Ravaging the Garden of Eden

So I just got back from my first trip to the organic foods store. I came home with about 350 lbs. of produce that cost somewhere in the ballpark of one million dollars. This will probably last me three days. I'm not gonna lie, I will be super pumped when I make it that far.

So, Kassafrass, just what is "going raw"? Not completely sure, but what I could glean from my not-so-extensive research, going raw is like living (at least orally - easy, kids) as those ancestors of ours did before someone found out where the fire had been hiding for all those years. It's eating raw, "living" foods that have not been chemically altered or heated up to the point of the denaturing of important enzymes, proteins, nutrients, etc. And I'm pretty sure any milk products are out, unless someone can loan me a goat. Who had been raised free range and sans hormones. Mmm?

Well, when I first heard of this concept of living off the land/going back and becoming one with our roots, the spirited hippie inside of me was so excited she immediately tore off all her clothes and cliff-dove into the nearest mountain lake. Awesome. I liked it. Plus, there have been all these studies and ballywho (ballywha?) raised about how this crap in our over-processed food is giving us cancer and asthma and obesity and male-patterned baldness...sounds like a good idea to see what happens when I don't have to deal with all these damaging additions.

On the other hand, the physiologist inside me wonders, will my kidneys get bored? My liver will posit, what am I, chopped? (I know, straight off a Laffy Taffy wrapper. I hate myself a little.) Balance is important, too. Whatevs. I'm gonna go for it and see what happens.

I guarantee you this won't be like a year long thing. Probably won't be a Thanksgiving long thing. Right now it's looking like a Labor Day thing, if not a, hey TGIF! thing. I definitely will do it long enough to experience a physical change that can be recorded. I went to the doctor today and they recorded my pre-raw condition. Surprisingly, I'm in great health. Mrs. Doctor Lady even asked me if I exercise a lot because my results seemed indicative of such a lifestyle. Heh heh. Oooooh . Not enough, Doctor Lady, not enough. (p.s. Dr. Lady looked and acted like a grown up Daria. Remember her? MTV? My first impression was initially doubting, but then it turned into a mixture of empathetic pity and affection. Med school wasn't fun for you, was it Dr. Daria Lady?)

Final pre-raw observations:

1. Eating raw seems to include a lot of "juicing" and "blending". Pretty much, you gather things off of trees and plants, smoosh them all together, and drink them, just like our ancestors did. Apparently the blender preceded fire (hmm). Also, it seems that the raw food diet was created by the toothless. Now my teeth can finally just sit back, relax, and work on looking pretty.

2. Raw foods take more preparation than the cornucopia of refined foods from which I generally glut myself. For example, my Honey Nut Cheerios prep in the morning is 93% remembering who/where I am and what one does in a kitchen, 7% locating spoon and bowl/milk and cereal. Combined prep. time: 30 sec. Hard to beat. This will take some adjustment.

3. My poor body is gonna be way confused about where all that refinery went. I'm pretty sure in my blood there are microscopic peanut m&ms floating around with the red and white blood cells. My bod's gonna look at me like this:
Also, I haven't found a good raw staple to replace it. Any suggestions?

4. I really can't handle being too hungry. Food is like food to me. It's not the stomach pain or the lethargy that kills me. That's just kinda annoying. And it's not that I'll miss the social eating engagements. I'm too cheap to go out to eat regularly (damn you Chicfila!) The problem, however, is that starting sometime in the past five-ish years, whenever I reach the point of relative starvation, I get possessed by this neurotic, Chicken Little, Alzheimer'sy version of myself. I get disoriented and irritable, scared of nothing in particular, and certain that the world is shortly going to end. My dad suffers from the same phenomenon. The ladies in his office refuse to work in the afternoon unless he's had a sandwich. Because he loses his mind. You don't want to be conscious when my father is restructuring your jaw on an empty stomach. He's a grumplestiltskin.

5. My friend Heather told me that she used to work for a guy who made his own organic carrot juice and drank so much of it that his skin actually turned orange. Does this mean that if I drink enough carob smoothies I can finally become a black woman?! W00t! I guess only in body, not in spirit. Not good enough. Perhaps I need to juice Mo'nique.

I'll keep you posted on the development of these observations in the coming days and weeks. And if you find me unusually snappy, hook a sister up with a banana or sumfin. Tanks very mooch.