Archive for August, 2008

Raw Vegan Food

Sunday, August 31st, 2008

There are no more than 300 people in Ireland with the diet as healthy as mine! I am raw vegan. What is vegan, what is raw? Vegan is a person who eats exclusively plant food and doesn’t use anything that comes from animals. That means no meat, no dairy, no eggs, no fur or leather. A raw vegan diet additionally excludes everything what is cooked or processed with heat. At least 80% of raw food intake qualifies to be called raw. Currently I eat 95% raw and had several 100% raw days, that means that I am probably in the top 100 of the healthiest people in Ireland, well at least healthiest physically, I don’t know if mentally :)
I will show you what I eat on an average day. Then I will provide some statistics. At the end I will list advantages and disadvantages of being raw vegan.

This is what I eat daily:

  • 3 oranges
  • a pineapple or cantaloupe
  • 10 bananas - huge supply of calories, some proteins and minerals - I snack them throughout the day.
  • 5 apples
  • 1 carrot
  • walnuts, brazil nuts - selenium, proteins and fats
  • 5 tomatoes
  • 4 stalks of celery
  • spinach and mixed greens - nice minerals
  • some radishes
  • herbs
  • 1 bell pepper
  • some sprouts
  • seeds
  • a bit of seaweed - because of iodine
  • avocado - good fat, iron
  • extra virgin olive oil - the best oil
  • omega 3-6 flax seed oil
  • occasionally:

  • strawberries, raspberries, blueberries,
  • kiwi
  • lemon
  • cucumber
  • grapes
  • coconut
  • and whatever is available in the store. I also take vitamin B12 as every vegan should.

    I always keep a stack of fruits in my room and another stack in my office, that is very handy for snacking throughout the day. There is a saying “An apple a day and doctor goes away.” It seems that I am sending a whole department of doctors away :) Perhaps they can find a job in agriculture. For lunch and dinner I eat vegetables. I have a shredder and I prepare a gigantic salad for few days, once I’ve made a 10kg (20 lb) of salad and I ate it in a week. I like to wear vegan T-shirts. You can see them in the photo gallery. I thought it would be offensive to people, but unfortunately people like it :)

    How many raw vegans are there? Those are just approximate proportions:
    4% of the total population are vegetarians
    4% of vegetarians are vegans
    4% of vegans are raw vegans
    4% of raw vegans are exclusively raw vegans

    I’ve never been vegetarian. I became vegan overnight but it took me several months to adapt to the raw food. Currently I am between raw and 100% raw, and who knows one day I will live purely on the light from cosmos :)

    What’s good about being raw vegan?

  • All raw vegans report more energy and vitality.
  • Raw foods retain vitamins, full proteins and enzymes for digestion.
  • Quick to prepare.
  • Practically no dish washing.
  • Good for the environment - no energy needed for preparing food, less carbon dioxide, more oxygen from plants, much less packaging, much less work to do.
  • Saving money on pots, stoves, microwaves and electricity bills - for that money you can send your doctor to Bahamas, you don’t need him aymore
  • Less sleep required by: vegetarians 30min, vegans 60min, raw vegans 90min.
  • What’s bad about being raw vegan?

  • I look too young, I am 28 and I look like 22. I would prefer to look more serious.
  • going more often to the toilet, that’s because of large amounts of water and fiber
  • Being raw is weird in social situations, but it could be taken as an advantage especially for grabbing attention
  • Was it hard to become a raw vegan? No, not for me, it is like climbing the mountain, it was curiosity and satisfaction. Once you are raw the perception changes and then raw food has more flavor than cooked food, it is because taste buds adjust to the eaten food. That means that raw food tastes better to raw than to normal people. This is the key to understand that in fact it is easier to be raw. This is a shock for the society but humans are the only species to eat cooked food. The food you eat does not just pass thru you, it builds you up. You are build from what you eat. That what I eat now tastes better than any other food before. It is easier, more efficient, money saving, great relief for the environment. Raw vegan diet is unique, you just had the opportunity to read about it from one of the healthiest people in Ireland.

    Joe Williams in Ireland - Seminar Review

    Sunday, August 17th, 2008

    This year in May I was on a seminar by Joe Williams. He is a great motivational speaker with a lot of experience in leading meetings, he closely cooperates with Anthony Robbins. There were plenty of people from the entire Ireland - both northern and southern.

    Those are the most important notes from the Joe’s talk:

  • Emotion and Energy is something you generate, not something you are waiting for.
  • Remind yourself how did you accomplish seemingly impossible goals in the past.
  • Unconscious mind is 30000 times more powerful than a conscious mind, that means that you can achieve and earn at least 30000 times more using it.
  • Everyone has 3 opportunities per month to be a millionaire, but we are filtering it out.
  • Dream big!
  • Create enough strong WHY if you want accomplish something.
  • Use amplifiers: sound, movement.
  •  

    Joe told a funny story about a golden buddha reminding us that we are greater than we look like. The story goes like this:
    Long time ago in the wilderness there was a tribe that had a lot of gold, once they decided to make something great of it and they melted it into a buddha sculpture. They were happy and it was a top treasure for the tribe. It happened that a foreign tribe was a real danger for the tribe so they wanted to protect the precious sculpture. It was so heavy that it was unmovable, the best idea was to cover it with mud. The layer of mud around the golden buddha hardened so for the intruders it looked like nothing worth, amateur, stone sculpture. Because of scarcity the secret about true nature of the sculpture was kept for years and never publicly revealed, it was too risky. From generation to generation fewer and fewer people knew about it until the last old man died and the secret with him. The times were safe now but no one even expected that they had an enormous treasure in the middle of their village. People had nothing special to appreciate and were disappointed that their ancestors had build such a primitive sculpture. On one sunny day a young boy went playing football and a ball stroked the sculpture leaving a crack on it. The boy was amazed with the shine coming from within it, he alarmed the villagers and all together crushed the entire hardened layer. From that day the magnificent golden treasure was warming their hearts, they knew that they are rich and always were.
    This story tells that we as people are an enormous treasure but we had forgotten our true nature because of the scarcity. Even if it is safe today to get rid of the cover that keeps us unworthy we still haven’t saw our true internal light.

    That was a fantastic, inspiring event and Joe Williams showed a lot of charisma, expertise and enthusiasm. Thanks Joe.