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I am writing to you all for some help! I have been trying to live the raw lifestyle for the past 6 months. Some weeks are truly better than others! I work a very stressful sales job, which includes several meals out during the week. Lunches are ok, but dinners are hard. With so many people, and me being the host – no one really wants to go to anything but a steak house here in Boston. Unfortunately, there are no raw restaurants in the city for me to take customers to. I try to order salads with all veggies, but invariably it turns into a discussion about how I eat and why I don’t eart more. Some customers understand, as I have been wheat intolerant for 4 years – but the raw pushes them over the edge! The woman are curious if they can go on this “diet” too.. AAARRRGGGG… it’s really annoying. They are really just ignorant to health living – but the pressure leads to to go off
That is 50% of the problem. The rest is that once I go off( dessert, only sorbet, or cooked veggies – I feel terrible. I get back on track and then have to travel again. So – because of this constant see saw – I struggle to get stable. Everyday I start out with a green juice, and fruit all am…so I do feel very motivated to keep on, but traveling is so hard.
Sorry if this is confusing… I even feel like when I swap back and forth, I become more tired, foggy, and grouchy and then rely on coffee…..the worst part is that it doesn’t even really work anymore!
Help
Comments
You have touched on such an important topic. I think every real chef should be aware of the raw foodists needs and have one dish that would be available. It would be a lot more accepted if restaurants would do this. I just saw a raw foodist on t.v. yesterday and they were setting her up with a date. They did alude to her diet a little- or how they didn’t understand it. It’s interesting to me that even with celebrities supporting this life style and the many books on it that it isn’t more main stream. It’s also hard to believe that fresh food would be something you’d have to explain to someone- but we are so far away from that as a culture it’s weird. If you know where you are going I would try to call ahead and say you are on a restricted diet and if they could make something for you and tell them what you want. People have more diet restrictions than ever before and there are sports bars out here that offer the atkins diet friendly so why not raw friendly.. You could even help the understanding across the board by requesting things ahead of time. Hang in there!
Although I am not one to dance around the facts or “my truth,” I have become aware that others fears and negativity re: my diet drain me. I now tell people in business meetings that to keep my weight stable I eat light at lunch and have a big breakfast and dinner, they just think it’s some kind of diet and leave me alone. I once tried the food allergy thing ( which is the truth for me ) but it didn’t work, the whole meeting was about how I should go to the MD and get shots. Again, this is what works for me, I became very tired having to explain my diet everyday.
I also carry some raw snack bars in my car that carry me through a craving attack as others are indulging on sweet treats.
Good luck
When I need to go to a restaurant with people I will make sure I ate a bunch of fruit before so I have had enough calories and then at the restaurant I will order a green salad and if they only have a small side salad I will ask the waiter to make it enough for a meal. If I get any comments I will just say that I am not hungry for anything much and a salad is just what I feel like eating now.
It’s best to stick to the diet as much as possible because once you stray you usually stray more and more and soon you fall off the diet completely.
rfoodie There will soon be a raw food restaurant in Boston. I have a friend who is going to be a chef there. They will be opening by the end of the year so keep an eye out!
I feel your pain. I really don’t like dietary choices to be the topic of conversation, particularly at a work-related occassion. After all, you ARE there to work. Have you tried just not talking about it? I laugh and say that I’m just a really healthy eater but that there are a lot more interesting things to talk about than my salad. Then I change the subject. If they are really insistent, I say okay, we’ll talk about it later. But right now I want to know how you like Boston… or whatever. And when you place your order, don’t say that you’re raw vegan. The label is just too shiny for most people to resist! Only ask for things that can’t possibly be cooked. Most restaurants don’t have raw nuts so I don’t even waste my breath trying to order them. This seems to work and the funny thing is I still have managed to changed other people’s eating habits with the tiny bit of information I do leak out. Amazing how that works!
Thank you so much for all your helo – Zoe – When is that restaurant coming!!
What do you all think about sushi? I read mixed things??
SoCal – you are so right. Once I get off,,, I find myself going days of having “just a bite” of cooked food. It really doesn’t even taste good. Most of the time it is because I am away from home for 3-5 days at a time!
The only time this was not the cause was when I was recently out in San Diego – I took the tolley and 2 cabs to go out to Sunfood nutrition! Then I managed to leave the meeting to go grab lunch at Cilantro! What a treat!
Thanks again… Always looking for ideas.
