Hi friends,

Having recently returned from India to London now i'd like to meet any other raw food friends living here in addition to the ones i know already. In the past i have done different "spiritual" practices but i've found out that no matter what other stuff i do only raw food gives me that special energy and clarity. Even if i'd meditate all the time if i don't eat only that which is alive my being feels dead. We truly are what we eat. Of course that also includes all kinds of emotions and other mental processes we consume daily but everything starts with physical food first.

So first an introduction. My name is Yari (it is a word in Urdu and means "a friend" i'm 28 years young male born in Finland but left the country for good 7 years ago it was never my home. Ever since those 7 years i've been traveling a lot especially in India trying to find myself and found him there at some point. To accomplish that i tried different things and here is a short list of them; 10 day silent Vipassana courses which i did 5 (in India), living in a permaculture community in India for 6 months (Auroville), hatha yoga (which i still practice daily), visiting Amma a few times in her ashram in Kerala India, living in an Osho community here in UK for 4 months (Croydon Hall), a few workshops at Osho Leela, studying traditional Thai yoga massage in Thailand and India, and my latest love is contact improvisation dance... Well that's the list for now.

And i found raw food nearly 3 years ago. Ever since i was child i never felt right about eating meat my parents and in the school they were basically just giving false information to me we need it. Of course logically i know they didn't know either but still my feelings are a bit bitter about it. Then at 17 i found a book about how people live in India and i read so many people are vegetarian, then i stopped eating meat from that moment on. Still i continued eating dairy but somewhere along the way i felt my body saying no to it. While in India about 3 years ago i became ill with stomach problems they found i have amoeba. Having lost any trust in western "medical science" already as a child i tried other alternatives like ayurveda but it didn't help for more than few weeks. In Thailand shortly after i tried Chinese medicine and acupuncture but again the same result. After that my body was basically saying enough of all these bad tasting herbal pills and powders he was saying "now i want nothing anymore". So at that moment all the information i was reading in "The Sunfood diet success system" by David Wolfe about 6 months before suddenly flashed in my brain then i felt like fasting and starting to eat ONLY grapes. It goes without saying it healed me and ever since that my journey has been getting better as i continue on the raw path.

Still i'm not 100% raw but it is not my "goal" just allow my body to lead me as always. At the moment it would be about 95%. Some cooked things i have are homous and cooked potatoes. Not that my body would ask for them it is totally emotional. As a child and teenager i was eating for emotional reasons all the time so i know all about that my weight back then was about 120 KG (18 stones or 265 pounds), now i'm about 70KG (11 stones or 155 pounds).

A few thing i never ever eat is bread or any kind of grains (not even sprouted) and raw garlic or onion (tried a few times they give me an incredibly odd feeling in the brain like on some drug). Also my body doesn't really like root vegetables, most sprouts besides lentil and sunflower (most sprouts simply give me a lot of gas), anything with spices, too many combinations in one dish or oils. Also i feel that my body needs the water to be in the food i don't like "raw crackers" or any dehydrated stuff. Would my body be alive if all the water would be dehydrated away from it? It feels to me same is the case with food, maybe scientifically you can call crackers raw but for my body they feel almost dead. Without knowing what exactly is natural hygiene i think my body wants to eat like that. For example i don't drink juices i feel like getting on high from them and some people say it is because the fiber in the fruit is needed otherwise the sugar just goes to your blood direct and gives you a high. And i don't like to use blender for anything it gives me a heavy feeling in the digestion to eat anything blended. Also mixing too many things together in a salad makes me feel a bit unwell like my stomach takes too much energy to try and solve the mess inside. Also i don't really like to use any oil not even hemp or flax, anyway they are processes to sit in these bottles and i don't feel they are really natural. Most of the time i find it such a joy just to eat single fruits. And i also found if i do so without mixing anything together there comes a point when the taste changes and so my body is giving a signal "that is enough" so i never would eat too much this way.

Of course i know we are all on individual journeys so all i want is to tell you what my body is telling me. All of us have our best teachers in us we only need to learn to listen and respect that voice (or feeling) inside of us.

Would love to meet any other raw people here in London.

Love and hugs
Yari

hi Yari did you happen to make it up to Nepal while you were there? i lived in kathmandu for a year (2001-2002)

was the most amazing time of my life

dhal baat haha .. lived on it, when i landed there and saw how meat was handled i become and instant vegetarian

dhal baat and fresh fruit was my diet for the year

the local people got to calling me (notsure of spelling) chi(a) mara - Tea Killer lol cuz i drank so much tea hahaha

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/2007 01:56PM by Jgunn.