I’m starving all the time when eating raw food vegan!

That was my first thought when starting with raw food vegan. I realized pretty fast that I don't really know what starving is and that all the things I felt so far, were just my mind pretending that I'm hungry.

I was surprised to discover how much is just influenced by my mind and not a real need for my overall body. I quickly understood also how easy it is for marketing/lobbying to influence my mind and make these messages perceive as the only truth.

Personally today after all I’ve learned so far, I believe that my body needs water (majority of my body is water) and then a variety of whole foods depending on my activity.

In order to actually find out what is real starving and what is my mind saying;

• Hey, it's morning, so I need to eat.
• Hey, in the morning to wake up, I need coffee.
• Hey, to have eaten enough, I need to feel very full in my stomach.
• Hey, I will not make it between morning and noon, I need to eat something at 10h.
• …

At all those occasions I have just slowly drunk still water and waited to see if the feeling continued or not. If it continued half an hour after 1 or 2 glasses of water, it might be real, if not it was clearly the mind in my case trying to make me feel something that was not a real need of food.

When I had done that exercise for quite some time, I was amazed with the discovery of the huge influence of my mind in everything and especially food. I realized also of how much I eat emotionally, instead of when I’m hungry.

Today, after having lost 10kg and regularly vaste for a few days, I know I have still not discovered what real starving is (I’m too lucky here in Belgium) and for me it's just a mental state. When the whole body is in need of energy, it is actually a complete different feeling then the hungry I used to know. The ‘hunger’ I used to know, is more a need that my mind has, emotionally quite often and which is expressed like that, now it has nothing to do with real ‘hunger’.

#vegan #rawfoodvegan #nature #themind #fruitsandvegetables #plants #mentalinfluence

#starving

Killing animals vs raw vegan!

The other day I was having lunch with raspberries out of the garden, that were extremely juicy. When my hands were nicely covered and pretty red, my phone rings. I picked up with just one sweet push and told the person; “I'll put on speaker, explaining the reason behind, with my hands all nice red”.

Felt all natural and the person also completely understood.

I was then thinking after the call, what if I would still eat meat, would I say; "hold on, I'll set you on speaker since I just grabbed a rabbit, killed it and my hands are covered with blood?".

That doesn’t feel natural to me at all.

Am I already too much into all the plants based stuff today, to find this very cruel and unacceptable?

I don't know how to catch the rabbit, killing even worse and then finally eat it… not natural at all to me today.

My main reason why I left meat out at one day, was because I knew, understood, found it unacceptable for myself and the pain it did to divine.

How come I did not know before? The cruelty of slaughterhouses is of all time aren't they? Was I so manipulated by the outside world to not see it and not speak about it?

I can really not tell today how I would have felt back in the days that I was still eating meat…

Would love to hear back from current meat eaters on whether they found it normal if I would say the meat eater sentence on the phone?

Because basically that is what it is…

When I ate meat in the past, maybe I paid others to kill it for me, now in reality that is exactly what is happening! So as a meat eater, I should have found that naturally… I’ve a very hard time believing that!

#vegan #rawfoodvegan #nature #worldwide #fruitsandvegetables #plants #bevegan #eva #vegansociety #peta #earthsprout #respectanimals

Easy quick raw vegan food for very busy people!

I quite often hear, I do like the raw vegan food concept, now I don't have the time for it.

This touched for me to a much broader part of my life asking me, “why do I don't have the time “ or formulated differently, “what is more important“ resulting in a reflex “is that really so important as I think it is”?

Here below a few reflections I made myself when asking the questions above;

• Man, I'm addicted to a lot of crap for no real reason. I have to watch tv, I've to read that magazine, I’ve to go shopping, I've to check email, Facebook… way too often…

• When we prepared our food as a family all participating in it, I've to say that it is difficult to compete for something else with such a quality time.

• It is no shame to take care of myself and prepare the food that I feel is the best for my body. It should be a real pleasure of doing that providing a lot of satisfaction instead.

I'm sorry if I disappointed! For me there are no real shortcuts I can provide, besides going to a raw vegan food restaurant or shop.

I find that I was way too often searching for the shortcuts, instead of wondering why is the shortcut so important to me and finding the answer right away.

Give it a try, make time, take pleasure of making your own raw vegan food (ideally together with other people and for other people), a lot of receipts are available and for me it is what has worked best on the longer term.

The more I do it, the more I enjoy it!

#vegan #rawfoodvegan #nature #worldwide #fruitsandvegetables #plants #taketime  #maketime #noshortcuts

Do I have to be mentally strong to go raw food vegan?

During the transition I realized that so much (majority) is happening in my head, there that it should be a mix of something happening in my body and in my head.

My head and mind are great, I love them. They help me very well. Now I also found out that they are the easiest to be misleading as well.

Starting with the main question “why do I eat?”

My mind says, because it's the usual time of the day to eat, because it looks and smells tasty, because fear that if I don't eat I’ll die, because I've to socially do like anyone else in a restaurant…

My overall body expresses more that I'm supposed to eat to get energy when I need it…

If so, what provides me the overall best energy balance?

