Today I had for lunch

2 apples
2 oranges
4 bananas
1 California avocado.

Some of my coworkers gave me grief on multiple levels. I was surprised at how much it hurt my feelings.

Does anyone else have this sensitivity to comments?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/23/2007 09:18PM by arugula.

Sometimes.

Did you feel your intelligence was being attacked? As if your sanity were in question, and therefore all your decisions and competency were suspect?

wow it must be hard to work with neanderthals like that arugula

yes ive been hurt

but i have a bit of a vindictive streak in me .. id probably wait till everyone had gone home for the day and put slaughter pics of all their favorite animal meals on the screensavers

then i have to sit back and breathe an realized they just dont know any better its alot like schoool yard bullies ..they have strength in numbers but when you corner them alone ..it takes the wind out of their sales .. you could probably try and talk to them one on one and let em know how crapolla they made you feel ..i generally dont have much problem playing this guilt card when needed lol

although i do remember that time that little blonde girl kept stomping mud all over my new black patent leather shoes ... i whipped a swingseat at her head

she got a free ride to the hospital and i got 3 days off from school .. probably not one of my more shining moments

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

It surprises me coming from you, arugula. Haven't you been eating this way for a while? Aren't your co-workers used to it? I bet you are feeling vulnerable for other reasons too. Sometimes when I am on my period I am more sensitive to many things. Sorry it hurt your feelings. Just remember we are all out here and you're not the only one not eating the junk other's call food.

-You must have been upset. Still, you must maintain your dignity boundaries. Your sex life, religion, and diet are all very personal issues. Indicate (with humor) that you don't want to discuss it.

-Be compassionate. Do you really expect others to understand/condone what you are doing? If you support THEM.....and just don't focus on their attention on you....you know? You should have good results. If people hassle me at work (which never happens).....I would give 'em the old....LATERS....and get to doing my job....and let my feet do the walkin/talking. That's what I'm there for (to do the job).......that's what they pay me for anyway! (not just for my good looks!)

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

sometimes when i get grief from people
i ask them, with as much sincerity as i can gather:
"what would you like for me to eat"

then i raise my eyebrows and say REALLY?
no i say i'll think about it

if they bring it up again i say i considered their kind suggestion
but decided i like my food better, and thanks

Are you sure they're giving you grief and not just doing affectionate teasing?

I worked in the service industry for several years (with tourists) and one thing I noticed is that I always remembered the jerks and the bad tippers the most. Unfortunately the nice people, unless they were remarkably wonderful, did not seem to make a lasting impression. When I went home at the end of the day I always remembered the rude folks. I started trying to focus more on remembering people who were kind or who otherwise made me feel good.

I've also recently been dealing with this dynamic since becoming raw 3+ months ago. At first I would get many negative comments. I can take a certain amount of casual joking, but there were times when I felt insulted or belittled. I began to just tune it out, breath deep and smile with the fact that i didn't have to wake up as that person... in their body... with their attitude and their impending choice of dis-ease. As soon as I switched my attitude I began to notice several people who sought me out for inspiration... people who felt hopeless about their health until they saw the changes that I've made in my life. These are the people that I engage with now and it feels great. The people with negative comments are living in fear, and worse, they don't believe that they are important enough to heal and thrive as beautiful people.

Now I treat the negative people with the same compassion that a parent would have for a child who keeps making the same mistakes, but who will not listen to wisdom.... let them make the mistakes until they are ready to learn... focus on being an example for the people who let themselves be inspired by you and the negativity will fade into backgroud noise.

Every time that I find myself under "attack" by others over my choices in the food I eat, I try to remind myself that the PRIMARY reason that I'm being verbally attacked is that the person doing the attacking is almost always VERY insecure over their own food choices..

These people are generally questioning their own eating habits, & feel compelled to denigrate others in order to feel good about themselves..

It's amazing how often these types of conversations are started & conducted by people who "Are only trying to help you; as I am your friend, & I feel the need to speak to you about this"..

When I first attempted raw last year these conversations would always get me revved up & going..They seldom ended with the concerned person really listening to what MY point of view was..

I used to go completly on the defensive, debating every point & generally getting more & more upset with every word spoken..

Now I try to defuse the situation with as innocuous a comment as I feel is needed; depending on the person attacking me's personality, the amount of venom in their comments, etc..

In other words, get out of the conversation as quickly as possible; as there will be absolutely nothing in it for me to continue talking with this person..

And if that does not work, walk away; something that may or may not be possible in an office environment..

The other thing that helps me not to get upset any longer, is that I remind myself that people eating a raw food diet are truly in the MINORITY..

And because we are in the minority, we will ALWAYS be a convienent target for those with insecurities..

Our point of view is virtually never preasented to the public at large in an unbiased manner that is calculated to educate & inform..

For instance I watched part of the segment on Oprah yesterday about the woman with liver & lung cancer who has used eating raw as a means of stabilizing her cancer..

