Celebrating an all-natural lifestyle

Raw Rehab: Dealing with Social Discomfort

Hello, friends.

TGIF. This was a long week, and I’m ready for it to be over. The highlight? Attending the opening of my mom’s current art exhibit, Illuminations, showing at First Street Gallery in Manhattan. The opening was a success, and I was so, so proud of my mother, who has been a working artist (as well as a full time art teacher) for over forty years! Here’s a little peek at what was hanging on the walls:

Go mom!

Because of the commotion surrounding the show, as well as some unrelated family sadness this week (my mom’s boyfriend’s son passed away after a struggle with cancer), I haven’t had time to devote to much un-cooking. So instead of posting a recipe today, I thought I’d check in with a little Q+A. Raw rehab, anyone?

This question comes from reader Alex, who asked:

I am newly vegan, as of March 1st, (eating a high-raw, vegan diet) and my question is about how you handle your difference in eating habits in social situations. I have become much more secure in my lifestyle choice (it doesn’t bother me anymore when people at work make comments about how healthy I eat), but I still can’t bring myself to tell my friends (who have known me before I was vegan) that I am now vegan. For some reason, I feel like I will be judged, but more so, that I will become a nuisance. A couple of my friends love to have dinner parties, and they usually make set menus – I have skipped the past 3 because I can no longer eat anything that they make, and I don’t want them to have to make something “special” for me. I think food and eating with others creates a natural social bond, and I can’t help but feel that I will be completely left out of that if I bring my own food to these dinner parties – how can I share how much I like the pot roast or the chocolate torte, if I’m not eating it? It’s not that I want to eat these foods, because believe me, I do not; rather, it’s the social bond that I will miss from eating these types of food with people I love. How have you and other readers dealt with the social pressures that occured when you first became raw/vegan?

Great question, Alex. I should preface my answer by saying that this is something I’ve touched on before, most notably in this post. But your question certainly brings to mind some immediate impressions.

My personal response is that I’m not particularly accustomed to feeling much social cohesion surrounding food. I stopped eating meat when I was a child, in a family of meat eaters; I was disordered on and off throughout high school, and still very food-conscious in college; on top of all of this, I’ve always been a picky eater, and there are certain ubiquitous foods–like onions and garlic–that I don’t enjoy much at all. The upshot? For me, the bond between social belonging and food is not a very strong one.

Now, you have to take that statement with a grain of salt: now that I eat with joy (as opposed to my fraught past), I can understand far better what people mean when they talk about collective dining experiences. Now that I’ve found a way of eating that suits my body perfectly, I can share it with the people I love. And of course, I’m no stranger to the joys of dinner parties or delicious restaurant meals. In spite of always having been an eater who was different, I’ve certainly had great restaurant meals with friends, and have attended fun dinner parties and given compliments to the chef. I work in an industry that runs on lunching, and so I also know what it’s like to do business over a tablecloth. Best of all, I’ve had the pleasure of sharing vegan foods with fellow vegans and non-vegans alike  in recent years, and it has definitely shown me how lovely it is to bond over a dish.

So I know what people mean when they talk about bonding over food. It’s just not something that I’ve experienced to the same degree as others, which means that I don’t yearn for it strongly. It’s not hard for me to go through life as a person who doesn’t eat what everyone else is eating, or does eat things that other people find off-putting. To be quite blunt, I don’t really care if people think how I eat is weird. Making peace with food, and finding a diet that was ideal for me, was a winding road. Now that I’ve reached a happy destination, I don’t much care how others perceive me.

There’s another thing going on here: I feel my best physically eating as I do. I don’t suffer from IBS anymore, and my health is vibrant. When I repeatedly eat foods that don’t agree with me–like processed foods or refined grains–I don’t feel as great. They’re totally fine once in a while, but not habitually. Which makes it extremely easy for me to eat the way I like to eat, even when it means eating things that other people aren’t. I prefer feeling great to the momentary pleasure of eating something that’s stimulating, but without nourishment. That’s just me: I’m an energy junkie, and a health nut. I eat accordingly.

Finally, there’s veganism. What began as a means of feeling better has now become a lifestyle I believe in spiritually and ethically, too.  It’s hard for me to enjoy a chocolate torte (to use your example) if I don’t really believe in the circumstances under which that torte was created. To me, the essence of a shared dining experience is shared pleasure; how can that be if one person at the table feels cognitive dissonance or discomfort with what he or she’s eating?

