I signed up here last year when I was first looking at raw and wanted to ask for advice. People here were helpful, but I drifted away and never really gave it a good chance.

I had a challenging year. Though I never ate especially badly I saw that my diet and health were beginning to suffer and I decided to give raw a real chance. I started a month ago, at about 80%, and have been drifting to higher percentages since then. I'm feeling really great about it so far. I feel good and expect to feel better in another month. Just this week I remembered this board and managed to find it again through the magic of Google.

I'm in central New York, where we're just getting into our lushest time of year, and I have a great farmer's market. To continue as I'm going won't be difficult for the next couple of months, but when winter comes it will be different. If I am going to make a longer term commitment to raw food, then my challenge is to find both the knowledge and enthusiasm to deal with it through a New York winter. For the greater part of last winter I couldn't get a leaf of lettuce not imported from California, or a red bell pepper not imported from Israel or Holland. To buy large amounts of the imported vegetables would be both expensive and environmentally irresponsible. I'm sure that there is a balance to be found, and I'm hoping that this community will help me to find it over the course of this fall.