Hey there guys,

can you believe it! I only just figured out TODAY that the title of this forum area read DIARY instead of DAIRY. I was a little flummoxed as to why there'd be a dairy section on a raw vegan forum but figured each to their own I guess. LOL!

Let me introduce myself, I am a longish-term raw vegan (a little over 2 years at 100% now, 4 years as high raw before that). I've been a vegetarian for 15 years and a vegan for 13 of those years.

From experience there seems to be two rough schools from which people get introduced to a raw food lifestyle, from the veggie/vegan angle and from the omni/health angle. It doesn't bother me how people come to raw foods, just that they do and I have more 'friends' to share my lifestyle with.

How I became interested in a raw foods lifestyle was of course through the veg/vegan angle and a long term friend who had gotten into it himself. I had a discussion with him about how he though raw food was the ants pants, and me being a sceptical, rational person poo pooed his outlandish views. His only response was that I'd simply have to try it myself to really get some experience, THEN i should come back and talk to him about it. He said 'do it for 30 days', and me always being up for a challenge, said to him 'you're on!'

We'll, I've honestly never been so wrong in my life, and that 30 days changed the whole way I consumed and thought about foods, and the many health benefits experienced first hand made me realise that I needed to keep a more open mind about many things, not just those things associated with foods.

I hadn't been a particularly unhealthy person, no major illnesses before going raw. I did/do have arthritis, having suffered from this since childhood, and while this has never been bad enough to seriously affect my lifestyle, the improvements have been mindblowing! Though fairly healthy, I realised after a while that I'd been suffering the 'normal' ailments that the average person suffers: lethargy, exhaustion, headaches and migraines, weight problems, fogginess of mind, etc. things people everywhere seem to have and so these things are deemed normal, hell half the time people aren't even aware they are suffering from some things till these things are gone in the same vein as the saying 'you don't know what you've got till it's gone' but in a good way!

So fast forward to today and I am so much further down the path of health and awareness than I was ten years ago, but still with quite a ways to go, even on the food front.

This year I'd like to kick it up a notch and work on improvements in my lifestyle including the following:

more exercise - my life just has not been conducive to the amount of exercise I really want to incorporate. I need to find friends who like doing the same activities I like (like hiking and bushwalking) and get a new bike (I used to ride all the time). Exercise is one of my main areas of improvement.

more greens, especially wild greens - I want to do a LOT more wildcrafting and reincorporate more greens back into my lifestyle. these have slowly slid in the last 6 months due to busy busy times and then the holidays. Wildcrafting along the bush/creek areas near my house is both practical and meditative for me, and i want to increase my repertoire of wild edible plants that I can identify. I notice a massive increase in energy and health when I consume more greens (not that I lack in energy anyways, lol!).

more meditation - again this is something that has slipped in the last year or so, and meditation is one of the main ways I improve my attitude, thought processes and mental wellbeing. Meditation can be any number of things including walks in nature, guided or sound meditation, silence, etc.

becoming a more rounded human being - this involves trying to work more on my 'steam valves' which include writing, reading, intellectual pursuits and being alone. I have a tendency to get involved in too many things for causes and organisation other than myself, and ten years of activism has left me drained, mentally and creatively.

So that's it for now, I'm still chuckling about how much of an idiot I am reading the 'diary' word wrong.... btw, that's a common thing for me, being an idiot about some things, after 35 years I'm used to it.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/03/2011 07:15AM by klomasius.

Hi, Klomansius,

Glad you re-read "dairy" to see it is "diary" - otherwise we wouldn't know your story!

Interesting reading. Thanks for writing.


My favorite raw vegan

Hah, the vegan dairy forum. That's cute. Looks like you've got a list of resolutions for this year all lined up. Good luck on your venture. I hope you are able to find a happy balance between all of your activities.

Thanks guys, I appreciate your friendliness.

Today was pretty much a 'don't do much at all' day. I'm still on holidays, I go back to work this Friday .

Today all I did was package up some product orders (I have a tiny vegan business www.veganrevolution.com.au in Australia, more of a hobby with my business partner and friend than anything else), go up the street, do some online networking and a little bit of washing.

Tomorrow is payday, so it's the big produce buying day for me, but today I went down to the healthfood store as I'd ran out of bananas and figured I'd try my luck getting some ripe ones there. SCORE! There was about ten kilos of 'overripe' bananas on special for $1 a kilo (a couple of pounds), so I bought most of them along with some other things. I'm desperately trying to stock up on bananas as the recent floods in QLD will mean the banana supply will dry up very soon. or how long I don't know. I once went for 18 months without a decent banana when a cyclone wiped out crops a couple of years ago and the bananas left went up to about $20 a kilo. A very sad time, for me and the farmers.

