Tuesday, May 27, 2008

I am Grateful



I Am Grateful: Recipes and Lifestyle of Cafe Gratitude
That is the name of the "cook" book I am reading on raw food.  The title comes from the name of the restaurant that the author owns in San Francisco.  I do not think it is coincidental that I will be in San Francisco in a few days.

I think it is meant to be.

Before I go totally raw, I have basically said I can eat whatever I want until all the pieces are in place and I can go about this new experiment properly.  But I have no appetite.  I have hunger, yes.  But no desire to eat, no desire to make my juices ... it is almost as though I am at war with the concept of HAVING to eat.  Well, whatever it is, I am completely sapped of all energy ... and part of me thinks that is the point:  I need to understand fully what food means to my body, and what it does to it.  I already know that eating the bright, colorful beauty foods makes me feel alive.  I guess I needed a second opinion on that ... I've eaten a lot of potato chips this past weekend.  I love potato chips.  I do.  They are so wonderful.  They crunch in your mouth and the flavor (sour cream and onion is my favoritest of them all, but no chip will go uneaten in my presence!)  But they make you feel like shit.

Potato chips are not real food.  Not out of the bag anyway -- and so, okay, I get it.  And every time I feel a little put out at all the work a raw diet will mean -- or the fact that I can't go out to eat, or have an ice cream cone out on the boat ... or any of the things my life is constructed around in the summer -- I just have to remember that I can feel alive or I can feel like shit.

I am grateful that I have a stack of books on the raw lifestyle and so far the recipes sound good to me.

I am grateful that in truth I have been eating the majority of the foods on this diet, just mixing cooked along with it.  So I know that it won't be that hard for me.  I have been approaching this for a while now, and I am committed to the full 30 days once I start.  (Starting is going to be the hardest!)

The blender is on the way.  When I came home from Oklahoma,  Maddie was talking about this blender that Peter saw on Modern Marvels, and she said that he said that was the blender I should get.  I did some comparisons on the Blendtech blender and the Vitamix, and discovered that it seemed to be a great option.  (And Peter is happy to have contributed towards this by discovering the blender ... hey, I am grateful I can spend the $350 with blessings and not grumbles!)

I am not going about this my normal way -- jumping in and going for it.  I am much more planned and methodical about it, and I think that is because I have a feeling it is going to be a big lifestyle change for me -- for the long run.   I love to cook, and yet, I've fought with the feelings of killing my food -- watching the beautiful colors fade with time and the heat of the stove.  In my gut I know I will miss some things, but there is no reason that some cooked food can't be incorporated into a lifestyle diet.  The thing is, most people just stop eating it because it makes them feel bad.

I am grateful that my family is excited about this -- and are ready to do it with me.  I just have to come to terms with the fact that they will cheat -- and it will be alright.  I just hope that they find that the way they feel eating raw is worth foregoing the bad stuff.

Anyway, it's going to be interesting.  I am now toying with the idea of doing an entirely separate blog from it (because we all know I become a tad obsessed with things!) and I want to keep my creative outlets flowing -- but not all preachy either.  (I am better than you because I eat raw and you don't, so there!)  Though, that would be my ego, which I am in the process of murdering.  Oh!  So many things to do, so little time.

Checklist:

Kill ego
go raw
develop yoga practice

I haven't been able to check anything off yet!

But I am grateful that I am excited about it.

What are you grateful for?


No comments: