Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt

After some traveling and relaxing in the sunshine in Egypt and Israel I am back home.
My diet wasn't 100% raw. I could eat a small pita-like bread, a spoonful of rice or some spaghetti for dinner. My tongue felt all the ingredients of the tomato spaghetti sauce or the pepper in that bread. A nice sensation.

Egyptian mango is great! Its colour is orange, it's sweet and juicy. Today I ate the last mango brought from the trip. After that I don't enjoy South-American mangoes sold in Moscow anymore...

Egyptian pomegranate is very sweet. I recall the pomegranates I ate 13 years ago when I went to Egypt for the first time; I couldn't stop eating pomegranates, so good they seemed to me then. Now the impression is the same, and I still have several pieces on my kitchen table.

Many Russians are not familiar with custard apples, called ['eshta] in Egyptian Arabic or chirimoya in Spanish. I know it from my Spanish experience and quite like it. As far as I can tell, Egyptian eshtas don't differ from Spanish chirimoyas.

In Sharm El Sheikh there is only one supermarket with fixed prices, called Metro. Everywhere else they will try to get maximum from each client. In Metro there is a small stall with nuts and seeds where I found natural shelled almonds, and freshly squeezed orange juice. Moreover, they sell organic dates (filled with almonds).

My hotel wasn't 5 stars, but the restaurant offered a lot of fruit and vegetables. No mangoes or eshtas, of course (these are expensive there), but tasty melons, fresh (!) dates, very juicy cucumbers and very good tomatoes, cabbage, red cabbage, leek, lettuce, iceberg lettuce, carrots... No problem for a vegetarian or raw foodist.

I tried to make myself drink water, but it was really hard for me. Tangerines or cucumbers seemed enough.

Moscow: first impressions

After +15C in Istanbul I was greeted by snow and -2C in Moscow. Snow! I missed it so much.

Plastic bags for each and every type of fruit including if you buy one pomegranate. I tried to refuse at several supermarkets, but they said it was against their rules.

Bottled water only in plastic bags. In the very heart of the city, in Elisseevsky supermarket in Tverskaya street, there are many types of still glass-bottled water, but in other districts the situation is different. I visited about ten shops and supermarkets in my area, and only in one, the most expensive one, I saw two types of still glass-bottled water (Evian). At the same time, almost everywhere here I saw sparkling water in glass, the famous in ex USSR countries Essentuki.

Istanbul

Current location: Istanbul, Turkey
It's such a considerable change in veg quality! Fruits travel a long way to Holland, pass all kinds of treatments to be allowed to the internal market; locally veg and fruits are grown with too many chemicals to taste good. I was used to this neutral taste, and now it feels so good to eat more natural raw food!

I am eating tons of Turkish tangerines. They are simply great, and there was no treatment mentioned on the boxes. It's the season of pomegranates as well, and in small kiosks or cafes they offer freshly made pomegranate juice, a completely new experience for me.

Radish and lettuce, nice cucumbers and wonderful tomatoes - finally! After quite some time in the overcivilized EU! Please, Turkey, don't aim at entering the EU with their horrible agricultural standards!

Not raw. A lot. Recently, in Holland, sushi, seaweed salad (with some colour enhancer), in Turkey, black olives, baklava, Turkish bread, boiled potatoes with spices, several types of jam. The worst was that in the plane I ate some cheese included in the food they serve at 11000m, and I am sure it wasn't vegetarian. I feel guilty, it was the first time I ate something non-vegetarian fully understanding it.

Airport. In the shopping area for passengers at Schiphol there is a kiosk where they make smoothies, including with special nuances like addition of green tea and echinacea in powder. But vegetarian sushi were present only in the supermarket before the passport control.

Galata bridge. While passing by a fish restaurant Balik:
Come and see our menu - Thank you, I don't eat fish - Just come, I will show you vegetarian [dishes]. - OK.
Oh, what he showed... every single dish was with this or that kind of fish. In the end they offered me a glass of still water. And one of the waiters came up to me to talk about vegetarianism and how will I act when I get married and have children - how will I cook meat and fish for them... "Fish is very healthy, doctors say." But "I respect your choice" - this is phrase so pleasant to hear.

Spice market. So many spices, nuts, dried fruits, herbs... Amazing. I tasted and bought, among other things, raisins which were dried on the vine, sun-dried apricots and figs. They taste great.