When I was at the counter, the store assistant asked if I was doing anything special with the bananas (I often get comments on the amount of bananas I buy!) and I said most of them would be frozen or go straight into smoothies as I'm a raw foodist. She said 'Me too!!'. I knew it! Fellow raw foodists always ask in a particular way about my banana purchases, trying to suss out if I'm a rawbie. If I ever find myself fighting someone for on special overripe bananas at the market or the health food store I always ask if they are a rawbie, cos chances are they are and I can have a yarn to them.

Food today was mostly simple. Bunch of grapes for breakfast, coconut water and more grapes for lunch, a green smoothie and a green salad for dinner and half a raw food bar (shared with my son) for dessert.

My partner bought some raw chocolate today, which contains agave. I've been avoiding agave of late as my body is starting to reject it. At first it was only if I had a significant amount (say a slice of raw cake containing it) on an empty stomach, but tonight my body told me it's really had enough, even in small amounts. I had two small blocks, on a full stomach and STILL got the spacey kind of headache I've gotten on the occasions I've eaten the stuff.

It's amazing how the body evolves, I could eat this stuff with impunity at the start, same with nuts and other heavy foods, but as the years progressed, my body has become more and more sensitive and I find myself not being able to (and sometimes really not even wanting to) have these things, at least in large amounts.

It's a similar story with chemicals in personal and household products, I can no longer (and don't wish to) wear artificial perfume or use household or personal products with artificial fragrances. My personal care products have enjoyably been pared down to the basics, or at least changed over to natural ones.

My body and my mind have evolved so far over time. It's really a pity that I have very few people to talk to about this in real life, although vibrant, the raw food community is still small here in Melbourne Australia, but it's growing!

Hugs to you all!

Today is Saturday, and like most nights these days, I stayed up till about 2.30am last night, so slept in late. I have to work on getting my sleeping pattern under control again as I'm back at work now. I'm naturally a night person, I love the quiet and peace, and that fact that no one is around. For me it's the best time to write and get lots of creative stuff done.

So I got up latish and me and my partner went down to a local veg place that has just introduced a raw food dish (raw ravioli), I hadn't had my usual breakfast of fruits (just a couple of glasses of water), so I'm wondering if this is why the dish was SO DAMN FILLING! But really tasty! As an added surprise, they'd just been experimenting with some raw homemade ice cream so we had that as well.

I had a longish chat with the owners, who just bought it from another vegan couple and are keen to do innovative dishes. I mentioned green smoothies and how these would be a great addition to the menu, I also let them know if they needed any pointers, I'd be happy to go down and help them out. It's great to have more and more raw options!

I am finding however that I am evolving away from eating too many heavy foods, more so of late. I still love these things, and I believe I always will, but my body and I are a little at odds of late (kind of strange, we don't usually argue)
she doesn't want these things at all and I want them when I go out for a little variety and enjoyment and ease. I think at this stage it may have somethign to do with the detox I'm going through, in these periods, my body wants nothing that is remotely heavy and directs me to eat and drink foods containing things like ginger, lemon, seaweed and various greens.

I believe we evolve slowly into our perfect way of eating (for ourselves) with periods of detox and cleanings out of the house and other phenomena along the way. For instance (TMI), recently I went through a period where my bowels literally flushed themselves out. For a period of two days I was going to the toilet 4-6 times a day and lots of it. I think I was just at the stage where this was about to happen, but I think I sped it up by me drinking lots of a tea of warm water, crushed fresh ginger and lemon juice. I had no conscious idea that I was about to go into detox, but I think my body knew and directed me towards this kind of drink.

It's really nice to simply not have to worry too much about what to eat, when I can simply just listen to what my body wants (or sometimes overrule it and have what I want that might not be the best but is thoroughly enjoyable).

So it's a lazy weekend, not much happening but I think I can get some writing done. I've had a new idea to create a raw vegan street zine for distribution in my city and state. Something simple (but in colour to showcase all the beautiful food pics) that can be distributed to places like restaurants and cafes, wholefoods, and other places where raw or raw friendly people hang out.

I'm terrible at layout and want something like a newsletter/magazine template I can just add text and pics to, if anyone has any idea of free templates like this, let me know!

Take care everyone and have a great weekend!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/08/2011 06:22AM by klomasius.