Oh, one last thing. So when I do go off, I find terrible stomach gas, pain, bloating – you name it. My naturopath gave me some digestive enzymes, but it is not working…any suggestions??
Don’t go off it. Your body needs time to adjust, so if you do eat cooked then water fast for at least 1 day (if possible).
I’m going to San Diego tomorrow and probably will eat at Cilantro (ordering the non-spicy dishes). I will not go to Sunfoods – they do not fit in with my diet at all.
I’ll find out the details about that restaurant and post it on here when I do…you’re going to be in for a treat the girl who is going to be chef is a terrific raw uncook!
Definely let me know! I am thrilled!!
SoCal – Why not Sunfood? What do you think of David Wolfe? They are huge supporters of olives that’s for sure!
if you know its a bad decision dont do it, its that simple. when ordering dont make comments out loud like “thats all they have raw” or anything like that . order a small something and then a big salad for the entre. most people wont say a whole lot and if they do just say “yea im really in the mood for a good salad” and that is usually the end of it. if poeple are asking about this “diet” ahahaha, i look at it as my duty to try and explain to them at worst they disagree at best they become a fellow veg. or somewhere in between. i look at it like god working through me to help them.
I don’t think much of David Wolfe. He seems to be in business to only make lots of money at any cost. He puts out books that have been plagiarized, most of the products he sells are not healthy but are expensive (for example cacao, maca, and all his so called ‘superfoods’). There is a lot of hype but little value to most of the products he sells. The healthiest people never eat superfoods, they do nothing more than digest and get eliminated from your body. They are a waste of money at the very least and possibly harmful.
Socal
Thanks for the input! I am new to the raw concept(6 months ago) and really just trying to educate myself. Where do you think/Who do you think is 1. knowledgeable 2. Credible 3. Realistic??
I’m very fortunate that my co-workers are all supportive of my raw lifestyle. They’ve watched 60 lbs. melt off of me right before their eyes, and I hear nothing but encouragement and congratulations from them. Some have talked to me a bit about the raw foods lifestyle, and several people have commented that I’ve been an inspiration to them to eat healthier themselves. Now THAT makes me feel good!
Peace and Blessings, Suzy
rfoodie – Please let me jump on your question! I know people don’t much like Wolfe ( I agree the cacao and supplement thing aswell as plagurising his book Nature’s First Law is highly dodgy) Nevertheless, his book “SunFood Success Systems” is actually an excellent and widely respected book. He doesn’t try and sell his supplements in that book – unlike his other one called “Beauty Secrets” which is pretty awful in my opinion. Sunfood Success Systems is great for getting a well balanced diet set up, I really found it very helpful.
Also try the Boutenkos, Victoria Boutenko’s book 12 steps to raw and the raw family are both excellent. I think their website is http://www.rawfamily.com She cured her son’s type 1 diabetes, her daughter’s asthma and numerous other issues when she took her wholefamily raw. Her books tell the story and are a great read and a lot of help.
Also Storm and Jinjee and amazing! She has just had her 5th raw pregnancy and raw baby. Storm is 57 and looks half his age. They do good deals on their e books…find them at http://www.thegardendiet.com
Rhio is a wonderful raw food activist, her website is fab: http://www.rawfoodinfo.com/
My husband and I run a rather good website too – http://www.purelyraw.com
At Raw Food Magazine online, I came across an article, there is a note at the bottom that reads:
Note: This page is made available to you courtesy of Raw Foods News Magazine, an online newsmagazine celebrating the live and raw vegan lifestyle. Visit them at RawFoodsNewsMagazine.com
So I am sure they won’t mind a quick cut and paste:
How to Get a Raw Foods Entree in Any Restaurant
By Judy Pokras
To use this page in a restaurant:
Print out two copies. Trim them both below the line.
Keep one on file, to fax out when you’re invited to dinner at the home of a cooked foods person.
Keep one in your wallet to give to the waiter or the chef.
For dressing, you can squirt the lemons on the salad and then pour the olive oil on it. (Even if they don’t have extra virgin olive oil in a dark glass bottle, the salad tastes great with freshly squeezed lemon juice alone. Better yet, bring your own tiny bottle of olive oil or coconut oil. You might also want to bring a small plastic bag of raw nori or dulse and/or Celtic sea salt to add to the salad.)
If you’d like to make this as a recipe at home:
Put all these ingredients in a bowl, squeeze fresh lemon over them, sprinkle on some Celtic Sea Salt, and add some extra virgin first cold-pressed olive oil from a dark glass bottle, or some raw coconut oil.