This is all a lot of personal stuff, I know. But the upshot, Alex, is this: it sounds to me as though you, like me, have crossed a bridge you don’t want to un-cross: you believe in veganism, and want to be a vegan. And you’re dedicated enough to veganism that “making exceptions” won’t feel good to you.

So far, you’ve handled this by avoiding certain social dining: in your mind, if  you can’t partake of a collective experience, the whole thing isn’t worth it. But what I’m trying to gesture at here is that the key to resolving some of this tension in your life may simply be a reconsideration of your notion of the “social bond” from which you fear exclusion.

What is that bond, really? In my mind, it’s not shared food so much as shared feelings: amusement, joy, sensual pleasure at the taste of food, mutual admiration. There’s really no reason why such feelings have to reside in the food itself. If you happen to bring a fun, high-raw vegan dish to a dinner party, and serve it right alongside your friends’ food (which is what I’d recommend for such an occasion), can’t you all still express your enjoyment? Can’t you all savor a good meal, even if the meal itself varies from plate to plate? Isn’t the expression of gastronomic pleasure what counts, rather than the specific food that bestows such pleasure?

What you’re really seeking to preserve are those feelings of conviviality. And they don’t have to be tethered to specific foods: what they should be tethered to is a feeling of collective joy–joy that comes from each person feeling 100% happy about what he or she is eating.

And here’s the best part: if your friends see that you’re experiencing pleasure right alongside them, they won’t think to criticize or ostracize you. I promise! What I find time and time again is that the key to being comfortable as a vegan in social scenarios is simple, unassailable confidence. If you bring a fun dish and share it with your friends; if you describe what you’re eating with a sense of enthusiasm; if you talk about your veganism in language that’s confident and positive, there will be simply no reason for anyone to make you feel excluded. And any friend of yours who would try to exclude you from the experience of a shared meal, simply because your diet is a little different, is missing the point of what dinner parties are all about.

I hope this helps, Alex. Finding your “vegan mojo,” as I like to call it, takes some time: you won’t feel 100% comfortable expressing your preferences all at once. But I do think that reminding yourself of what’s really at stake in a shared dining experience–that is, mutual respect and the shared desire for pleasure–can help you to feel less afraid of expressing yourself.

One more thing: it’s often hard for new vegans to tell old friends about the vegan shift because of shared history. You know your friends remember you from way back when, in the the days when veganism wasn’t even a glimmer in your consciousness. Won’t they “see through” this new identity of yours?

In a word, no. Any decent friend will accept that you are an ever-changing, ever-shifting being. Consciousness is always in flux, and identity is always in flux, too. Any friend who wants you to remain the same forever–especially if you’re taking a direction that, for you, signals growth and improvement–is probably threatened by the idea of evolution. And that’s a friend whose love you’ve got to question, or whose insecurity you ought to feel pity for.

Hope this helps. Stay the course! And congrats on your vegan journey

Keep the questions coming, guys. I love answering!

Have a great start to your weekends.

xo

Be Your Own Guru: Avoiding the Fads, the Bestsellers, and the Magic Plans

Hey everyone!

Thanks again for the birthday wishes! You all made my day. My weekend, actually. I am so grateful.

So unless you were hiding under a rock last week, you probably heard that Newsweek magazine “took Oprah on” with a hard-hitting cover story that weighed in critically against her constant endorsement of alternative health figures, diet gurus, nutritional experts, anti-aging plans and various alternative remedies (the article used as its point of departure Oprah’s recent enthusiasm about Suzanne Somers, who advocates estrogen shots and admits to taking scores of daily supplements). Regardless of whether you revere Oprah or view her work with ambivalence, I urge you to read Weston Kosova and Pat Wingert’s gutsy, well-researched, and unflinching article. It’s a strong statement against the endorsement of alternative healing “miracles” in the media—a problem that extends far beyond Oprah’s sphere of influence.

It should come as no surprise to you all that I take issue with many tenets of mainstream nutritional advice. At the same time, I’m every bit as skeptical about the claims of various health gurus and self-proclaimed “healers” as I am of close-minded nutritionists and doctors. One runs across a lot of lousy information in the holistic community. Many holistic health gurus are motivated by money-making agendas, misinformed ideology, or personal experience ( an alternative treatment happened to work for them, so they now preach the gospel of their healing experience with the certainty that it will work for all people—an assumption that’s sometimes tragically false). And just as we all have to watch out for mainstream advice that’s wrong-headed, we also have to think wisely and carefully about alternative wisdom that’s misleading.