Not raw today

Today in the morning I went to a town in the northern part of Belgium to stroll about the flea market. At the same time it seems to be my last visit to Belgium for the coming many months or even years, and I did a bad thing: bought 5 pieces of dark chocolate and several small and very small bolletjes (bread) and ate everything during the day. What I noticed is that even that I didn't eat all at once and didn't need water to drink with the food, I did feel very thirsty afterwards. Really thirsty. Frankly speaking, I didn't remember this feeling. No chocolates, no bread anymore, bye-bye.

Food

2 kg tangerines from Morocco (waxed, yes), several oranges from Brazil, bananas 3 pieces, some strawberries, dates 2 pieces, 400 g almonds from Italy in the evening, some other nuts for breakfast.
Woke up at 5:30 and couldn't sleep more, but during the day slept several hours.

Today

Today I went to the supermarket early, at 8 o'clock, and tried some freshly baked warm bread, 3 types (small broodjes). I did like all of them, but felt that one was too salty or felt provançal herbs in another one.

It seemed to me so warm outside, but my neighbour returned several minutes after me, well dressed, but complaining about the cold and with really cold hands. According to buienradar.nl, it is 7.8C now. I was absolutely fine, without gloves.

35.7C in the evening.
As for other food, again I ate a lot.
Different nuts, bananas, tangerines, oranges, strawberry...

Temperature and food today

37.1C in the evening.
Today is my smoothies day. A mix of vegetables ground in the morning; nuts, bananas and strawberries in the evening. I am very far from the mono diet now. More than 1.5 kilo oranges from Brazil, 1 galia melon, more nuts.
I think the tastiest bananas are those with many brown dots, not those that get brown by parts of surface at once, and today I enjoyed such dotted bananas =)

What is "too much"?

I wonder if it is fine to eat some 600-800 g of different nuts everyday... One week in a row already...
And those 3 melons a day or a kilo of citrus, is it too much?

Not raw

The other day I tried to "explore my senses" and had a bit of extra pure chocolate with mascobado sugar. I still like the smell, but it is already too sweet for me and I felt funny afterwards. Today I decided to see my reaction to bread and bought a small white wheat broodje. It felt a bit different than before, but I still liked the taste and the smell.

Food

Not that much as yesterday =)
1 very small galia (budget) melon, a standard galia melon, nuts, 1 kaki, leek, 5-6 Fair trade bananas (these were very tasty)

Food today

Eat too much...
Hazelnuts, walnuts, pecans, almonds, bananas, kakis, dewberry (bramen), salad (lettuce, leek, paprika, cucumber, tomato, cauliflower, green onion, alfalfa, lime juice), wild tomatoes. Bought a litre of Evian in a glass bottle, drank 2/3.
Fresh dates from Israel.

Macrobiotics

I came across this term just several months ago, but I was a determined lactovegetarian then, with ideas based on the popularized Vedic knowledge, and didn't read anything on macrobiotic diet. Today I did. This whole idea of eating what grows in your area and in accordance with the season appeals to me, but it wilted due to my love for fruit in general and exotic fruit in particular. Where I live now, in Holland, we have local apples and pears which I don't like, strawberries, maybe plums and cherries, berries. Where I normally live, in the central area of the European part of Russia, we have apples, pears, plums, (sour) cherries, strawberries, other berries (gooseberry, blueberry, currant, cranberries, buckthorn - it grows in Holland as well, but they don't sell it), tomatoes. And this is it. OK, it's possible to grow physalis. But I love melons, watermelons, apricots, peaches, tangerines which grow several hundreds kilometres to the south from Moscow. It means that to eat all this I must move to the south... Macrobiotic diet suggests avoiding sweet fruit, tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant and stick to other vegetables, nuts, seeds and cereals. As for nuts, in the Moscow region we have only hazelnuts. The energy aspect of macrobiotics (yin and yang balance) is nice. Of course it is necessary to be or pursue equilibrium in everything. So, once again, I will try to eat less sweet fruits and more vegetables or non-sweet fruits like cucumbers.

