I would like to know what inspired you to eat vegan live food? (inner call or outside influence/inspiration)?

For me, it was an inner call in 1985. I am continuously grateful to have followed & honored it.

Delphine
Conscious Living Coach:
Bringing Balance & Serenity to Life.
www.EmotionalSerenity.com

I wanted to live in accordance with my values.

I wanted to look and feel good for as long as possible.

I was on the path for a while but was propelled by illness in our family. My six year old and I were both getting sicker and sicker.

1985 my goodness, I was 2.

always always I've craved carrots and brocolli totally plain and raw. Long beore I went raw, a friend said "a sale on brocolli to you is like a sale on hagen Daaz for me."

I felt it was time to just focus. I'd left a bad relationship (and tons of baking to make up for it) on the other side of the country. I knew about raw, (was veg'n for 6-7 years, and once worked in a vegan+raw kitchen) and I thought it would be a good positive distraction from my mind.

Instead, it totally brought my mind into full attention, and I could so clearly deal with my thoughts and disrupted feelings.
I thought I'd do it for a month, maybe two. Now here I am, month 9. No plan to end. I reassess this lifestyle everyday, and decide everyday to keep on doing it. If I decide to change one day, so it goes.

measure twice, cut once.

"In Watermelon Sugar the deeds were done and done again as my life is done in watermelon sugar." ~r.brautigan

I make paintings

High blood pressure, poor physique, a new niece....and new goals.

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

I second both youre reasons arugula. Also for me, a serious eating disorder from an early age left me with many health problems (mostly related to my digestion) and a continous unhealthy relationship with food. Finally I was just ready to be done with it.

ibs and a new job managing a sprout farm/living foods resource center.

that was my intro to raw. at first i thought it was completely and totally crazy but after reading for two days i did it 100% and cured that incurable digestive ailment for good.

The biggest reason for me was that I was a compulsive overeater. For years I've been obsessed with my self image and totally depressed. To numb myself I ate heavy dense foods, only making myself more depressed, I got to the point where I just hated myself.

I'm only 20, and I just figured I would be miserable forever, I always tried to lose weight but I never followed through with it.

My friend started the raw food diet, and I thought it was really a good idea, but I just shrugged it off thinking I would never be able to do something like that, so I decided I would become vegan instead.

Being a vegan did not help me at all, I just found ways to replace all my heavy foods with vegan alternatives. I became closer with my raw food friend and listened to him talk about how amazing it was, and I realized it wouldn't be as hard as I thought.

So one day I decided to try it. It was hard at first, but, I loved it. I found it almost impossible to overeat because for the first time in my life I was listening to my body.

I've been almost 100 percent raw four months and my depression is gone, I've lost a lot of excess weight, and I have the craziest amount of energy. I try to follow the guidelines of the 80/10/10, but I'm not incredibly strict about it, like I said, I listen to what my body tells me.

As far as I'm concerned I've been totally blessed with the raw foods lifestyle. I never thought I could be this happy just by eating better, but its enhanced every part of my life.

I started in order to save my life, lose weight, regain health, and after 5 years on my raw food journey I have lost of weight, have renewed good health, better eyesight, more energy, more clear thought, better skin, I can breath (that's a big one I can sleep on my back again, and much more!

I'm off my thyroid meds after 31 years, I'm not on any meds except for some supplements as I'm hypothyroid and I do take Iodine now, and some other companion supplements, I've done parasite cleanses, colon cleanses, and am learning about my digestive tract now and working on that with daily and nightly massages, and am reading the awesome book The China Study currently which I'm loving.

I've met a lot of raw fooders over these 5 years, have made some lasting friendships with some of them, and I'm looking forward to the next 50 years now when before I was wondering how I was going to live to be 60. I'm currently 55.

Love,
Prism

At first I got inspired because I went to college for a year and got turned on to the ethics of eating vegan (such as solving world hunger).... then I saw a show on raw food on the local cable TV show and thought - wow this makes sense!! But then I realized how hard it was (and expensive, compared to my top ramen/Cinnabon diet (worked there for 7 years and got em for free)! Now here I am ten years later trying to get re-started. For me a lot of the journey to raw has been finances.

I don't tolerate whole grains AT ALL, so I just got sicker on the vegan diet since it's mostly grain-based. Not only that, but I realized during my recent pregnancy I have probably been diabetic or pre-diabetic for 15 years. I had kind of a bum experience with being pregnant last year - I was ssssoooooo sick the whole time with high blood sugar, nausea, and just couldn't function at all. After what I saw it did to my son (he had to be in the NICU four days because of his reaction to my constant high blood sugar - his body responded with extremely low blood sugar) I thought - this is it. No more!!

So while I am still only 50-75% raw, I am a total believer, and once I can get my garden going strong I can move more towards 100%.

-Angie

After drinking my first green smoothie I experienced something I had never done before, that was a feeling of being thoroughly nourished by food as opposed to just filled by food. The rest is history.

when I was 18 I dated this guy who was straight edge vegan. Both concept were new to me, but the radical crowd became a real annoyance. I've always loved animals and wanted to be a vegetarian all my life before my parents "let me".
It never occurred to me that milk can be bad, too!
So I got into that and kept going even tho I broke up with the guy.
The same year a friend lent me a raw food book that she got from who knows where lol. It's been a long journey.

The more fresh fruits and vegetables I eat, the better It took me a long time to figure that out. I'm a slow learner.

Lee