loving food that's loving me back

Alison is presenting her interview series 'Living on Fruit' and the video below features long term low fat raw vegan Andrew - there is no doubt that he genuinely enjoys his food and whole lifestyle. And I know exactly what he means. Right now, I am experiencing such high levels of happiness, contentedness and well-being resulting from my raw vegan fruit-based diet that I don't see myself eating something other than fresh, raw, ripe, preferably organic plant foods anytime soon or ever again. I am just too much in love with my current food and the results coming from it.



Do you love your food? And equally important: does it love you back?



Sometimes people think I am an ascetic eating this way, when actually the TASTE of these foods is one of my main reasons to choose this diet. Whole, fresh, ripe, raw fruits and vegetables are the most beautiful, tasty and satisfying foods I know of. I have not always viewed it this way, I am still evolving and growing more and more into it. Practice is a crucial factor: The more you practice being low fat raw vegan, the better you will become at sticking to it. It takes time to change habits, change your perspective and change your actions, I made so many decisions in the past that were not serving me - but in the end, they brought me to where I am now.
Doug likes to tell one of his many great anecdotes and it goes somewhat like this: He once asked a very successful and popular man about the secret behind his success. The man answered: All comes from good judgment. Then Doug asked, how do we gain the ability of good judgment? Experience, is the answer. And how do we get experienced? Poor judgment!
Failing is part of life, and part of success, if you handle it the right way. It is a vital source of experience and so it can be very valuable for making decisions in the future - hopefully decisions, that serve you much better.

Don't stress yourself with thinking too far into the future ('Oh my god! I can never have candy/pizza/french fries (whatever) ever again!'), but stay in the moment and ask yourself, if you are willing to experience the uncomfortable consequences resulting from your choices in the now. Change your focus from a deprivation point to an ABUNDANCE point of view - because that's what this lifestyle is ultimately about for me anyway: abundance. I love to eat. And I love to eat A LOT.

Much happiness! Enjoy!
Jasmin

thriving on the species-specific diet

Still loving the low fat, high vibe fruits and greens diet and lifestyle. At the moment I am enjoying lots of watermelons, grapes, strawberries, cantaloupes, lots of different tender leafy greens, papayas, tomatoes, cucumbers, bell peppers, galia melons, honeydew melons, bananas, dates... I think I have never loved my food as much as I do now ever before in my life. I eat cocktail tomatoes wrapped in butterhead lettuce and go almost crazy about the amazing flavour. Every meal is a surprise and the flavours seem to get more intense and varied. It's amazing! Taste buds are renewed every 7-10 days. Mine are becoming more and more sensitive and I just love it. My sense of smell is improving even more, so that I can inhale and enjoy all the wonderful smells of all kinds of blooming trees and flowers. May is the most beautiful month of the year, indeed. Not only because I am born in May. :) The weather is just perfect. The fruit is great.

Some time ago I posted about the blood type diet. Here is what my hero, Doug Graham, has to say to this:



And the answer is... species-specific diet! Of course! ;)
Looking forward to July to meet him again at the fabulous Fresh Food Festival in Denmark. I am so glad that Petr is organizing this event. My dad will come with me this year. :) I am so proud of my parents, they are moving more and more towards low fat raw vegan. I prepared a fruity lunch last Sunday and it turned out beautiful. Will post pics soon. It looked so gorgeous!

The Vegan Summer Festivals of the Vegan Society Austria are a blast! I met a fellow 811er in Linz last week! That was so amazing!

I'm more grateful than ever. ♥
Do you feel the flow? ♥

hakuna matata

A quick update: Everything is fine, I really enjoy my food, I am deeply grateful for being alive and living a non-violent and abundant lifestyle! I feel like everything is flowing more these days and I need good rest and more sunshine to get more balanced, but overall I feel really good. My skin has improved so much which is a great motivation to stay raw! And the Summer is coming soon, so I'm super psyched for all the yummylicious fruit!

My breakfast today:

Really good video about the importance of a plant-based live food diet:




The Fruitarian Diet. Theoretically, and in practice, a diet composed of high quality, ripe, raw fruits provides the human body with all the nutrients it needs with the very least expenditure of digestive effort, at the same time producing no toxic by-products and so allowing the body to detoxify itself and perform at its peak. Raw fruits are more palatable and provide more energy for a given amount than vegetables and can be prepared with less effort and less waste. Not only can the highest level of health be attained on a fruitarian diet but, because it places so much less wear and tear on the body's vital organs, degeneration is slowed down and the lifespan extended.

From: Health and Survival in the 21st Century by Ross Horne

... and: Don't worry, be happy! Hakuna Matata! NO WORRIES!

feeling high ♥ on beautiful fresh food

I am SO HIGH on RAW foods today, crew! I feel fantastic right now. Wow. I am just sitting in front of my PC laughing sillily because I am so happy. :D

Today:

Got up at 5am and went to work. I work in the fruit and veg section of a big super market, so after work I purchased my lunch. :) Got home at noon and then...

