Remember my little kimchi misadventure here? I’m proud to say I didn’t let that one hiccup get me down and this second batch did not make me sick. I’m happy to say that I’m back to noshing on fermented veggies and hoping my insides and skin will love me for it. However, I’m still not friends with natto…

Although I deem this as a success, I’ve to say that this is not exactly a traditional kimchi recipe. I did not use rice flour or fish sauce or a lot of salt, but I found it to be yummy all the same. It doesn’t emit the same pungent aroma as store-bought kimchi that is actually a bonus for me because I don’t like anything that smells fishy.

The following recipe makes about 10oz or 280g:

¼ head hakusai or Napa cabbage
3 tbs olive oil
3 tbs of Korean hot pepper flakes
4 tsp sea salt
2 tsp sesame oil
5 stalks spring onions or scallions
4 cloves garlic
2-inch piece ginger
Juice of ¼ lemon

I tossed the garlic and ginger into my food processor to mince them, then I put chopped cabbage into a large bowl with all the ingredients and mixed them well. I waited for an hour so that the cabbage leaves would wilt and then bottled them into my glass jars.

I let them sit on the kitchen counter with their lids on loose for four whole days and refrigerated them for 24 hours. I sampled a small dish after that and the flavors just exploded in my mouth. Besides eating kimchi raw, I love cooking kimchi in miso soup and veggie fried rice.

This is actually my own recipe as I was inspired by the marinated veggie dishes I make on a regular basis. I learned that cabbage (basically most leafy greens and vegetables) with just a small squeeze of lemon juice will become much softer and palatable after a few hours. Since I used just a quarter of a lemon, I did not detect any tartness in the kimchi. Enjoy!

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I wouldn’t say I’m gullible to the point that I would go to any lengths to get better skin and lose more weight. Pills — no. Starving — a firm no.

But, a few weeks ago, a girlfriend of mine in Tokyo was waxing lyrical about how natto (fermented soybeans) is great for skin and maintaining your weight.

Natto in a styrofoam pack

Natto with okra and squid

Packed full of protein, natto is eaten by many Japanese in the morning with white rice and miso soup. But some folks are more imaginative: some eat it with raw squid and okra (I was in Hokkaido when I encountered this scary, sticky concoction); some tuck into it with spring onions (scallions) and soy sauce; others on toast with melted cheese on top; and for my friend, she mixes it up with kimchi, a Korean beauty secret, and eats it with rice.

Natto on toast with melted cheese

My girlfriend also swore that this nutritious meal keeps her going for as long as six hours and has no need to snack before her next meal. Low in calories and helps you not be hungry — wow, I’ve got to try this! I thought to myself.

Natto with kimchi

But natto is not for the faint-hearted. It’s pungent and slimy and even some Japanese people dislike it. It’s one of those things you either love or hate.

And I wanted to love it very badly. I had been doing some research on fermented foods and it seems they are great for keeping your intestines happy and your digestive system will rev better, which means better overall health and skin.

The Japanese and Koreans must be onto something — many of them have gorgeous, smooth skin and svelte figures. But I believe that there must be more behind just sheer genetic luck.

I set about making my own kimchi because I didn’t like store-bought kimchi that is loaded with preservatives and fish sauce. After watching this video, I ran out of the house to buy all the ingredients. It was so easy to make.

I knew I had to wait for the kimchi to ferment for a few days, but by the second day, I was impatient for magic to happen on my skin, so I ate it straight from the bottle with natto on brown rice.

Did I like it? To be honest, it made me want to gag less than the squid and okra version I had. I told myself fervently, “This is for good skin. This is for good skin.”

Unfortunately, I suffered a bad headache a couple of hours after and retired early. In the middle of the night, I had to rush to the toilet. Oh noooooo, was it the kimchi? I asked myself. It certainly was because the boyfriend had none and he was fine. I jumped onto Google, and of course, I found out it’s “dangerous” to ingest fermenting kimchi but it’s okay to eat it after it has been fermented.

Lesson learned: ferment your kimchi for four whole days, then refrigerate for a day, and it’s ready to eat.

Now, I want to know: what’s your extreme beauty mishap?

Photo credit: here, here, here, & here

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Let’s do a quick recap on the difference: green juices are just the juice of greens and fruit.

And green smoothies are vegetables and fruit blended together.

