What we have to realize and accept when we choose the raw vegan way of life longterm, is that in many ways we are going back to the way that mankind used to exist before fossil fuels, technology, and globalization. Back to a time when lots of time was spent daily on food rather than on driving, computers, television, and whatever else we do with our "free" time in the modern age. So I feel it is my duty, as a LifeFood Coach, to let you know that inevitably this is an issue you will have to address for yourself on the raw food path.
I also think that if more people understood this first, before beginning or in the beginning of learning a raw food lifestyle, then people would understand the bigger picture of how this lifestyle is about so much more than food. Then people would either have a stronger reason to be successful with it, or a clear choice that it is not for them. Because this lifestyle challenges the status quo on so many levels if one maintains it long term. This awareness from the beginning might save people a lot of confusion and turmoil.
This importance of this issue came to my awareness quite strongly after teaching a raw food workshop one spring day in 2006 to all women. Everyone loved the workshop, yet as soon as it was time to hit the kitchen---and I always make everyone get involved because that is how you learn-- I could almost hear a few silent moans- although they weren't actually released. But once everyone was in the kitchen it was great fun and they all enjoyed it. Then when it came time to eat, of course everyone was in bliss and there were absolutely no complaints!
In the modern world, it seems we want our food but we don't want to have to make it, nor do we want to pay much for it. Much of the population exists off of cheap subsidized foods- wheat, corn, soy, rice, and mass-produced animals. Another interesting issue is that many modern women want to feel that they have liberated themselves from the kitchen, and because I was teaching a a class for all women, perhaps that was another reason why I suddenly had an unexpected change of energy in the group once I asked them all to join me in the kitchen! That workshop was only $40 too, not $100 like most raw food workshops. But they still got a full gourmet meal, snacks, dessert, and the same amount of training and demonstration of how everything is made.
But here again are the 2 issues.... we want our food, but we want it cheap, we want it fast, and we don't want to have to spend 20 minutes in the kitchen washing and chopping to get it. Well somethings got to give, and unless you are filthy rich and able to pay someone to make healthy food for you, basically it means you need to take some time to do it yourself, or otherwise it is your health that gives.
And health truly is wealth! Just ask those that don't have it or that are losing loved ones to diseases that are largely preventable by diet and lifestyle or by relying on preventative medicine rather than western pharmaceutical companies.
June Louks had a lovely raw food workshop today at her family's house in Malibu. We began the day picking food from her incredible gardens, then enjoying the picked berries and greens in smoothies, then an incredible raw lunch of recipes her and her family, and kitchen helper Olga, have created. All which appear in Rawumptious!
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