I cannot tell you how many emails I get that go something like this:

“Gena, I just purchased [insert name of popular raw diet book / raw weight loss plan / raw nutritional resource here], and for some reason it’s not helping me [lose weight  / feel good / heal health complaint]. I’m doing everything right—eating just the way it says to. I even went out and bought [insert name of expensive supplement / green powder / superfood here]. Why isn’t it working?”

My answer is always the same. No single diet plan, raw resource, or raw expert can prescribe exactly what will or will not work for you and your body. There is no magic bullet, guys. If there were—if one particular way of eating could help everyone achieve perfect health, reverse aging, and find an ideal body weight, I think it’s safe to say that we’d have figured it out by now. We’d all be walking, talking embodiments of superhealth, and our health struggles, weight loss battles, and insecurities would be a thing of the past.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Sure, we all believe in certain broad dietary principles. I believe that a plant-based, mostly raw diet can—if eaten with digestive health in mind—help most people to reach their ideal weight, feel better, and avoid chronic disease. If I didn’t believe this, I wouldn’t be doing the work I do. That said, I don’t believe that the diet described above should take the same form for everyone. Some of us are athletes, training for triathalons, and have (legitimately) big appetites. Some of us have disordered eating in our past, and need to be mindful of our psychological triggers.  Some of us have complicated health conditions or histories. Some of us have depression, or other emotional factors that influence our eating habits. Some of us have complicated lifestyles that will invariably affect our capacity to prepare and eat food. On top of all of this, we all have different builds. We don’t look, think, or act the same, and we can’t all be able to eat the same way.

As you begin a raw diet—or any new eating plan, for that matter—it’s tremendously tempting to seek out a book, expert, or plan that will show you how to do it right. And you won’t be disappointed: there are countless raw nutrition resources and plans out there to sate your appetite for instruction. Unfortunately, not all of these are ideal, and many of them conflict. 80/10/10 isn’t going to tell you the same thing as Natalia Rose; Alissa Cohen may conflict with Gabriel Cousins, who won’t sound at all like David Wolfe. How’s an aspiring raw foodist to start out?

You should start out, quite simply, by thinking for yourself. Do not count on one person’s opinion to be your guide—even mine! Do your research, but much more importantly, consider your own body and lifestyle. Are you the sort of eater who is prone to a sweet tooth or emotional eating? Do you need more protein or carbohydrates than others for some reason? Do you have small children at home, and limited time to cook? Do you have a digestive condition or disease? The answers to these complicated questions will be crucial in helping you find a way of eating that works for you and helps you to feel your best.

Whatever you do, do not be seduced by gurus, health evangelists, weight-loss experts, superfood peddlers, or spiritualists. Many public figures in the raw community are well informed, admirable, and entirely worthy of your attention. But—as with popular figures in the nutrition community at large—many are motivated by personal gain, product endorsement, or ego. They may have useful things to say to some of us, but there’s no guaranteeing that they can help you.

If you’re lucky, you’ll find mentors and teachers who will help give you some pointers in a healthy direction. If you’re really lucky, these teachers will change your life for the better. But no one—not even a mentor—can prescribe a plan or methodology that will guarantee success for you.

When I begin work with a new client, so much of our process will involve trial, error, and experiment: finding techniques, meal plans, and emotional strategies that work on an individual basis. My clients come from all different backgrounds—some have very mainstream diets and are simply looking to boost their raw intake or lose a few pounds; some are vegans who want to go completely raw; some have health conditions. Each needs me to help construct a plan that is mindful of his or her body and needs. And my advice is never the same for two clients—what works for one won’t work for another, just as what works for me won’t always work for a friend.

If you’re new to raw, I can’t urge you strongly enough to resist the siren song of magical “cleanses,” pre-programmed fasts or diet plans, charismatic gurus, and bestselling books. Instead, devote your energy, time, and money to finding specialized guidance. No, this isn’t a plug for my counseling—though if you’re interested, I encourage you to contact me! But I do believe that you’re better off talking to someone about an individualized approach than buying a diet book. There’s a time and a place for great raw resources: my raw journey has been enriched by a bunch of cookbooks and perspectives. But don’t let a single resource become your gospel.