Okay, so here is my honest opinion on the benefits of both for radiant skin and health…

+ Green smoothies have fiber that will help eliminate the toxins. It is a “quick-exit” food or drink (it can be quite a meal!) and since the vegetable cell walls are broken down, your system will digest it easily and transport those nasty toxins that make our skin look sallow and dull or cause acne and skin conditions.

+ Green juices deliver the nutrients immediately to the blood stream because it has no fiber. In this way, your body absorbs all those amazing vitamins and nutrients.

+ Both are an excellent way to incorporate much more fruit and veggies into your diet easily. Who wants to sit around like a gorilla, munching and chewing, all day?!

+ Even if you drink more green juices, you will still be able to eliminate regularly. You can read about it here (just scroll down a bit; this is the blog of a woman who drank green juice for 92 days and still passed solid stools).

+ Some folks prefer juices because it’s not as filling as a smoothie — especially helpful to those who have small stomachs!

+ The slight disadvantage green juices may have over smoothies is if you use a lot of sweet fruit and you have an insulin-related condition, like diabetes. In this case, it’s not advisable to injest so much sugar. But, you can use a lot of lemon or lime to disguise the taste of greens in your juices. I probably wouldn’t advise a veggie and lemon smoothie because it wouldn’t taste very good — not in my book anyway.

+ It’s more expensive to juice, particularly when you use a mechanized juicer because it takes a lot of produce to make one cup. I don’t have fancy equipment in my kitchen, so I make do with blending my veggies and fruit in the blender with water and then I strain the pulp away with a nut milk bag (or if you have a very powerful blender, you can blend without water). So yes, green smoothies make your money’s worth, if you look at it that way.

From personal experience, I drink two green smoothies a day, plus a green juice and my skin has never felt or looked better. I was a pimply teenager and had serious eczema problems. Today, I don’t have to struggle with such skin conditions.

But if you don’t have time for both juicing and making smoothies or your diet just doesn’t have space for it, I would say a green juice in the morning is the better choice for radiant skin. Love the color green, I say!

Note: these are just my personal thoughts and I’m not a licensed medical practitioner.

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It’s not a new approach to our daily diet but I think we are so often swept away by stress and deadlines that we fail to nourish ourselves in such a way so we can do more in our day and feel good. We need to be reminded that going back to basics can be good for us.

Forget crappy deli sandwiches and the huge store-bought portions we feel obligated to consume in the middle of day.

Banish sluggish sleep demons that threaten to steal the afternoon away from you.

Lose the weight that you’ve been wanting to lose for the past five years.

Preparing your own food means taking control of your diet, health, and well-being. A packed lunch is perfect for busy bees who only have 10 minutes to grab a bite. Instead of walking down to the nearest café, why not spend that time throwing together a good lunch for yourself in the morning or the night before?

Priorities, people!

This year, I started making bentos (home packed meal in Japanese) for myself because of my new diet, but you don’t have to be vegetarian or gluten-intolerant to pack a healthy lunch.

A good bento shouldn’t take up too much of your time — use leftovers or cook more when you prepare dinner. Once you get started, you will be amazed what you can find in your fridge to squirrel away into your bento for a nice lunch.

Here are a few ideas on how to put together a nutritious meal-to-go for yourself. You don’t need to cut out cute bunnies and hearts like some of these bento bloggers do but you can be inspired by their food combinations.

Adventures in Bentomaking – focuses on portion control
Just Bento – tons of Japanese-style bentos with an emphasis on whole grains and fresh ingredients
Lunch In A Box – a resource for bentos and accessories
Bento box group on Flickr – a visual snapshot of what everyday people are putting into their bentos
Cloud9Food – an inspiring adult bento blog with occasional cute kyaraben (character) posts
Raw Bento – my latest pet project which features raw vegan fare

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I’m still eating a high raw diet with some cooked food daily and have lost a total of 8kg (17.6 lbs). Around the fourth month I was riding a wave of being 100% raw for a few weeks — I felt great until I went back to Singapore for a short holiday and ate quite a bit of cooked food, so have been struggling to get back to 90-100%. To sum it up, I am vegetarian with a mostly vegan diet though I tend to eat a bit of dairy when I am out socializing.

Here are my thoughts…

The Good:
+ I definitely feel much better than I did last year when I was gaining weight steadily and felt pulled down by lethargy.

+ My skin is still fairly clear. The perpetual rash on my left forearm (I think this condition is called keratosis) has faded but flares up a little when I drink alcohol, or consume gluten. I used to get pimples on my neck but I don’t seem to have that problem anymore.

