Bay Area Soda Tax Win: An Evidence of the Undeniable Effectiveness of Grassroots Organizing

A quadrupled number of women of color in the Senate isn't the only encouraging news coming out of Election 2016. Oakland, San Francisco, and Albany are now among the first 6 cities in the country to levy a tax on soda and other sweetened beverages. Next only to Berkeley (first ever!) in 2014 and Philly in June 2016. Boulder also joined us from Colorado.

As a quick primer, this measure levies a tax of 1 to 2 cents (depending on the city) on every ounce of these beverages sold by a distributor. The distributor often passes on the increased cost to the seller, who, then, typically raises the price of the product to make up for it. This makes the drinks more expensive to buy, thereby driving down consumption and preventing the ongoing public health crises of diabetes and obesity from worsening, particularly among children.

The fight wasn't easy. Not when the soda corps have practically unlimited resources to pour into these campaigns: $50 million in all 3 cities combined! It took no moral hesitation for them to mis-characterize this move as "grocery tax" and flood the residents with false media ads and mailbox flyers. There's no way any city can beat a campaign of this proportion on a shoestring budget. But despite that, we, the residents, prevailed. Even in the court of law.

How?

Well, by deploying ground troops. Quite literally. Grassroots organizing in the communities, that is. In Oakland, for example, Tramutola and TOLA led the effort. Besides getting endorsements from nearly every significant health and social justice organization in the city and many prominent elected officials, what really got the measure passed was an aware and educated voter base.

But how to educate the voters with right information when nearly every flyer in their mailbox tells them to vote No on Grocery Tax? The media ads portrayed vulnerable immigrants making a plea in heavy accent that the additional tax would take away their livelihood. Big Soda even listed Bernie Sanders as their supporter until he explicitly asked them not to.

By reaching out to the residents in-person for a one-on-one conversation. Going on precinct walks, knocking on their doors. Calling them on phone in the evenings and on the weekends. By attracting a formidable army of volunteers who believed in this effort. Training those volunteers before dispatching them. Debriefing after field runs. And then watching the volunteer base itself hit a critical mass such that folks bring along their friends and acquaintances to join the effort, even if it's only for one evening. And then feeding the volunteers while they spend long, tiring hours at it =).

In the many hours that I personally volunteered for this campaign, it wasn't easy. Precinct walks of 4+ hours were quite tiring. Many people weren't home. Some were rude for no reason. One person even escorted me out of their property. But then, I'm a pachyderm when it comes to advocating for social justice issues =). And every positive response was motivating. I learned about this effort rather late, so, to stay encouraged, I had before me committed folks who had been at it the entire election season.

While phone banking, a lot of people wouldn't take the call if they don't recognize the caller ID. Many would hang up on me immediately as soon as they realized I was a stranger. Long sequences of no meaningful conversations were quite discouraging, actually. Further, about 25% of the voters simply could not be convinced. People argued about leaving it to personal choice, parents' responsibility, anorexia, malnutrition, etc., without relating their own financial burdens of sky-rocketing insurance premiums and healthcare costs to this issue of excessive sugar consumption.

Despite these setbacks, there were so many persistent volunteers that we ran out of registered voters to call via Call Fire and resorted to hand dialing to maximize our outreach one evening. Even high schoolers from Oakland Tech volunteered. That's some serious grit for teenagers to display. A character-building experience for me, personally. Certainly in retrospect, given the outcome now.

The science between excessive sugar consumption and health risks is undeniable; public awareness is fast catching up to it. The tax in Berkeley led to a decrease in soda consumption by 21% and brought in an additional revenue of $2 million that went towards cooking, gardening, and nutrition programs. An advisory committee oversees the usage of the funds. Chicago's home county quickly followed the Bay Area to make soda pricier for 5 million more Americans on 11/10/16. In fact, this fight is global now.

But, hey, why is this so significant?

All too often, we rely on our elected officials to make the right decisions for us. But in an age where most politicians have been bought out by deep-pocketed corporations and lobby groups, making any progress is nearly impossible. Outrageously, the processed food companies, Big Meat, Big Milk, Big Eggs, Big Pharma, Big Coal, Big Oil, Big you name it are in the business of what they do not for our well-being but for their own profits.

If we don't educate and organize ourselves now, they will plunder our health and this planet's non-renewable resources from underneath us until there is no new drug to be invented, no more trees to be fallen, no more coal and oil to be dug up, and no more money to be made. Now that we have a leader of the Free World who doesn't believe in climate change, grassroots movements are more essential than ever before.

Gregory Mankiw communicates this urgency in the same vein in Before the Flood:

"POLITICIANS, WHETHER WE CALL THEM ELECTED LEADERS, ARE REALLY ELECTED FOLLOWERS. THEY DO WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT THEM TO DO…. WE NEED TO PREACH TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. ONCE THE PEOPLE ARE CONVINCED, THE POLITICIANS WILL FALL IN LINE."

It is the American people that we had to preach to today to pass the soda tax. It's the people that the Native Americans are speaking to to protest the Dakota Pipeline. It's the people that are finding plant-based alternatives to meat, dairy, poultry, and fish to make our diets more sustainable today and for 10 billion of us in 2050. It's an ordinary doctor like Neal Barnard who has taken it upon himself to influence health policy making in Washington and Michael Greger to educate the people about the completeness of plant-based nutrition. No organization could be relied upon to do these things for us.

Any pursuit of mankind becomes a movement only when the common people join. A movement is what we need today to turn the tide in favor of a healthy and prolonged human civilization on this planet.

Almonds, Avocados to Eggs, Cheese, and Beef: The Water Footprint of Our Food Choices

If you’ve ever listened to KQED (the local NPR channel) in the Bay Area, you can probably regurgitate these lines in your sleep: “Support for KQED comes from the Almond Board of California. The water needs of almond trees are not unique among trees, and almond growers are committed to innovation and water efficiency. More at almondsustainability.org." This defense is fueled by mounting pressure on almond growers about how much water almonds take up in the drought-ridden California, the producer of 80% of the world's almonds, over half of which are exported abroad. 

Almond farmers aren't the only ones feeling the heat of the scorching Sun, literally and metaphorically. There's an official drought State of Emergency -- mandatory water restrictions imposed on residents, businesses, and farms for the first time ever to reduce usage by 25%. Ban on watering of ornamental grass on public street medians. Drought-tolerant landscaping of lawns to conserve water. Scientific innovation. Frenzy among residents for two-minute showers. Pleas to God, praying for rain. Believing in America’s greatness in overcoming just about anything...

State officials say the 25% cut in usage amounts to roughly 1.5 million acre-feet of water (an acre foot of water equals about 325,000 gallons) over the next nine months. That amounts to saving 487.5 billion gallons of water over 9 months. Let's commit this number to memory for now.

Wherever we hear of water in relation to food production, it all comes down to drip irrigation over sprinklers over the traditional flood irrigation. Avocados, almonds, and asparagus are usually the bad guys over everything else. At the face value, this perception is not incorrect. Seeing is believing. Crop agriculture consumes water overtly. We see it. We measure it. We blame it. That's where we instinctually look to conserve it. But by conserving water in irrigation alone, we would be saving a few drops from what is already a trickle in our water footprint!

A water footprint measures the volume of water consumed, evaporated, and polluted to produce a product from its raw ingredients. The Water Footprint Network calculates water footprint as a sum total of three categories of water: blue (the amount of surface and ground water used directly or evaporated), green (the amount of rainwater used directly or evaporated), and grey (the amount of freshwater required to mix and dilute pollutants enough to maintain a certain standard of water quality, e.g. the US Clean Water Act).

