Celebrating an all-natural lifestyle

Welcome!

Welcome, everyone, to Choosing Raw! Thanks for reading. Over the course of the past year, I’ve been inspired by many wonderful food and lifestyle blogs to chronicle my experience as a vegan raw foodist living in the Big Apple. I hope you’ll find what I have to say intriguing.

There is a tremendous amount of curiosity—especially among the health conscious—about raw foods: what they are, why people eat them, and, most importantly, how someone can sustain a raw lifestyle along with a normal life. I hope to offer some insight into all of these issues. My periodic musings should give you a sense of why I’ve personally chosen to eat raw; for a more detailed account, check out “my journey” in the About Me tab. My daily posts and food journaling will give you a sense of how I stay raw in social situations, from dinner parties to business lunches, and how I maintain my lifestyle along with a busy schedule. There’s a widespread conception that living raw must be incredibly time consuming and socially isolating; I hope that I can do my part to dispel this idea. It’s true that maintaining a high-raw diet requires a certain amount of foresight and energy—doesn’t any healthy lifestyle? But it doesn’t have to be difficult; in fact, I find that my lifestyle affords me more simplicity and freedom than I ever experienced before.

My goal with Choosing Raw—aside from showing you all how great living raw can be!—is to create fun conversations between readers of all dietary philosophies: raw, non-raw, vegan, and omnivore. I’ll be including guests posts and interviews with foodies and bloggers of every persuasion. I want to build a bridge between the raw and non-raw communities, and to foster some genuine curiosity about others’ dietary choices. If I can inspire you to eat raw more often, great. If all you take away from the blog is a sense of what the raw world is like—regardless of whether or not it interests you—that’s great, too.

Finally, I hope to inspire young women to be proud of what they eat and how they eat. Raw foodists are often called upon to justify their lifestyle to friends, family, and acquaintances who don’t understand it. This demands confidence and self-assurance. I want to encourage all readers to embrace a sense of pride in the healthy choices they’re making each and every day. Our bodies are ours to nourish as we see fit.

A basic tour of the blog: the Raw Foods 101 tab offers more general information on what raw foods are and how they work. The Digestive Health and Cleansing 101 tab contains information about cleansing. One of my aims with Choosing Raw is to offer smart, no-nonsense information on cleansing and detox along with information on raw foods: in my experience, many people are interested in eating raw, but very few of them are interested in the necessary cleansing that comes along with dietary changes. The How to Get Started Tab contains information on simple steps you can take to incorporate raw foods into your life, while the FAQs tab answers the most common questions people ask me about the raw diet, from “where do you get your protein?” to “how do you go on dates?” The Recipes tab contains some of my favorite raw creations. Finally, the Raw Foods Counseling tab will let you know more about my developing practice as a raw foods counselor and how to contact me for a consultation.

It took me a while to gather the courage to blog, and I want to thank the people who pushed me to take the plunge. This includes all of my friends—you guys know who you are—for your cheery encouragement about my new endeavors in the raw world. Thank you to Mom, Dad, and Diane for your patience and respect—and Mom, thanks for your continuing open mind. I know it hasn’t always been easy

Thank you to Dhru, Philip, and the rest of the NYC raw crew for being my new family, and for so many wonderful late night conversations. Thank you to Kath, Jenna, Jenn, Meghann, Ashley, Lauren, Liz, Lenette, Zestycook, and Heather for your encouragement, inspiration, and tech support. Thank you to Lindsay for always being my vegan soul sistah, and for our many inspiring conversations about food and nutrition.

Thank you to Cassie and Mary for your friendship, your enthusiasm, and for moving me with your passion and energy. Thank you to Natalia for being more of an inspiration in my life than I could ever do justice to here.

Finally, my biggest thank you is to Fitness Diva Extraordinaire, Melissa. A year ago, Melissa began encouraging me to start a blog, and she kept the pressure on in the many subsequent months when I insisted that I wouldn’t have enough to say. Melissa inspires me with her energy, her commitment to healthy living, her sense of humor, and her desire to make a difference. Melissa, thanks for helping me take the plunge here, and thanks for your friendship.

Enjoy!