The RAW side of the tracks: In the beginning...people ate food?

As someone who has been vegetarian for almost 20 years, I've had to deal with the stigma that comes along with eating communally over the last two decades. Travelling the world, some countries don't even have a word for vegetarian (I'll discuss how I deal with this in future posts). In the US, you're usually seen as a 'hippie' and not invited to group events, or on the other side of the spectrum, people will challenge every part of your daily diet in an accusatory manner. It's as if when you make the decision to intake healthy food in order to attain a better human experience, that all of a sudden the way you eat is up on display for everyone to criticize. Unhealthy people challenge if you decide to eat freshly caught fish, "I thought you were vegetarian! Don't you know fish is meat?!" Healthy purists challenge your decisions, attempting to one-up your choices, "I would never eat eggs, that's a living animal. And are those leather shoes you're wearing?" Also, eggs are not living animals, in that they are unfertilized, but I digress. You can't win. Unless you can...

Let's stop the labels! We are people who fuel our bodies!

My choice to become vegetarian happened when I was ten years old. Meat just didn't feel good in my body. I disliked the taste and smell of it, and decided I didn't want to eat it anymore. It was as simple as that. As I got older, I saw fad diets come and go, but I stayed the same. Awareness grew, but my goal was still the same: eat food that you enjoy, that makes your body feel good and vitalizes you. In this way, we can win. If we all eat for ourselves, and shed all of the preconceived notions of how we should eat, that focus will put us all more in-tune with our bodies. As a community, we can maintain our body focus, ditch the judgement and not have to hide what we chose to eat.

Drinking freshly cut young coconut from a local after hiking 2 days and 22 miles in and out of the Kalalau Trail, Hawaii.

In my personal journey, I have devoted years to Bikram yoga, long distance cycling, and nutrition and activity logs, which have all inspired a better, healthier me; in both mind and body. With a degree in microbiology, I also have a curious mind, always wondering what is just beyond what I have already discovered. With a voracious appetite for more, I decided to take on a research project linking healthy longevity to raw food. The first step was consuming an 80-100% 'raw' diet. And that is where this journey begins.