman, a not-for profit culinary school focusing on optimum health and personal empowerment through a diet high in raw foods and a lifestyle low in extremes.

I’m really crazy about plants; I like to grow them, eat them, heal with them, beautify with them and write about them. And, even though I spent some years studying how to grow plants without soil, I really love getting my hands dirty with real earth because let’s face it…that’s the basis for everything. Not to mention that nothing makes you feel more simple, grounded and childlike than messing around with dirt! It’s just about as raw as anyone can get.

A lot of things amaze me. The stupidest things make me laugh. I believe a sense of humor is probably your most valuable possession. You need one of those all the time.

I have two amazing kids both of whom I  managed to safely raise and who are both out on their own now. I had a ton of fun doing this, no doubt. But oddly, my reward for this is that I have somehow managed to accumulate four more young children under my ever so humble roof merely through association.  Everyone teases me that I was such a great mom that’ the powers that be elected me to do it again. I thought I was done and now, this. It’s a wonderment. And somewhat of an insanity. Most of the time I feel like the old woman in the shoe who had ‘so many children she didn’t know what to do’. Figuring out what to do is, in fact, a 24 hour a day conundrum.

All of the kids in this house eat fruits and vegetables to exhaustion. In fact, they eat to exhaustion period. None of them are All Raw. But they certainly eat their fair share of raw food. And none of them are overweight either. Nor are they emaciated.

As I said, I don’t believe in diets so the term ‘diet’ will only be used here in its most base definition to mean ‘what we eat”.  And you’ll find lots of recipes here but I’m not considering it to be a cooking blog. After all, there’s no cooking in the raw world anyway. The main thing we’re doing here is adjusting our habits, trading ‘worse’ for ‘better’. And maybe ‘better’ for ‘best’ when – and if – that time comes.

And I’m not going to tell you how I was Saved by raw food because, in my case, that wouldn’t be true. But I can say that I feel a whole hell of a lot better since I’ve been on this path.  And I do know a few people who really have been Saved by raw food: great stories of near biblical proportions. Some of them were what got me here. Because it may have sounded like magic, but it all made a lot of sense.

So what’s it all about then? Well, it is about the experience of incorporating raw food into life. That includes the ups, the downs, the ridiculous and the sublime ( I have yet to figure which one is winning out). You could say it’s an introduction to veganism- without the vegan missionary encouraging you to whip yourself and wear a hair shirt if you ever eat meat. What we’re attempting to do here is foster a relationship with what is healthy and natural. Not to mention, making that a relationship that doesn’t drive you or everyone else insane.

It’s about getting tricky about how you pass all these great notions on to your loved ones. And it’s about being a woman and trying to stay simple, powerful, real and happy in this crazy world. Because sometimes we’re encouraged to be anything but. Being a woman… hell… being a human, isn’t always everything it’s cracked up to be! Above all, it’s about providing the information for you to figure out your own path…whatever that might be.

 

Merit

My name is Merit! I have spent pretty much my entire life in school. Currently I am one of those wonderfully crazy people who decided to study art in college, specifically Studio and Theatre. Being that artsy college student, I live on a bit of a budget and definitely know how easy it is to slip into the diet of junk food and energy drinks as you try to juggle eighteen credit hours with a job and intermittent apprenticeships, all while trying to retain the social aspect of life. I am a huge extrovert! Believe me though, I have definitely fallen into that junk food trap on more than one occasion. But I really do feel the difference and even am able to see the difference in my body and in my academic performance depending on my diet. So here I am, trying to be just a little healthier, practically.

When I was in sixth grade, my class studied the origins and history of the food we eat. As part of this subject we were shown videos of the slaughter of pretty much every animal under the sun in the name of factory farming. That was my first real introduction to an alternative lifestyle and diet. After I saw that I went home and told my mom that I wasn’t eating red meat or pork anymore, the plan was to take one meat product out at a time instead of going cold turkey. Unfortunately, I never got much farther than not eating red meat, but apart from eating what is served me out of respect for my hosts (I usually tell them I can’t eat red meat) I haven’t eaten it since I was eleven years old! In fact, my body can’t even digest it anymore!

All that having been said, I have since become more interested in diet-based lifestyle choices and alternative medicine. I remember sitting behind my mother, watching videos of David Wolf foraging for mushrooms with no shoes on I the middle of a snowy forest, and later I worked as a raw food dessert chef at my mother’s café. It was a real blast! More recently, I dabble in the world of tinctures and natural medicine, using kale and nettles to help my anemia. I also experimented with being pescatarian and can honestly say that apart from a minor vitamin B12 deficiency and a demon birth control, I had never felt healthier!

I consider myself raw-curious over anything else. I want to learn more about it and challenge myself to eat raw more, junk less, less meat, and do it all on a budget. And without a dehydrator! I’m twenty-one, and now is when I’m really getting my life under control and trying to do adult things, like take care of myself. Being raw until four feels like a good and practical way to keep myself healthy and meet this goal. It’s do-able! So here I am, doing it!

Melissa

Well here I am, former adult film star, sex therapist, writer, director, producer, blah, blah, blah…currently growing veggies and herbs on a mountain in the middle of nowhere.
During my current mid-life crisis I decided to make another attempt to go from part-time vegan to raw. My former trials were marred by temptation, something that I won’t succumb to this time (best laid plans). Once upon a time I was macrobiotic, my first attempt and regardless of the eventual outcome, I retained a lot of the preparation and cooking principles I utilize to this day. (Did I say cooking?) Now 30 years later, I realize where I went wrong. I needed interesting recipes that are fun and easy to prepare.Years of experimenting and better access to a better variety of fresh fruits and vegetables have changed all of that.

As an active person that is sometimes pressed for time, or in my current residence where turning on the oven in summer is equal to confining myself to a sweat lodge, I welcome more raw or barely raw foods to quench and satiate my desire for delicious meals.
When I’m not conjuring up some crazy recipes or weird jewelry, I’m hanging with my dog, gardening, rescuing animals or building something no one wants or needs.