While I did not get to see the entire segment. that part of the segment that I was able to view spent VERY LITTLE time emphasizing the dietary changes that she had made, the difficulty of those changes, & how the changes had effected the stabilization of her cancer..

Virtually all of the part of the segment that I watched was about the physchological aspects of beating the cancer into remission..

It was all "touchy-feely", filmed & edited to evoke the sympathy of the viewing audience..

I guess some exposure on a show such as Oprah, is better than no exposure at all..

I will be the first to acknowledge that having a positive attitude is of paramount importance in switching over to a raw diet, much less coping with & beating a generally fatal form of cancer into remission..

That being said, until someone of true prominence in society that has access to the media is able to get the raw message out to the gereral public, I don't see things changing much any time in the near future..

What we need is a serious reporter to write or film a piece, that does not get chopped up & edited to the point of losing our raw message, to put our points across..

We also need first class thinking physicians & researchers to look at the raw diet, & conduct a series of long-running double blind studies to find out what it is about raw foods & the human metabolism that allows us to heal most anything that attacks us..

Unfortunately, I don't see that happening as the people invested in our current medical system want drugs & procedures that can be patented for profit..

Regardless of how incredible the human body is at healing & preventing illness; there is no profit to be made by getting people to eat a raw diet & healing from within..

We could in all likeliehood completly change the medical landscape & the improve the health of our nation by thousands of percentage points just with the raw diet..

We can only hope that society as a whole will sometime in the future come around to the raw way of thinking & eating..

Bruce

Yes, I've been doing it for years, I think it's 4 or 5 years now. But these are new people on a new job. It's really only two of them. I suppose there is an element of repressed guilt involved with those two; all they ever eat is SAD.

The rest are considerably more enlightened and positive.

Must learn to be a better person!

And yes, pakd4fun, the last few days I have been particularly sensitive. A very dark cloud from my past has resurfaced and I am having difficulty dealing with it.

baltochef Wrote:


> We also need first class thinking physicians &
> researchers to look at the raw diet, & conduct a
> series of long-running double blind studies to
> find out what it is about raw foods & the human
> metabolism that allows us to heal most anything
> that attacks us..

Luigi Fontana is doing just that. Helen Vlassara
is also doing it.

> Unfortunately, I don't see that happening as the
> people invested in our current medical system want
> drugs & procedures that can be patented for
> profit..

It's difficult to get funding for preventative
studies. It's easier to fund a new pill for
diabetes or a new statin. This is perversion but
there are rays of hope.

I like to use the "You are what you eat" retort.

I've taken a "no more mister nice guy" approach. Usually the people who criticize me for being raw are the same ones who complain about their own physical ailments.
Which one of us has been popping tylenol all day? Which one of us looks 10 years older than he really is? Which one of us has gone 3 years without a sick day? The list goes on and on.

My favourite is "you aren't getting enough protein". OK, let's go a few rounds and then you can tell me if I'm not getting enough protein.

inspirit - aka coolkarma

Haha, that's funny inspirit have to agree with you to a certain extent!

Hey arugula, sorry to hear that you had your feelings hurt. For some reason I tend not to be bothered in the slightest by those kinds of comments from people. I've never had anyone be really mean to me though, with an intent to hurt my feelings. If I don't know them well, I just tend to think that they're probably not aware of a lot of issues related to diet and so on, and they are just repeating things they've been told rather than things they really think. So I don't take it personally in that sense. I usually take the discussion to the science of it very quickly, and that usually stops things in their tracks When people ask me why I'm vegetarian I go through my three main points: the moral argument (the least effective unfortunately) , the environmental argument (the most irrefutable) and the health argument (the most controversial for most people).

Hope things get better and the next few days are brighter

Cheers,
J

lol inspirit
That makes me grin
I know what you mean though... these people are the ones that don't realise that ill health is actualy NOT normal. They do some physical excersize and start falling apart etc. They need all the support they can get realy.

I get strange comments here and there but for the most part they are curious. I don't give them the whole story, I just tell them that I enjoy live food. I find its my own ego that allows me to be hurt by others. I sometimes have to remind myself that "why should they even care?" and "what do I care what they think." I am confident in my choices and love how they make me feel.

I agree that they are more likely threatened by your choices and feel guilty about their's.

I think what really upsets me concerning coments about what I eat is the fact that some people are questioning my judgment and weather I have all my thinking capacities. The last coment was from my sister-in-lay who simply stated "she loved her protien" Nothing to say about that but I just had a flash visual of her eating raw flesh, not a pretty sight.

Arugula,
tell them how well you feel, and how much more energy you have since eating healthy...
maybe then they'll think twice to make such comments
take care,
Mel

Alkaline Food / Green Food Chart With pH Scale

I have been dealing with the same jokes, the same old lines for years now. You can't let it get to you. I just learn to laugh at myself from their perspective. From their point of view they have no clue and I can see how funny or odd it is to them. I would have thought the same years before myself so how can I blame them??

Feeling bad or hurt is hard to imagine. I made the choice to do this, so if peoples thoughts or words are gonna bring me down I'd question my choices, which I don't.

