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 =)