Not raw, not even vegan

I ate some khachapuri some time ago, and what surprised me was that it didn't seem too salty. Strange because my perception of spices had changed considerably and everything I had tasted (touched with the tongue, but not swallowed) was too salty/sweet/etc. As I like travelling and really hope to travel around the Caucasus some day I thought of trying a khachapuri when I was somewhere in Georgia, but now thanks to that good Georgian restaurant in Odessa, I can tick one more thing in life 'done' and continue lowering my psychological dependency on traditional cooked food.

One of my favourite countries

*I'm about to finish the book by Kapten, it's very good, with good overview and practical advice.

*Tried Turkish bananas, they are very good, sweet, but not mawkish.


Ate watermelon, figs, nectarines and peaches.


Not raw: ate Haydari (yoghurt with garlic dip) with warm Turkish bread right from the oven and felt really bad afterwards - no, not for me.

*Drank a lot of fresh orange juice, tried a mix watermelon-melon-apple-orange (or smth like this, tastes strange), tried melon juice (didn't like it)


*Enjoyed very warm waters of the east-Mediterranean and the wonderful air. Visited the Damlataş cave with the idea to breathe that special air (they say it's good for the lungs).

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.

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.

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...

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.