+ I need less sleep and tend to shut down at 2am and wake at 9am naturally. I don’t take naps in the day unless I had extremely little sleep the night before.

+ I feel energetic when I work out but am veering towards less bootcamp-ish exercise. Hooping and Latin dance routines are my fixations now.

+ I feel less pressured to exercise daily. I used to feel guilty when I skipped my workouts but I realized it’s more about moving and being active everyday, on top of a raw food diet. Walking is a great way to burn calories and I’m happy not to own a car.

+ I love love love trying new raw recipes and I adore the taste of fresh produce.

+ I’ve connected with a few raw vegans in Tokyo and that makes me feel a little closer to the raw community.

The Challenges:

+ There are a lot of conflicting viewpoints on the raw food diet and some folks nitpick on what’s truly raw or not (for example, although agave nectar is featured in many raw recipes, it’s not raw as the process of extracting agave involves high temperatures which would classify it as “cooked”); there are arguments for and against being 100% raw 100% of the time; is the enzyme argument sound? I’m not sure where I stand in all of this except that I’m still adjusting my diet as I go along and I’m using how I feel as a compass of what’s “good” or “bad” for me. However, there is one thing I’m very sure is processed, refined food is toxic for you and you can see that same tenet in all diets, fad or not.

+ Which brings me to my next point: is being 100% raw a truly healthy choice? It seems your body will become so clean that it will not tolerate the smallest bit of pollution, according to some long-term raw foodists. Even if it is the ultimate level of health to achieve, is it worth it? Socially it’s just a nightmare if you don’t live in a raw-friendly place (LA, NYC, and London have thriving raw communities but I don’t live in any of those cities).

+ I still miss cooked food sometimes, and try as I might, I do feel a bit guilty if I indulge too much which is not a good way to go in the sense that I shouldn’t be feeling any guilt about food.

+ Though my energy levels are pretty high in the day, I somehow feel some seeds of discontent and want to be even more alert. Sounds crazy? Well, perhaps it’s human nature to be slightly dissatisfied even in the throes of happiness. What you have somehow is not quite good enough and you want more. I even reached a point a few weeks ago thinking, “If I can’t reach the level that I want, I might as well go back to cooked food.” So, for a whole day, I just ate cooked food but I felt sluggish and awful so I went back to raw the next day.

Will I continue the raw food diet? Yes, absolutely. It feels good so there’s no reason to stop. But I’ve still got many unanswered questions swimming in my mind and am curious to read or hear about more perspectives. I’ve also got a personal raw project brewing away and will share that very soon.

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If you’re wondering why your skin isn’t reaching the level of radiance you want, maybe you need to look deeper into the food you’re putting into your body.

As they say, you are what you eat and what goes in will come out.

Here are 7 tips to munch your way to lasting luscious skin…

Cut down on meat and dairy.
By consuming such food, you are also taking in a lot of the hormones that were injected into cows and chicken to make them grow faster and bigger. I know it’s hard to change life-long eating habits, but if you are suffering acne and eczema that won’t go away, you may want to consider this option.

Eat good fats.
Keep wrinkles and papery skin at bay by noshing on Nature’s moisturizers. Make your cells plump and supple through omega-fatty acids. If mercury in fish (salmon and mackerel) unnerves you, walnuts, avocados, flax seed, and olive oil are good plant-based sources.

Load up on vitamin C and silica.
These two building blocks of collagen are necessary for keeping skin elastic. Fruit and veggies high in vitamin C: peppers, broccoli, kiwi, strawberries, mangoes, avocados, onions, collard greens, and all citrus fruit. Now, cucumbers are high in silica so crunching on these are great for you, too!

A perfect summer recipe is a simple mix of strawberries and cucumbers drizzled with a bit of lemon juice. Can you tell this is sooooo yummy for your taste buds and your skin?

Soak up vitamin A to renew skin
Vitamin A is necessary to renew and grow skin cells, so carrots, mangoes, spinach and apricots are great sources.

Protect your skin from the sun
Tomatoes and carrots have lycopene that is a natural sun screen and shields your skin from harmful rays. Wrinkles, be gone!

Keep hydrated
You probably see this point in most health articles but really there is a lot of truth in it. It’s all too easy to think you are drinking enough fluids — what with coffee and tea breaks or diet sodas. But nothing beats pure water or fresh juice.