Post-harvest fruit and vegetables treatments

Of course I knew about the waxed apples and washed carrots, but I was negatively surprised by what I have just learned. If you go to this website, you'll see some pictures of the cleaning process of tangerines. "Cleaning and pre-dryng is necessary before final waxing." And for cleaning special detergents are used...
Mamma mia. Waxes are "designed...to reduce the weight losses, heightening gloss, and prolonging effective shelf life". Yes, it's all about prolonging effective shelf life. With citrus it's not that bad. But if I want to bite an apple and eat it with the peel? I don't want to eat wax...
This is a good reason for me to avoid imported fruits and vegetables that have to be treated due to different sanitation zones and requirements. Unfortunately, even within the EU or even in Holland citrus or apples are treated.

Temperature and food today

36.8C in the evening.
1 l freshly squeezed orange juice, 1/2 galia melon, bananas, tangerines from Spain, oranges from Chile, walnuts from France, pecans from South Africa, almonds from Italy.

On the net with oranges it is said "fruit treated with wax authorized in the EU (imazalil tbz)". On the net with tangerines it is said "treated with ortophenilphenol, imazalil and natural wax". Hmm...

Today and yesterday: food, yoga

36.5C in the afternoon.

Yesterday I decided to cook dinner for my good friends. They think I am vegetarian, and don't really support me even in this. So I haven't told them that I am that strict now. As I am going back home soon, I am distributing my stuff among my good acquaintances, including food I bought long ago, like macaroni or canned vegetables. So yesterday I cooked dinner from what I had bought before switching to raw. It was some brown rice, some barley, some pasta, green beans, all with spices, beet-root and spinach from cans, wasa. I was going for yoga later, and as it's better not to eat anything 1.5 hours before the class, so I told them, I did join my friends only for a spoonful of each of the food types. It wasn't much altogether, and my stomach felt fine during my yoga class. But at night I felt strangely sleepy, not as usual now, I didn't like the experience, especially as I wasn't planning to sleep at all! It was the election time in the USA and I was following.

The yoga class was not very intense, but we didn't have class for 2 weeks. I was on the fully raw diet during many days in a row (with the exception right on that evening). During the class I started to yawn which is very unusual as yoga brings me energy in general. We did a lot of twisting of the upper back - and it was much easier for me than just several classes ago! - and other exercises for the back. I slept several hours during the day and when I woke up, I felt all the muscles of the side ribs. I like this feeling. How could we feel the muscles otherwise? =) And we have so many, jiji!

Today in the early morning, at 4:45-5:00, we gathered at a friend's place to watch the culmination of the election campaign and had breakfast together. There were bananas, mango and water for me. Then I had tangerines, walnuts, more bananas and in the evening cantaloupe, hazelnuts, pecans, walnuts.

Had a walk around the town. It's so small, that a bit more than an hour is enough to stroll where I like.

Temperature and food today

36.5C in the afternoon, 36.7C at night.
Today with more precise numbers:
Before 22:00
Water, 0.5 l freshly squeezed orange juice
After 22:00
4 kakis, 3 oranges, 1 tangerine, 1 galia melon, salad (red cabbage, leek, green onion, red onion, проростки, Chinese cabbage, yellow paprika, cauliflower, tomato, cucumber, carrot)
Very strange. It didn't seem to be a lot. The pauses between the meals were short, but I felt well.
My rhythm is not appropriate now, go to bed very late.

My weight is the same, it is stable since I was 14 years old, about 45 kg, with maximum last winter (52 kg) and minimum when I ate the halva and got sick (43 kg).
I read that many raw foodists lose weight. It's not my case :) I guess mine is already optimal.

Water and plastic

Yesterday I read an article (RU) about water in plastic bottles. The main idea of the article is the following. In the production process of plastic they use antimony. In time plastic releases antimony into the contents of the bottle. According to some comparative studies, the amount of antimony in plastic bottles is 30 times higher than in glass bottles of water.
So buy water in glass bottles!

Temperature and food today

35.8C late at night.
I am glad I have drunk a lot of water today, because I didn't drink water for many days and almost started to make myself do it. Today I drank water with pleasure.
3 melons (yup), 2 small kakis, 3 figs, salad, tangerines.

PS: What I call kaki (in Dutch) is persimmon in English.

My world cares about me

Yesterday I was in one Turkish shop buying small cucumbers. I saw a pack of beautiful green onion that I really wanted to enjoy in my evening salad and hoped I would have enough money to buy it as well. But bij de kassa it turned out that no, I needed 60 more cents. I was about to put the onion back, but the old man behind the counter said it's fine, I could bring 60 cents the next day =)
And this is what I did today.

