Guest Blogger (1)

Dear Diary,

I am thrilled to announce our first guest blogger.  Here's what Kristy has to say:

Another RAW Convert

Okay, I have admit it. A large, yet not even 50% of the reason I decided to embark on the RAW DIET book by Natalia Rose is vanity. After I cut down to almost nil on breast feeding my daughter, which happened to overlap-lap with the Holidays with my family that coincides with putting a lot of bad food (i.e., cookies, processed food crap) being waved in my face and at the same time my husband opened a new business and is gone all day 6 days a week and I almost stopped running, my midsection, that damn middle part of my body that loses fat last and gains it first, reared its jiggly ugly head again. I also had noticed that although I had been eating a lot more veggies in my life over the past year - almost overhauling my pescatarian diet with an all roasted veggie dinner with (maybe) a salad every night, I hadn't been eating raw veggies or fruit! I must be killing off all the good stuff by roasting it all to death. 

Did I mention I've been a vegetarian for 20 years now, did a two year stint as a vegan in college (with a lot of fake soy meat and margarine!!!) and a pescatrian for the past 8 years. My husband and I having already nixed a lot of processed food in our lives, no high fructose corn syrup...but I was starting to think I needed to take it one step further to really be healthy. Just after the New Year I bought the RAW DIET book on a whim.

Inspired by my sisters and "aunt" in-laws (the glorious ladies Rebecca, Maggie, and Deb who write this Naked blog), I have been keeping on with this raw experiment for the past two weeks. Reading the blog gives me more support than they can imagine. Sometimes when I am pulsing walnuts and garlic in my food processor and checking the recipe again in my already finger-stained and dog-earred RAW book, or shoving a piece of Romaine lettuce that I cut a little too big into my juicer for my Green Lemonade, I picture my beautiful in-laws like a montage all chopping and juicing in their own kitchens. Scenes spanning from Maui to St. Paul to St. Louis. And I laugh when I think of Deb juicing onto the counter-top (Deb, a rookie mistake, been there and done that!)

But Julienning veggies! Seriously! The first night I attempted a RAW dinner,after putting my daughter to bed at 8:30pm,  I placed my cutting board on my wood floor in front of the tv and I sat down behind it chop. It took me a whole 1 hour episode of Celebrity Wife Swap to get through three medium carrots and one red bell pepper preparing the raw Veggie Spring Rolls (I am looking to improve my eating health and life, not my taste in TV) The rolls were delicious and husband approved. I decided then to actually read more of the book and came across the information about tools that help with the chopping. Order mandolin, next on list.

I am not an all or nothing girl. I get no satisfaction in being in control of things, and I love making food fun. I have tried to make food just fuel, and that takes a lot of joy out of my life and doesn't work for me. My goal is to conquer a few new recipes each week and make my "new normal", as Becky calls it fittingly, a lot more RAW. I just want to become more aware. At least by being enlightened by this book and following it lightly I am aware when I am reaching for a handful of my daughters Organic Cheddar Bunnies. Since I already consider an egg and a piece of sprouted grain toast I ate ths morning a Super Cheat, I know I've already made progress. I have been basing my recipes mostly on what ingredients I have left over and so far, I have to say, recreating these raw meals makes me feel more like a cook then I ever have! So yummy and satisfying.

My husband thinks so, too. The guy who once told me with his sincerest Midwestern manliness  "I do not cook" , crushing my dreams of chopping garlic and prepping hippy vegetarian meals with my husband in a lowlighted kitchen with jam-band music in the background ...and this really was a vision I had... happily and carefully and beautifully sliced long thin slices of carrots and cucumber and rolled the nori into perfect RAW sushi rolls. See honey, no cooking!

Actually, he has really embraced this new lifestyle, and is participating! We have both been religiously green juicing in the morning and I have been eating fruit for breakfast and usually a raw salad for lunch.

What baby-step do I incorporate next?  An afternoon juice session? Yes, that sounds fun.

-Kristy
www.kristywalkerphoto.com 

So, dear diary, doesn't she rock?!  This is the coolest!  Can I tell you a secret?  I hope she writes again.  I know that I, for one, need all the support I can get.

TTFN,

Becky