Food never fails

                                          Food never fails as a topic of discussion.  It's really one of the most complex issues we face on this planet -- even if we don't know it!

And I am obviously obsessed with it -- which is my thing, I am an obsessor I admit it!  But I don't want to become obsessed with eating raw, because I think that is what happens to some people, and then they lose sight of the fact that they look scrawny and unhealthy and in need of a good steak.

Last spring some friends and I went to the closest raw food restaurant for my birthday lunch.  It is over two hours away and was a small little place.  The owner was not especially good looking -- he was too skinny and his skin kind of hung off his face.  The people behind the counter were not glowing pictures of health either.

Still the food was delicious.  But my sister told me that she has heard a rumor that it is going out of business -- there is just not enough interest.  Well, it's an awful location -- it's a small town and something so specialized as raw food needs a diverse audience.  But still, it seems to me that he should just cater to the other audience -- and serve organic but cooked food.  But I suspect that he believes that the cooked food is too unhealthy to serve.

But he looks unhealthy.

And when I went to Cafe Gratitude in San Francisco last summer, the food was delicious.  But the waitresses were way too skinny and again, I looked for the glow and didn't see it.  

And it's stayed in the back of my mind.  

For the last 41 days, I have enjoyed my raw food journey.  I feel good and I do not have any cravings at all for cooked food.  Well, except for pizza, and then I just eat it.  I love pizza, and I've made raw versions of pizza which are delicious, and recently we went out to eat and I ordered a pizza with a little cheese and basil sauce and it was to die for.  

Thanksgiving was not a problem at all -- I was perfectly happy with the salads I prepared and I nibbled a small piece of turkey, but I didn't want anymore.  I'm not about denying myself -- and if it had tasted good, then I would have had a piece.  But it's not like that, everything is going fine.

But the other night I was in front of the fire -- a fire that Charlie kept roaring by continuously stoking and putting fresh logs on -- and I was reading.  I was content.  I didn't feel like getting up and preparing anything to eat.  But I'd gone skiing, and I was hungry.  

But still, I kept reading.  And Peter prepared dinner for him and Charlie and it smelled really, really good.  And still, I kept reading.  And then he yelled "dinner's ready," and I thought, oh, I wish it was.

Well, why couldn't it be?

Oh no!  The voice in my head was going to get me!  I knew it!  Once you open that door ...

I ate a small bowl of the shepherd's pie, thoroughly enjoyed it, and that was that.

Then I started thinking about the non-eating aspects of being a raw foodist.  I mean, seriously, how can ALL cooked food be bad?  And I'd already decided that raw onions were too much for me.  But I LOVE cooked onions.  So .... isn't that my body telling me something?  

Well, it appears my body is wrong, because I can't find any evidence to support that cooked onions provide anywhere NEAR the same benefits that a raw onion does.  But ... if I LIKE my onions cooked, doesn't it make sense to eat my onions raw MOST of the time, but occasionally to cook them up because I just plain like them that way?

Then I have "heard" that you don't get any benefits out of a raw tomato, that it is cooking that draws out the lycopene.  And this appears to be true (along with carrots), because our digestive enzymes can't break through the cell walls to unlock the nutrients.

But a piece of watermelon contains more lycopene than a tomato.

So here's the thing.  Unless you spend all day (like I do!) researching this stuff, you aren't going to have a clue.  But I have a reason for it -- I want to know all that I can so that I can help others, and I don't want to be "that" person who insists that you have to eat raw or it's a waste of time.  Because it's not.  

If you can get more lycopene out of cooked tomato sauce on a pizza, then have the pizza along with a salad of fresh, raw veggies.  Now that to me seems like the best of both worlds.

What I am trying very hard not to do is believe any one statement.  I don't go to one place and read that a certain food is this.  I go to a dozen, and then I do comparisons.  I get a raw foodist's opinion and I get a medical doctor's -- and then whatever else falls between those two categories.  Primarily I just want to be responsible before I give out advice to others.

At the class I took on how to become a raw food chef, the instructors were very sure of their statements and there were times that I questioned them.  Because I am a natural researcher, I checked a few things out ... and they weren't always as definitive as was stated in the class.

That can easily be managed by first prefacing the statement by saying something along the lines of "there is some confusion with this particular issue, but to the best of our knowledge ..." but I don't think that they believed there WAS any confusion.  And it's that kind of hard-core belief system that concerns me.

I mean let's be honest here, the human race has been eating cooked food for a good long time.  I've read where maybe it wasn't necessary for food to be cooked, but the cave men were curious creatures, and after discovering fire they started to throw food in it to see what happened.  Then when everyone woke up in the morning, they figured it was safe.  Now of course, this is all guessing, since none of us have ever spoken to the cave men (and you probably don't want to ask that Geico character either, because he is one touchy cave man!)  But isn't it just as experimental to eat raw?

I think it is so interesting that I have reached this "dilemma" if you will, even though I am perfectly content with the diet and its results.  And I think it is because deep down I know that I go to extremes and not everyone does.  So how can I be of use to anyone as an extremist if my only audience is a handful of potential raw food extremists?

I am trying to be practical is all.

And I would hope that if my business was suffering because I didn't have enough raw food customers, that I would come up with an alternative solution.

And THAT is what I mean by not getting bogged down in something.

Just go with the flow.  Cooked, raw, medium rare!