If you don’t like the blandness of water, try squeezing a lemon or lime into a large glass and it will be completely transformed. Or treat yourself to a San Pellegrino or Evian to quench your thirst and bathe your skin cells with hydration.

Avoid too much refined sugar.
Sugar degrades the elastin and collagen in your skin faster. I wrote a whole post right here about how sugar makes you look old, so I won’t repeat myself.

Switch to dark chocolate.
It’s not really chocolate itself that causes pimples, but dairy does. I know dairy companies with deep pockets run massive campaigns about why it’s good for you but hormone-riddled milk in chocolate is the cause of flare-ups.

But don’t spoil the party of life by cutting out chocolate, just switch to dark ones or vegan chocolate.

Photo credit: here

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I’ll put my hand up and admit I put on almost 20 pounds over several years due to comfort eating. I just thought I “loved” pasta, but pasta didn’t love me back — I couldn’t buckle my jeans up without a struggle and my thighs grew a bit too close for comfort. I have a rather petite frame so excess weight truly shows up.

It wasn’t until I discovered the raw food lifestyle that I started thinking about why I ate so much. On the sly, I munched my way through bags of chips in front of the TV, or in public, when I declared myself a “foodie” and indulged in rich gourmet fare.

So it’s no wonder that a few recent health articles in the news caught my attention about binge eating and the connection between food and emotions. Everyone has an intimate relationship with food whether you realize it or not.

How the Food Makers Captured Our Brains addresses the root of overeating, but it doesn’t provide any solutions to solve the problem. An interesting read anyway and it will make you think twice before you reach for a Snickers bar.

The next article that whetted my appetite further was an interview with former tennis champ Monica Seles, Monica Seles Talks About Binge Eating, where she reveals years of struggling with emotional eating and being out of balance. I felt my heart strings tug when she said others noticed her weight gain, “She is so much bigger than she used to be.” Hello, that was me!

I could even relate more when she put on the pounds despite playing tennis for five hours daily. I used to work out almost daily or every other day but I ate badly (bread, pasta, noodles were my toxic friends) and the weight crept on. At 30, I found myself retrenched and was 20 pounds over my ideal weight. I ate for comfort and because I was lonely. I think being an expat in a foreign country had a lot to do with it — I have friends but they are not the same as the best friends you’ve had since you were little; my boyfriend was always far away on business trips; my family was not around. Food became my closest ally.

Honestly I don’t think emotional eating is overly complex. People eat because they are stressed, unloved, have unresolved issues, want to escape etc. There are whole industries that cater to the sport of eating. Look at Nigella Lawson: her food is gorgeous, and the thing is, she always makes her creations ooze with divine comfort and therefore a legitimate reason to indulge. It’s so criminal you have to…

But how do you get from being aware that you binge eat for comfort to not needing to turn to food when things get rough?

You may pooh-pooh at suggestions like “take a hot bath”, or “call a friend”, because they don’t replace that enveloping cocoon-like fullness of refined carbohydrates. They really don’t.

A more immediate solution when I face such a mental crisis is to have healthy alternatives. It doesn’t solve the root of your emotional problem but your waistline will thank you for it.

For the long run, I don’t have a straightforward answer to resolving your issues and my gut-feel is it’s a long, hard road: you have to change the direction of where your mind goes when you are tempted to eat a lot of junk. For example, Monica Seles goes for a walk to readjust her thinking and rationalizes why she needs that particular food she is craving. It is seriously mind over matter. Sounds a little clichéd but do you really want to be controlled by corn chips, cookies, and all manner of faux food?

Photo credits: here, here, and here

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We’re all pretty well-educated on how bad the sun is for our skin and it’s normal to see the words “SPF” on our cosmetics and beauty products. But there is one more thing that is even more invisible that causes wrinkles: SUGAR.

While I don’t think it’s possible to rule out sugar from our diet completely, it’s probably a good idea to decrease our intake of it.

Here are three reasons to make you sit up and pay attention:

#1 Sugar in your blood combines with proteins to form harmful molecules called advanced glycation end products (AGEs). So these bad boys attack collagen and elastin — the stuff that makes your skin smooth and supple.

#2 AGEs transform collagen to be more fragile. When this happens, your skin looks and feels less plump.

#3 AGEs make your body’s anti-oxidant enzymes useless which then leaves your skin more vulnerable to sun damage — still a main cause for aging.

How do we move on from here – what’s life without a bit of sweetness?