This infographic published by National Geographic a few years ago reveals that animal products take up the lion’s share of water in food production. The particular order of most to least thirsty foods is beef (1800+ gallons for 1 pound!), sausage (1,382), pork (756), processed cheese (589), chicken (469), eggs (400), fresh cheese (371), followed by most other fruits and vegetables, including avocados (154 gal/lb). 1 pound of almonds does take up 2000 gallons of water but while 4 hamburgers (a total of 1 pound of beef) will feed a family of 4 for just one meal, that family won't consume 1 pound of almonds in one sitting. And certainly not in meal after meal. Woah.

Here is a more detailed insight into the amount of H2O embedded in our everyday life. Several other reputed sources have their own insights -- TreeHugger, HuffPo, LATimes, The Guardian, Water Footprint Network's product gallery -- and they unanimously illustrate just how water-intensive meat, dairy, and poultry production is. With meat-consumption ever increasing, per What the World Eats, the global water crises doesn't seem to be getting any significant respite anytime soon.

But why would animal agriculture be an insatiable water hog? Well, let’s try to rationalize with logic and science. The animals that we raise for food are living beings just like us. They drink water, eat food, pee and poop, breathe and fart and do everything else. (They feel as well, just like our pet dogs and cats, but that’s a story for another time.) Out in the Nature, they bathe and have sex too. But cattle and poultry is typically denied those primal needs. In contrast to plants that only 'drink' water and make up for it by inhaling carbon dioxide and breathing out oxygen, these animals consume way more water and exhale CO2 and methane (more on that in a follow-up post) instead of oxygen.

A male steer is typically raised for 2 years before being slaughtered for the various meats. For those two years, it has to be fed grain or grass (that uses water to be cultivated, irrigated, harvested, transported), drinks hundreds of gallons of water, and takes up hundreds more for its waste to be cleaned up. Add all that up and that number is north of 1,800 gallons of water for one pound of beef. For one hamburger, it's 450 gallons. That's an equivalent of showering for 45 days! And we think we'd conserve water by taking 2 minute showers but never looking at our plates to determine just how much worse we are making the drought with every meal we eat.

Unfortunately, there's even more hidden water in animal agriculture. Think of the power needed to keep the giant cattle ranches and animal farms operational. They are not solar powered, in case you were wondering =). The coal and gas needed to generate electricity for these facilities uses water to be dug up or fracked from the earth and converted to energy from the crude materials. Given the current demand for meat, all factory farms have to be entirely mechanized for them to be profitable. That machinery is power hungry too. It also needs to be washed and treated periodically to get rid of all the blood, skin, flesh, and filth. So, more meat production equals more avenues for water usage.

The filth from these farms and the animal carcasses themselves are transported to faraway landfills to be disposed off, requiring more fuel and infrastructure. The massive amounts of urine and fecal matter need appropriate disposal too -- in the US alone, 7 million pounds of animal excrement is produced from the factory farms every minute. Did your jaw drop yet? Checkout the infographic by Cowspiracy to come face to face with the real gruesomeness behind our meat-loving culture. And there would be still more to be enlightened about.

No wonder the entire factory farming practice is extremely prone to disease and infection, given the nature of the work and the crowded and dingy conditions in which the animals are bred and kept for the business to be profitable. The entire ecosystem is propped up by massive doses of antibiotics that are added to animal feeds. Manufacturing these bacteria decimators takes up resources too, water being the foremost of them. Then, the waste water generated from these farms has to be ridded, once again, of these same antibiotics before it can be reused. Waste water treatment is incredibly energy-hungry.

So this raises the impending, yet much-dreaded, question -- how much water would we save by switching to a plant-based diet? Turns out we would be saving 1,100 gallons of water per day. The meat and dairy industries use one-third of the earth's fresh water resources. Domestic use of water is 5%; animal agriculture takes up 55%. It only takes some wisdom and resolve to replace one hamburger with a veggie burger but what would we replace 450 gallons of fresh water with? Without water, life itself would not exist.

With the 38.8 million people of California eating vegan just 1 day a week, we'd be saving 38.8 million x 1,100 gallons = 42.68 billion gallons of water a week. Over nine months, that is 42.68 x 4 x 9 = 1,536.5 billion gallons of water. That is more than one-third of the 487.5 billion gallons the state hopes to save with its extreme drought management measures. Again, this is the saving from choosing to eat plants over animal products just 1 out of 7 days a week. This choice, by the way, is healthy too. Even if praying to God has been your way of helping the drought so far, well, God only helps those who help themselves...

Further, even if drought and sustainability aren't your primary concerns, it's worth looking at how our food choices fit in the socio-economic model of today's world. Per UN Water, 85% of the world's population lives in the driest half of the planet and 783 million people do not have access to clean water. On the contrary, an average American lifestyle is kept afloat by 2,000 gallons of H2O a day -- twice the global average. Sounds like being in denial of the consequences of our obsession with meat and cheese is bearing a heavy burden on our core ethics and responsibility as a global citizen beyond any reasonable doubt. 

Finally, on the topic of veganism, or even vegetarianism, many people simply shrug and state "eating meat is my personal choice" or simply proclaim themselves as "proud meat eaters." Knowing what you know now, is it really a 'personal' choice? And are you still 'proud' of it? =)

May we be wiser and virtuous.

-Shine

Three Years and Counting...

Three years ago around this time, my most burning desire was to be in shape, be fit and physically strong, and have that envious endurance I had seen in my dad and some athletic friends while growing up. Being in top physical form seemed to be the gateway to all other long-cherished dreams and aspirations. Does that resonate with you?

In my case however, it wasn't a capricious pursuit. It had etched its way deeper and deeper ever since I turned into the tumultuous teen years realizing that being heavier than other girls had been an integral part of my identity all along. The sports field was the arena where other kids effortlessly outshone my lackluster talent.

For nearly two decades, my BMI ranged from 24.9 to 26. There was an intrinsic resistance to most physical activities, including walking more than a few blocks. The thought of breaking a sweat was unpleasant and required much self-negotiation, leave alone any vigorous activity that might test my physical limits. Any adventurous sport was beyond consideration.

As a result, most social situations centered around fitness intimidated me to the extent that I subconsciously precluded my involvement. Many shopping trips ended in disappointment when that pretty dress wasn't available in my size or didn't look flattering. The shape I saw in the mirror wasn't what I wanted to see. Loving myself took a lot of effort, at times.

Amid the gamut of things that each one of us inevitably gets to 'deal with', these were the skeletons in my closet.

My normal vegetarian diet -- and packaged boxes of 'healthy' foods -- didn't help. Phases of unwillingly exercising for several weeks didn't tip the scale by an ounce =(. A visit to a nutritionist found me reading calories labels on every food item I bought, but that wouldn't make the cut either. Needless to say, 20 years of being overweight witnessed numerous failed attempts at getting leaner and stronger.

Fast forward to today, my BMI has been ~21.7 for more than 2 years now (that's exactly midway in the normal range)! I am two dress sizes smaller. Forget walking; when I am in the running wave, I run a couple of miles 2-3 times a week. Breaking a sweat makes me feel lighter both physically and mentally. In fact, not sweating every couple of days feels itchy and yucky.

As I lost weight, the desire to get stronger quickly followed. With the help of a personal trainer in the last 18 months, I can now do 3 sets of 15 squats with a 35 pound kettle weight! I'm on my way to bike ~100 miles this month, including pedaling the uphills in my neighborhood. Those biceps, triceps, abs are beginning to peek from underneath layers of fat =). They need more work though.

But where do I stand in the statistics of endurance? About three weeks ago, I dropped in to a core power yoga class -- read fast paced yoga set to music and done with weights. Only 3 out of 8 folks made it to the end of the hour without any major breaks. I was one of them! The other two were omnivores! To my astonishment, I saw the most muscular, regularly working out men take breaks from exhaustion while I kept up with the class. Then I biked back home 4 miles with a 15" laptop strapped to my back...

