I think I just became a vegan. Wait.... I think I just became a raw food vegan!

"Be not afraid of growing slowly; 

be afraid only of standing still." 

~Chinese Proverb

I have been making some pretty big lifestyle changes the last few years.  It it pretty amazing when I think back on how much my outlook on life, health and wellness has evolved.

I went from your average overweight American who gave little to no thought to my food choices or nutrition to a vegetarian runner who rarely eats out. 

I have made these changes mostly in tiny little baby steps  but from time to time I seem to make larger leaps and jumps. Recently I have been making some pretty big leaps.

Leap...
I have been a vegetarian for 3 years now but have continued to have some eggs and dairy in my diet.  I have tried to keep those products to a minimum but didn't worry to much if my best option out at a restaurant or family get together was a grilled cheese sandwich or a veggie omlet. 

That was until Monday of last week.  We were out of groceries and my office has a great cafe with a full made to order grill so I decided I was going to buy my breakfast and lunch that day (which I rarely do anymore).  For breakfast I got an egg and cheese bagel sandwich. 

I have always loved this breakfast on occasion but for whatever reason that day it just didn't taste all that good.  As the morning went on it made me feel even worse.  I just felt slow and sluggish and just generally gross.  Ugh...  Mid morning I sent my husband a text message that said "I think I just became a vegan". 

And Jump....
When I decided to stop eating meat I didn't want to just replace it with highly processed soy products or start eating significantly more eggs and dairy than I used to as can be easy to slip into as a vegetarian. 

I want to eat real whole foods.  Not boca or tofu.  So I learned how to cook dried beans, rices, whole grains and that sort of thing.  It has been a journey and I am alsways anxious to learn more.  I have been known to read a cookbook like a novel cover to cover to learn about all the techniques and ingriedients.

Which leads me to the next phase in this little story.  The last several months I have been very interested in the idea of living food.  Such as sprouts grown on the kitchen counter that are still growing when put on a salad and fermented foods which have living healthy bacteria to help digestive health (think pro biotic yogurt but with vegetables or perhaps beverages). 

I have spent a lot of time over at the sprout people website and I recently picked up Wild Fermentation from the library and read it cover to cover. 

And then it hit me.  Live foods, as in raw foods, as in those crazy extreem raw food vegans I swore I would never become like who just take things "too far".  Somehow that lifestyle doesn't seem so crazy to me anymore.

So I picked up a couple raw food uncookbooks from the library.  I picked up Raw Food Real World and Ani's Raw Food Essentials and read them both cover to cover (I'm actually still working on Ani's Raw Food Essentials).  

Both of these books are wonderful with both amazing recipes as well as a very healthy and reasonable outlook about eating raw food. Both book are about living a full and healthy life.  About loving food and the process of preparing it.  About doing whats best for you even if sometimes that means heating some meals over 115 degrees or eating out at a restaurant with friends.  Its about choosing raw foods because  they make you feel amazing and not because you "should".  They are about treating the raw food lifestyle as a personal practice and not an unyielding dogma.

I think I just became a raw food vegan.


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