+ The key is to cut down on the refined sugar (soda, sugar in your coffee, pre-packaged food, cereal) and hidden sweeteners. Look out for words like maltose, high fructose corn syrup, dextrose, turbinado, juice concentrate.

+ Pay attention to how much sugar you are consuming daily. Each teaspoon of sugar is equal to 4g and the recommended daily dose of sugar for a woman over 40 is 10 teaspoons (160 calories). Sugar shouldn’t be more than 10 per cent of your daily calorie intake.

+ Go for natural sugar replacements like stevia since artificial sweeteners have their own set of problems.

+ Chug water instead of soda. Not only is it better for your skin but you will feel more alert, too, by keeping dehydration at bay.

+ Go sugar-less when you have your tea or coffee. I used to dump two teaspoons of sugar and half a glass of milk into my cuppa years ago. But when I started putting on the pounds and my energy levels plummeted, I switched to taking tea and coffee without sugar and I developed an appreciation for subtler flavours.

+ Vitamins B1 and B6 prevent AGEs from forming so try to pop a Vitamin B complex or multi-vitamin daily.

+ Stock up on more anti-oxidants in your body by eating high anti-oxidant fruit and veggies like red bell peppers, walnuts, and berries.

+ Look out for aminoguanidine and alistin in your beauty products as they block the formation of AGEs in your skin.

Photo: Daneli

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Green juice vs. green smoothie
The difference between a juice and a smoothie is that for the juice, you strain the juice away from the pulp (with a cheesecloth or nut milk bag), or if you use a motorized juicer, you don’t get any of the fiber either.

I used to think there was no real difference between the two but there is a significant one and it keeps me juicing on most days. What I am about to say is not scientific proof nor am I a doctor or nutritionist, I will just talk about my experience with green juice.

This recent addition to my diet has helped my body to detox and my skin to glow. My energy levels are peppy and I just feel light, happy, and radiant. Green smoothies are great for health and beauty, too, but I find the effects of green juice emerge faster than smoothies.

YUCK, why would I drink green juice?
The nutrients of green juice hit the bloodstream more immediately than a green smoothie. The fiber in green smoothies slows down the digestion of its vitamins and minerals and is less taxing on your insulin. Green juice can be chock full of fructose if you juice fruit with veggies as well, so your insulin has to work harder to process it.

I don’t know if there is a magic number that says what is enough or too much green juice so all I know is it’s not healthy to be extreme in anything and you should just tune into your body to listen to what it needs. Let me give an example or two on how to “tune in”.

If I feel tired, I will drink a green juice in the morning. If I see my skin looking sallow or has pimples, I will also juice, or if I had an indulgent night out, I will juice the next morning. When I am down with flu, I will juice.

Basically, these are situations where I think my body needs some extra help to get rid of toxins and free radicals that damage my well-being. I tend to get a natural flush to my cheeks and a lovely lightness of being after downing a few cups of green juice.

Some people do assume that green juice tastes medicinal or even some unimaginable swampy concoction not fit for human consumption. Let me tell you right now it’s not. It can taste as lovely as a fruit juice and it’s even better for you.

Green juice recipes for beginners
Here are some recipes for delicious green juice that won’t make your skin crawl. You don’t need to make a special trip to the health food store because you will probably find most of these ingredients in your kitchen already.

You can start with just a few stalks of greens and add more when you are more comfortable with the taste.

“Newbie”:
1 bunch spinach
1 carrot
½ lemon
1 apple
1 tiny slice ginger

“Loving it a bit”:
1 bunch spinach
1 celery stalk
1 orange
1 tiny slice ginger
½ lemon

“Rolling with it”:
1 bunch spinach
3 stalks coriander
½ pink grapefruit
1 apple
2 tiny slices ginger
½ lemon
¼ broccoli head
1 cucumber

You don’t have to stick to any one recipe once you get comfortable with making green juice and can in fact get really imaginative. A few basic rules to remember:

1. Combine a sweet fruit with a dark green vegetable.
2. Lemon will always give a refreshing taste.
3. Add ice.

Bottoms up!

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I want to address something before I list out my physical changes. In my previous update, I know I sounded like I was at the honeymoon stage of raw, in many ways I still am, but I think I didn’t touch on an important reality of transitioning to a raw vegan lifestyle — it’s hard on many levels.

Why am I finding it difficult? It’s not quite the reasons you may first think. No, I don’t have problems finding new ways to un-cook, in fact, it’s a daily joy I cherish.