In those moments, my mind inevitably cycled through those mental images with my childhood classmates when the playgrounds had been ruthless to me. Triumph is too insignificant a word in describing this journey of personal transformation.

Quantifiable accomplishments might feed to conceit; immeasurable ones only bring humility and gratitude.

Beyond the obvious gains in physical health, there have been many others. In the last 3 years, I have fallen sick exactly twice -- ironically both times when I ate something bad. Quite a leap in immunity levels; fingers crossed. I have written about several other benefits throughout this blog.

What would a similar transformation in your life look like? =)

* * *

So what was the catalyst that brought about my metamorphosis?

I changed the way the ate.

I transitioned from eating vegetarian meals and buying boxes of 'healthy' snack to no-animal-product, minimal-to-zero processed food. Who knew this would be much more than a random stumble into the raw vegan world.

Instead of spending my time at the grocery store deciphering 'nutrition' content on boxes of packaged foods, I run around filling my cart with naturally nutritious whole fruits and veggies and nuts and seeds. The time I save at the grocery store is now used towards peeling, chopping, blending, and juicing.

Here's my typical organic purchase from a local grocery store and farmer's market about every 3 weeks. Oils and condiments less frequently, of course.

Grocery cart

$25-ish worth of organic produce from the farmers market.

That nutritionist did her best to guide me; sadly, she didn't know the potential of whole foods plant-based eating. Unfortunately, most folks in the medical and health and fitness realms today don't! That's why educating ourselves is inevitable. This is the cultural change this blog intends to facilitate.

The more I incorporated organic, fresh fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds in my diet, the more my body and taste buds rejected the pervasive highly processed foods -- breakfast cereal, dairy milk, off the shelf juices, butter, cheese, jam, protein bars, cliff bars, microwaveable foods, pre-made salad dressings, yogurt, chips, pizza, pasta, cup noodles, chocolate, muffins, cakes, ice cream, you name it.

Yes, the list of what I have nearly eliminated from my food repertoire is rather exhaustive. To most people, this way of eating probably sounds like a perfect recipe for starvation, emotional erosion, tremendous sacrifice, and an invitation to unnecessary hassle and restriction in their lives. Simply put, it probably sounds undoable. And, perhaps even insane!

The truth is sometimes I can't believe it myself! =) Just a few months before I started eating the raw and vegan way, if someone had told me that I would be eating mostly uncooked, plant foods and would keep at it for 3 years, I would've educated them of my 'healthy' food choices and then pondered the conversation from a safe distance :p. Instead, today, some of my closest friends are those who eat this way! Yes, it's not undoable and we are not insane.

This petite woman who lasted that yoga sculpt class is in an equally sound mental health ;)

Yet, amid a culture drowned in processed foods and in the shimmer of their plastic packaging, commitment to eating natural foods can sound more overwhelming than a second full time job. So why keep doing it and go to great lengths to find that intricate choreography in my daily routine to balance this pursuit among all others?

Because feeling good in one's own mind and body trumps all other considerations of convenience, superficial emotional fulfillment, and social fitting in. It is a gateway to all other long-cherished dreams and aspirations, remember?

Of what use is convenience when that sugary snack bar only provides you with empty calories? Can you be a good sport in social situations when you're tired and feeling crappy because you ate something your body doesn't approve of? When you have some time at hand, aren't you naturally drawn to work on projects from your bucket list? But what does it feel like when you don't have the energy or motivation for them?

This is what has been fueling my commitment for 3 years.

* * *

Now, let's talk about some minutiae of this lifestyle. One of the big differences since last year has been in the way I portion and space my meals. Up until around two years ago, I still ate mostly 3 square meals a day -- breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with a mid afternoon snack.

But now, my meals are usually smaller in portion and more frequent -- at 3 to 4 hours. This way, I don't overstuff myself in one meal and don't get starving hungry by the time for next meal.

One of the time proven ways of sustained healthy and mindful eating is not waiting to eat until you're starving. When we are starving, the urge to satisfy the pangs of hunger with the first thing that we can lay our hands on is hard to curb.

On the other hand, when we grab a meal while being reasonably hungry -- but not starving -- we have the time and energy to make a more informed and healthy choice. Overtime, this can make a day and night difference between wishfully aiming to eat healthy and actually eating healthy.

Another big change for me has been around re-weighing the different meals in a day. Overtime, lunch has become my biggest meal of the day and dinner, the smallest. When you think about it, we're most active during the day, so a major concentration of calories ought be to taken during day time.

Further, since cooked food is generally richer in carbs and fats, it's easier to eat a cooked meal at lunch time with coworkers and partake in the social experience at the same time.

Dinner is meant to conclude a long day and provide the body with just enough energy to rest and rebuild for the night until next morning hits and it's time for a break the 8-10 hour long fast.

* * *

Introducing the green juice dinner

In my second anniversary post, I wrote extensively about the benefits of green juices. Little did I know that green juices would become my elixir for life. Last fall, I began to break up my lunch into two parts and replaced an early dinner with a late green juice.

That is, half of the lunch around 12:30 pm, remaining around 4 pm and a 32-40 oz fresh, homemade green juice around 8pm. Boy, did I sleep well? =) I slept like a baby and woke up with unprecedented freshness and clarity of mind the next morning.

Some of the other changes include bringing seasonal fruits to work and snacking on them throughout the day. Keeping a jar of mixed raw nuts and seeds at my desk is another way of avoiding those roasted, salted cashews and pistachios.

Fruit and herb infused water is another way of sipping small amounts of natural sugars and nutrients all day and feeling satiated. Lemon water is quite cleansing as well, actually.

All in all, as you've probably concluded from my yearly posts, it takes time and patience for old habits to be unlearned. Big changes are best initiated in small steps. As new routines begin to set their roots, finer adjustments play an integral role in sustaining a major lifestyle change such as this one.

* * *

The rise of the activist in me

When I first went raw and vegan, I was vegan by the way of being raw. About a year and half into this lifestyle, I stumbled upon the heinous practices employed by the poultry and dairy industries to maximize their profit to cost ratio while meeting the tremendous demand for animal foods. Not to mention the strain this puts on the environment and our health care system.

I will refrain from making this port graphic by providing links to these practices. But being unable to condone them gave birth to the vegan activist in me.

If you've been following me on Facebook, you probably know how some of this activism has manifested itself in spreading awareness about the multi-faceted consequences of an omnivorous diet. Today, I'm proud to say that I am raw and vegan in equal parts and I eat vegan even when I don't eat raw. =)

Make every single calorie you eat count towards nutrition, satiety, and strength, and you will thrive on a plant-based diet. Recently, I customized this recipe for a yet new breakfast option.

Raw vegan muesli.

Key ingredients: rolled oats, pumpkin, sunflower, and chia seeds, coconut shreds, goji, mul-, and golden berries, almonds, walnuts, and chopped dates, all soaked and refrigerated overnight in homemade raw almond milk.

Taste test? Creamy, sweet, rich, delicious, and colorful. Find me a brand that can beat this breakfast in nutrition or flavor or calorie density. Too bad, no brand would sell this to us because it's perishable and can't be manufactured in a factory hundreds of miles away.

* * *


I hope this write-up inspires you to give a serious thought to what you've been eating and start out with making very small changes.

Think of it this way, if your body doesn't feel and perform at its best, where will your heart and brain reside? We first live in our bodies before living in a house in a community somewhere on this Earth.

Treat your body like you would treat your God's temple. If you are a non-believer, well, this body still carries your heart, brain, and mind. Where would you go if this vessel of yours began to rust and leak sooner than it ought to?