I admit some days, the same old pine cone and needles for lunch joke, makes me do want to ring someones neck :O)

Arugula, I hope you work through what is bringing you down and feel better soon. Let other's comments roll off your back and be glad you aren't stuck in the elementary school mentality as some are, using other's weak points to feel better about themselves. It might make you feel better to treat them nicer than they treat you. It might make them rethink their strategy and you will feel good about yourself too. Like when they say something about your lunch you say "What a nice blouse you have on."

This thread makes me feel grateful for the co-workers I have. They're usually quite nice and curious about how I'm eating. Some of them seem to feel pity for me at work events when they're eating their chicken or vegetarian options while I make do with just the salad. This is understandable though, since the salads at work luncheons always suck. I occasionally get odd comments like, "I wish I could eat that healthy". This one makes my jaw want to drop, but it isn't mean.

Yeah, when I first started out I got a lot of attack come from out of no where, I stood my ground and over time those same people would comment on how fit I looked, I think some people simply feel defensive because deep down their body is telling them what it needs and the fact that they are going against that natural/primal instinct creates internal conflict!!!

Stay strong and be good!

F1

I work here since three years and I co-workers are used to seeing me with 1-2 "elephant sized" tupperware boxes filled with vegs or fruit. I get teased, but I'm very immune against it by now.
There's also other peculiar people here - the japanese staff constantly munches on their rice crackers which creates a ever present cloud of senbei-smell around their area that is also subject to jokes. Then we have a bodybuilder who keeps a 20 pound bag of whey on his desk, the Latino staff aggravates other by bringing in foods that have a strong smell and so on...but fortunately it's live and let live.

If I ever get bad comments, they come out of people's defensiveness, like was already said and thus they don't affect me.

Yeah, it turns out to be affectionate bantering after all.

I am ok.

Just was having a bad day, misinterpreting stuff.

I have probably been dealing with children for too long, but I think the best approach is good old-fashioned honesty.

If you were to say to those people that the comments they make are hurtful to you, and that you would not make hurtful comments to them about their lunch choices, I bet you would get a good response. By taking the attitude that these people are not the type of people to ever do anything unkind, who must have only hurt your feelings by mistake, they will most likely jump at the chance to prove you right. In fact, that is probably the truth - they just don't know that the comments were hurtful.

Besides, put yourself in their position - what if you had done something that hurt someone, and you were totally unaware of it. You might continue to do that to them, and eventually they would be very resentful of you. Worst of all, you would have no idea why! Wouldn't you prefer to be told (in a nice way) of your mistake?

Sapphire

I am 60 now, and figured out when I was about 14: My friends will understand, and no one else's opinions really matter.
When your coworkers ridicule or undermine your nutritional choices, just smile and tune them out. You know you are eating live, vibrant food while they are consuming dead stuff that contributes to their ignorance and insensitivity.

i totally know how you feel! i started a new job a few weeks ago and everyone watches me eat. i live in a small town in ireland and people here just think i am going to die because i don't eat meat. and i would like to add that they do not think fish and cheese are meat!!!!!!!! so they really think i am crazy!! i try not to attract attention to my food because i do not want to debate with such ignorance. i am the most cheerful, most energetic, and most in shape person there. and i just let that speak for itself.

you can not argue with crazy people.

i like everyone i work with, but i refuse to discuss my diet with them. as i do not constantly ask them why they eat processed poison daily. i see no need to explain my food choices to them. i just smile and tell them i eat what i like and after about 2 weeks they are used to it. no more strange looks and comments.

Ha!

I love it when they tell me how "unhealthy" it is. ~Where does your protein come from~ Yikes! I'm so glad I'm a mellow person!
Follow your heart!
Jan

www.myspace.com/greeneyedvegangirl
GO VEGAN!

Yesterday I was eating a spinach salad with shredded squash, zucchini, and carrots with avacoda and some home made dressing with a side of essene bread... one of my co-workers comes in and says that it smells like "motor-oil and vaseline" ??????? I was like, "okaaaay"
And the people who work here are those that eat all "organic" because of all their ailments but eat meats, packaged desserts, etc. that are "organic." They then proceed to tell me how I cannot get any nutrients from this diet and so on... and I just simply reply "If I cannot get nutrients from uncooked food, then how do you get nutrients from cooked foods that have had all the nutrients cooked out of them?"

Before I went raw I was 100% vegan for almost 2 years and still was harassed about that and got comments such "Well I eat healthier than you because everything I eat is organic, plus I get my protein." (Same people that eat "organic" oreos and "organic" mayo on their "organic" hamburgers)

It's sad that people have to make fun of things they are uncomfortable with. My co-workers have even told me that they wish they had the discipline to go even pseudo-raw and then later tell me that they try to eat something raw with every meal.

I have a different experience, I bring small container of wheatgrass or sunflower sprouts in my office and some of my coworkers got into rawfood from discussion on those displays in my office. I have small blender for making my smoothies and the comments are usually good.