Active without pretense

I don't mean for this to be about my journey with raw food, because that's a whole 'nother blogging experience, but since it is really what my life is all about right now ... well, it's what is in my head.

Yesterday I went to visit my sister as Charlie and Zach didn't have school.  We went to the health food store that normally has a raw food entree available for lunch.  The only thing that was raw was a sandwich (which was delicious!)  This health food store was all into raw months ago, but now it has kind of fizzled out.  That's what happened to me the first time, so I completely understand it.  But it makes me realize, there has to be a way to reach people on a deeper level.

By holding a class and introducing people to raw food and how it tastes, is step one.  But then what?  It's a very easy situation in which to say "oh, the food tastes great and I feel great when I am eating it, but you need too much equipment, it takes too much time to make and it doesn't fit into my lifestyle."

I totally get that.  Believe me.  But something happened to me last night that made me realize that a mindset can be completely changed the other way ... to a place where a person could say "Oh, the food tastes great and I feel great when I am eating it and I somehow need to figure out how to incorporate this lifestyle into my life because I need to choose feeling good over feeling just okay."

We went out for dinner at a fabulous pizza restaurant -- one of my favorites.  The pizza there is made out of all organic ingredients, local if possible, and it is cooked in a wood fire.  ALL they serve is pizza, salad and a few desserts.   I had no plans to eat pizza -- I also love the salad they serve which has this yummy dressing and seaweed on it -- so you know it is good for you.  But one of the special pizzas had a curry-coconut sauce with organic broccoli, tomatoes and chickpeas on it.  I mean, it's like a dream pizza for me!  So my mother and sister ordered half of that and it came and it smelled to die for.  I could specifically smell the coconut, the curry, the tomatoes ... and so I took a teeny tiny piece and put it in my mouth.

The initial sensation was ... oooh, this is almost hot ... then it went from excitement to instant disappointment when I realized I couldn't taste any particular flavor.  It just felt like warm mush in my mouth.  I swallowed and took the second small piece on my plate.  Same thing.  And then my entire mouth felt all gross and oily and just downright unhappy.  The smells coming from the pizza before me were still good .... but the flavor didn't hold up to the promise.

The thing with eating raw is that when you take a bite of something, the flavors pop in your mouth.  I am drinking a smoothie concocted of coconut milk, coconut meat, strawberries and goji berries.  I can specifically taste each flavor, and while the coconut is trying to take over, you can also experience hints of goji and strawberry.  And the taste sensation lingers in your mouth, so you don't need to take another sip for a long time, because you are still experiencing it.  It sounds weird, but I realized last night that I have become accustomed to this -- and that putting something in my mouth that is, well, that is dead and incapable of creating these sensations -- is not something I am interested in!

The reasons that cooked food smells so good is because you are basically smelling the last bit of the essence of that food steaming off into the ether.  Think about it.  When food grows cold, it no longer smells appetizing.  Sometimes it hardly smells at all.

When you eat cooked food all the time, you definitely taste flavor, but I bet if you think about it a little you would realize that after the first bite, you don't really taste that much at all.  Try it.  The first bite will be delicious, it will click something in your brain that says GOOD FOOD and you will keep eating and eating and eating it.  But will you be tasting it?

I know that I never really did.  And I used to say that to myself ... that why bother after the first bite, it was never as good.  But I think I was just looking for that same sensation ... over and over, bite after bite.  All in vain!

The first time I ate raw I did not do 100 percent.  So I did not experience the things I am now.  When I ate cooked foods that I liked, they tasted good.  But the compromise was that I never reached the point that when I ate the raw foods it was a near-nirvana experience for each bite to taste like heaven.  Kind of an odd compromise, if you think about it.

I will never have a desire to eat that pizza again -- as long as I stay raw.  I know this.  I know that without a shadow of a doubt I could re-program my body to enjoy cooked foods again.  But why?  Why?  My sister complained of feeling full, I could actually experience her lack of energy and vitality -- she had totally lost her raw buzz by eating that pizza.

And it's such a short thing.  For a few moments I sat there with nothing to do while everyone else ate.  And I discovered another thing.  That my hearing has become very keen.  I could pull specific sounds out of the mayhem of noise a crowded restaurant creates, and it was kind of cool.  So, I could eat and stuff myself into oblivion, or I could start to hone new sensations that are coming about as my body starts to wake up in so many new and different ways.

So why, I wonder, is it so hard for us to forego the standard of eating that has created a society of obese and sick people?  I think it is because some of us feel safer in the fog ... and I understand that.  When you feel alive, when you feel feel feel, and by that I mean when your body literally zings and your thoughts come at you crystal clear and you look around you and see such beauty and inside you are so calm and yet so ... full ... it can be overwhelming.  Because you think to yourself ... I can do anything.

And those feelings can be cured by eating cooked food.  The moment you put cooked food into your zinging body it starts to tamper it all down.  And you can ignore things that bother you.  

But I am finding that if you stay in it and go deeper, what seems hopeless is really just an opportunity to make changes that will help everyone involved.  If you don't tamper down the power -- the energy -- it starts to grow.  I am an impatient person and I always want things to happen ... yesterday.  

So right now, right now I have no demands on myself.  I am trying to listen to my intuition, my inner voice -- and instead of being reactive, inactive or proactive, I am just remaining ... active.  Waiting to feel the need to do something, say something, be something.

Carrot anyone?