- breakfast/lunch: grapes - loads, some fresh dates (= NOT dried, so yummy!), a big head of green lettuce
- snack: grapes and greens (another big head of lettuce and mini cucumbers)
- dinner: strawberries, papaya, tomatoes, greens (lettuce, arugula, sprouts, basil)

OMG. This was probably the BEST dinner I have EVER had. =) I need to take pics of my food again, it's so pretty and tasty that I wanna share it with you! Unfortunately, the batteries of my camera are low, I will post some pics tomorrow! ;)
So, this is what I had: First, some strawberries. Then I blended some strawberries in my tiny blender just to see, if they taste any different that way, the blended strawberries turned out really yummy, too (surprise!). Then I had some RIPE JUICY SWEET papaya (I saw it in the shop and it smelled so good, so I had to take it with me). I poured some of the strawberry 'sauce' into my papaya 'boat' - this was divine. Just to make it more fun, I combined some strawberries and some papaya in the blender and gave it a twist: great combo! I still had my undressed greens sitting in my bowl waiting for being devoured. I threw some tomatoes into the blender along with the strawberry-papaya combo: great soup! Then I added basil. Even better! And last, but not least, I added a handful of arugula and pulsed. This is the most amazing savoury low fat raw vegan dressing/sauce I have ever had, I think.
I am so glad I experimented a bit! I highly recommend experimenting with fruits and veggies in the kitchen (or on the study desk, as in my case). I coated my lettuce strips and sprouts with my sauce and enjoyed this BEAUTIFUL dish with my chopsticks. I felt like in heaven. Ha! Why cooking - when I can create something as mindblowingly delicious as this really simple low fat raw vegan dish? ;)

Happy Vibes to ya all,
Jasmin
♥


BTW: Here is a video by the amazing Chris Kendall showing some of his low fat raw gourmet creations:

rawvelations

I made a decision today. I hid my pot on top of my cupboard where I cannot reach it easily, hehe. I am not going to eat cooked vegan meals anytime soon again. I am going all raw NOW. This is why:

I have been eating cooked vegan meals (no salt, no oil) every day since last Sunday (5 days) and I do not feel my normal happy self. I feel heavy, down and sluggish. Although I cannot surely say that it is solely because of the cooked food, I am sure it is a major factor. I have experienced swell and some weight gain (I do not own any scale, but I can tell by how my clothes fit and how I look). I experience more thirst than usual. My digestion is OK, but I know it can be better. I do not feel like exercising after eating something cooked - especially, since I ALWAYS over-eat (= eat more than is comfortable) on cooked foods, it does not matter, if they are salt- and oil-free, if I am honest. I thought I could happily include cooked vegetable dishes in my diet and stay high raw vegan and low fat, but at least right now, this does not seem to be the case.

I feel more determined than ever to stick to 100% raw now. So, that is the positive side of this! I feel so sorry for myself that I do not go outside and enjoy the good weather or do some exercise, when I am actually such a big fan of sports and working out. It pains me deeply to see myself gaining weight and hiding behind closed curtains since I feel so disgusting because of over-eating! So, with ending my cooked food binges, I need to find a good alternative way to cope with my emotional void. Any ideas or suggestions? I have a lot of ideas, actually, but still I have gone back to old behavioural patterns again and again. So, how do I make the change once and for all?

Another interesting thing: the blood type diet! I saw a discussion  about it and got curious. I have always thought that the blood type diet was bogus, but maybe there is something to it. I clearly do better on temperate fruits and interestingly that is what is suggested for people who have blood type AB. ;) Alas, it is somewhat true in my case that orange juice can upset my stomach, I have always thought it is due not optimal quality oranges! And I used to drink water with lemon juice every morning some time ago and felt amazing doing that. I stopped this habit because I read somewhere on 30BaD that lemons are not a good thing to put into your body. I also love grapefruits. So, for now I will do a temperate fruits only experiment. (Although some of the melons and other fruits I consider temperate are imported from more tropical countries.)

So, again: mono meals - or rather one type of fruit and greens at a time - and no overt fats AND all raw are my priorities. Starting now - because I am worth it and deserve the best.  ♥ And you do, too! ;)


PS: Here you can see some foods recommended for AB:

• All kinds of Grapes and Plums, Berries (Cranberries, Gooseberries, Loganberries), Cherries
• Pineapples
• Grapefruits, Lemons
• Kiwi
• Tomatoes
• Celery, Green Leafy Vegs, Cucumber, Parsley

 Not recommended:

• Mangoes, Guava, Coconuts, Bananas and other tropical fruits except Papaya (which I love)
• Oranges 

precious fluids and goals ♥

Hello beautiful people :)

The positive message first: I have been eating exclusively sweet, juicy fruits and tender leafy greens for over a week and felt fabulous.♥
Then I decided to donate some of my precious blood plasma - I get some money in return and I figured since they check my blood they can tell me which blood type I have. I had to work on Friday and Saturday (need to get up at 5am in the morning) and in addition to that I had lectures on Friday and Saturday like every other day of the week except Sunday. Saturday afternoon I went to make my donation. The nurses were really nice and explained everything to me very kindly. The doctor and secretary were not very helpful at all. They wouldn't give me my blood results and could not tell me my blood type! (The only thing they told me was that my iron level is perfect and that my blood protein levels are more than fine.)