Meaning what food contains the most energy and consumes the less energy to digest so that overall my body gets the maximum out of it.

The best for me to find this out, was to test and compare to each other.

If I eat a normal pizza, a vegan pizza without cheese, a raw pizza or just vegetables that I liked on the pizza, it felt to me so obvious what had for my body the best energy balance.

This quite fast resulted in me not really missing any of the previous food I used to eat, mainly because they might have contained more energy, now they require 3x times the energy to digest leaving me with a bad energy balance and quite fast not of interest for me anymore.

So I don't find it mentally strong, I find it more a conscious way of getting the best energy to my body. I love my body too much, in order to maltreat it like I did before, especially now that I know there is better for me!

A little side note on this subject, what I hear quite often is “I could never give up cheese…”.

About that I found the following text (I unfortunately lost the source of it, so if somebody knows, let me know so I can give them the credit of it);

“Cheese does actually contain traces of morphine (hypothesized to soothe a calf).  Casomorphins (which have an effect similar to opiates) are produced when the body digests casein, a milk protein.  Cheese is higher in casomorphins than milk because cheese is denser and thus more concentrated. There are alternative ways to obtain calcium that are lower in fat and calories than cheese such as spinach, kale, beans, and calcium fortified grains.”

I personally do remember cheese being delicious, now there are many great tasting vegan cheese alternatives. I rarely eat them though, since like I mentioned before, it’s all in my mind not my overall body that is asking for that!

Overall for me it is a lifestyle of just feeling great and doing the best I can for myself, to me nothing to do with mentally strong or not. Just self respect and self care which I guess everybody has for itself!

#vegan #rawfoodvegan #nature #worldwide #fruitsandvegetables #plants #respectyourbody #giveupcheesevegan #mentallystrong

What to eat outside home (when traveling) as raw food vegan!

I travel quite often, and going from normal modern food to vegan, was for me more difficult than to go to raw food vegan.

Mainly because for vegan, I look for prepared vegetarian food without eggs, cheese and milk, which is not so easy to find.

The happycow app helps well with that, now quite often I will have to talk to the chef of the restaurant to get my vegan food. I will for exemple, have to ask in a pizzeria if they make the pizza fresh and can add and remove ingredients in order to get the cheese for exemple removed. The same goes for homemade salads.

When I went raw food vegan, it was actually way easier to find it, I find raw food everywhere.

Fruits (in order to cover ⅔ of my day) can be found anywhere from local producers, local shops to supermarkets and the same is true for vegetables (in order to cover the other ⅓ of my day).

I might also find some nuts, dried fruits, raw bars… now I really see that as an extra and I'm not obsessed with it. If there aren't any, then be it like that. Overall, I have traveled never longer than 3 weeks, so I don't really mind having less variations to eat during that specific period.

If I  would really want to have almost same as at home, I might take some food with me or I might do a little research on site by speaking to local people or by doing some advance research on “raw food vegan city/country” in search engines or even easier via the happycow website or application via https://www.happycow.net/.

Here are some pictures to inspire of what I found in Europe, US, Asia…

The fruits (sure they are not always bio, organic...or of the best quality, now they still are fruits);

The vegetables (same here, sure they are not always bio, organic...or of the best quality, now they still are vegetables) without happycow;

The vegetables (same here, sure they are not always bio, organic...or of the best quality, now they still are vegetables) with happycow;

#vegan #rawfoodvegan #nature #worldwide #fruitsandvegetables #plants #happycow #travelling #vegantravel

Why raw food vegan (inspired by Iréne Grosjean) and not just vegan or vegetarian!

It has been a discovery road, like I explained here. It was a natural continuation in feeling better. I went vegetarian, to find out I could do more, went vegan to see there was even better for me and not completely sure there isn’t anything else than raw food vegan I’ll explore in life in order to feel better. I have complete faith in it, that, when it will be there, my eyes will be open to see it.

In the progress like mentioned here, I have always been on the research of better for me. Pretty selfish! Now I know that the better I can be, the better I can be for divine. I believe that you cannot truly love others if you don’t love yourself.

A lot of people have crossed or walked with me on my path so far and I’m really grateful for that! If I have to name one person, it would be Iréne Grosjean, made an enormous positive change in my life, I've personally been inspired by this 80+ year old lady, stayed 4 days at her premises and this movie is a summary of it, it's french, now with CC you can set English subs. It explains quite a lot of things about the raw food fruit vegetable life style:

#vegan #rawfoodvegan #IréneGrosjean #nature #harmony #fruitsandvegetables #plants #Dowhatyoucanwithwhatyouhavewhereyouare

What kind of books I read in the process to go raw vegan?

I found that on my road so far, getting compassion and confirmation via divine plays a big role. Besides the people I met and the movies I watched, the books had a big contribution to this. I read in the language that the book comes to me (this can be Dutch, French & English), now quite often translated versions might exist.

They are set in the order that I have read them, the latest ones on top and the oldest ones on the bottom. They go over all kinds of subject and I feel they had all their contribution in finding myself.

The way I feel today, the discovery road it has set me on, for me there is no way back, I love myself too much for that!