It would be easy if a cool book could solve all of our problems, wouldn’t it? One click on Amazon, and the clouds would all lift. But—as with all things in life—it’s just not that easy. This isn’t just true of a raw lifestyle—it’s true of any diet! We all want someone to tell us exactly what to do and how to eat: it takes so much of the pressure off of us to work hard at finding a method that suits our needs. But the price of thinking independently for life usually beats the short-lived success of buying into a diet plan and finding that it’s not permanently realistic.

So, find your own magic bullet. Get inspired by the knowledge that’s out there, and enjoy working with various approaches. But never stop thinking for yourself: you are the most intuitive judge of what does and doesn’t suit your body. Don’t fall into another person’s orthodoxy. Obey your best instincts, push yourself to do what you know will make you feel your best, and be proud of knowing who you are!

And have a great Tuesday.

xo

The Power of Choice, and a Raw Challenge

Happy (Rainy) Sunday, everyone.

I was supposed to meet the lovely April of Raw Food Passion for lunch today, but her flight was (sadly) delayed. So instead, I’m taking a moment to make an announcement, and to share an article that’s near and dear to my heart.

First things first: Miss Jenna (of Eat Live Run) and I are inviting our mutual readers to join us for a Raw Foods Wednesday Challenge! Now, you all know that every day is a raw day for me; I want this blog to encourage each and every one of you to eat raw as often as your lifestyle will healthily and happily make room for. But there’s nothing wrong with a little motivation, now is there? So here’s the deal: each Wednesday, Jenna and I challenge you to eat one raw meal and one raw snack. We’ll be doing two fabulous giveaways for our participants, one midway through the month and another at the end. And we’re sure to be collecting lots of great feedback from readers all over the blogosphere. If you’re just starting with raw foods, this is a fun way to get involved. Please leave a comment on this post if you want to join us!

In other news, I want to share an article that I recently wrote for my dear friend Mary’s Beam Green newsletter (which you can all subscribe to for free on her website!). The article is about being proud of one’s dietary perspective in the face of social pressure. It’s somewhat reminiscent of this guest post I wrote for the wonderful Melissa on restaurant dining not so long ago, but with a slightly broader emphasis: my intention was to encourage women of all ages, but especially young women, to feel proud of their healthy habits.

It’s a sad truth that sometimes the very habits that women should feel proudest of—eating well, being mindful of alcohol consumption, getting adequate rest—are the things they’re forced to apologize for. One of the major challenges in adopting a raw or vegan diet is finding comfort with the declaration, “I’m vegan,” “I’m raw,” or even “I don’t feel like eating meat tonight.” Young women in particular fear being perceived as weird, as “crunchy,” or as holier-than-thou. When it comes to moderation with alcohol, the fear is being perceived as a stick in the mud.

Ladies, let’s get real here. If you feel ambivalent about being raw or vegan because you’re not certain that it’s healthy or feasible for your lifestyle, then hey, don’t sweat it. You’ll find a great way to take steps towards raw that don’t necessarily entail the whole commitment. But if your big fear is social perception, I urge you to rise above pettiness, and take a proud stand! Without further ado, “The Power of Choice.”

The Power of Choice

Raw foodists know plenty about social pressure. The choice to eat raw is not only a matter of what one does or doesn’t put on the plate. It’s a decision to disregard the entire paradigm of health under which society operates. With this decision comes many other smaller decisions: from ordering differently at restaurants and eschewing the drugs and medicines we’ve become accustomed to, to letting go of the stimulants (read: skinny lattes and cigarettes) that we all depend on for our daily boost. At first, these decisions can be difficult, especially since so few of our friends or acquaintances are making them with us. It’s a little lonely to be a pioneer.

For no matter how much you maintain that eating for health need not mean sacrificing a vibrant social life (and I do!), there’s no denying that your social life after detox will look different than your social life before. You may be ordering differently when you dine out. You may start bringing your own dishes to dinner parties. You may be defending your lifestyle to family members or friends, whose judgments will be stunningly sharp. You may find yourself explaining what raw foods are to the CEO of your company at a business lunch. You may have to tell your boyfriend that no, you don’t want to split that pizza with him at 2 AM. Whatever the case, it’s safe to say that you will, at some point, be called upon to weigh your devotion to a healthy lifestyle against social convenience.

