The question of the hour:

"What is your 3-5 step process for including more raw foods into your daily meals? Obviously I have my own way I would do it... but I’m curious how you would do it in a series of steps, assuming I already eat some raw foods now, I like fruits, carrots, celery, lettuce and occasionally broccoli, and want to expand beyond that. I’m also a big fan of pasta. Is there a way to make something similar (maybe some tomato sauce with nutritional yeast with shredded zucchini/cucumber/carrot?) I’d be interested in how you would make those alternatives and I don’t want to feel like I’m giving up the foods I enjoy."

You know, most people think eating more raw means finding new recipes, buying special ingredients, or forcing themselves to eat raw meals.

And they usually approach it that way.

My answer to them is the same I'd give most (see caveat below) across the board:

1. Stop looking at raw foods as ingredients

2. Start looking at raw foods as food

3. Only exception is when you genuinely want to make a recipe, etc.

4. After that, eat the cucumber, peach, tomato, grapes, cauliflower, carrot, pepper, apple, or berries whenever they appeal to you

5. In most cases, nearly every case I've ever seen at least, the people who naturally eat more raw food don't look at those foods and think, "What can I make with this?" They think, "Why do I need to make anything at all?"

6. This is similar to how people stop seeing whole foods as unfinished products

7. And it works

8. The above all applies to meal preparation, too

9. There is a lot of freedom in giving yourself permission to eat the ingredients

10. And once you do it, I suspect you'll never go back..

Anyway, do the above at your own risk, of course.

I mentioned a "caveat" to all this.

And that caveat is to do the above at your own risk.

I have to say that because there are more and more people who assume every vegetable needs a recipe, every raw meal needs preparation, and every time they eat has to turn into an event... and the result is they spend more time thinking about food than eating it.

And that's exactly how processed foods take over:

Fear of simplicity

↓

Everything needs a recipe

↓

Whole foods become ingredients

↓

Raw foods feel inconvenient

↓

Less raw food eaten

↓

More dependence on processed foods

Processed foods win when whole foods stop looking like food.

That's the entire game.

That's why someone sets out to make cauliflower sweet potato soup and ends up eating half the cauliflower and some slices of sweet potato before the pot is even on the stove. They weren't trying to practice self-control. They simply stopped seeing whole foods as unfinished products. And when genuine hunger arrives, a bowl of vegetables no longer feels like ingredients waiting for a recipe. It feels like food.

Not sure where else I can take this topic.

So I'll just end with this:

If you haven't gotten your copy of “10 ‘Street-Smart’ Secrets of a Raw Food Strategist” and the bonuses yet, you can find it here:

​https://www.IrinaValeva.com/10streetsmartsecrets​

Irina Valeva