Special Entree Salad Request
Note to the Chef:
I appreciate your creativity! I’m on a special raw foods diet and would like an entree-sized raw vegetable salad with as many of the following ingredients as you have available:
1. fresh (raw) greens (radicchio, arugula, escarole, endive, spinach, dark green lettuces, watercress, basil, dandelion leaves, romaine, frisee, bok-choy, etc.)
2. tomatoes
3. sun-dried tomatoes
4. olives
5. raw pine nuts
6. hot pepper
7. red bell pepper
8. cucumbers
9. avocado
10. vidalia onions and/or red onions
11. fresh herbs
12. shallots
13. jicama
14. lemon wedges, and
15. extra virgin, first cold pressed olive oil on the side that I can use as my dressing.
Thank you very much!
Thanks for the link. I hadn’t seen that site!
nsrising, that list should be modified because there are several items that are rarely if ever raw and found in a non-raw restaurant.
Sun-dried tomatoes are often heated and contain sulfites
olives are 99.9% of the time heated and treated with chemicals
pine nuts even if the package states raw can be heated
most restaurant quality olive oil is heated and heavily processed
That is ignoring the excitotoxins of course.
rfoodie, if you want to know the best source for diet and all other factors for the best of health, from someone who advises top world athletes and has cured thousands of most every chronic disease known then check out Doug Graham:
foodnsport.com
Hey Socal, I wanted to ask you about Doug Graham. I have seen many claims made about Doug and 80/10/10. But here you wrote that he had “cured thousands of most every chronic disease known”. Is this a claim that Doug makes or is this an editorial comment by yourself? Is there any documentation on his success with over 2000 people, as the word ‘thousands’ implies more than a single thousand? Maybe we all should take Doug a little more seriously. I must admit to viewing him as just another person with a unique twist on being ‘Raw’. Thousands of cures is too hard to ignore. Many people comment about the failure of long term rawbies. I didn’t realize that there was any long term 8-1-1’ers but with thousands there must be some long term cases. I mistakenly assumed that 8-1-1 was fairly new. also: I have found personally that the closer to 8-1-1 I get, the more weight I gain. Is this common?
Isn’t 80/10/10 just Natural Hygiene? I followed a natural hygiene diet for two weeks and had to add back the fats, I was losing weight far too quickly.
I like my body to be my guide, it has never taken me down a wrong path…only my mind does that!!
811 is not the same as natural hygiene. Natural hygiene is the science of allowing the body to heal itself and not doing any harm to it so that it will maintain health. This of course includes a correct diet. The diet that NH practitioners eat varies, some even eat some cooked food. 811 is but one style of diet that conforms to the beliefs of NH. As far as the thousands of healed people, this includes the people who worked with David Klein as well as Doug Graham as Klein follows the same basic ideas as in 811 when he advises his ‘patients’. David Klein is a PhD and Doug Graham is a DC. I know that Klein’s web site states that he has healed over 1000 people with various kinds of bowel problems. I am included in that list. Doug has been practicing as a health guide for over 25 years and David for over 14 years. This is a quote from Klein’s site:
OVER 1,000 CLIENTS HEALED SINCE 1993 VIA THE MEDICALLY-ENDORSED VEGAN DIET HEALING PLAN.
I do not know the number of patients that Doug has healed but if David healed over 1000 in 14 years I assume Doug has healed at least 1000 in 25 years.
Socal- I really have to put in my two cents in defense of David Wolfe. Have you ever listened to one of his lectures or are you just going off the fact that he has been able to profit off raw food? He is one of the most inspiring individuals I have ever listened to; so passionate and committed to nutrition. The fact that he has made a business out of this is amazing and he shouldn’t be condemned for making money. David Wolfe spends this money on organizations like his Fruit Tree Planting Foundation, spreading the message through non-stop lectures/retreats, and researching things like ORMUS. I’d much rather help make him rich than anyone else.
Your statement that “the healthiest people never eat superfoods” is very broad assumption and I would love to know how you’ve come to this conclusion. WHile you may not NEED them in the long run, they open up a lot of options and excitement in the beginning esp when we are still using food for entertainment. The feeling you get from eating superfoods after eating junk foods your whole life is SO worth any cost. You are teaching yourself to treat your body as a temple for the first time in your life.