The donation process itself took only about half an hour (unlike about one hour with most other donors; I think this is partly because I am so short and partly because my blood flows much better than the blood of high fat animal products consuming people!). The machine separated the plasma from the other blood particles right before my eyes. I sent positive messages to my blood and felt very grateful for having such amazing fluids streaming in my temple body! However, a lot of doubts came up during the procedure as well. My blood was piped through plastic tubes, got stripped off the plasma, mixed with a citrate solution and pumped back into my veins. Doesn't sound very healthy, does it? I could actually feel the strange taste in my mouth resulting from the citrate. Not ideal. Do not try this at home. ;)

After the donation I came home hungry for fruity sugars and mineral-rich tender leafy greens to recover properly - only to find that my grapes and lettuce were everything but fresh and enjoyable, I had to compost a good part of my food! I got a headache, drank lots of water (I was sooo thirsty!) and went to bed very early at around 7.30pm. Then I slept (with pee breaks) until 8am the next day. I think my body needed rest! I still felt weak the next day. However, since I have been neglecting my running all week until Sunday, I decided to go for a run. I ran about 5km and then walked home with pain in my chest. Of course, I still had no ripe fruit at home! Bummer! So, I decided to go to one of the very few shops that were open. (Shops are closed on Sundays in Austria.) Did I find good fruit? Well. Maybe the melons would have been alright. Apples from the supermarket do not appeal to me anymore. The rest was under-ripe. I craved greens. The greens available did not look very palatable. I ended up buying lots of veggies and some overt fats! (Avocados and cashews.)

I decided to 'treat' myself  with some nicely prepared vegan food (plain cooked vegetables, no salt, no oils). Honestly, I enjoyed the taste and textures. But I got a belly ache and cramps in my stomach from the cashews. I needed a lot of sleep and water. I did not feel fully rested today and continued this day like yesterday: I started with a little bit of melon (amazing!) and had some slightly under-ripe bananas (they need unusually long to ripen this week!) and then I prepared some vegan food again. I typed it all into my Cronometer and it showed that I have filled up on ALL the vitamins (except B12 and D) and minerals! Over 100% in all the vitamins and minerals, including calcium, zinc and iron! At least something, I hope my body can absorb what it needs. ♥

After these two days of high raw vegan I long for all raw fruity goodness once again and I am ready to create a goal list for the future. So, here goes my goal list:

• always have bananas ripening in my cupboard
• have dates in the room for emergencies (I have never had datorade!)
• move more: go for a long, fast walk or run on a daily basis again
• concentrate on mono meals of juicy, sweet, ripe fruit
• overt-free 
• buy more than I think I need!
• forage wild greens and make green smoothies with them
• buy good organic greens and have about 2lb of greens a day
• mindful eating: eat when hungry, stop when satisfied, do not overeat
• be grateful for what I have ♥ 
• work on my Vision Book every day 
• more sun on my skin and less time online!
• continue going to bed early 
• and last but not least: more water! 

So, here it is, my list of goals, I think it is always helpful and also very important for personal success and evolution to set goals for oneself and reflect and re-adjust after some time. I will let you know, how it goes.
Hope you have a great week! ♥

tracking my progress

Hello beautiful people :)

I've just come back from going fruit shopping once again - it is raining today and the air is super fresh and I enjoy the cool breeze. I carried home four hands of bananas, four kilograms of green grapes, a head of lettuce, 4 bags of mixed greens, a kilogram of tomatoes and two kilograms of kiwis. :) After that I blended some bananas, grapes and a bunch of mixed greens into a beautiful green breakfast. It was so good, I highly recommend it!

These are my new special friends, grapes:

This is the beauty of bananas, grapes and mixed greens combined:

And here is my bowl of goodness topped with greenness:

So, I figured that it would be a great gift to myself to track my progress like my fruity friends Lissa and Michele. I think their blogs are so beautiful and inspiring, thank you, ladies!

I also want to say thanks to Barb, who was so nice to mention my little blog in one of her posts. I feel very honoured - now I feel like I need to work on my blog to make it better! :D

I wish everyone a nice day,
I'm off for class (Walther von der Vogelweide, I'm coming!)
Jasmin