January 2010

~

buckwheat (sprouts and just soaked) !!! ~2.5 kg/month

red pepper (paprika) !!!

bananas !!!

lettuce (Iceberg, "салат листовой в горшочке") !!!

apples !!

parsley /dill /coriander (just a bit this month)

tangerines

pineapples

The list of items is getting shorter every month!

water at least 1 l a day, usually 2 and more

~

Felt cold several times, and it wasn't -24C, it was -15C. So it doesn't really depend on the weather per se, but on all these changes in my body and perception that are going on.

~

Found a nice way of washing hair: using shikakai (Acacia Concinna)

Not really raw, but still natural: boil several halves in 1 l of water for 15 minutes (the water becomes brownish), then let it get lukewarm, squeeze well the halves so that they give all their soapy properties to the water (the most important part is the inside).

~

Found a wonderful piano teacher and had the first lesson! Talked to one person who wanted to sell her piano and gonna get it next week!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Music/ Dreams / Fast / Diet

I've been to a concert where my classmate Tatyana Kolesova was a soloist. She played the famous Tchaikovsky's Concerto no.1. The other hour it was Dvorak's cello Concerto, and it's the first time I've heard a cello solo not recorded. At first I didn't like it, but after some 5 minutes I felt something in the stomach area - the area which I perceive as the solar plexus chakra and which is the part of my body that gives me signals when I visit a sacred place. And there was a moment when I felt tears in my eyes... Who could tell me a couple of years ago I would enjoy classical music??? Well, I liked several pieces of music like Grieg's Morning mood but I wouldn't digest a classical music concert. "For the times they're a-changing", and I'm changing, too. (btw, I love this version of Bob Dylan's song)

I haven't learnt to meditate, not yet, can't organise, can't concentrate. But the images I already receive/see when I close my eyes while listening to some quiet and/or harmonious music or thinking good positive thoughts, - these images are great. Sometimes I can direct the stories, but usually I'm just passively watching and enjoying them. Sometimes they are full of colours, sometimes there are only a few colours, very seldom I see it in brownish&greyish&whitish. Usually the speed of actions is the same as I'm used to, ie not very high, but once in a while I receive images that alternate extremely quickly. Sometimes a new understanding of familiar ideas comes to me during this cartoon-watching experience.

My dreams are a bit different now. Sometimes when I wake up I physically, with my skin, feel what I was doing in the dream, for example hugging. It kind of surprises and puzzles me but for now I like it. =)

I can't fast more than one day :( The second day I feel too bad in the morning and a classical remedy glass of water doesn't help. But drinking 2-3 litres of schungite water a day is no longer a problem!

I tried eating a lot of nuts in the evening (mainly cashews that I ordered from London and pistachios, a bit of hazelnuts and walnuts) and yes, you can gain weight eating raw!!! (the question is Do you want to?)

99% of what I've been eating recently is:

-different sorts of apples (!!!)

-grapes (!!!)

-dried apricot halves (!!) (finally found a good supplier, untreated apricots)

-cabbage (!)

-carrots

-dill (!)

-parsley (!!!)

-green onion (!)

-melons (!)

-pomegranates (!)

-tomatoes

-cucumbers

-nuts

-lettuce

-persimmon (last year this month I was eating tonnes of persimmons, this year I've had maybe 5 pieces...)

Buckwheat, wheat, chickpea are bought for sprouting in winter.

October

This month I've decided to do some cleansing, for about 30-35 days. So I eat garlic, home-made tripharmacon (tansy, absinthe and cloves powder), pumpkin purée and seeds, lots of leafy greens (parsley, coriander, spinach, dill, lettuce, Iceberg lettuce, estragon), drink beet&carrot&apple juice every morning. In general this month I'm trying to focus on red food like red paprika or dark grapes but am not avoiding any other product whatsoever. And drinking water, yes, about a litre a day of schungite or silicon (Si) water already - a big progress for me.
Some people, including Victoria Boutenko, recommend drinking 'green cocktails'. They realised the importance of leafy greens in the human diet (their share "must" be about 45% (!) of the daily food intake) but didn't really enjoy eating them as they are, so they decided to use a blender. It's a nice idea for a raw green soup and I tried it once or twice but both my mum and I find it easy to eat leafy greens without any sorcery. 'Green cocktails' seem tasty, so we'll try them for sure =)

I think this book could be quite useful to me now :), it's in line with my own way of thinking.

Raw stuff parcel

I've received a parcel from this raw foods shop in the UK. Door to door, fast enough! Just one week since I paid, no problems with the customs (anticipated, but highly hoped not to happen to me). Raw cashews, raw chocolate, raw nuts&seeds crackers... Lovely. A wonderful transition period =) (psychologically I still want some traditional food sometimes, every week less though, but haven't completely kicked it).

~

Two articles: on diet (EN) and apples (RU)

Here
key word: unprocessed

And here
healthful apples

August

I've been eating mainly peaches and nectarines the last couple of weeks. Fewer meals a day but considerable amounts of fruit each meal. Psychological dependence on food is significant... Sometimes I realise that physically I don't want any food any more (!) but psychologically yesss.

