New and excited to have found this site!!

[Lapisrose]

Hello!

I've been needing to find a place to chat with raw fooders - I'm hoping this turns out to be it!! While I want to go 100% raw, and my husband says he does - he then drags his feet about it. After a few days, it becomes apparent that he's not eating, so I panic and cook. Any suggestions?

This will be my 3rd attempt at going raw this year. I hope it clicks this time!! I feel really great when I'm raw. My main obstacles are my husband and emotional eating.

Any advice is welcome

Lapisrose

[greenbunny]

What do you crave when you do your "emotional eating"????

[Lapisrose]

Originally Posted by greenbunny

What do you crave when you do your "emotional eating"????

salty and sweet things - pizza, ice cream, chocolate...

[zoe]

Hi
If you're craving salty things, your body needs more minerals, so eat more leafy greens. Spinach, kale, green onions, green leafy herbs like basil, coriander. Put a handful of spinach and kale into your fruit smoothies. I struggles for a year with horrendous cravings, until I discovered the leafy green thing. David Wolfe Sunfood Success Systems it''s all in there!
Basically if you eat a balance of leafy greens, sweet friut and plant fat - advocado/nuts, you'll be fine and have no cravings really.
I'd recommend that you read a lot about it, reading helped inspire me, especially Detox Your World by Shazzie ( www.detoxyourworld.com and www.shazzie.com) and Nature's First Law The Raw Food Diet by Arlin, Dini and Wolfe. ( it's a great but they actually plagurised it from a 1960's book by an Iranian man, and I hear you can buy the original from Hallelulia Acres via amazon.com)
If I were you, I wouldn't worry about your hubby, just focus on yourself. He will get into it as you make meals that taste better than cooked, and when you start to look so hot, other men notice and he gets worried!!
Actually, fasting is great for your health!
My husband is raw too and he eats alot more than me. I usually make sure that there's a big meal for him once a day. He fills up with green smoothies thru the day though. Having dehydrated stuff like crackers, burgers, sausages, tortillas is essential for transitioning I think, 'specially for big guys like my hubby!
It's not about punishment, this raw food diet is pure sensual pleasure. Make loads of lovely foods, and instead of focusing on cravings all day, spend your day planning and preparing an amazing gourmat raw meal. That's what I do if I feel like eating some chips.

from
Zoe.
The Lighthouse
http://www.thelighthousewebworld.com

[greenbunny]

Sorry so long to get back to you Lapisrose - lost track.

You are very lucky - what you crave is easily interchanged for live food alternatives that will satisfy your cravings and be good for you.

1) Chocolate. I eat raw chocolate all the time!!!! It's incredibly good for you and full of antioxidants. It can help balance the endocrine system and simply make you happier. I use powered raw chocolate (two teaspoons) put in 4 medjool dates and mush it with a fork until it becomes a yummy paste. My husband and mother get their 2 teaspoons with 4 teaspoons of raw agave nectar (easier to mix). With agave you can put it on fruit (strawberries are heavenly). I'm sure that there are many better recipes but these are so very simply and only necessitate a bowl, a spoon and a fork to make.

2) Icecream. Have you ever made banana icecream? Same texture and cold and sweet of the milk stuff but so very good for you. Peel bananas, put them in a plastic bag, freeze them and then put them through a champion juicer without the juice thingie in it so it goes straight through, or put it in a food processor for just a quick moment (so it doesn't turn to juice) or put it in a vitamix (also just long enough to be creamy - using plunger). If you want you can put the chocolate sauce on the icecream or make a hot apple pie to in your dehydrator to eat it with (can tell you how to make that too if you want).

3) Pizza. Pizza ia the craving for cheese, tomatoes and bread. If you are really craving dough you can get something called Manna bread which is bread cooked at a lower temp than normal bread - but questionable if raw - but much better than pizza crust. Then you can get raw cheese and put tomatoes on it and slobber the thing in italian herbs and lots of salt (see below).

4) Salt. These was one of my great cravings so I learned all I could about it and found out that the body desperately needs salt for the minerals but regular salt and even sea salt are denatured so horribly that they become bad for you. They take the expensive minerals out and sell them seperately. Celtic or hand raked salt from France is a whole salt that isn't heated and nothing is removed and it a perfectly balanced mineral supplement that is great for the body. I love the Flower of the Ocean. It actually tastes a bit sweet and is whitened by the sun only. Salt is needed for the cells to get and hold water. You are probably craving it because you need it. So eat it on your pizza! Pizza is drowned in salt and it might be mostly the salt in the pizza you are craving.

Don't fight - substitute and enjoy!

greenbunny

[PositiveEnergy4U]

For me, a lot of my cravings were just from addictions and old messages stored in my body asking for the same toxic things. Just not giving in caused it to pass. I just went grocery shopping and have absolutely no interest in anything in the store other than those things that are part of my raw food diet today.

[greenbunny]

You are very lucky PositiveEnergy! I had to slowly replace my addictions in order to stay live longer term. Over decades I found myself returning over and over again to my addictions until I found something that satisfied them in a raw state. I wish it had been that easy for me.

greenbunny