Hi Urban Vegan,

Just getting back to you on your comment about working more raw into your diet, I really wanted to talk a little about this, as it’s something I have read about in other peoples blogs and websites.

I would like to be 100% raw 100% of the time and as from the first of October I will be doing the Alissa Chohen raw for 30 day challenge and I will be blogging about it on here every day with a list of foods I have eaten for that day.

I know how good it feels to be 100% as I did it for almost 2 months and felt great, over the last two weeks there have been times at home when I have eaten cooked foods because I have been exhausted after work and have not shopped and only had cooked food around… No excuse but it has happened and the next day I have been ill, this has also added to the fact that I have been exhausted…

For me I know I have to be 100% raw to get better and feel great. I want to get back to talking about your comment. I’m not sure if everyone can be 100% but I would hope that most people would aim to do it whenever they could.

The first thing I would do if I were starting out by keeping a food diary for a week, list all the foods you eat and snack on. At this point don’t stress about what is raw and what is cooked just write it down. Now remember if you leave things off because you don’t want to see it written down it’s only you that will see it.

Now after you have done this for a week, get yourself 3 markers.

With a green marker mark all the foods that are un-cooked…

Now with a yellow marker mark all the things that could be made raw, if you need help at this point you could e-mail me or go to one of the many websites I have listed on past posts. If you are Vegan most of the foods you have eaten could be made raw.

Now with a red marker mark all the foods you can’t make raw… are there a lot? Could you replace them with other taste foods?

Now the most important thing is planning and shopping… I have learned by my mistakes from not doing both of these.

First the planning, I would say plan 3 days ahead for the first few weeks. But remember that once you are at the end of day one you should have planed day 4, and so on. You don’t want to get to the end of the three days and find you have no food in for the next few days so you have to eat some cooked foods out of the freezer for lunch or dinner. This is the point I have slipped up on a few times.

Secondly the shopping, I have found it is easier to shop on line and have it delivered, this way I am not temped to think I should get ‘this’ or ‘that’ as we have none in the house. If its not there I will not have it, end of…

Now to round this up… if your not wanting to go 100% raw then by introducing more un-cooked living foods into your body you will feel better and your body will love you for it.

I have to say every time I put cooked food into my mouth I now feel like I’m putting dead foods into me, my body is not getting anything from it and it is just sapping my body of energy and nutrients all the time its in me… I know this sounds extreme but it works for me…

Bear. X