On Tuesday the weather was terrible for riding a bike and I didn't want to go out but at the same time I didn't want to skip the yoga class at 20.30. At ~18:30 I received an e-mail from the teacher apologizing for the short notice, but the class was canceled due to some unfinished works in the house where we rent a specially equipped room for yoga. So I stayed at home.

Thank you, my world!

Temperature and food today

35.6C in the afternoon
Again eating too much!
2 melons (galia and gele), some salad, 1 kg bananas, 200g walnuts, 4 small kakis.

Something on the basis of my raw foodism

The main aim of my switching to raw food is related to my intention to seriously change my life. It's my wish to feel what the real physical health is. It's my wish to be the owner of my life. Также это моё желание вернуться к первоистокам, to be closer to Mother Nature. To be closer to the 'religion' that was on Earth before the Vedic religion considered the most ancient one we know about now, i.e. to the perception of oneself as God's child, the feeling of a small particle of God in one's own heart, the idea that one's purpose in life is co-creation, together with our heavenly Father. And it's my wish to be free from the husk, stereotypes, marketing, prejudices and so on of the modern civilization. All in all, Harmony is the key word.
All these phrases would seem very strange and suspicious to the Western-type people who are generally very material-oriented, leaving out the spiritual part of self, atheists or superficially religious. It's where I have come to by now in my search of happiness =)
My perception of the world and myself and my understanding of life are based on many ideas from different books and my own experience. Among the books the most influential for me are the Bible, especially history of its translation into modern languages; the Essene Gospel of Peace not recognized by the official Churches; books by Vladimir Megre about Anastasia (RU); Transurfing by Vadim Zeland (RU, EN);
an essay "The first step" by Tolstoy (RU) (excerpt from it in EN); not a book, but lectures on the Vedas by Vedic knowledge and Hinduism popularizers (RU).

In order to change one's life it's necessary to possess a lot of free energy that can be used to create the powerful images of one's own reality. Raw food gives this energy and doesn't require a lot of energy of the body for digesting.

Update:
As of 22 March 2009, I find every time less influence of the Vedic knowledge and traditions on me. I don't feel this is the knowledge I need or the true knowledge. The only things I took from there are ekadashi and respect of every creature. (I would say, trying to respect: still kill mosquitoes though...)

Temperature and food today

Halloween has nothing to do with me and I have nothing to do with Halloween =)
36.6C in the afternoon.
Eating too much since several days ago. And today, all the afternoon can't stop eating. My poor stomach. Started with a banana at the shop where I did the groceries shopping. Continued with another banana at home. Then a couple of kakis. After that a salad (small cucumbers, cauliflower, cranberries, tomato, red cabbage, green onion, lemon juice). Fell in love with onions recently... According to the Vedic ideas about food, onions and garlic are not sattva and bring negative traits of character to those who eat too much of them, but at the same time we need all 6 tastes in our daily ration. The tastes in my ration are sweet (sweet fruits, some 80%), sour (berries, some 5%). So I do need some bitter taste.
350g hazelnuts and 200g walnuts, oranges and tangerines.
I know many new raw foodists pass through this period of overeating, so my time has come =)

Temperature and food today

35.6C in the afternoon, 36.5C in the evening.
A banana, salad (leek, tomato, Chinese cabbage Aichi, green onion, cauliflower, small radish, carrots, parsley, rocketsalad/rucola/arugula; Maastrichtse kruidenmosterd); walnuts, hazelnuts, pecan, almonds.

This mustard is made of mustard seeds, natural vinegar, brown sugar, herbs, spices, salt. I don't eat vinegar or sugar, haven't added salt for more than a month, so the mustard is one of the few bad things I consume these days.

Temperature and food today

37.2C in the afternoon, so high! 36.8C later

Oranges and tangerines, salad (spinach, lettuce, parsley, red onion, green onion, hazelnuts, walnuts, almonds, yellow paprika, tomatoe, cucumber, marrow, ground cranberries, lemon juice; Maastrichtse mustard without additives), melon, kaki.

By now

It's about one month that I am on the almost fully raw food diet. This "almost" was baklava several times, halva twice, cooked rice once. 

By now I have noticed two changes: the perception of the air temperature and the sense of smell. Several days ago I entered a shop where I had been before and this time the air inside and near the shop disturbed me so much that it could be seen on my face. The smells in the supermarkets are very strong for me. I had to pass through sections with beer and pets food - very unpleasant smells.