I have to blurt this out somewhere people might be vaguely interested!

My favourite weed I like to eat when wildcrafting is lambsquarters (also known as fat hen, which is my preferred name for it being a chook lover). But the thing is, it's SO HARD to find around my area and I end up going to this one tiny plant as I do my shopping at the farmers market and munching it slowly branch by branch over the weeks so it doesn't die!

I've looked everywhere for it! I did eventually find a bunch of it in the yard of a house I passed, but didn't feel like being taken for a mad woman if I knocked on the door of the house and asked to eat their weeds.

So it's kind of frustrating, it being my favourite green and all. But a couple of days ago, I was on my way to work and I take a short cut through a car park to get there. This day I was actually a little early, and so was wandering through the car park rather than head down, bum up, get to work speed. So I actually NOTICED that there was a HUGE stand of fat hen weed RIGHT NEXT TO THE PATH I TAKE 6 TIMES A WEEK!!!!

Talk about a 'duh!' moment, but oh the joy! More fat hen than I could literally poke a stick at!

So each morning I make sure I walk past and grab 3 or 4 branches for munching over the day. I'f I go out to get some fruit and lunch, I also get some more to munch and put in my salads.

Today the only greens I've had have been the fat hen and it's been for FREE! As usual my workmates think I'm certifiably loony but that's ok, as long as they're laughing and having fun.

Cool huh!

Oh also, I've decided I'm going to be doing a monthly raw food publication for my state (Victoria Australia) called Fresh Food Living. It's a 4 page newsletter/magazine with news, articles, gossip, reviews etc and will be distributed to places such as restaurants that have raw dishes, whole foods, markets and other raw friendly places.

The first issue (Jan 2011) I've printed off 250 black and white copies (free, on the sly at my work!) and will be printing off a bunch of colour ones tomorrow.

I'd post a link to the PDF but haven't put it up on my website yet.

It was so much fun to do, even though I'd get a D+ for the formatting (hey, at least I used a template!).

Today I went raspberry picking at a pick your own farm about an hour from my place. It was an absolutely lovely afternoon, even though there weren't as many raspberries as I'd have liked as the season is at the tail end, coupled with some bad weather they've had over the last week or so. Mother Nature has her moments, but she generally looks after us.

What an opportunity for meditation! My son and my partner went off into other rows and I was left along to pick and eat and enjoy the outside in silence. I got a lot of thinking done (most of my good thinking and productive time is alone, but usually late at night when no one else is up). I really want to start doing this on a regular basis, and I'm really lucky there are a lot of pick your ow farms for various fruit and veg that I could do it around half the year. In the end we got about a kilo worth of raspberries, I was hoping for 2 kilos (one to enjoy now and one to freeze) but it wasn't to be.

the first issue of my newsletter/mini mag is now up online, the link is below:

[freshliving.veganrevolution.com.au]

And the Facebook page for the publication is here:

[www.facebook.com]

I'm already working on the February issue, it's honestly so much fun! The great thing is I've written about 6 months worth of articles as I can cut and paste from my raw food workshop manuals and my blog entries! that is, if I need to, I had a guest writer this issue who will hopefully have another article for me next issue and am looking for some other local writers to contribute.

Also, check this out, I saw this video today of the guy from The Date People harvesting dates. I LOVE the song! I really felt a connection when watching this vid with both the guy and other raw vegans. I was just so happy to see something that I love to eat being harvested by someone who eats like me!

I'm off to work tomorrow, it's the end of the weekend, but I've had a really good couple of days, so I'm not too down about the working week to come.

Have fun everyone!

i love your story!!!! we all stumble on the magic path of raw our own way, and its all beautiful! I too am working on learning new edible wild greens and plants in general. I have this 5 hour video where this older woman just explains so much info about all the wild food she's eaten. its a crazy list. I can send it to you if you want klomasius. its awesome!

The Raw Lion 440 pounds to 225 pounds!

Wow, yes please Raw lion, I'd love that!

great story Klomasius thank you for sharing and im happy you are here

RAWLION can you send me that as well?

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

Today was a fantastic end to the weekend!

I got up latish and spent some time getting some food ready for a huge vegan picnic in a big park in the middle of the city.

The picnic turned out to be a wonderful experience! I caught up with a bunch of people I hadn't seen in ages (a big slice of the Melbourne vegan community was there) and met a bunch more new people and talked to them.

I took along about 50 copies of my newsletter and handed them all out, and the brilliant thing was that by doing that I got to meet a bunch of raw vegans I'd never met before! AWESOME!