Wishing you a lifetime of radiant health and spiritual awareness.
-Shine

Taming your Sweet (or Salty) Tooth

Does the mere anticipation of cake, muffin, ice cream, or any other dessert give your brain a rush and keep your attention from other tasks attenuated until you eat them? What if you're not hungry or even if you just ate a meal? Doesn't matter, right? =)

Likewise for all those salty chips, pretzels, and roasted nuts. That coworker next to your desk at work didn't have time for lunch, so he substituted his with these. You just came back from lunch -- overstuffed -- but the anticipation of crackling chips in your mouth overpowered all resolves of self-control, didn't it?

And no one can eat just one of those, so it's got to be the whole packet. Only 120 calories, right? =)

I have been there too, and seldom catch myself off guard even now. But how did it reduce from an everyday thing to, maybe, a once a month occurrence? The trick lies in understanding the patterns and effects of our salt and sugar consumption and reducing one to combat cravings for the other.

Processed foods are laden with abnormally high amounts of salt and/or sugar. Why, may you ask. There are primarily three components that make food items tasty -- fat, salt, and sugar. F-a-t makes us F-A-T; everyone knows that. So how to make something taste good without fat? Add lots of salt. Or lots of sugar. Or both (aka soda and other carbonated drinks). It's that simple.

What is worse is when a lot of sugar is used to hide a lot of salt, our tongue can't tell how much salt we just had. But our brain does get hooked to sugar like it would to alcohol or narcotics -- it lights up in the same regions -- and the reward chemical, dopamine, spikes and reinforces desire for more. This is why the mere anticipation of a dessert gives us a rush and keeps our lips smacking.

When that happens to not just you and me but a whole generation around America and the world, Sugar: the Bitter Truth makes big headlines. Other conscious folks post abridged versions. Dire public health warnings are issued. Mere mortals like me try to do their bit in explaining how our existing eating habits keep reinforcing themselves, thereby determining our health long-term.

Now, what do you feel like eating after you've had something overwhelmingly sweet? Something salty, right? And what about after eating something very salty? Something sweet, obviously. When gone unchecked, our increased consumption of salt and sugar only reinforces the desire for more of each until the balance of these two spirals out of control and body can't take it anymore without signaling symptoms like high blood pressure (caused by salt) and diabetes (from sugar).

Clearly, salt and sugar -- in the forms we know them today -- are not needed in such large quantities by our body to function properly and thrive in the first place. For, if they were needed, they would be available in Nature in a ready-to-consume form, like all other vitamins, minerals, and nutrients are.

When you pause to think about it, both salt and sugar are either manufactured directly or are by-products of other industrial processes! If only our culture had learned to listen to our bodies, we would be able to avoid falling into this tailspin much before it gets so late. But sadly, so far, we only respond to the very basic needs -- to urinate, defecate, sleep, have sex, and resist physical pain.

So, then, how to form eating habits that naturally minimize ones intake of salt and processed, artificial sugars? After all, even a home-cooked meal has more salt than the body needs because it is the salt that makes that lentil or meat tender. After that meal comes the homemade dessert to balance out that salt... followed by salted hash browns the next morning. =)

Turns out that minimally processed plant foods -- in their raw, naturally available form -- contain just the right amount of salt and sugar to provide our body with everything it needs to function, look radiant, and thrive.

How much salt can you add to a salad before it gets bitter and mushy? Do you feel the need to sprinkle sugar on ripe bananas, peaches, cherries, and grapes. Do you feel the urge to eat something salty after eating fruits or something sugary after a salad or raw soup? Most likely, no.

One might still ask how fruits, being predominantly sugary, don't lead to the same diabetic conditions as from processed foods? To answer that, not all fruits we eat have to be sweet, and likewise, not all sugars are created equal.

Our body processes fructose from fruits very differently from the high fructose corn syrup used as sweetener in most processed foods and the glucose found in bread and pasta. In knowing that difference lies the key to eat plenty of sugar that provides real, clean energy to our body and sustain its peak performance without sending our brain down the whirlpool of insatiable desire for salt and sugar.

So I hope the next time you find yourself reaching out for that cake or packet of chips, you will pause for a second to take stock of what you've been eating recently and make a different, less processed choice. It only takes one moment of awareness to begin altering our deepest etched habits.

Your (un)sweet blogger,
Shine

Healthy Eating -- Sacrifice or Investment?

We all invest our earnings to secure our financial future. We invest time and energy in our closest relationships to make sure we’re covered emotionally. We invest in education to make sure we have the necessary skills to sustain a living. The wiser among us also ‘invest’ time and effort in exercising regularly to keep the physical body healthy, albeit the motivation is often rather short-sighted—staying fit and looking good. But what about ‘investing' in the food that powers our body and mind and, thereby, our very existence in this lifetime?!

No, choosing rice crispies over raisin bran, diet soda over regular, chicken over beef and pork, and 100-calorie ice cream over another dessert is not the kind of investment I’m alluding to; they’re all essentially the same processed trash--completely unnatural to our physiology. In fact, most leaner foods have more devastating effects on health than their plumper cousins. Think about it, how does a preparation get to have lower calories than its ingredients? Calories don’t vanish in thin air; the ingredients themselves are engineered.

Eating foods in their naturally available form and without hurting other sentient beings is the path Man has to lead to ensure prolonged sustainability of the entire Ecosystem. Very unfortunately though, we live in a culture where choosing a salad is seen as ‘sacrificing' ‘tastier’ foods, passing on processed snacks as being 'finicky', and being vegan often invites cautiously sympathetic comments like ‘oh poor you, there’s nothing for you to eat!’ from 'normal' folks who walk around devouring on dead animals and charred veggies... =(

But is it really a sacrifice? Or could eating wisely be a very prudent investment?! 

Let's start with the self. Usually energetic in the initial decades, we take good health for granted. The simple, yet profound, realization that vitality simply cannot co-exist with an ailing physical body doesn't dawn upon most people until their late 50's or 60's! One might argue that quadriplegics live fulfilling lives too. But that's only when their general health cooperates, not when life is an endless drag of waiting at doctors' offices, popping pills, and getting bypass procedures and implants...

That this body is ephemeral, fragile, and needs a continous investment is a realization that usually only dawns with the ambulance siren. Bill Clinton went vegan at 64 after two coronary implants; million others change their eating habits at a similar age. It is possible to start saving only from this paycheck but one cannot get back the money already spent. Likewise for health. Past negligence to our body simply cannot be undone with medical intervention and prescriptions at a later age.

Only a healthy body can be home to a healthy mind; only a healthy mind brings vitality and exuberance. All our hopes, aspirations, and dreams originate in the mind and are executed via the physical body. It is the individual dreams and aspirations that builds a society, nation, world, and eventually, shapes the future of humanity.

Moving on to world and humanity, we strive to invest money to send our kids to college and in research to find cures for the deadliest diseases known today. But these measures are both myopic and deceptive considering the rate at which our soil, water, and air are being polluted with toxic industrial by-products. Any guess on the single largest contributor to global warming, drought, and poisoning of our environment? It's the meat industry and the processed food industry! The time to be in denial was 50 years back...

Today, ironically--and naively--while we work day and night to 'save' enough for our kids and dream of them getting married and popping out grand kids for us, we continue to squander and deplete the very ecosystem that is quintessential to support them! It takes 1,799 gallons of water to make 1 pound beef and only 80 and 60 gallons each for 1 pound apples and oranges. Checkout out the excellent hidden water info-graphic published by National Geographic.

Further, think about the resources spent in packaging, transporting, and storing processed foods around the world. How many single-use plastic take out containers, spoons, forks, (non-biodegradable) packets of chips, soda cans, ZiCo bottles... does each person toss in trash every week?! How often do we take the time to sort these in appropriate compost. recycle and landfill bins? Ever wondered where this trash goes and who will excavate it from land and seas alike? Our grand and great-grand kids. =(

Alas, today's culture sees the environment and Nature as distant, indestructible, eternal elements instead of delicate threads that weave and sustain the fabric of all Life on Earth. Invest in that fabric and Life will flourish. Or sacrifice our grand dreams for the future of humanity.

