... but I feel a general happiness for all my friends struggling to trudge to class just a few more times. A light is in fact at the end of the tunnel for several of them, and our house is drowning under folds of purple and gold caps, gowns and tassles everywhere.
Tonight my question is what should the focus of this post be? I have a million little fragments of rabbit trails I would love to chase down on a keyboard, but to me posts are only fun to read if they are on specific topic. So, I really should pick just one.
A couple days ago I attended a documentary showing of "Supercharge Me! 30 Days Raw" by Jenna Norwood, who was at the showing to discuss and answer questions. I went by myself, found a seat next to another lone viewer and tried to strike up friendly conversation. She wasn't having it, so I ended up pretty bored just sittin' around for 20 minutes waiting for the thing to start. Jenna was obvious to pick out of the people wandering around the theater. She had a glow that I've noticed coming from several other raw and/or organic people in the area. One woman who works at Kate's Natural Foods in town- I swear looks younger and healthier every time I go in there. Something about natural foods has caught my fancy in that way, in the way that I see people who treat their bodies to live food are treated well by their bodies. If that makes sense. Anyway, she had "the glow" and we introduced ourselves to each other and she commented on what a beautiful name Amelie is and how it's one of her favorite movies. If I had a quarter for every time some one said that to me I would have an endless supply of chicklet gum... yup. That's what I'd do with all those quarters. No doubt in my mind.
The program started and I had to admit my expectations after the begining credits shrank to 25% of what they had been. It was starting to feel like a home video. "Oh rats" I thought to myself. "How long is this thing going to drag." But, it DID pick up. It DID redeem itself. It was fascinating. Basically, Jenna Norwood (from Washington, DC, woot woot) wanted to lose some weight and heard about a detox clinic in San Diego that was based on the "raw food diet" of, well, completely raw vegitation. Nothing cooked at all, raw raw raw. So, she set out to document her journey through this "cutting edge" (was filmed in 2005) diet (which if you think about it is actually thousands of years old) and how she became a full fledged believer in the raw lifestyle. It quickly shifted from a shallow desire to look good in a leotard to a spiritually awakening, mentally invigorating, physically empowering experience that she tours around the country advocating for to this day. It's powerful stuff, this raw food. I have to admit I'm totally into it. I mean, I've piddled around with the Maker's Diet and this and that detox and bleh bloh blah, but THIS! This is like.... a whole other level. Am I ready for this? I want to be, but I dunno... I looked up the Optimum Health Clinic in San Diego that Jenna attended for three weeks of her 4 week challenge and found the cost to be minimally tallied at 3,000 bones. I would give my left eyebrow to ship off to San Diego for three weeks, but I don't have 3,000 bones, not in my body and certainly not in my pocket. Oh well, maybe one day.
Jenna did say you don't need to go to a clinic to get started. But, is there really any other way? A gradual "ease" into the "RAW" lifestyle just doesn't even fit into the same sentance together. Like trying to ease yourself out of a bandaid. Better to just rip it off, right? Saaaame thing.
Needless to say I walked away from the seminar with so many thoughts and ideas running through my head and they are still running through my head tonight: should I go raw what will people think what would my family say but it's not what anyone thinks! but it's too expensive but would I rather 'pay now or pay later' (famous "raw" saying, refering to the fact that you can either pay more for raw food now, or pay later in doctor bills and prescription pills and yes I thought about that for a second so that I could rhyme that). Also I just wonder about what life is like without things like pastries and coffee and bread and jelly and meat! Is a life without those things worth living? That is the question that always swings me back to where I am. I refuse. I REFUSE to be one of those miserable people who is unhappy because they don't enjoy food anymore. But, according to Jenna, your taste buds adapt after a detox and you start craving the things you're eating.
There is much more research to do. I've already checked out all the websites Jenna gave me and done some minor calculations. Subconsciously, I haven't gone to the grocery store all week, because I think maybe I can just stop buying things like noodles and pasta sauce. The truth is, I already bake my own bread, buy grass-fed chicken eggs, non-pasturized milk, butter, spinich, kettle corn (:]) and herbs all from local farms. Problem is none of those things are considered "raw". Not really. Because they come from animals. On the internet there are various arguments both ways about needing dairy in your diet. One guy (rawmodel.com) suggests that you can't really be sustained your whole life without dairy. Another, David Wolfe, of countless bestseller books and top-rated websites, an allround "raw guru" insists it's unnecessary and his life and times reflects that as well. Who's right? Bah, if only I had a million dollars to invest in finding out for myself.
I do know that since my pantry has run itself almost completely out and I've only bought fruit since the seminar, I was doin' the raw thang for most of the day, then scavenged a piece of bread... and I felt it. I felt that my stomach was telling me something. Telling me the bread was no good. And it was homemade banana bread with wheat flour. It was almost healthy. By the worlds standards it would receive the gold star of eat-without-conscience. But, after going only one day basically "raw" already my stomach had found itself enough voice to muster a weak protest as I gulped the morsel down. That is the strange thing about our guts. And I have researched this. And experimented. And I can tell you the gut is almost as communicative as the brain and heart, in fact.. ( I LOVE telling people this) doctors (ask any of them) will tell you that in the scientific world the gut is refered to as the "second brain." Why? Because, when you were an embryo, and a mass of ganglion was forming inside your little bod, it separated into two parts, my friend. One half of this mass travels upwards to your head and weeks later has evolved into your brain. What happened to the other half is just crazy. Just insane. The other bunch of ganglionic nerve endings travels down to your gut. There it grows embeded in the walls of your stomach and the surrounding area. Thus, your gut has a major capacity to communicate feelings, thoughts, etc... The only problem is, esp. here in good ole America is that we eat so poorly, our baseline for how we feel in our guts is much worse that it would naturally be if we ate better. Jenna also spoke of this. She said once she had cleared all the bad toxins and grossness out of her body, she had a clear pathway for communication with her gut. If she ate a piece of cheese, her stomach had a nice clean phone line to dial in and tell her how cheese made it feel. Normally, at least for me, the cheese is just piled on top of a long list of unhealthy or allergic things that I have never given it the chance to sort through, added to the numbing baseline. I wonder what kind of things my tum would say if I gave it half a listen. I hope I'm making sense because I have been typing for entirely too long and I still have way too much to say.
Another time. To be continued.
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