Greetings, everyone! I've been interested in raw for several years, and have been making attempts to go entirely raw over the past year.

A year ago, I began working at a company that feeds all employees a catered lunch every day. At first, this was a big setback for me in my path to raw. Why go to the trouble of putting a day's worth of raw meals together when there was a huge, catered lunch at work? For months I ate these cooked meals every day at lunch, though I was raw most of the rest of the time. It turned out that the free lunches were my biggest incentive to go completely raw. Why? The chef insists on cooking everything in oil... all the vegetables, even. Every single thing is cooked. And every single thing made my stomach hurt, with all the heating and frying and oil in everything. I felt heavy and crashy all afternoon after eating these heavy meals. I began to make all raw foods at home. The more raw foods I ate at home, the less appealing the cooked food began to look. Every day less and less of the food looked appetizing to me. It looked bland, heavy, toxic. I began noticing that cooked food is just one or another variety of starch with some butter on top. Everything was a bland shade of yellow.

By several months ago, I noticed that I had stopped eating more than a bite of anything at work, and that the less I ate, the better I felt.

The natural thing to do now is to be raw. Cooked food doesn't look good to me-- even organic breads look heavy and less appealing than the beautiful fruits and vegetables at the market.

So here I am, attempting to finally go completely raw. I have successfully been raw over the past three day weekends, and felt great.

I'm still working on getting through a day at work. It isn't that I want to eat the huge spread of food (none of it looks appealing to me-- even the fruit salad is bad, because it tastes like pesticides), it's that I have a wierd situation: I feel like it looks rude to turn down a free lunch that many others would be grateful to have. I'm going to try to get around this by keeping fruit in my bag and live crackers in my bag and eating large, nutrient-filled smoothies in the morning.

Anyway, I look forward to sharing my experiences with you here. So far my experience with eating raw is that it is the first thing that has helped me heal, emotionally and physically, from things that have bothered me for a long time... like depression, panic attacks, and so forth. Eating raw has already been a true gift, and I look forward to extending the joy through every day.

I think your story is wonderful and inspiring. It is a microcosm of the sort of 'temptation' and social temptation that people face every day! You really have to be aware of what you want.

-It's like work....is it ok to accept less.....to do a worse job....just because no one is looking.....or no one REQUIRES you to do a better job?

-This is the kind of small personal decision that no one sees - that changes your soul forever.

-You've made it - and are stronger for it!

-David Mason

Okay, checking on on Friday afternoon. It was an interesting week. I figured out that if I bring raw bread (made from almond meal and flax seeds), a jar of raw almond butter, and some bananas, I can eat that for lunch every day and be perfectly satisfied. I did this every day this week (I had to sneak out to the park to eat my raw banana sandwiches so that no one would wonder what I was eating). I felt awesome. Not only did I get to eat these delicious sandwiches, but I got to sit outside in the sun. So nice!

I felt great all week and noticed that my skin is getting glowier than I thought possible. My mood has been excellent as well-- less mood swings and moments of doubt and envy.

There were a few setbacks in the evenings, when I would still be at work around 6 and the catered dinner would come in. One night I ate some of the homemade tortilla chips with guacamole. I felt bad afterward due to the extreme saltiness of the chips. I've noticed that as I've been eating raw, I've become much more sensitive to salt. I still like salt in the form of sole in my orange juice in the morning, but I can't handle the heavy, commercial salt in restaurant foods. I'm grateful for this sensitivity, though, because it keeps me from enjoying bad foods that I formerly would have tolerated. I don't think I'll be eating those chips again.

Last night I knew I wouldn't be home until ten at night, and I ate some of the mashed potatoes at work. They tasted like sawdust, but I ate them because I needed energy. I didn't get any energy from them. Probably won't do that again. I like these small experiments with cooked foods because they show me exactly why I prefer to eat raw food. I like the fact that raw is something I desire and not something that I'm forcing myself to do. Now I just need to develop a better planning strategy to avoid these evening issues. It will be better in a few weeks when I move closer to my office (right now I have an hour commute) and I can go home easily to eat.

Thanks for the words, David Mason! I agree that it is very interesting and inspiring to realize the choices one has, and to make the healthiest choice freely.

Yum! I discovered that you can make amazing raw rolls by spreading almond pate on chard leaves and wrapping them around chopped carrots/herbs/beets/avocados... YUM! I'm going to start making these to take to work for lunch. It's all about portable raw food I can sneak into the office! Loving it.