So What Really is 'Processed' Food?

'Processed food' is the term we have all heard of--whether in the context of daily food choices or as an expletive used by grandma and health experts. In fact, the two most common questions I have been repeatedly asked in my high raw vegan lifestyle are 'What is processed food?' and 'Where to draw the line between processed and unprocessed foods?' So let's address them in this post.

Any food that has been altered from its natural form before consumption is processed food.

Note that this definition is broader than the conventional one we normally hear--any food that comes in a box is processed--in that it allows for varying degrees of processing applied to the different food items.

So how processed are the most pervasive food items? Sadly, most foods we eat from breakfast to supper in today's culture are anywhere between somewhat to highly processed; this also means that there's almost nothing we eat today that is completely unprocessed, or natural.

Highly processed: cereal, bread, milk, cheese, confectionery, all meats, burger patties (even veggie), pasta, oils and butters, all energy bars, snacks and packaged drinks, chocolate, all desserts, and most other 'edible' items. Highly processed foods often contain one or more of preservatives, colorants, flavor, and/or texturants.

Somewhat processed: all grains including rice and quinoa, legumes, sun-dried tomatoes, olive oil, frozen and canned fruits and vegetables, even pre-washed and pre-cut ones available at the supermarket(!)... you get the idea.

Wow! I do find it amusing that we like to be out in Nature to recharge ourselves but when it comes to the substance that powers our lives--food--we're content with eating it from packaged boxes with 'natural' slapped on them. We strive to live a 'simple' and 'spontaneous' life powered by 'complex' chemicals and 'preservatives'. Simply put, we want to be 'alive' on 'dead' food!


So why is processed food 'dead'?

This blog post of mine describes in detail how high temperature kills vital nutrients from food. Not only that, most processed foods contain by-products from other industries as their main ingredients to reduce cost of production and increase shelf life. For example, high fructose corn syrup instead of sugar and engineered flavors instead of actual fruit. These foods are also usually low in fiber, high in trans fats, and contain chemicals that hijack the biochemistry of the brain. The different brands of packaged food are all about coming up with that irresistible flavor that consumers eventually develop a dependency on.


But where to draw the line?

Well, there's no parallel to eating all unprocessed. But how far is that practical? It helps to distinguish between chemically and mechanically processed foods. While I'd avoid the former at all costs, mechanically processed foods might be unavoidable at times, unless you want to resort to pressing your own olives into oil, shell walnuts and pistachios on your own, grow and harvest your own quinoa, and ferment your own soybean paste into miso! :)

I'd be wary of cans of tomatoes and vegetables lined up on the supermarket shelf outside of the refrigerated isles but I have resorted to pre-washed and pre-cut veggies when time is short. Prepackaged frozen fruit isn't my recommendation; buying fresh, organic fruit and freezing it myself for longer, off-season storage is just as easy. And brings me peace of mind.

Buying food from the local farmer's market ensures minimal processing to a large extent--that food is not mass-produced or transported long distance, it sells fast, and is consumed quickly. Simply put, the need to use chemicals is largely eliminated.


Another important guideline I have come to use is to listen to my body. Did it feel the same when I fed it canned vegetables vs. fresh veggies I washed and cut myself just before consuming? Once you start living the unprocessed lifestyle, you start tuning-in to the signals sent by your body. That, perhaps, is the best guideline anyone would ever share with you...

Two Years of being High Raw Vegan...

It doesn't seem like a long time since I wrote about concluding one year on my high raw vegan lifestyle. But, indeed, another year has gone by, and it's time to write another report card =).

I will begin with emphasizing the gratifying life-experience that comes with increased immunity, energy, vitality, mental focus, and spiritual upliftment. When you have the mental clarity to sort out who you really are, what you stand for, and what you would like to do or become for this world, AND you have the drive and energy to work towards that, you are on the path to a new and better you. That 99% perspiration in life doesn't happen when one is always tired, listless, and conscientiously unaware.

Now, to the minutiae =). How has my eating changed in the last year? As mentioned in the article on cravings, I find myself reaching out for more green juices than ever. Replacing green smoothies, very often. Smoothies, teeming with fiber, are filling, like a meal; juices, sans fiber, are a burst of energy, like a shot of espresso, if you will. In the raw food think tank, there has also been some dichotomy over how blending can change the composition of foods and render them 'less effective'.

Juices, particularly green, make the micronutrients from green leafy vegetables instantly available for absorption by the body. Drinking a green juice is like absorbing energy directly from the Sun -- green leafies don't even have peels to shield them! Think about it, this entire planet has been powered by the Sun for 4.6 billion years, and will continue to be for as long, if a meteorite doesn't hit us, that is. To put time in perspective, it takes only about 5 minutes to clean a juicer, and you get better with practice =).

While we are talking of liquids, it's worth mentioning that raw foods have a much higher water content than their cooked / processed counterparts (obviously!). Prolonged consumption of foods, in their most natural form, keeps your body well hydrated, which is very desired. Conversely, when I eat a highly processed meal or drink alcohol (even very rarely), my body feels rather dry and dehydrated. One glass of wine has to be offset by 5 of water. Who knew, eating raw foods would also alter your relationship with alcohol!

High water content in food also 'cools us down' -- most raw meals have a cooling effect on the body. The ingredients, themselves, are also at a lower temperature -- often refrigerated to last longer and heated only up to 105F. With this kicks in a lower body temperature, over all. That jacket that I much loathed to carry, is now my constant companion, and tucking under a throw is rather cozy -- a small price to pay for all the benefits. Or I could attribute my being colder to getting older and exculpate the raw food lifestyle altogether :p.

Moving on to solid foods, without doubt, there is an increased gluten sensitivity in my body. Having grown up eating whole wheat bread for both meals on most days, this startled me! I wouldn't go so far as to say I've developed celiac disease, but consuming large amounts of gluten in a single meal bloats me significantly -- adding 3 to 4 lbs for up to a week! Goodbye, gluten. It's remarkable how my weight has been fairly constant since the 22 lb loss; increased weight has no respect on my scale.

That brings us to other forms of physical 'healing' that come about with eating nutritious food. Turns out all those new hair on my scalp weren't just my imagination or inflated ego. I checked in with my last hair-dresser a couple of weeks back (I rarely go back to the same person) and she inevitably mentioned how my hair felt stronger and looked denser to her! She even has a new hairstyle planned for me when I visit her next, in about six months. Until then, I'll bask in all compliments on this one =), and pass them to her.

That would be it for 2 years. I hear many reasons people give to continue to eat the way they have been. The most common ones are "processed food is 'tasty'" and "eating this way is 'normal'". Well, if raw food preparations weren't 'tasty', would my 'sacrifice' really last for 730 days?! As for resistance to change, if a better quality and/or more efficient fuel came along for your car, would you still let it wear out faster on the old type of fuel?

What about the fuel that powers you?

The Burned Houseplant

Yes, blogging has been on hold for a while. It's been hijacked by that beautiful phenomenon called 'Life' =).

As part of that, a profound experience came my way today morning and where else would I write about it? After all, this blog is dedicated to celebrating the natural, non-violent, compassionate lifestyle...

Tending a sun-burned houseplant today gave me the experiential realization of something I had only intellectually rationalized so far.

As I clipped the burned leaves of the Lipstick Plant in my living room, I noticed something remarkable -- new, fresh, soft, lush green leaves had begun to grow on the ends of long branches of burned out, wrinkled, bone dried, discolored leaves! 

[See the new leaves at the end of the 'standing' branch (top right corner in the picture below, I removed the burned leaves in the middle). Also notice the three flower buds on the 'front' branch (bottom right). Look closely, it has several leaves missing from the midsection as well.]

This display of the elemental, innate desire to survive -- and thrive -- by a life form was quite humbling, for the lack of a better verb.

