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Radical lifestyle??

roxiroxi Raw Newbie

I was told yesterday by my mother-in-law that I am radical in what I think. She keeps comparing me to the hippies of the 70s by the way I eat and by my views on certain subjects. For example, I don’t believe in putting medicines into our bodies to treat symptoms. I also believe the body is an amazing machine that can truly heal itself if given the correct nutrients. We were talking about the recent family in the news that was arrested for murder because they refused to give their child insulin after being diagnosed with diabetes and died because of it. This was a somewhat heated discussion. However, my problem was with her comment. I don’t think that I am radical, by any means. Although, I do agree that I do not think like the “average” person. The comment really sort of hurt my feelings.

I would like to hear others thoughts on this subject as far as being labeled something such as being radical?

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Comments

  • TomsMomTomsMom Raw Newbie

    I don’t think eating the way your body was designed to eat is radical in any way, but people do tend to create fads out of things to enrich their egos. This includes re-defining words, something I really loath. I see it as more of a white, elitist trend. Ultimately, it makes everyone look insane and they become targets.

    Then again, I don’t care what anyone around me thinks of my lifestyle or diet. Their insecurities just don’t affect me. I guess that just comes with age.

  • angie207angie207 Raw Master

    Alissa Cohen had a great response to this kind of statement in her book.

  • juicyjuicy Raw Newbie

    It makes me sad when people claim we are radical, as many have to me before, because it shows just how crazy the world really is. I am proud of the way I eat, and I know that what I am doing is the best situation for my body and the planet as a whole. So no, it never bothers me nor do I think I am radical!

  • People label things radical because they are scared of the truth. Unfortunately, this day in age listening to your body is a very strange idea. Don’t let her comment bother you, it is a reflection of her own insecurities not your lifestyle.

    James

  • SueSue Raw Newbie

    Roxi, mother-in-laws are suppose to say crazy things like that, that’s what they’re there for…(lol, sort of!!)

  • Luna bluLuna blu Raw Newbie

    You and I don’t think like the ‘average’ person. Somthing I am VERY proud of. I would rather be labeled radical and enjoy paradise health, than be an average Joe, polluting themselves with the garbage food and chemicals that they are ‘told’ to.

    I think your mother-in-law should take a pill.(you know like the ones she advocates! ;) I personally also think it is really none of her buisness. My mother-in-law ‘doesn’t go in for this health food stuff’ as she puts it, but she said it once and that was it. She knows it is none of her business what I choose to eat! If I am healthy, no one can say ANYTHING, or should say anything negative!!

    Chin up. Be proud of what you do and what you are!!!!

  • Luna bluLuna blu Raw Newbie

    btw, i agree with what you said James!

    People are afraid of anything different!!

  • elizabethhelizabethh Raw Newbie

    i believe the current diet of the majority of people in the developed world is a “radical, extreme” diet, considering how far it is out of what we naturally would be eating. ive always looked at raw as a return to the norm!

  • kevin7197kevin7197 Raw Newbie

    I can certainly relate to this topic. Just last nite I was insulted, by a co-worker, for my food choices. This is a person who thinks nothing of digging the vending machine throw aways out of the trash! I just can’t believe the audacity!

  • angie207angie207 Raw Master

    elizabethh – exactly what Alissa Cohen said (though not exactly those words) and I agree! Wish I could remember her exact response, cuz it was great :)

  • pianissimapianissima Raw Newbie

    my dad once used the word extreme to define my diet. i asked him if it wasn’t extreme that his diet depended on the suffering and torture of animals. which diet was more extreme, more removed from the natural course of things?...

    luckily my dad thinks about things, but some people do not like to be challenged and do not like their status quo jilted. these people will always be defensive and will always feel threatened because they haven’t accepted that NO STRUCTURE IS STABLE. they grip onto life instead of letting things flow…

  • I was just going to respond as pianissima did, when I read her reply. I often get called “extreme”. More often than that, I’m criticized for eating or acting “white” (I’m African American). It used to offend me. Now, I see myself as having a cultural and communal purpose: learn all I can about health and nutrition so I can teach others and we can stop digging our graves with spoons.

    Things do change and people grow. I’m sure that people thought the early vegetarians were nuts. Now, there are always veggie options. Hope floats.