I still need many hours of sleep, don't have a lot of energy. I became addicted to fruit, will eat more vegetables.

Temperature and food today

36.7C in the afternoon.

Melons, oranges, tangerines, chirimoya, bananas, nuts.

Today the wind is just fabulous! I walked in the neighbourhood and enjoyed it! And yesterday at night I walked around the town for about an hour. It's a small town, 20 minutes on foot from the southern border where I live to the centre. The air was very nice at night. But there were no stars unfortunately. 

Temperature and food today

36.3C in the afternoon

Pineapple, kaki

Temperature and food today

34.9C (!) in the evening, 36.2C at night.

3 melons (it's going to become a habit :) ), several oranges for breakfast; salad (spinach, IJsbergsla, lettuce, dill, parsley, paprika, tomato, cucumber); even a small package of physalis. 

I hadn't eaten citrus for a long while, but last week tasted Moroccan tangerines and liked them a lot; ate some 2 kilos. And then I bought a net of Fair trade oranges from South Africa and I fell in love with them! Today I have been to a small grocery store where they have a machine for making juice from oranges, and the nice thing is that customers do it themselves and can drink the freshly squeezed supertasty sweet juice right away! So did I. Now don't have any oranges left and really want to eat them before going to bed :(, tomorrow will go for the South-African oranges.

Temperature and food today

35.8C

3 (!) different melons (galia, gele and cantaloupe), several very small pomegranates, strawberry, even a small Brazilian mango. All eaten with pleasure

Temperature and food today

36.0C

Bananas, melon, mango, pomegranate, kiwi... Too much in one day, but what a pleasure.

Temperature

36.0 after a day on water due to food poisoning. 

Ufff

On Sunday I was walking with my friends in Antwerp, Belgium, when we suddenly saw a Russian shop. I couldn't resist and bought a package of sunflower halva. I used to love it a lot and missed it in the Netherlands, although liked the Turkish sesame halva sold in Turkish shops in Tilburg. In the evening I ate some halva, too much actually. I started to feel bad in some 20 minutes. I am writing this now still not recovered. I won't describe how I felt, but this experience taught me to stick to raw food until my body fully renovates and is able to overcome this kind of food poisoning and intoxication not hurting me that much.

Temperature and fasting

The last couple of times I took temperature it was 36.3C. And when I didn't eat anything during the day I felt fine with air temperature of 17-18C in my room.

I remember how badly I felt on ekadashi in summer and it's so good, light, now. I realised I ate a lot of cooked food the day before ekadashi, so the body had to work hard to neutralise everything. Now it has no problems because even when I do let myself eat some rubbish, it's only a small percentage of my day food consumption, the rest being fruit and vegetables.

Temperature

When I was shocked to see a low body temperature I decided to take it regularly.

A couple of days ago in the evening it was 36.8C, today in the afternoon 36.3C.

Fasting

The only way to cure oneself of all ailments when one is aiming at raw food diet is a short or long fast, depending on the illness. I felt a bit sick yesterday evening and decided to go without food and water today. It's amazing how easy it has been for me to fast today, especially in comparison with the ekadashi in August! Enough energy, no fixed idea about eating something. Walking in the centre seeing cafes and people with food didn't influence my internal stability. Nice.

Spices

Yesterday I recalled that I used to like adding cinnamon to my breakfast. And I did add some to a peach. Ufff, what a bad experience! I never thought cinnamon has such a strong taste!

It's amazing how fast the perception of taste is changing. I used to add a lot of cinnamon to my breakfast kefir and barely felt it.

Open market day

Last Saturday I found a market stall with dried fruit including apricots. There were both standard and quite dark ones, as the naturally sun-dried apricots should be, and I bought a bit then. Today I had a chance to ask not the girls who sell this but have no idea what they actually sell (they start talking about sugar added when there is no sugar for sure), but a man who seemed to know. My question was if there was sulphur dioxide or similar used to preserve the dried dark apricots. Unfortunately, the answer was positive. He said there were preserving agents added to all their product line (which was considerable).
At a bio stall I saw some organic dates and asked the same question. I was surprised that people who own a bioshop don't know such details important for their, quite particular, customers.
I searched for information on dried fruit and found this. A lot of facts on food and medicines additives with a focus on kids and asthma and allergy, but it is really impressing. And here is a bit on salicylates.

