Thursday, January 21, 2010

What am I doing?

I'm a man who's trying to get healthy by eating only raw foods. It's very difficult and a couple of aspects of my life make it more difficult. 1) I cook in a bar. 2) I like to drink beer.

I started the year off with a juice feast and that lasted about a week. Then I started just eating raw food and that was easy until I had to take a trip to my seventy-year-old father's wedding. So I'm back and trying to recover from a couple of nights of beer fest.

My wife also has a blog, The Daily Raw Cafe, and she's preparing all the recipes from "The Complete Book of Raw." I am her official taste tester since at the moment and probably for a while, she's on a juice feast.

My goal is to be 100% raw and lose 80lbs and get my health back. I'm 42 yrs and it sucks waking up with sore muscles and dragging myself out of bed every morning. I'm also a cook in a sports bar which is a pretty bad influence constantly in my face.

This is what I'm doing and I just wanted to get that out of the way so I can write some crazy funny blogs in the future and will also be commenting on at least 300 recipes that my wonderful wife will be preparing.

Thank you and have fun.

Monday, January 11, 2010

If it ain working...

Since I was nine years old, I hung around kitchens with my mom and grandma, partly just to get a taste of what smelled so great. Started cooking a few dishes soon after and really got connected with Mom and with the foods I put into my body. Mom cooked beakfast and dinner everyday without fail. She was never sick or too tired, never forgot about drinks or a starch, veggie or protien. Burned the bread sometimes but we never went without iced tea.

Back then, what we were eating was considered to be a healthy, well-rounded meal. Maybe it's still considered healthy but I no longer buy into it. The only reason I changed my thinking about this is that when I ate like this, I gained weight and felt like crap.

Ever feel like food's produced like an addictive drug instead of being served-up as nutritive? Seems like the food industry has a bigger hold on us than even the pharmaceutical pimps. It's easier for them too because we don't look at the actual substance as being bad, but instead blame those who don't metabolize or who overeat.

I get fat easily unless I'm eating only raw foods. And raw foods don't seem to be addictive either. If I try to eat 80%, or mainly raw, within a couple of weeks, I notice that I'm eating mainly cooked.

The only way that I lose weight is all the way raw. It sucks sometimes and seems unfair but at least I know there is a way. I know it works from experience and I know what doesn't work.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

It's freezing cold outside here in Denver, Colorado. Snow has blanketed my entire backyard and garden for about a month now. But the sun is out and it's a beautiful Sunday morning. I took the kitchen scraps out to the compost pile, dogs at my heels. They're not too interested in the contents of the bucket, tea bags and veggie peelings, just happy to see me outside. I can't understand their lack of interest because they eat grasses, tomatoes, and root vegetables straight from the plant or ground. Must be some way that humans devalue the produce. I love it though. And I love gardening and eating straight from ground.

Anyway, on my way to the compost pile which is at the furthest spot from the house, I passed through the garden. Ruins from last crop is still poking out here and there. Sqirrel tracks show me they're still harvesting. And then I noticed a couple of sage plants were still alive, then some mint and even a little parsley. But the weirdest one of all was this row of chard that I planted last spring and gave us greens all summer was still alive. Chard was peeping out of the snow which I swept away to reveal the entire, healthy row.

Raw food is for everyone. My wife has a wonderful blog at www.thedailyrawcafe.com which is full of recipes, thoughts, ideas, experiments, etc. I say it's wonderful because it is, not just because she is. We try hard everyday to be healthy and sometimes it's discouraging and sometimes amazing. But the key is we try hard everyday. Raw food is delicious, nutritious, exciting and full of life. I'd like to use those advantages to better myself, family, and friends.