I really enjoy eating, as I’m sure most people do, and I believe we are meant to greatly enjoy the experience of nourishing our bodies. 
I feel that bringing awareness, being conscious, of what I’m fueling my body with has had a profound effect on my spiritual growth.
A big step for me was back in 1999 when I began eating 100% vegetarian, aka vegan, food. In the beginning it was to bring awareness to the millions of animals, that I felt, were unnecessarily being used for our “nutrition”. I felt it wasn’t right that they were raised in unfit conditions, fed unfit food, shot full of chemicals, (the list goes on, but I don’t want to focus on that here) and then slaughtered by a machine just so I could get a meal faster and cheaper. That brought me to doing more research on the subject, asking more questions, and how I could do an even better job supporting my goals.
It was over the next 9 years (1999 -2008) of being vegan that made me aware of the larger impact a simple change such as your food intake can make. I learned and became interested in how my food choices can effect the animals, the workers in the animal agriculture business, the environment, my social interactions, a grocery store or restaurants purchasing decisions, and even friends and family’s food choices. It really is amazing what one decision can influence over the years.
It was only the past 4 years (2004-2008) or so we started accepting, reading more about, and experimenting with raw living foods. It felt like the next step to take for maximum enjoyment from our food experience. Each year or so we started incorporating more and more living foods into our everyday meals.
Now (since July 2008) we thrive on 100% amazing raw living foods all day everyday. You can see all the beautiful variety of foods we get to consume on my Living Raw Foods Picasa Gallery. This gallery of pictures is what’s being displayed on the right hand side of my site and throughout this post.
So what makes a food “raw”? Whenever you are eating food unprocessed from it’s natural state (ie. straight from the tree, ground, etc.) it’s considered raw. If you don’t kill the enzymes in the food (usually by never heating above about 110 degrees) or mutate it’s composition in any way with heat then it’s still raw and ideal for your body.
This keeps the food in it’s natural state, and thus is easiest for your body to consume/digest/process/assimilate, whatever you want to call it. Your body only has so many enzymes with which to break down food over your lifetime, which is why as we get older it’s harder to digest and assimilate the same cooked foods we’ve been eating for years. When we are younger our body has plenty of enzymes to throw into the digestive track to help break down all the gluey flour, gummie treats, and cooked food we throw into it. This is all in an effort to break down the food into a state to where we can get all the actual nutrition, if any, found inside that our body needs to keep functioning and growing.
So why not make it easier on ourselves and eat the food in it’s raw, living, whole form, while it still has all the enzymes we need to break it down right there in the food. Nature is smart, in fact, Mother Nature is perfect and within each fruit, vegetable, etc. is all exact enzymes needed to break it down to a cellular level.
OK, so our bodies, enjoy it better, how about our mind? By simply being aware of these facts, and of what you are actually eating you are expanding your awareness!
Then you start to think of how each magnificent peach you eat was once a small seed. That seed was then, with the help of nature, grown into a tree on a farm, the very peach in your hand was picked by a farmer, and lovingly brought to your local food co-op, or farmer’s market. Then you happened to buy that very peach from that very farmer. Then you brought it home, washed it off, and got to enjoy it’s soft fuzzy flesh and deliciously juicy insides while it nourished your body. You get to appreciate the entire process. That’s conscious eating.
Try doing that with a box of cereal, or [popular brand name] candy bar. First you have to read the ingredients (good luck), then know how those were harvested (or shall we say created), try and appreciate the metal machines and conveyor belts that help put it all together with little to no human interaction, then try and taste each individual ingredient as a flavor or texture… it’s just not the same is it?
Truly being aware of your food/ingredient intake and giving thanks to those that bring it to you in every step of the way and those who prepare it for you brings you in touch with your food and makes you more aware. Our connection with food - our body’s fuel - has been lost over the years, and it brings deeper enjoyment to give thanks to that connection with every bite. I’ve come to greatly enjoy and cherish that connection. Plus since raw food is unprocessed, it has the most nutrition availability possible. It is the most nutritionally dense food available.
Another big factor is that living food is high vibrational food. If you’re following a spiritual path and/or consciously trying to raise your vibration, you can greatly aid the process by consuming high vibe raw foods.
Now every meal I eat is the best meal ever, every bite I take is the best bite ever, and I give thanks to all those who make it possible for me to nourish my body with such enjoyment.
Recommended raw food links and resources:
We Like it Raw - Entertaining News in Blog format and Community.
GoneRaw - For recipes and community.
Living-Foods.com - For lots of recipes and more.
Our favorite Rad Raw Recipes
Raw Food Pictures on Picasa - on Flickr
Raw Food videos on YouTube - on Google Video
David Wolfe’s Sunfood Nutrition - Buy raw super foods to be most efficient.
Organic Raw Chocolate - Taste why raw chocolate is an awesome super food.
Raw Family - The awesome Boutenko family that really inspires us.
The Garden Diet - Another awe inspiring raw vegan family.
