Hi all!

I have never posted to a message board in my life, but I felt very compelled to do so today : )

I am not raw yet, more like 50-60% but I have been considering high/100% the last few days. I wanted to share the following experience with you all because it has been so wonderful for me. A lot of people, when adopting a diet that is less than mainstream, encounter lots of negativity and critiscm, sometimes especially from loved ones and family. I just wanted to share how lucky I am to be having quite the opposite experience, which is plesantly surprising. So here goes:

I have currently been a vegan for only about 3 months now. I was pretty well supported in that area, although no one was really jumping up and down for joy at my "I am now a vegan" announcement, but my friends and family have been curtious and supportive. My first raw experience was two weeks ago when my mother and I were visiting New York. We had the chance to go to Pure Food and Wine (a raw vegan restaurant) where I had the most amazing raw lasagna ever, I have to admit I was very intrigued.

Skip ahead to the past three days where I have been at my parents house with nothing much to do. I started reading posts on this board and have become very interested in a raw diet. I slowly started talking to my mom about what I have read and she is quite supportive of the whole thing (I wasn't too worried about her). Then my boyfriend, who is a die-hard (literaly: ) meat-eater (to the point where he actually picks around the vegetables to get all the meat) came to town yesterday and declared (after his Wednesday meal of deep fried spam, gag) that from now on he's gonna eat whatever I eat. I was quite excited, yet nervous because I hadn't told him about the raw food thing yet. So I hesitantly mentioned it and he was actually very receptive, told me I couldn't scare him off, he's still eating what I make, and even purchased two raw cookbooks for me! Gotta love him.

Then the most recent and suprising sign that this is the right path for me came about 10 minutes ago. I went into the kitchen and my mom said to me "did you see the newspaper article your father brought home from work for you?" I said nope. So she brought it over to me and whadda ya know, the article was entitled "Some like it Raw", all about raw food being wonderful. Apparently my dad was quite excited when he showed it to my mom, exclaiming "did you know you can use a spiral cutter to make spaghetti out of zucchini?" (my exact words to her not 2 hours previously). Although I think he might have been mostly excited because he has a garden. With zucchini. Ergo our kitchen is covered in zucchini the size of my leg. Regardless, my dad being into this is a VERY big deal. I tried vegetarianism once before about 10 years ago and he immediately started making one pot meals, with pieces of meat so small you couldn't pick them out. He has been much better this time of course, even making me special vegan dishes. But excited over raw? I never would have thought it.

I have been very uplifted by this experience (although my sister doesn't know yet. heh)so I am now convinced this will work for me. I have a wedding to go to tomorrow (hints why I'm at my parents house) but as soon as I am back in Toronto and in control of my environment a little more, I am so there with the raw!

Just thought I'd share.

-Ashley

Great story!!!

That boyfriend sounds like a keeper, family too.

Maybe with such a health crisis going on we will hear of more stories like this.

Yes, I just wanna ask my family who they are and what have they done with my real family : )

My boyfriend spent the day with his parents and said he told his dad that I was going to try and eat raw. I was totally expecting the "oh, that Ashley is getting weird" response but instead he said his dad was quite impressed and even stated that the health benefits of a raw diet were practically immeasurable. I'm flabergasted. I feel like I'm in an alternate universe or something where everyone is tolerant and excepting. I like it here : )

-Ashley

I got that response from my family too, when I first started!! I was baffled.

Maybe there's some recognizable flicker of universal truth that goes off in some peoples' brains? So that it doesn't matter how health-conscious anyone is to begin with? That's the only thing I can think of. Otherwise, I have no idea.

Me personally, I was always really health-conscious, but I was really skeptical of raw - I needed extensive proof from an M.D. to believe the claims, otherwise I wouldn't have believed it. But apparently, some people don't need all that.

Well, Have fun!

Thanks, will do!!