Food, not raw again

I listened to Вершитель реальности once again, the part on raw foodism, and again thought that it is really necessary to change food habits more gradually than I am doing. If one makes himself do something, he will fail one day and do what he really wants to do. So first of all, my tastes must change, and I still miss some cooked meals. But my body reacted in a bad way when I cooked rice. At the same time the gut organisms can't have changed that much in just a week; usually it takes one year. Maybe it is quantity that matters in my case... After a week on raw food, and mainly mono diet, I will eat a bit of dead food again, something I used to like a lot.

Body temperature

I learned about the body temperature of raw foodists at the early stage of their new diet and decided to take mine before going to bed. And I was shocked. 34.8C! The lowest I have ever known for me! So my perception of the air temperature has changed together with or even due to my own body temperature.

Something interesting:

Usually our temperature when taken under the tongue is between 36.5 and 37.2C. Body temperature is strictly individual, so what is a norm for one person can mean something new is happening in the body of another person.

The temperature when one needs immediate hospitalization is 41C. When it is only 27C, one would slip into a coma. But down to 32C is not a serious danger, although one would start to shiver or even shake.

Source (RU): http://sportzal.com/post/280/

When I read that, I calmed down.

Sleeping

I sleep on a big matrass directly on the floor, head to the north. There are a couple of thin pillows on the matrass, I sometimes use them. But I can relax better if I sleep on the back without a pillow. I heard a saying "the higher the pillow, the poorer the health", чем выше подушка, тем больше болезней.

Air temperature perception

It's been only several days that I am on a 100% raw food diet, but one amazing change is already here! The perception of the air temperature. I used to feel cold when others were ok. Now I sleep with an open window, dressed as usual. My room thermometer shows +17.4C and it was as low as +14.7C yesterday. Just a week +22C was a norm for me not to feel cold.

I think such a rapid change is a result of the withdrawal from hot food and especially drinks. I used to drink several liters of hot tea a day, what a shame.

As far as I know from forums, many people feel cold when they switch to the full raw food diet, and they feel it deeper than they used to. So I guess at one of the stages I will pass through this as well.

And walking barefoot on the October grass is sssoo good! It's still a bit cold for me. 

I recall the Africans and Arabs living in Paris. They wear flip-flops in winter. Of course, winter in Paris is very warm, +2+7C in recent years. But still for me it was strange when I first saw them, dressed in coats but wearing flip-flops. A Russian saying goes like this: держи ноги в тепле, а голову в холоде, keep your feet warm and your head cold. Now I think there is something wrong about it.

Fasting

Since July I keep a fast on ekadashi. I am young and of delicate constitution, so a couple of days per month is enough and good for me. Fast in the Vedic tradition means no food, no drinks, not even water; being awake the night to dwadashi; meditation and praying; listening to saint and wise people more than usual; doing more good than usual, give alms, help etc. They say if you do all this, your sins will be forgiven and in the next life you will be born on higher planets.

I am very interested in the ancient eastern philosophy and beliefs. I respect beliefs, ancient and more modern, but myself I am far from any Ecclesia. So a fast for me is mainly no food, no drinks. I chose to keep a fast on ekadashi because I felt the need for purification and cleanup in both physical and spiritual ways. And I believe that when many people believe in one and the same thing, they create a very powerful image of it, and the image influences everybody. Thus, together with giving rest to my body, I do something good to the spiritual part of me as well.

Coconut

They say it is better to eat what grows in your area. I agree but am only in the beginning of my way to the best eating habits =). I love bananas which can't survive in the northern countries, and sometimes I am curious about exotic fruits. Several weeks ago I tried something for what I don't know the name. It has a very bright pink and green cover and tastes neutral (The nasty-looking brown thing is tamarind, produce of Thailand, it's sweet-sour.)


And today I opened a coconut, the first time myself. It took some ten minutes, next time it will be quicker. There are many tips on the web on how to crack a coconut (for example, http://www.wikihow.com/Open-a-Coconut). This is how I did.
First, I made holes in the 3 black spots at one of the ends of the coconut using a screwdriver. Then I poured the juice; I had some 100 ml. Thirdly, I placed the coconut on a flat surface, held it with one hand and hit the central part with the non-sharp end of a big knife several times, but it didn't work out as the knife I had was not heavy enough. So I used a nutcracker - it was the heaviest thing I had, and it opened. Btw, the juice was very tasty and not extremely sweet.



