One friend called raw food ‘celibacy for the palate.’ At first, my response to that was along the lines of, “You haven’t had a good raw meal, obviously!” because oh my my, I suffer from no lack of yumminess. I’m equipped! I have the cookbooks, the dehydrator, the food processor, the blender, the seed grinder, and I’m using them all to good effect. And having fun, too.

But l’m starting to get what he meant by that. There’s an addictive quality to the comfort foods, the melting cheeses, the breads and cooked grains, sauces thickened with flour, meats, processed foods. Those foods provide a kind of throatgasmic satisfaction of a different order than the kinds of deliciosity I am now discovering.

Celibacy is not quite the right word for this way of eating, however. If food is sex, then cooked comfort foods are porn, and this is the real deal. My body loves me while I eat this way. It responds (so quickly!) with more energy, clearer skin and clearer senses. And that love is reciprocated, more and more. We have some work to do on our relationship still, my body and me; I sit at the computer far too long at a stretch without stretching or moving and I’m terribly hooked on any and all means of distraction from the visceral experience of this now, this moment, my breath, my self.

That’s what it’s all about.

In her book, “12 Steps To Overcoming Your Dependency on Cooked Foods,” Victoria Boutenko suggests that we define our personal goals… what we hope to accomplish with the aid of the improved health, energy and free time we gain with this lifestyle. Kind of a personal mission statement.

Mine (though I haven’t defined it yet) might be something like this: to bridge the gap between awareness and flesh, to mend my primal breach and experience what life can be like as a unified whole self. And from that place of wholeness, to actualize my fullest potential as a human being.

It sounds lofty and perhaps unrealistic to some, but I already have moments of experiencing what that feels like, and it’s surely wonderful and worthy of striving for. It’s the act of stretching, of striving that matters, more than the completion, to me.

This new style of living has so far been easier than I expected. It’s also difficult and challenging, and not for the obvious reasons. I don’t crave cooked food at all, at least, not yet. I’m thrilled by this new landscape of taste sensations and ease (now that I have gotten more or less used to the different rhythms and skills required) and I feel zero draw to the smells and sights of food I encounter out and about in the world.

Coffee, surprisingly (to me) has also fallen by the wayside. I hadn’t specifically intended to quit, I just stopped, and I don’t crave other stimulating hot drinks (like tea) either. I drink green smoothies most days and lots of water, and that’s about it, for now.

I just learned from the video link I just posted that I’ve been making the smoothies incorrectly, adding carrots and beets which are starchy vegetables rather than simply fruit and leafy greens. So! Oh well, right? I’ll try it the ‘correct’ way and see how that works. I’m on the very beginning stages of this journey, and if I have my way, it’s going to last me a while.

Ideally, this is not just a ‘diet’, but a lifestyle change. So far, it feels easy on a physical level to keep up.

Whenever releasing an addiction, though (and I’m releasing several at once now), emotional issues inevitably raise their formerly buried heads. “Oh, you’re not stuffing me down anymore! Good! Time to come out and play…”

And that’s a good thing, in my book. Moving through the murk and pain from a position of light and strength, reclaiming the old parts of self that I have been attempting to edit out.

Now if I could just stop reading those dang webcomix. There are too many of them. And the internets are crammed full of annoyingly compelling distractions. I am developing strategies to deal with that (writing in this blog more is one), but I haven’t implemented them yet.

I’m being gentle with myself. I have to want to, right? I’m not interested in shoving anything down my own throat in the name of ‘health’ unless my body and all the rest of me are ready, willing and able. Otherwise it’s a doomed enterprise.

So what does it mean to eat raw food?

Here’s what a typical day looks like for me. For breakfast, I have a bowl of steel-cut oats (rolled oats are not raw) ground in the seed grinder and soaked overnight with dried fruit and salba (chia seeds). To this, I add fresh fruit, a pear maybe or a banana and homemade almond milk.

I’ll normally save the green smoothie for later, but that may shift; the recommendation is to have it first. I’m not a stickler for the rules, but I do like to try it out the way you’re ‘supposed to do it’ in case there turns out to be a good reason for it.

I don’t tend to need lunch after having that for breakfast, but when I’m at home I’ll graze on fruit (fresh or dries), crackers, dried almond cookies (using leftover pulp from the almond milk), veggies in dip or somesuch. At work, I might walk over to Zen Zero and see what they have on offer for raw snacks.

For dinner, I might have sunburgers, which are a ground up mixture of sunflower seeds, carrots, onions, herbs and flax seed (for binding). I make up a big batch of dough that will last for several meals (I have no problem with having the same meal a few times in a row, if it’s yummy). The burgers are much easier to make into patties than meatburgers which I always found gross, sticky and smelly, and the flax makes an amazingly effective binding agent. They hold their shapes perfectly. I form them into two half-inch patties and pop them in the dehydrator in the morning.

To serve, I pile a thick bed of lettuce onto a plate, place the sunburgers on the lettuce, add various condiments (right now I’m using, from Raw Rose’s cookbook, ‘Better Than Mayo’ and ‘Barbecue Sauce’–though why on earth she would call a raw sauce by the name of a cooking method is beyond me), sliced onion, mushrooms, tomatoes, peppers, etc., whatever I have on hand. I sprinkle with a bit of lemon juice and by the time I’m finished I’m stuffed and sated.

They say that you don’t overeat on raw food. I still find it hard not to eat too much, actually. It’s too darn tasty. Weight loss has not been part of this journey so far, and I’m okay with that. I’m happy being round as long as I feel good, strong, energized and healthy. I’m lucky enough to have a lover who likes me as I am, so I don’t have to deal with that pressure.

The eating too much thing may shift as I adjust to the new lifestyle and new way of eating, but even if it doesn’t, I don’t suffer aftereffects from overeating this kind of food the way I used to. I don’t feel like I’m carrying a brick in my belly. I just feel too full, with the expanded sensation of holding more stuff in my stomach than necessary. But that goes away, there’s no pain, queasiness or suffering involved. Freedom!

I can eat all I want, all I can, stuff my face with food I find absolutely delicious and which meets all my nutritional needs, and feel good. Hallelujah for that.

As a lifelong compulsive eater, I need to choose my battles. I’m choosing to change the sort of food I overeat and work from there. And oh, yes; I’m now extremely regular. Constipation used to be an issue for me; no more.

So, that’s dinner. I might have a snack later in the evening if I get hungry. Often (like tonight) I don’t need anything more to eat at all.

The feeling-quality of my body has shifted in a way I find hard to describe. It’s as though my flesh has become more permeable to light. I feel slightly altered; sometimes downright high. I’m still in transition, and I don’t know where this new way of eating is going to take me, or how long it will last, but so far, so good.

Winter has always been a hard time to maintain any kind of distance from my eating compulsions, for obvious reasons. I’ve been invited to Thanksgiving Dinner with a dear friend and I would love to go. I’m hesitating because it will involve, in addition to turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, partying.

And you know what that means. Substances other than food will be served and I don’t know how my newly sensitized flesh will be with that. I’ve never been very good at just saying no to drugs or alcohol. I don’t seek them out, I don’t keep them in my home, but when they’re on offer, I’m generally a big yes. I feel good about it, since it’s an occasional thing and who wants to be a party-pooper? You have to let loose sometimes, right?

But it’s a bit fraught right now. Being melted and heightened with the aid of drink and smoke will very likely lower my resistance to other things, and I’m afraid.

Still, I’ll see how it goes. I don’t want to give up fun for the rest of my life for health’s sake. My body likes fun too. Maybe I’ll bring my own food and drink to the party. I hear red wine is raw!