+ Negative reactions from loved ones. When many of the people you seek approval from disagree with you, it’s not easy. Some think I am downright extreme, weird, harboring a latent illness (a family member speculated that I was pre-diabetic because of my sudden weight gain last year) or blindly throwing myself into the “latest diet fad”. I feel I need to harness an independent soul to carry on the way I want to eat and with happiness.

It’s not a good feeling to have that “lone warrior” burden, and many raw foodists have talked about this ad nauseum so I have steeled myself against negative comments. But at the end of the day, it still feels lonely.

+ Confused connection between mind and body. As I consume more raw food, I have naturally lacked an appetite for red meat, chicken, and dairy. I was eating an egg a day for over a month but when I stopped for a few days and went back to it, the smell repulsed me and I haven’t gone back to it since.

Just recently, I grilled a small piece of fish and as I overturned it, there was some wobbly bit under the gills and my stomach just felt like hurling. So, I’m finding meat quite hard to look at. I used to say this to my friends, “Oooo I love perving at seafood.” Now, I think it’s gross.

But when I am in a social situation and if I’m hungry, I just eat what’s in front of me. Meat and all. In Japan, the style of eating is communal, so I still have problems ‘fessing up to not wanting to share and have my own salad. I don’t feel disgusted as I am busy talking, but I feel bad physically (get gassy and bloated) when I reach home. So, I decided to come clean about being vegan in the last week and I feel great not eating any meat.

+ Still going through detox. I have waxed lyrical about the great energy I get from this diet but there have been a few days when I was absolutely exhausted (usually after drinking alcohol or eating meat) and I visit the powder room more than I care to mention. I get breakouts when I experience this but nothing drastic like huge, angry pimples; instead, I get tiny ones that go away in a day or two.

Before raw

After raw for 90 days

I don’t have a dramatic weight-loss story as I only lost 4.7kg (10.3lbs) where I released 3.8kg in the first month and 0.9kg in the last two months. But I think there is a difference in my face as you can see in the pictures above.

Body

The before picture was taken in November where I was at my heaviest ever. See how puffy I looked? I think it was all the gluten I was consuming that was the culprit and I must say that looking at these photos gives me more motivation to keep going.

My stomach area has flattened too. I’m going to be very honest here: I looked pregnant with an awful muffin top above my waistband, and even worse, I started wearing only loose tops to cover my bump. When I sat down and got up, I had to maneuver myself such that my big beer belly wouldn’t get in the way. As I do stretches now, I don’t sense there is a thick hunk of flesh obstructing me in the torso area. I feel lighter than I’ve ever had in the last three years.

When I exercise, I feel buoyed by the incredible lightness that fruit and veggies give me and I actually feel quite blissed out after a good workout. I’ll like to mention that I didn’t turn into a workout machine overnight on this diet. I was pretty sporty before so it feels amazing that I’m reaching higher levels of stamina and endurance (eg. 3 sets of 8 situps and 8 pushups in a row are not a problem versus struggling to do even 1 set; I can also clench my teeth through 2 sets of 8 side pushups and 8 side situps). I used to be dismayed that I exercised a lot but I never lost weight until I went raw. You can read about the incredible raw vegan athletes out there here.

Right now, I would say I am enjoying a high raw diet where I may be 100% raw on some days and have a cooked item on other days.

Skin

I think my skin has improved as I haven’t had a huge pimple after the first month of the raw diet. These two months have seen relatively clear complexion and I actually get a radiant flush after drinking green juice (natural blusher!).

I used to look extremely puffy and grey after an indulgent night but not so anymore. I may have a few glasses of white wine per week now and I notice the water retention is not as severe and goes away within a few hours. It could be that I am also drinking less alcohol while the discomfort of hangovers is over sooner because of the delicious, detoxing green smoothies and juices that I ingest daily.

Mind

I’m still loving the sharpness and clarity this diet brings. I think the physical beauty from raw food is a great bonus but there is something just as precious, if not more, and it’s a calmness that I feel which eluded me while I was on caffeine and other stimulants in cooked food. With more mental energy, I’m able give people and situations my patience and measured attention. I’m not saying I’ve found nirvana because I still get pissed off, frustrated, and sad sometimes, but I think I’m just more able to look at a problem or challenge without drowning in ego and emotions, like before.

If you are interested in my raw food pictures, you can click here.

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