And I am becoming a fan of freshly harvested walnuts.

Time and meals

According the Vedic knowledge it is extremely important to eat certain products at certain time or I would say not to eat certain products at certain time. Fruits are governed by the Sun, thus, they must be eaten in the first part of the day when the Sun is active during several hours after the meal to have enough time to digest it. For example, at 6-8 o'clock for breakfast. Vegetables are governed by the Moon, thus must be eaten for lunch at 11:30-13:30 and dinner at 17-18. They recommend cooked vegetables for dinner because fresh food gives too much energy, not necessary in the evening as it prevents us from falling asleep. It is recommended not to eat after 20.
From the personal experience of raw foodists they can eat at any time of the day without feeling discomfort in the stomach, and some 5-6 hours of sleep is really enough for them.

Time and sleeping

There are many proverbs, sayings and wise men quotes in different languages that reflect the importance of living in accordance with biological rhythms. An example in English can be Franklin's "early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise". A quien madruga Dios le ayuda. The early bird catches the worm. Кто рано встаёт, тому Бог подаёт/к тому счастье придёт.
Today on the RU TV channel Vesti 24 an interesting film on time was shown. There is a modern branch of science called biochronology which studies the rhythms of individual cells and organs. Actually they believe they know much more than it was described in the ancient manuscripts of Tibet and India. But those who have knowledge from Tibet or India know that it is absolutely necessary to respect the cycles of the Sun and the Moon in their food choice and sleeping habits. Only since recently our modern scientists say it is good to go to bed at 22 and wake up with the sunrise.
It is important to sleep at night because only then (when one sleeps and when it is dark) the melatonin is produced in our body. In the end it influences the ageing, if one doesn't respect the circadian rhythms, or recovery, if one does respect them.
Thus, on the way to health one should sleep from 22 to 5-6. I am far from this rhythm but will be doing my best to make it my way of life. But they say it will come easily and naturally after just a year on raw food. People I read in the web on raw food forums wake up at 5 with a lot of energy and wish to live a full life.

Open market day

When I asked for raw peanuts the seller said that people buy them for their birds... I found fresh, i.e. yellow, dates. They taste strange, I am used to the dried variant. There was an offer of yellow-and-red pears 1 Eur per bag (more than a kilo there), and my dinner was predetermined :)

Memories:

chestnuts min 2.95 Eur per 1/2 kilo

walnuts min 2 Eur per 1/2 kilo, 3.50 Eur per 1 kilo

raw peanuts 1 Eur per small package

brown dried apricots 3.25 Eur per 250 g

no sodium dates 2 Eur per package (454 g)

chirimoya 2.50 Eur per 2 pieces

coconut 0.50 Eur per piece

Fair trade bananas 1 Eur per kilo

Nuts and similar

Walnuts, pine nuts, hazelnuts, sunflower seeds, sesame - grind everything in a blender, mix with a spoonful of honey! This is the basis. Carrots - grind separately! This is the cover. Cinnamon powder as the final touch. Enjoy!

The second dessert I made was a puree from well ground walnuts, hazelnuts, sesame, sunflower seeds, bananas, with coconut flakes and cinnamon.

I tried a chestnut, the first time not grilled. It is so sweet! Simply delicious.

The season of walnuts has just started. It's the first time in my life I had a chance to buy really freshly harvested walnuts! They are not firm inside, they are almost white. And the shuck is quite wet and oily to the touch.

For future reference: RU/Latin/EN

грецкий орех/Juglans (nux Gallica)/walnuts
пекан/Carya illinoinensis/pecan
фундук/Córylus/hazelnuts
кунжут/Sesamum indicum/sesame
стружка кокосового ореха/fruit from Cocos nucifera/coconut flakes
семечки подсолнуха/Helianthus annuus/sunflower seeds
кешью/Anacardium occidentale/cashew, caju
фисташки/Pistacia/pistachios
миндаль/Prunus dulcis (Prunus amygdalus)/almonds
кедровые орешки/seeds from Pinus/pine nuts
каштаны/Castanea sativa Mill./sweet chestnuts (maybe marrons, not sure )

арахис/peanuts

курага/dried apricots

Switching fully to raw food in the end

My yesterday's experience with cooked rice was negative. I prepared it as usual, but my body already reacted, after just several days of pure raw food. So I guess, I won't change my diet that gradually. Instead I will eat it raw but mixing products first, trying to follow the compatibility rules. 

