It's not about Perfection

I hear so many people saying "I don't know what to eat!" "I'm so confused!"

Isn't it funny that we don't know what to eat? Imagine that! We have so many choices, such a constant banquet of choices, that we don't know what to eat! It's no longer about 'if' we will eat or where our next meal is going to come from-we have a new problem. Tooooo many choices.

We are bombarded constantly with commercials in print and on the tube, over the waves and in the air-eat eat eat. Diet diet diet. But which one?

When we originally started this blog, way back 3 years ago, we were all feeling that same way. Six of us. We were dietarily confused. Eat six meals a day. Graze. Eat 3 meals a day. Eat breakfast. Fast one day a week. Eat only fruit until noon. Don't eat fruit with anything. Eat meat. Eat chicken. Don't eat fish because of the poisoned oceans. Eat fish for the necessary omegas. Eat organic. Eat eggs. Don't eat yolks. Eat protein. Don't eat protein. Eat vegetarian. Eat vegan. Eat dairy. Don't eat dairy. Eat for health. Don't eat for more health. Eat for your blood type. Eat for your ethnic base. Eat Mediterranean, eat Chinese, eat Ayurvedic. Don't eat pork. Don't drink. Drink red wine. SHEESH.

We sat down and listed all the conflicting messages. We piled the books on the table of all the experts programs.

And then we decided to try raw for thirty days. Just a month, together, with a few rules for our group.

Rule #1. No perfectionism necessary. We figured 50% raw a day was better than what we were doing, 70% raw was amazing, and if we did 100% we were champs.

Rule #2. With lots of room in rule #1 our second rule was still, "no beating ourselves up" No failure, only feedback, write it down, and let everyone learn from it.

Rule #3. Notice. Notice how you feel before you eat. Notice what you really want. Notice how you feel after you eat. Notice what you notice.

Rule #4. Write on the blog so we can do it together and get in touch with our insides. Bloating and belching included.

Rule #5. Eat as much raw as you can, and if you have to eat cooked, don't eat processed if you can help it. We figured it was the chemicals and additives that were  the real culprits, and if nothing else we would read labels and learn.

Pretty simple. What happened was pretty cool-by the end of 30 days, we decided to keep going. It was easy. It was remarkably easy. We found that we liked it more than cooking. There was less clean up.
We learned to marinate, soak, dehydrate. We learned to sprout. We played. We began to come back to loving food again.

I fell in love with food again. I delighted in the colors and the smells, the textures. Why had I lost the art of food? And when? Food had become a drudgery. I think there were too many new rules. I got lost

30 days of raw, on a gradually increasing plan taught me to listen to myself again. I cleared the decks. I found that i preferred soaked raw oatmeal with fresh juice on it and a dash of organic honey MORE than cooked oatmeal. I loved sprouts and I would moan over chopped fresh basil.

But we all loved juicing. Raw fresh homemade juice. If you do nothing else raw, buy a good juicer, and start adding a good big glass of raw juice every day.

This morning I made a juice from:
5 stalks of celery
5 carrots
half a head of romaine
a chunk of fresh ginger
half a lemon with the rind
an apple
half a bunch of spinach

I drank half, and took half to work with me for later. I also had 2 soft boiled eggs. I'm a type 0 and I know the controversy out there, but FOR ME I do better with more protein. So, purists out there, this works for me.

Now over the course of 3 years, we fell away, and came back. We would eat cooked and go yuk and when we fell off we would wonder why when we felt so good on the raw?  On and off. On and off.
We are coming back to an on cycle and loving it once again and once again marveling that we fell off.

Bottom line-find out what works for YOU!
Find your rules for you. Fall in love with what you eat, bless it and it will bless you.
Whatever you eat, love it. Enjoy it. Relish in it. And if you don't, no matter who has told you it is good for you-it won't serve you until you love it for yourself and make it your choice.

To your health!