Hope that some of the books might help you in finding what you are looking for!

Nassrine Reza - La Nutri-émotion (978-2-89626-136-9)

Tara Brach - L’acceptation radicale (978-2-7144-6893-2)

Arshavir Ter-Hovannessian - Raw Eating (ASIN: B000M4IKRE, ISBN: 310304, free download)

Professor Arnold Ehret - Mucusless diet healing system - Scientific method of eating your way to health (1-884772-00-5)

Jean-Didier Vincent - Biologie du couple (978-2-266-26451-8)

Seneca - On the Shortness of Life (978-0-14-101881-2)

Eckhart Tolle - Le pouvoir du moment présent (978-2-290-02020-3)

Dr Wayne W. Dyer - Changez vos pensées, changez votre vie (978-2-290-09881-3)

Philippe Gabilliet - Eloge de l’optimisme (978-2-915134-50-6)

Dr Serge Marquis - On est foutu, on pense trop (9-782732-467627)

Aymeric Caron - Antispéciste (978-2-35949-498-3)

Antoine Filissiadis - Va au bout de tes rêves (978-2-84058-314-1)

Raphaëlle Giordano - Ta deuxième vie commence quand tu comprends que tu n’en as qu’une (978-2-212-56116-6)

Kris Verburgh - Veroudering vertragen (978-90-351-4398-2)

Esther Perel - L'intelligence érotique (978-2-266-18174-7)

Goedele Leyssen - Balans (978-90-223-3095-1)

Paulo Coelho - L’Alchemiste (978-2-290-00444-9)

Hal Elrod - The Miracle Morning (978-0-9790197-1-5)

T. Colin Campbell & Thomas M. Campbell - L’enquête Campbell (The China Study) (978-2-290-08619-3)

Rich Roll - Finding Ultra (978-0-307-95220-2)

Marc Sisson - Primal Blueprint Fitness (http://www.marksdailyapple.com/)

Arnaud Desjardins - Pour une vie réussie, un amour réussi (978-2-266-22340-9)

Ruediger Dahlke - Peace - Food (978-2-87461-111-7)

Vanessa Mielczareck - L'Intelligence intuitive (978-2-913282-30-1)

Zoë Joncheere - Vivre Comme Dieu (978-9081965828)

Danielle Laporte / Lise Sévigny - L'estime de soi des 6-12 ans (2-922770-44-3)

Sylvain Darnil / Mathieu Le Roux - 80 Hommes Pour Changer Le Monde (978-2-253-11825-1)

Sarah Napthali - S'occuper de soi et des enfants dans le calme (978-2-228-90645-6)

Daniel Gilbert - Stumbling on Happiness (978-1-4000-7742-7)

Marshall B Rosenberg - La communication non violente au quotidien (978-2883533141)

Carole et Fabrice Mégrot - Mémento du bien manger (979-10-91987-43-1)

Kris Verburgh - De Voedselzandloper (978-90-351-3758-5)

Sunyata Saraswati et Bodhi Avinasha - Guide de sexualité tantrique (978-2-88353-875-7)

Michelle Larivey - Le défi des relations (978-2-7619-1882-4)

Elisa Brune / Yves Ferroul - Le Secret des femmes (978-2-7381-2813-3)

Tiziana Bruno et Gregor Adamczyck - Comprendre le langage du corps (978-2-87515-095-0)

Colette Portelance - La guérison intérieure par l'acceptation et le lâcher prise (978-2-88353-718-7)

Thomas D’Ansembourg - Cessez d'être gentil soyez vrai (978-2-7619-1596-0)

F. & W. Servranx et Collaborateurs - Sommeil rêves & santé (2-87242-094-0)

Philippe Sionneau - Bien manger peut vous sauver la vie (978-2-8132-0676-3)

Dr Michel Lallement - Les clés de l'alimentation santé (978-2-266-24104-5)

Pascale Naessens - Puur Eten dat je gelukkig maakt (978-9401418805)

Marci Shimoff - Le bonheur s’apprend (978-2-290-03129-2)

Sa Sainteté le Dalaï-Lama - Le sens de la vie (978-2-290-01187-4)

Hale Dwoskin - La Méthode Sedona - L'art du lâcher-prise (978-2923228068)

Marshall B. Rosenberg - La communication non violente au quotidien (978-2-88353-314-1)

Matthew McKay / Martha Davis / Patrick Fanning - Messages (The communication skills book) (1-57224-022-9)

David Dewulf - Mindfulness in je relatie (978-9-4014-0418-1)

Thierry Janssen - Vivre en paix (978-2-501-08950-0)

#rawfoodvegan #books #NassrineReza #RawEating #health #EckhartTolle #DrWayneDyer #Antispéciste #AntoineFilissiadis #KrisVerburgh #EstherPerel #GoedeleLeyssen #LAlchemiste #TheMiracleMorning #ColinCampbell #TheChinaStudy #RichRoll #PeaceFood #CommunicationNonViolente #lâcherprise #PascaleNaessens #DalaïLama #MéthodeSedona #ThierryJanssen