When an immobile, speechless plant, potted in a few ounces of soil, placed in limited water and light conditions has the genetic code for the relentless desire to survive, how about those chickens, ducks, pigs, sheep, goats, cows that we torture and slaughter for our food? They are sentient, can move and 'speak', and have personalities, too. They, too, justwant to live. And deserve to!

Who gave us the right to butcher them?

Is it really necessary to eat that fried chicken and bacon and veal? Must we wear those fur coats and leather boots? Must our car seats be made of leather and electronic toys that come in leather cases? Must we 'beautify' ourselves with all kinds of chemicals tested on animals?

I fail to wrap my head around this callousness and ignorance of ours...

Cravings: Explained and Tamed

Cravings need no introduction. We've all experienced them, suffered from them, and often, given in.

No matter if we stash that bag of chips in the topmost shelf of that cabinet, or bury that dark chocolate deep in the fridge or promise ourselves not to buy "comfort food" in the next grocery trip or shut off our senses when passing by that steakhouse or pizza place, we inevitably end up using that step stool, ravaging the fridge, sneaking in trips to the corner store =), or indulging in the deep fried goodness on Friday evenings. Cravings are relentless.

The Internet is littered with tips on how to handle cravings. So is your nutritionists's office, personal trainer's studio, and, of course, the local supermarket with "low calorie," "low sugar," "low sodium" snacks to 'satisfy' your cravings. The latter thrive on the satisfaction we derive as we sink in our chair, having chowed down their snack; the former aim to latch on the guilt that accompanies afterwards. None, however, addresses the root cause of cravings.

The biggest part of our cravings resides in our taste buds. Other factors like smell or sight of food, happy memories, ongoing stress, and genetics play smaller roles to varying degrees from person to person.

The good news is, taste buds are adaptable!

If you find that hard to believe, consider this: do you feel like eating a mildly-spiced, cooling salad right after a salty, hot snack? Likewise, are fritters as tempting right after a healthful morning smoothie? These may be temporary changes in preferences, but a spicy food lover will usually find mildly spiced food 'bland'; a fried food lover, sautéed food 'less tasty'; a donut person, fruits 'less sweet'.

Point à noter: our taste buds adapt to -- and ask for -- the food we feed them over a long period of time.

So what can we do to "reboot" our taste preferences? If we can (re-)train our taste buds on finer, truly naturally-occurring flavors, before you know, they will stop asking for foods that accompany restraint and guilt. You might still have cravings but they will be of the joyful, healthful kind, not the suffering one. Healthy eating IS highly addictive too! Just that no one is telling us that.

Of all the naturally occurring foods, green leafy vegetables are the most rich and diversified in taste (and micronutrient value). When eaten raw, without significant amounts of processed additives like oil, salt, pepper, sugar, etc., they grow on our taste buds. Even a relatively short-term, but consistent, consumption of leafy greens changes our taste preferences. Three to four weeks is all they ask for!

How do I start incorporating more raw greens in my food, without throwing up, might you ask. For me, green smoothies paved the way for a high raw-vegan lifestyle that I would live on for two years. The first year of smoothies would lead to more green juices in the second year. The first juices with more fruit to mask the flavor of greens would make way for purely green juices. I'm still working on the latter, though =).

If a high raw-vegan lifestyle were merely a diet for me (and countless others walking the planet), I (and we) would've fallen off long ago. Two years is not a very long time, but you know eating this way is 'home' for your body and mind when, after eating 8-10 slices of pizza on a crazy, 17-hour day at work, you find yourself making a quick green juice before heading out the next morning!

Would you rather spend the rest of your life suffering and slapping down individual cravings or would you take a month to work on redefining what your body and mind crave for?

If doctors, nutritionists, personal trainers, and food companies and advertisers told you to eat natural, plant-based foods, they would mostly go out of business as the general population would be much healthier. So would the pharmaceutical industry. Would you rather wait for them to tell you what to do or be judicious, take charge, and transform your life before it hits the hospital run?

The Blueprint of Our Food Choices for Life

Have you ever wondered what shapes our food preferences? We develop tastes for different cuisines as we travel around the world or emigrate. But quite often, what really satiates most of us is still what we grew up eating? So what is it that makes it so hard to act truly Roman in Rome when it comes to food? Who created this almost indelible blueprint and when?

"Flavors in mother's milk begin to shape a baby's later food preferences." These preferences become imprinted during what is called the "sensitive period" or "critical period" -- a period that lasts for two to three months after an infant is weaned off of mother's milk. What the baby is fed during this sensitive period and what it sees others eating is practically immune to erasure!*

Wow. So scientific research reveals that our food preferences are implanted in us long before we can choose what we put in our mouth. Thinking about it, this is Nature's way of making us extinction-proof. Who, other than one's own mother, knows how to best ensure an infant's survival? After all, what to eat (and how to get it) is the most vital information an offspring inherits from its parent - across all species.

Eureka! Now we understand our downward spiral into a heavily meat, dairy, and processed-food-dependent generation over the last 50 or so years, ever since America was sold to corporations and 'canned' and 'convenience' foods flooded the supermarkets. Our mothers, having eaten these 'foods' all their lives, are progressively passing on these taste preferences to us despite having our best interests in their minds and hearts!

I cannot say about you, but this fact startled me. I wondered if this imprinting was universal in human infants? For me it was. At times I still craved my 'native food' even as I had been raw vegan for a few months before I read this piece. Then a vegetarian coworker casually mentioned her two year old almost spit when she ate an egg (yes, egg is NOT vegetarian). Then more examples emerged, as I looked for them...

So how does this increased understanding help us? For one, it has helped me to be kinder to myself whenever I crave my native food -- now I know my body just wants me to survive =). But more importantly, it has helped me to be compassionate to folks around me who, earlier, had simply appeared to be slaves to their unconscientious, eco-destructive, and detrimental-to-health food choices. Human will power against Nature's hardwiring isn't a fair game.

But this is exactly where wisdom comes in. We cannot use an imprinting passed on to us by Nature as an excuse to produce a sicker and ephemeral progeny. We cannot continue to submit to what is engineered to be delicious and craved for but wrecks 360-degree havoc. We have to step out of this guise to regain what we've lost in the last half century -- our health and environment. Being the highest evolved form of life known so far, this is our time to be socially - and morally - responsible.

*Deeply indebted to Victoria Boutenko for her masterpiece -- "12 Steps to Raw Foods: How to End Your Dependency on Cooked Foods." This book is where I first read about the blueprinting of our food choices.

So Why NOT Eat a 100% Raw?

So. If eating raw has so many benefits, why not go a 100% raw? Why eat only a percentage of your food raw as opposed to eating ALL food raw ALL the time? Most people that I meet in my local raw food community eat raw in variable percentages - 30-80% being the most common bracket. I, too, eat an average of 70-75% raw (and vegan) (average taken over a week, though my daily intake of raw food is about the same as well on most days).

Well, first of all, being a 100% raw IS possible - and sustainable - both physically and biologically. Victoria Boutenko, who I have mentioned several times in this blog, and family, is 100% raw vegan and an inspiring example for today's health science research (and very embarrassing for the pharmaceutical industry!). Kristina Carillo-Bucaram also has been a 100% raw vegan for about 7 years now and is quite a success in restoring her health and running a local, organic food co-op movement in Houston, TX. Annette Larkins, dubbed as the Ageless Woman - boy, she looks fabulous at 70!