Агент 108 - Мой сосед кришнаит (RU)

I am not a Hindu, but I like this song and the video:

"My neighbour Krishnaite" by Agent 108 

Tempering the body with cold water

The winter is coming, closer and closer. They say this one will be much colder than the previous one. And soon I am moving to Moscow, so I will enjoy the real cold this time, brrr. But I am happy, have been missing my winter the last 3 "winters"!

I was searching for different health-related issues and today decided to start practising body tempering with cold water. Now I don't have a bath, so I will keep the habit of rinsing with cold water in the shower. At home, in Moscow, I have a very good bath and I will make use of it ;-)

Sports in my life

There is not much sport in my life. Thanks to living in Holland, for a while already, my everyday routine is biking, biking everywhere around the town and to the countryside.
Several months ago I was invited to play frisbee. A friend of mine is crazy about it, and he uses a Google group to invite his friends in town to play on the small grass field at the university campus. I liked it so much that go and play every time he organizes the game. There are not many people who want to play, but the field is small, so 4 by 4 games are nice. I am bad at it but feel how I am improving :D
Some 7 years ago I used to practice Iyengar Yoga in Moscow, not very intensively, but with pleasure. Half a year ago a friend of mine invited me to a class at her place. The instructor is her friend who, in addition to her main job at Tilburg university, is going to become a yoga teacher. She is finishing her several years studying in Amsterdam and suggested that she could teach us. Now she even found a well equipped place to rent for yoga classes, and I go there every Tuesday.

This is pretty much about my physical activities. I know that many raw foodists have a lot of energy and do a lot of exercises. I guess when I turn to that diet making it my way of life I will be more active in this respect.

My food preferences in short

I used to eat everything that those around me ate. In France I did try the stereotype frog legs. In Spain I did enjoy the jamon serrano. I never thought about the violence and ill health related to eating animals. I did believe in God, even was baptized of my own free will when I was 8 or 9, but didn't associate this with vegetarianism. I didn't even know that somebody doesn't eat meat. I never met vegetarians until my dad decided to become one when I was 12 or 13, but he didn't succeed. Then a classmate became vegan a couple of years later. But both of them didn't have much influence on me. Only half a year ago, at the age of 24, I felt I could no longer eat what was not intended for human alimentation as I understood it then.
At the end of April 2008 I stopped eating meat, fish, eggs, etc and derivatives. Then I learned about gelatin in yogurts, rennet in cheese and found yogurts without gelatin and cheese with vegetarian rennet. Then I stopped drinking coffee and black tea.
In early June I read a lot about yeast and quit standard bread, found non-yeast bread. Being a sweet tooth I used to eat a lot of chocolate, but already in June I noticed my choco consumption reduced considerably.
In July I stopped eating canned stuff, although with 3 exceptions in August.
I never drank much, but could enjoy good red French wine and good beer. In late August I drank my last alcoholic drink, it was Guinness.
In late September I decided to follow a raw mono diet. This would be a really drastic change because I always cooked a lot: rice, pasta, beans, pumpkin, zucchini etc, used a lot of Indian spices; drank a lot of hot rose hips and herbs; and I still respect cow milk. I even started this way for a couple of days but then read and recalled that it is better to do everything gradually, step by step, because the microflora, the gut organisms need to adapt, and it takes a while. The change from cooked food to fully raw food is even more serious than that from meat-eating to being vegetarian, and my aim is even more ambitious: the mono diet, which means one type of food at a time as a meal, no matter if 1 piece or 1 kilo.
So since now I add more and more raw vegetables and different fruits, nuts to my diet, reduce the quantity of processed stuff. I don't eat or drink hot stuff any more.
I decided to continue eating honey when I find a good quality option. Because of E220 (sulphur dioxide) I am reducing the amount of dried fruit almost to zero till I find brands I can trust, those that dry the fruit naturally.


This is the current state of affairs. This blog is intended to reflect the changes in me - my physical health, my energy, my mood, - that will be happening on my way to the raw veggie mono diet. I'll be happy to read about the personal experience of other bloggers.

=)

Welcome

Good time of the day and welcome to my Google blog!

I have a Livejournal blog in Russian about my everyday life. I guess this one will be mainly in English, about my new lifestyle, mainly about food and exercise.

So let's start =)