Raw Inspiration

"I don't understand why asking people to eat a well-balanced vegetarian diet is considered drastic, while it is medically conservative to cut people open and put them on cholesterol- lowering drugs for the rest of their lives."


- Dean Ornish, MD

So we take a short break from MYCM's constant flood of music, news, and other media for a quick word about your health...

For those of you who don't know me, three weeks ago I finally made the transition back to raw veganism (I had been completely raw for a few months back in 2005.) Raw veganism is a variation of the vegan diet consisting of plant-based food which is prepared and consumed uncooked. It is also a derivative of the raw food diet.
(Wikipedia article on Raw Food)

Three weeks ago I was depressed and unhappy, bored and uninspired, just lifeless. Today, weeks of live foods later, its like 180º. I'm practically bouncing up and down as I type - and that clementine I just ate felt like the best thing I've ever tasted. Raw energy.



While I don't like to push things in people's faces, I do urge you to check it out for yourself. At the very least, try to introduce more live fruits and vegetables into your diet. But be sure they're organic. Why?

Many pesticides approved for use by the EPA were registered before extensive research linking these chemicals to cancer and other diseases has been established. Now the EPA considers that 60 percent of all herbicides, 90 percent of all fungicides and 30 percent of all inscecticides are carcinogenic. A 1987 National Academy of Sciences report estimated that pesticides might cause an extras 1.4 million cancer cases among Americans over their lifetimes. The bottom line is that pesticides are poisons designed to kill living organisms, and can also be harmful to humans. In addition to cancer, pesticides are implicated in birth defects, nerve damage and genetic mutation.

Thats the selfish reason to go organic - see this page for more reasons.

I know what you're thinking - "What the hell does a vegan eat anyway?" We vegans get asked that a lot - and one of us finally got sick of it. Check out What the hell does a vegan eat anyway?, the daily food blog (with pictures!) of a vegan. Look back through the archives for Raw Food Wednesday to see some raw dishes as well.

Thanks to We Like It Raw, the raw food lifestyle guide for the hip and healthy, for the link.

Yeah I heard that snicker. "Hip? More like hippie!" you say. Not true (anymore.)



Restaurants such as Pure Food & Wine in NYC have made raw food glamorous and gourmet. Even the New York Times did a feature a few weeks back on the raw food trend at expensive resorts.

Check it out.