Besides, several M.D.s openly advocate the live foods nutritional regimen - Dr. Gabriel Cousens, Dr. Dean Ornish, Dr. T., etc. Cherie Soria, who I wrote about before, has a Science of Raw Food Nutrition program taught at her Living Light Institute that draws from the contemporary scientific research and studies on nutrition. There are notable vegan bodybuilders who are also raw to variable degrees. Venus Williams recently went raw vegan to cure her Sjogrens syndrome. However, 15 months into this lifestyle, so far I've chosen to relinquish some of these benefits to eat about 30% of my food cooked. Here are my reasons -

Being raw & vegan is easy and convenient as food preparation is usually fast and cleanup is easy. But it is also hard as the prepared dished don't have much of a shelf-life! Raw juices begin to disintegrate right away and must be consumed almost instantaneously. Green smoothies, when frozen, can last for up to a day, but don't taste quite the same - yuck! Salads become soggy when different ingredients are tossed together, even sans dressing. Raw soups are no longer yummy. Even raw ice cream, stored in the deep freeze, is not quite the same (from personal experience). This 'ephemerality' means that we need bursts of time available at hand right around when we're ready to eat. At times, that can be too much to ask for. And that's exactly when cooked food comes in handy.

Thinking about it, the short shelf-life of raw preparations makes complete sense - there are more enzymes and nutrients, so there is increased 'chemical' activity in the prepared dish! Cook the ingredients and they have lost most of their nutrition anyway - there's little left to spoil the food. Add preservatives, and voila, you have the isles after isles of ready-to-eat foods at the local supermarket. Use genetically-engineered ingredients and you have the 30-day survival kit for the Doomsday Preppers =). While we may not be in for an apocalypse yet, we're still doomed, albeit at a slower pace, if we continue to eat the way we do...

Raw food is nutritionally-dense. But not calorie-dense. Two bananas or a mango or a few peaches (the more calorie-dense fruits), won't fill us the same way as a large, baked potato. But we can't feel hungry all day, everyday, no matter the nutritional density of our food. Today, I simply can't eat the same amount of cooked food as I could before. However, even with my regulated portions, I do feel hungry earlier in the afternoon when I have had a salad for lunch, as opposed to a lean veggie sandwich - with bread. I get past this by keeping around more fruit and raw snack to munch on. But it can be a liability at times. It's unfortunate - just how easy it is to keep non-perishable, junk food around. The bacteria won't eat it, but we do, and expect the bacteria in our gut to just play along!

It's worth noting - a large baked potato, in turn, won't fill us the same way as one greased with oil, and loaded with cheese and salt. That, in turn, won't be the same as a plate full of deep fried chicken wings. In other words, getting enough nutrition and feeling full are two very different things. Lifelong social conditioning plays a subtle but significant role when it comes to feeling full. What can one do if deep fried chicken wings feel more satiating than heck, two avocados (which is too much of fat for one serving, BTW)?! We've all had moms shove three slices of bread down our throats when we really wanted to eat only two. In fact, these are exactly the food fads that our society needs to get rid of.

Further, most raw food dishes can be made more calorie-dense by adding avocados, nuts and seeds, coconut meat, olive oil, and more fruits. 

Certain fruits and veggies are best eaten cooked. For example, squash varieties, particularly, acorn. Beans, such as fava, kidney, soy. For others, heating releases nutrients from the cells they're bound to. For example, cooking a tomato releases lycopene, an important cancer-fighting antioxidant. Heating carotenoid vegetables, like bell peppers and carrots increases the bioavailability of their nutrients. Cooking mushrooms can dissipate some of their toxins. So why be headstrong and lose out on the added nutrition by cooking our food occasionally?

Did you know - bell peppers are one of the richest sources of vitamin C. Yes, way more than oranges! Red bell peppers also have a sweet, fruity flavor and taste great in salads and soups. They're the most ripe form of peppers - progressively after green, yellow, and orange. That explains their rich nutritional profile (and high price) in the family.

Another aspect that swings the balance in favor of cooked foods is Ayurveda, the system of ancient medicine from the Indian subcontinent. It might be rather surprising to learn that Ayurveda doesn't quite recommend eating a large percentage of raw foods! Particularly for vata and pitta dosha people. Kapha or kapha-dominant folks are the most suited to raw and vegan eating, according to it. Here's an online quiz, off of Deepak Chopra's website, that you can take to find out your dosha and exercise your judgement if a predominant raw food diet doesn't feel right to your body. For the sake of completeness, I must mention here that I am predominantly kapha. Good to know Ayurveda has my back covered ;).

Next, let's candidly address our selfishness and personal weaknesses - it's just too much of a sensory deprivation to give up all cooked food for the rest of our lives =). Being healthy, living eco-friendly, and riding the crest of the fountain of youth are all very desirable. But so are the joy and pleasure that come from doing (or in this case, eating) what we want, not merely need. For me, I have my favorite cooked vegetarian 'delicacies' that I am not ready to relinquish completely - yet. Maybe raw food will take their place in the upcoming times, or maybe it won't. I don't know. Until then, I will eat everything vegan in the remaining 30% of my diet. No animals will be hurt in the meantime.

Last but not the least, simply put, cooked food is much more accessible. That's what most of the restaurants serve. That's what we're (implicitly) expected to eat in social situations. Even when raw food is available in the form of salads and juices, at most places it's a fixer-upper menu item. No, Jamba Juice is no exception either! This makes eating 100% raw simply too socially restricting! To extend that, no matter how cleanly we eat, we're still exposed to a ton of pollutants and toxins in all walks of life. Do we really want to make our digestive system so sensitive that it can't take anything cooked, greasy, deep fried, even when feeding oneself supersedes everything else? Probably not.

This last argument comes from several personal experiences in the last 15 months. Most recently, while traveling to the western United States, I was appalled by the lack of fresh, organic produce at the local supermarkets. Particularly dismal was the (availability of!) limp, pale, green leafy vegetables. So fruit smoothies replaced my morning green smoothies. Rest of the day was all cooked food =/. 

Before that, I spent most of July 2012 eating 100% raw. Then one day, milk and cereal expected replaced the morning smoothie and yikes, I felt inflamed, heavy, and 'sick' all day. The message from my body was loud and clear - it did not like diesel in place of high octane gas =). There was my lesson - I could not rely on having raw food at hand at all times for the next 50 years of my life; I had to keep my body attuned to cooked and processed foods as well to survive optimally...

So as we end the celebrating cooked foods in this post, I'll leave you with this picture of acorn squash that I baked a couple of weeks back.

• Cut the squash vertically into two pieces. Be sure to use a sturdy knife. 
• Scoop away the seeds to roast them later. 
• Sprinkle salt and lay the pieces face down on the baking tray. 
• Preheat oven to 400F, bake for 40 minutes, turn the squash pieces over and bake for another 20 minutes. 
• Bring it out, sprinkle with honey/agave/maple syrup, nutmeg, cinnamon, and possibly more salt. 
• Scoop and relish.
• Note that most recipes call for butter and brown sugar, but hey, don't we know better as raw foodists?! =)

Baked acorn squash with wild huckleberry honey and spices

Concluding One Year on the Raw Vegan Lifestyle!

It's unbelievable - I recently completed one full year being ~70% raw and vegan! =) Okay, a little more than a year - 14 months, to be very precise. There is contentment that it wasn't a health condition that compelled me to overhaul my dietary preferences; there is gratitude for having stumbled on a path that brought such positive changes to my whole being; there is hope that this lifestyle will steer me clear of all major health problems of the day as time passes.

Talking about the passing time, there have been many 'Aha!' moments in the last 14 months - as and when I realized how small things had shifted and made big differences in the grand scheme of my life. I wrote about several benefits I reaped from green smoothies alone in March this year. Some of them were near-immediate effects, like increased energy, focus, and vitality and others were longer term like the shedding of ~22 pounds. It's time to talk more about the still longer term benefits in this post.

Without doubt, my body has increased immunity. As I moved out after spending close to three and a half years in an oceanic climate to a Mediterranean one in Fall 2011, I found myself catching cold very often! As the temperatures varied largely between day and night and from day to day, by Spring 2012, I had 'fallen sick' almost 4 to 5 times, once every couple of months on an average. Very atypical of me to fall sick, I began loathing that moment when I needed a jacket but didn't have one on hand...