He-he, during the last three weeks: (just trying to recall everything)
1 peaches (from Azerbaijan, Crimea, Greece),
2 nectarines (very sweet, or very juicy, red, pink),
3 cucumbers (from different regions of Eur part of Russia, or what my relatives have grown),
4 tomatoes (from different regions of Eur part of Russia, pink, red),
5-8 dill, parsley, green onion, garlic,
9 apples (from Crimea, or from our parcel),
10 raspberry,
11 gooseberry (a lot, from our parcel, or from the neighbours'),
12 several young carrots (what my relatives have grown),
13-14 some cherry (from our neighbours' parcel), some sweet cherry (it's not good any more)
15 yellow plums (from my mum's parcel)
16 some grapes
17 hazelnuts (from South Ossetya)
18 a couple of bananas
19-20 orange juice, tangerine juice (when I work in the centre)
21 several melons
22 black currant
23-25 one white marrow, one green marrow (zucchini), a couple of very small pumpkins
26-28 lowbush blueberry of two types (черника и голубика), cowberry (брусника), cranberry - one Sunday we spent some three hours at the marsh just eating these berries! =)

It took me some time to type this list, maybe I still forgot something. Anyway, about 30 different types of food, with peaches+nectarines+cucumbers+tomatoes comprising some 70-80%.

Breatharians Baranova and Jasmuheen

Raw mono... what's next?

They tell me sometimes that I'm being too radical now.
I say no, it's not that radical.
They ask me "what can be more radical?"
Well, what about not needing physical food at all? Living on love/light/prana/...
A couple of links:
link 1
link 2
(in RU)

My current level of spiritual development is far from the one necessary for that. The next at least 2 years my new cells will be replacing the old ones that I got before going raw and you can't receive enough prana before the energy channels widen. You must first be physically healthy, and only then enjoy freedom from food.
Raw mono -> widen channels to receive cosmic energy -> be able to live without physical food

=) First anniversary

Around this time last April I understood I couldn't eat meat any longer. First, I told that I was thinking of becoming a vegetarian to my friends Sergey and Vadim. The reaction was "so you won't cook to us any more?" Lovely... Then I went to my friends Denise and Naira and shared my news. The reaction was something like " wow, are you sure?" Some days later I saw Owen and Heejung. Their reaction was something like "ok, but why?". A month later my mum (a dentist brought up by the Soviet medical school) came to spend a week with me in Holland. Her reaction was a pale face.
About 7 months ago I started to become a raw foodist. I shared this with Owen and Heejung. Never told Denise or Naira. Vadim and Sergey learned later. I talked to my mum only when I came back home.
Now my mum is almost as strict as I am, she eats something cooked maybe once in a month only.
=)

Several links on raw diet and similar

I've been reading everything I can find on natural living (including diets) but it used to be mainly in Russian. It was intended for me, it's easier for me to be persuaded by something in my mother tongue =) But now I want to share my views. So I found something in English. Especially for you =)

Ah, those pots and pans! Or how and why I became a raw foodist
War in vain. Why we get sick and what for
Immunity. Do we really need it?
Cooking for slow death
Where to get protein?
Do vegetarians and raw foodists risk?
Eating bread one gains not just weight

And one last link for now about menstruation. I haven't read the entire blog entry, but I read something similar in Russian several months ago and I was shocked. Well, as a child, when I learned that every girl will start having it regularly one day, I didn't understand why human females have menstruation while animal females don't but I didn't even think about looking for alternative views on the nature of menstruation then. Hm, the fact of having it in the future (and having pain while giving birth) was the reason why I wanted to be a boy then =))) Now I don't need to worry about menstruation and I perceive the ability of giving birth as a heavenly gift.

Winter/Fasting/etc

This winter in the Moscow region and where I have travelled was sometimes what we call "real", -20C, white snow everywhere. After 3 winters in Western Europe I was a bit nervous about how I would survive any temperature below 0, but it turned out to be quite fine. So I don't see any obstacles to be a raw foodist in the cold period of the year as many say.
But I must admit I was not a raw foodist myself because of my very strong psychological dependence on bread. Now I am finally changing this habit.
Being quite thin and slim I would have never thought I would go for a fast longer than a couple of days. But I did. Starting on the 2nd of March, coinciding with the Orthodox Lent (Great Fast), 7 days, finished today with half water-half freshly squeezed apple juice. It was really hard for me, I felt extremely weak in certain moments, the stairs were a nightmare so I didn't go out the last 4 days (I live on the 2nd floor without an elevator). I did it till the acidotic crisis which happened yesterday in the evening and although I then all of a sudden felt strong and thought to continue for several more days today I woke up too weak to move my arms. I guess this is when the real cleansing process starts, but I wasn't ready for this so I crawled to the kitchen to prepare the juice. Still a great experience!
Hopefully I am becoming a real raw foodist today. Understanding the negative issues of bread and having lived without any food for a week I guess now I am able to do this.
=)

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.