  • angie207angie207 Raw Master

    digging our own graves with spoons, huh? Interesting analogy :) True – vegetarians used to be the “crazy” or “extreme” ones, now we are. Things are definitely changing for the better, even if it’s slow.

  • Environmentalists used to be made fun of years ago for believing in global warming and wanting to create new ways to be more earth friendly. Look around you now, and you’ll see that Clorox is “going green” and republicans are aknowledging the existence of global warming. Us tree huggers are no apparently no longer crazy. Same thing with organic. A few years ago you would have been called crazy if you thought pesticides were harmful! Look at all the organic produce at Walmart now. I think that at some point everyone will come around to raw vegan as well. If not, then it’s their loss. I will continue living my “hippie” lifestyle.

  • have_merseyhave_mersey Raw Newbie

    I just quit worrying about what people think altogether. Everyone thinks something. It used to bother me more when family misunderstood, because I love them. All it does is stress me. Even if I could please one person, someone else would have a problem with it. But yes, I’ve been called “Radical”, “Extreme”, and “Paranoid” both about my food and way of living. I love my family, and although I don’t worry about what they will say anymore, I still don’t want to have to hear it. We’ve been over that before, and what we haven’t generally isn’t their bussiness and shouldn’t matter. It’s rather sad though that my personal decisions matter enough to them to drive a wedge between us.

    I find cooked,microwaved,”fast”,buttered, chemically,processed, refined etc. food eaters radical. And really it seems rather strange to me that people find raw food odd. People ate raw foods up until fairly recently. I suppose in colder climates they canned/cooked alot, but in “less advanced’ countries they still go pick what they want, eat, or sun-dry it for later/winter. The cooked thing is so new, even though people have cooked for thousands of years. They ate a diet consisting mainly 75-85% raw at least, until very very recently. Then the cooked food increased and we found this disease we called cancer.

  • I am thrilled at how mainstream vegetarianism is becoming. Twice this week, on regular television, I saw commercials promoting a vegetarian diet, as the only healthy way to live. Yesterday I was reading an article in the newspaper blaming the current grain shortage on the world’s overconsumption of meat.

  • angie207angie207 Raw Master

    skystrdust – Yay, hippies! :)

  • I agree with you have_mersey. This cooked thing is definitely radical :) How natural is a burger anyway? Never seen any of those growing on trees. It amazes me when I go shopping and the cashier is asking me what a mango is and what figs taste like. How do you go through life never tasting these foods? I feel sorry for them… they’re really missing out.

  • angie207angie207 Raw Master

    I went into a healthfood store here recently, and we have joked before about how it is more like a healthy junk-food store, but they had “organic cotton candy” – rootbeer, bubblegum, flavors like that! One of the cashiers just kept joking about how unnatural the stuff was by saying things like “watch out for the bubble gum falling off the trees in your yard” and stuff like that :D A lot of the cashiers, though, even at this “natural foods” store, have never tasted young coconuts, persimmons, etc. – it’s true; I feel sorry for them, and I’m always telling them how good the stuff is and how to eat it, etc. :)

  • daniefondaniefon Raw Newbie

    I saw this really funny cartoon. It had a family of three very overweight people, with various junk food items in their hands (fried chicken, cokes), with bellies hanging out of their shirts, etc. They were talking to a family that looked pretty fit and active. The caption said (first family speaking) “How do you get your protein?” It cracked me up because almost everytime someone finds out that I am vegan, nevermind raw, that is the FIRST thing they say. I usually answer, after I quit laughing, as kindly as I can “do I look like I am lacking protein?”

  • roxiroxi Raw Newbie

    Maybe I really shouldn’t care what she thinks. I just find it interesting that she feels she has to push her beliefs on me and that if I don’t believe or think the same way she does she gets upset and starts labeling. I’ve never been around this before as my parents never did anything like that! She is also the one who said a diet consisting of fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds is plain, blah and bland! And she will NEVER give up her dairy, cheese or eggs! HA, I think my diet it 10 times more flavorful than hers! I just think it is intersting that anytime I learn something new about this way of living and talk about it with her, she has to bring up a friend who did something similar in the 70s, but got really sick from it. For example, she had a friend that eat nothing but wheatgrass juice and laid out in the sun. She later was addmitted to the hospital….well no dah!! Anyways, I will try and let her comments slide from now on…seeing as I am not the only one who is experiencing this. Surprisingly all of my co-workers are intrigued by my diet. It probably helps that I am a size 1 and weigh only 105.