I've noticed a shift in consciousness that just wasn't there a couple of years ago. Many mainstream vegans are now seriously entertaining the idea of incorporating more fresh/raw foods into their diet and are happy to talk about it. Whereas several years ago most dismissed it as extreme and weren't willing to take the time to discuss it. This made me so sad. But the change has heartened me!

Just sitting there in the park, relaxing, eating good food and chatting to lovely people really gave me some perspective on what life is really all about. We go to our jobs, we do the daily grind, many of us (including me) don't like their paid jobs and we lose perspective on the reasons for living (enjoyment, connection with others, bringing more kindness and light into the world etc.)

Lately I've been contemplating my own mortality more so than usual, and with a distinctly personal slant due to the fact that I am now 35 and reaching that age where I am no longer considered 'young'. I've been thinking about lifespans, and the end of life and the reaction to it and evolving my thoughts and theories on these things.

The overwhelming thing for me is that I live as enjoyable, fulfilling and meaningful a life and that I leave a legacy of love and positivity behind. And to this end I begin a gentle round of life re-evaluation that will see me make some changes, hopefully for the better.

Today has just left me on such a high! I don't even mind that it's Monday tomorrow! I really look forward to tomorrow and starting on my 30 day juice fast journey.

Yep, that's right, I'm doing a 30 day juice fast as of tomorrow. It will be the longest fast I have ever undertaken and I'm curious as to how my mind will cope. Very interesting. I will post more soon.

Take care lovely people!

Day 4 of my 30 day juice fast.

It's certainly different to a master cleanse, I am feeling full and haven't thought about food all day! On the master cleanse I don't feel full and as a consequence, I think of food a lot (not that I'm ever usually not thinking of food, I always am!).

Today has only been orange juice, I'm not really bothered with making anything else, though the juicer is out and ready to go, I'd rather just use the little hand held citrus juicer. Yesterday I had a bunch of vegetable and green juices (interspersed with apple, grape and orange juices).

It's funny, on the mini 3 day juice fast I did to prepare for this one, I did a quick calculation in fitday.com of an all orange juice day. I drink till I'm full, I never worry about how many calories (if I'm getting enough, or too much etc) and when I put the juice I'd had in (equiv to 30 oranges that day), I'd had a whopping 150% of my daily calcium needs (that's US RDI, our RDI is lower, so I'd had even more!) and 1800 calories, which is almost spot on for me and my exercise levels. How bout that intuitive eating! Or,in this case, drinking. Other things were surprisingly high too, and you can guess my Vit C intake was off the charts!

All this on a fast, which I do to give the body a rest and clean out my digestive system.

I'm already losing weight as well, seems weird as I am intaking calories, but this happens to me when I fast, even though I might intake enough calories. I'm just hoping I don't lose a dramatic amount of weight, though I have significant padding, so thats a plus!

Day 28 of a 30 day juice fast and I'm going strong! Actually, I'm thinking of extending it out to possibly 60 days but we'll see how it goes.

Although I'm not getting cravings, I am getting hankerings (very different) for things like a simple lettuce leaf with slice vegies and avocado rolled up, and my favourite salad of cos (romaine) lettuce, chopped tomato, a pinch of salt and a dash of cold pressed oil.

It's definitely been a mental evolution for me, and one that I'm grateful for. And the benefits have been wonderful, clearer, younger looking skin, weight loss, cleaning out of the digestive system and other stuff.

The only drawback is getting enough greens (and therefore iron) into me, I usually drink green smoothies and eat tons of green salads, so it's a little weird to juice my greens, but I'm getting there with upping the green juices.

And my energy levels are even better, when I get enough calories, which is sometimes hard for me as I'm busy and juicing enough or getting to a juice bar can be a little hard. I laugh at that really, ME, not getting enough calories, NEVER happens on solid foods!

Must away as I'm volunteering at a sustainable festival today!

Hi. I really admire your dedication and energy, and i just wanted to drop a note about something you said in your first post on this thread. You mentioned how really busy you have been and how you now thought it more important to reduce amount of things you do to focus on yourself and, well, i applaude you for that. I know a lot of people who always need to put a week into one day, but alrhough they see what is happening to them then they say it's part of who they are, and eventually they burn out or get really sick. So well done for being kind to yourself. Me, it's very different. I just started 30 days raw challenge with myself, and am still in the foggy cooked processed daze right now, but am hoping things will change soon. Good luck with everything you want to accomplish. X