You need to respect the various stages people are on in this journey. This website in particular is filled with mostly transitional people which can last years. Foods like cacao may not be the ultimate in the long run but it can help people break addictions to other drugs like coffee, sugar, alcohol which are much worse for you.
You are fortunate that you have broken your food addictions and can eat very simply and peacefully. You don’t need dehydrators, superfoods, recipes, spices. We are not all there yet!
rfoodie- Cacao! When you are feeling like coffee, it is a real pick-me-up and much better than coffee.
Hi kauaigirl, The statements I made are facts. I realize there are people in different stages of raw food diets but that doesn’t change the fact that superfoods are a raw food dieter’s entertainment food as you indicated. They are foods that are flown in from distant lands that have been used for years by the natives where they grow for one medical treatment or another. They are not foods that constitute a meal but are all condiments or medicines. Nobody will ever make a meal from cacao, if they did they would probably pass out from the theobromine content. The simplest diets are the healthiest. Doug Graham is a business man as well but doesn’t flog any raw products. He sells his consultations and books, none have recommendations for any foods or other products he sells. He doesn’t attempt to sell a person something that he doesn’t need. If you are suffering from a health issue he will be happy to assist in healing it. David Wolfe sells several books that just try to sell his products. Just the titles of his books give this away: Naked Chocolate, Eating For Beauty, The Sunfood Diet Success System. It is similar to Jordan Rubin who wrote books that simply sell his worthless but very expensive products. I do not see much difference between him and David Wolfe. The tree planting foundation is a good thing, which makes me agree with you that not everything he does is bad but I will not support his Sunfoods business.
This is an interesting topic and has brought up some really good information I didn’t know. I hadn’t heard of Doug Graham but he sounds like a dedicated and successful practitioner.
I have David Wolf’s book not because I heard of him but because I grabbed a couple of books off of the shelf at the Whole Foods and his looked like it was dense with information- and the selection was scarce as far as raw food books go. (Why is that? Does anyone know- It’s like whole foods doesn’t want you to go raw)
He seems to be the most visible raw foodist out there and he gives a great interview. I watched Shazzies videos on Youtube as well and she has some interesting things to say as well.
They are my favorites right now because they are the most accessible as far as putting themselves out there and having videos you can watch. If anyone has any other people of importance who really put themselves out there on line I’d be interested in checking them out. What really proves that it is so great are the people who are getting cured though- but a lot of this information isn’t out there because of privacy issues or whatever I’m not sure.
My question is with all of the anonymous members out there who don’t have a picture of themselves or much bio information- Is the fact that your friends and work will think you’re weird the reason you don’t have a picture or more info?
Hi I just read this again and it sounded kind of harsh. Most people who are really active on the site don’t seem anonymous- I was just wondering if some people who seemed more that way had a reason- pertaining to what other people think about them- or would think if they knew. Sorry if that sounded weird!
I don’t usa a real photo of myself coz I haven’t got a recent one not because I am worried what people think. I run a raw food business and everyone knows I am raw! I know what you mean though, I am so curious about Socal who is a real mystery man!
Going back to the beginning topic of this thread and I haven’t seen anyone mention it yet, but there is a raw restaurant in Beverly, MA (just north of Salem). I have never been there nor know anyone who has been but as far as internet searching is concerned, it seems to be the only one in the state right now. Has anyone been? I’d be interested in finding out how they are before I’d make the hike.. I live on the RI border. :\ http://www.organicgardencafe.com/
Well, I’ll admit it—I am technolgy challenged. I wouldn’t know how to post a picture if a million dollars was riding on it. My BF could help me but he lives out of state and we don’t see each other that often. As soon as I find someone who can help me I will post a picture.
Mooky, I suggested that restuarant on another thread ( although I had never been ) and a couple of people posted negative responses about the restuarant. I can’t remember why but it may be worth trying out to see for yourself.
Mooky
I have been up there, but when you work in Boston it is hard to get to Beverly. It is a place I try to go on the weekend. It’s not great – but here in MA, there’s not much to compare it to! I loved Cilantro in San Diego:-)
I find it interesting how the conversation has gone around in circles about the various raw food supporters. I bought DW’s sunfood book, and I do think that he is motivating for sure. I just wish that I could be so assertive about this way of life to my work collegues as I am towards my family! Just last week i had a lunch and my customers told me that I made them uncomfortable b/c I wasn’t eating.
Why are americans so FOCUSED on FOOD!!!!