    Didn’t hippies also do all kinds of drugs….as well as eat vegan and do colonics, etc? Interesting she would categorize me with them. I’ve NEVER done drugs!! :)

  • Not all hippies do drugs :) Angie… that’s so true! Organic cotton candy! Pretty soon they will have an organic happy meal and organic soda. We’re not too far away… pepsi came out with a pepsi raw from “natural ingredients.” So pretty soon people will think they’re healthy by eating and drinking organic junk food… jeez… it’s amazing what good marketing and advertising can make people believe.

  • roxiroxi Raw Newbie

    “Not all hippies do drugs”...ooo my mistake :)

  • angie207angie207 Raw Master

    daniefon – funny! :D I love it – the cartoon, and your response to that question. I had a lady ask me where I get calcium if I don’t eat dairy? hahaha as if dairy is really giving people the calcium they need! I told her I get so much calcium from eating almonds, sesame seeds, etc. that I am never concerned about it. She looked skeptical and told me to just make sure I get enough calcium so I don’t get osteoporosis like her (I wonder if she ate dairy?)

    roxi – sounds like she is not the person to talk to about the new things you learn; it may be just asking for trouble and better to keep it to yourself and others who really want to hear it.

    skystrdust – organic happy meal :) I wouldn’t be surprised. By the way, MSG and sugar are “natural” ingredients according to definition.

  • have_merseyhave_mersey Raw Newbie

    “I just find it interesting that she feels she has to push her beliefs on me and that if I don

  • southernloversouthernlover Raw Newbie

    The average person is usually an idiot too, so I wouldn’t worry. Lol.

  • MeditatingMeditating Raw Newbie

    I think being referred to as a radical thinker is one of the highest compliments you could be paid. If someone said that to me I would be quick to thank them. Many people think radical means crazy, but those are two very different terms.

    Who wants to be just another brain-dead, unconscious mainstreamer who is responsible for all that is wrong in the world?

  • I don’t know whether or not you are radical. I do know that I am “radical” or at least labeled as such because I am an Anarchist. I take pride in being an Anarchist, but I too have had problems with being called “radical.” I think that when people call you this that they are expressing that they think, what you believe is the right way to live, is an impossible achievment for the average person. By calling you “radical” they think they might be able to break your confidence and prevent you from sharing your truth with others. Don’t let it bother you. As enviromental, economic and cultural shifts have been progressing in a much fastier pace, we are heading toward a radically different future. If your family doesn’t except reality, that is their problem. Hopefully, with or without your help, they will become awakened in their life times. If not you can have peace knowing that you have raw foodism, as well as other positive sustainable ideas for the future, and will be able to share those things with your growing community family.

  • queenfluffqueenfluff Raw Newbie

    I second that – Yah! Hippies!

    What? You say I am radicial? You say I am weird? Gee, thanks! :) I take that as a compliment! :)

    Nothing would depress me less than someone thinking I am like all the other rats pushing the pellet button! :)

    (sorry that was a weird analogy…)

  • lzhptlzhpt Raw Newbie

    Doubt is a virtue. We are blessed to have the freedom to question everything and to blaze your own trail of passion. Not everyone has such freedom. True—the majority of Americans (3rd generation myself) do not want to know what has become of their food supply. They don’t know that school lunches are dictated by the dairy and meat lobby in exchange for political monies. They don’t know the direct link between animal foods and heart disease because doctors in this country are only trained to treat symptoms of disease. They know no other way. They would never think that the cow they are eating is any different from the cow their grandparents ate. They don’t know. They don’t care and ignorance is bliss, until they die… younger and younger and younger. Teach your children well. Love the DVD “Eating” available from www.ravediet.com. No one’s making any money there at $5 a DVD! Buy many, distribute to family when they question your motives. A group of Medical Doctors on plant-based diets blow the lid off the Standard American Diet right down to the fuel requirement to make one hamburger!!!! Peace.

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