Of course, in the grand scheme of things, the health benefits and spiritual openings that result from eating raw foods and cleansing the body make all of these scenarios well worth it. So the challenge is to move through the initial adjustments with commitment. This can be particularly hard for women, not because we lack the forbearance to make changes, but because we’re disadvantaged when it comes to resisting social pressure. We ladies are socialized—by our families, our culture, and the media—to be accommodating. This gives us many strengths: we’re peacekeepers in times of crisis. We’re empathetic. We’re good caretakers and active, engaged friends. We’re good listeners. But these strengths come at a price.

“Men look at women,” the art critic John Berger writes. “Women watch themselves being looked at.” It’s an overstatement, perhaps, but there’s truth to it: women worry about how they are perceived far more than their male counterparts seem to. And when it comes to dietary and lifestyle choices, this anxiety can be a bit of a handicap. Female friends will often confess to me that they want to make healthier choices in their lives, but they fear how their friends, families, or boyfriends will react. This may mean hesitation about ordering a salad in a restaurant for fear of being teased about eating “bird food” or interrogated by friends: “A salad? That’s all you’re getting? You’re not on a diet, are you?”. It may be fear of looking like a stick-in-the-mud: hey, no one likes to be the only virtuous person drinking club soda at a bar. Or it may be fear of coming off as “odd” to others: I admit that the catalog of raised eyebrows and bewildered responses I’ve gotten when I say the words “raw foodist” is downright impressive.

But let’s think about the big picture, shall we? What could possibly matter more than our health? And no matter how you look at it, health depends on what we put in our bodies. Do not let social insecurities interfere with the way you approach your diet and lifestyle.

Here’s a fun experiment. The next time you feel criticized by friends or family for eating healthy, take a moment to examine where those sentiments come from. Does this friend or relative live the lifestyle you want? Does she have the body you want? Does she have the energy and aura you want? If the answer is no—as it probably is—remember that, in nine cases out of ten, a friend who makes this kind of criticism is feeling envious and threatened by your choice to be healthier than she. So let’s state the obvious: that heavy entrée you feel pressured to eat is going in your stomach. That dessert you don’t really want to split with her is pouring sugar into your bloodstream. The choices you make about food may be affected by the people around you, but their consequences will only affect you.

Here’s another good example: I choose not to drink. It’s not always easy, especially at parties or work events, but it’s a choice that I’m proud of, and I stick to it. Countless female friends, especially in their mid-twenties, have told me that they’re tired of drinking and want to stop, but fear how they’ll be perceived if they do. I’ve even heard stories of women ordering “faux” cocktails (soda water dressed up as a vodka tonic). Guess what? I remember that urge well. No one likes looking prudish. But once again, it all boils down to personal choice: you should never feel compelled to make choices that go against your own impulses. And if your impulse is to have some soda water and call it a night, you should listen. You’ll feel better without the headache tomorrow morning, anyway.

And take pride in your choices! With each of those healthy entrees you order at a restaurant and each of those surplus cocktails you turn down, you’re making decisions that will protect and nourish your body and fertility. It’s easy to forget that so many social habits—pigging out at restaurants, drinking like a fish at happy hour, partying on Saturdays and sleeping off hangovers on Sundays, painful cycles of restrictive diets followed by careless binges, social smoking—are ingrained only by force of habit. These are not the rhythms that nature intended our bodies to live by. They’re social practices that have become idiomatic over time, and have been encouraged and reinforced by the media. As a society, we like to joke about our vices—drinking, smoking, dieting, overeating, whatever—but they’re not all that funny. Especially as we get older and they become more ingrained.

Take pride, too, in the fact that you are, little by little, learning to shake off your social insecurities. Confidence and bullheadedness are not the same things. Embrace your confidence. Be open and enthusiastic about your lifestyle. I assure you that taking a warm, self-assured approach (bringing a delicious, healthy dish to a dinner party and offering it to other guests, for instance) is the best way to protect yourself against naysayers and to feel the rewards of a raw lifestyle. There’s a time and a place for compromise, but the dinner table isn’t one of them. So order that giant salad (with some avocado or nuts and a side of steamed veggies—delicious!), and relish every bite. Your body is yours to nourish as you see fit.

Gena is a book editor and raw foods counselor in Manhattan. She has a blog, www.choosingraw.com, where she encourages readers of all ages and food philosophies to feel proud of their healthy choices.

PS — Keep the entries into the spiralizer contest coming, everyone! I’m loving each and every one of your great emails and comments.