Guess what, I still haven't quite gotten into the habit of keeping that jacket on hand :p. Yet I haven't caught a cold since end of Spring '12, pretty much ever since I started eating raw. My revised food preferences took care of my cold. It's like all the warmth that the fruits and veggies absorb from the Sun keeps me warm (and immunized against germs and bacteria) ;). In case you didn't know, sunlight is a very powerful disinfectant; that's why ancient cultures still prefer to dry clothes and blankets in the Sun. Add to this the fact that food has the most nutrient density when it's in its natural form. Immunizers are nutrients too.

Several months into eating raw, I also realized that skin and hair care lies in the food that grows in the 'dirty' soil, not in the 'natural herbs' handled with gloved hands, packed in bottles neatly laid out on the supermarket shelves. All my soaps and face washes and shampoos still being the same, how should I explain the significantly clearer skin and texture? Folks that haven't seen me in a while can't help but mention the 'glow'. I tell them it's NOT Olay :p. I am not sure what else explains the growth of new hair on my scalp either! I very much need those new hair, BTW ;).

There is also a reduced need for taking rest and sleeping. For several years on my standard cooked food diet, I needed more than eight hours of sleep a day or an afternoon nap for a few hours every other weekend to complete my sleep quota and recharge batteries. It was quite an Aha! moment when a friend pointed out I hadn't been sleeping extra for several weekends in a row. I don't anymore. Sure, when the digestive system does not need extra energy to completely digest what we have ingested, the spare energy stays with the brain to keep it wide awake and alert. The body gladly follows the signals sent by the brain...

On a more abstract level, there has been a kind of spiritual upliftment. There is more contentment about life in general, the thoughts are happier, there is kindness, acceptance, and love for people around me. There is a pursuit of peace and harmony and bliss for the world, even when certain outcomes in my own life are not quite as desired. Feeding oneself with exactly what Nature provides without harming other living beings who share this Mother Earth with us has a whole new perspective of gratitude and co-existence attached to it. It plays out in the day-to-day life very subtly, yet very profoundly!

No, I won't exaggerate and say I was sold on going raw and vegan right as I took notes in the introductory un-cooking class. It grew up on me - from my first green smoothie to my first raw vegan dessert. It is still carving its niche´; one lifetime isn't enough to make and taste every dish that can possibly be prepared. The choice here is as diverse as Nature itself, simply because it comes directly from Nature. It's with Nature's help that our species has been thriving for millennia; not by man-made machines - or food.

Raw Vegan Desserts! :)

Alright, we've covered the raw vegan options for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and snacks by now. So it's time to move on to desserts - something we all absolutely love! =) Wouldn't it be quite nice to eat a dessert guilt-free and not feel weighed-down by the sugar and heavy cream and flour afterward?

Why choose raw desserts over cooked and baked ones? Well, first of all, they don't usually contain any processed sugar - white or brown! Yes, we just avoided the number #1 killer food - even while eating a dessert. Secondly, since the ingredients are not cooked, they are still nutritionally very dense (see this old post about the benefits of eating raw foods). Imagine trading all the empty calories for some real ones even when you are on a dessert binge. Third, they're WAY simpler (and, in most cases, quicker) to prepare than traditional desserts - no pre-heating the oven, baking for several minutes to hours, and scrubbing the bakeware thereafter. Fourth, if you happen to be vegan, you also get to avoid all the heavy cream that later weighs us down. Concocting a raw sweet, yet healthy, treat in a jiffy is super simple!

So what are the usual ingredients in a raw dessert? Typically, dates are the primary sweetener. If the dessert involves fruit, ripe fruit is the best form of natural sugar. Honey and stevia are other viable, minimally processed sweeteners. Sometimes, organic, high quality agave syrup / nectar or Grade A maple syrup are used, though overuse of these is discouraged as they're processed too. The major source of fat and creaminess in raw desserts is coconut meat or avocado (believe it or not). For chocolate, organic raw cacao powder is used. Imagine eating chocolate, sans sugar, in desserts and still maintaining your weight! Yes, raw cacao powder is a great aide in weight loss - check out the superfood catalog. Pie and tart crusts, cookies, cake mixes, etc are typically made with nuts and seeds or shredded and dried coconut - compare that to white flour tossed with dollops of butter or margarine in conventional desserts!

Equipment-wise, raw desserts are typically done in a food processor. That takes care of crusts, mixes, etc. A blender is used in preparing, for example, cream cheeze (the 'z' in cheeze indicates it's a vegan "cheese", made of cashews, almonds, etc.), frosting, filling, ice cream, etc. Funkier raw desserts, such as fruit lather, cinnamon rolls, and tart, cookies, etc. are done in a dehydrator - agreed that a dehydrator does take longer that an oven but we still bypass the soaking and scrubbing chore ;). Of course, tart and pie pans are used where needed. An ice cream maker is quite useful to make real raw ice creams.

Finally to the fun part - recipes with pictures. I must say I don't have a whole lot of personal pictures of raw desserts but I shall add what I have. In other cases, I'll pull something from the Internet and say so.

Raw vegan chocolate mylk - 2 cups homemade almond milk, half cup water as thinner, half banana, and 1-2 tbsp raw cacao power to taste. High speed blend. My personal favorite =) (and a copyright recipe :p). I swear, you'll never feel the same about any branded chocolate milk.

Raw vegan chocolate mylk

Fudge brownie topped with fresh berries - Followed this recipe by Ani Phyo

Brownie with fresh berries

Raw banana ice cream - Followed this recipe with my own tweaks: 1.5 raw banana if large or two smaller bananas, 1/2 cup blueberries, 1/4 tsp vanilla bean powder, and 1 tbsp agave. 

Raw vegan banana ice cream

Trail mix cookies - recipe courtesy Ani Phyo, again.

Trail mix cookies

Peach crumble - Crust made of pecans, medjool dates, virgin coconut oil and pinch sea salt. Filling made of peaches and pinch vanilla powder.

Raw peach crumble

Carrot cupcakes with raw cashew cream cheeze - Here is the recipe. The picture here is not as beautiful as one on that link but mine has a candle on it, to mark my birthday! =)

Carrot cupcake with cashew cream cheeze

Raw vegan chocolate fondue - 1/2 cup dates, 1/2 cup agave nectar or maple syrup, 1/4 tsp vanilla powder, 3/4 cup cacao powder, organic, raw, 3 avocados, mashed, 1 cup water or to desired consistency. Add the first three to a food processor. Blend until smooth. Add cacao powder and avocados and run until blended. May need to scrape the sides from time to time. Drizzle water gradually while running to get desired consistency. It gets thicker and sweeter when let sit for a while. Adjust ingredients accordingly. Recipe courtesy Heather Haxo Phillips.

Chocolate fondue from simplyrecipes.com. Compare their recipe with the raw one and hail raw vegan desserts =).

Raw vegan mango lassi - 1 cup homemade almond milk, 1-2 mangoes to taste, and ice. High speed blend. Add a couple of dates if the natural sweetness of mango and almond milk is not enough. Concocted it very recently while experimenting with homemade almond milk and fresh fruit. I'd like to believe that I invented it!

Raw vegan mango lassi

I will leave you here, making you want to appreciate and adopt healthier eating options. This post also concludes the series on the various food options in the raw vegan lifestyle. Click the 'What do I eat?' label in the word cloud on the right to check out all posts in this series.

This also happens to mark my first year with this lifestyle - I started eating raw vegan in late May 2012. So, in my next post, I'll talk about the enormous benefits I reaped. Then there are some more matured topics planned for this blog - optimal body weight, blueprint of our food choices, deep dive into green leafy vegetables, and much more. Thank you for reading. Stay tuned for all the exciting stuff!