Tag Archives: raw vegan lifestyle

“Raw Success” – A Review

Are you interested in cleaning up your diet and lifestyle, pursuing a long, healthful existence, and sticking to a 100% live-food vegan diet for more than just a “cleanse”…

— but you have no idea where to begin?

In 2007, Matt Monarch – a young Raw pioneer known for his popular TV show, The Raw Food World – wrote a guide for those seeking to transform their diets (and lives) to balanced health and longevity.

The book, Raw Success, outlines a handful of simple concepts to aid the reader in creating a sustainable 100% Raw Vegan lifestyle. Much of Monarch’s research was based off his educational relationship with Dr. Fred Bisci, a clinical nutritionist, researcher and 40-year Raw Vegan.

Raw Success seeks to answer some of the pressing questions facing raw vegans today, including…

Why aren’t Raw Food Eaters living decades longer than cooked food eaters?

Why are many Raw Foodies experiencing mineral deficiencies?

….and…

WHY do so many Raw Foodies have dental health issues?

Throughout the pages of the book, Monarch scatters a few mainstream concepts for maintaining health and avoiding some of these issues, including:

  • Green Juicing (i.e., making fresh, live green vegetable juices in your home… combining ingredients strategically to gain specific effects… and drinking immediately for the best health benefits, as per Dr. Norman Walker’s juicing manuals)
  • Colon cleansing (i.e., regular colonics… at home or done by a professional)
  • Enzyme therapy (i.e., because we live in an era of depleted soils, we need a little help to maintain our internal enzyme balance and reduce enzyme depletion, which contributes to aging and illness)

But the area in which Raw Success separates itself from many other health, wellness and raw food books is the centerfold, a section entitled “The Science Behind It All“.

In this section, Matt uses a series of graphically-delightful images and a reader-friendly exploration of the cellular science behind why some Raw Foodies succeed in achieving optimal health… and many don’t.

Curious about Matt’s theory and Dr. Bisci’s research? Looking for ways to boost your raw vitality, increase your longevity, and enjoy better health now? Wondering what all this 100% Raw business is about, anyway?

We recommend you purchase a copy of Raw Success through the Diva’s store— then add your thoughts to the discussion in the Comments thread below.

Rating: * * *

In conclusion, the Diva gives Matt Monarch’s book Raw Success a rating of 3 out of 5 stars… Though it occasionally lacks cohesion in some chapters and parts of the introduction follow rabbit trails, all in all Monarch and the inspirational contributions of his predecessors, Dr. Fred Bisci and Dr. Norman Walker, succeed in presenting a series of methodically-tried and holistically-true plans for creating true Raw Success in our lives.

The Story of a Bird

My yard sale got rained out.

On Saturday, I was up by 7am and immediately raking in $20′s and $5′s on my temporary new line of clothing, shoes, lop-sided bookshelves and ragged couches. By 2pm, I had nearly $300 cash stuffed into every available pocket of my jeans, and I still had a yard full of junk waiting to be turned into some other man’s “treasure”.

But not today. Today, I am scurrying from yard to door, door to yard, throwing things inside and rushing out again to grab still more, and cursing the rain and cursing the cold and cursing myself for waking up at 7am again, expecting to rake in another $300 and ignoring the sunken gray sky and thick bitter taste of city rain in the air.

Last thing thrown inside, last box toted, last purse tossed, last couch dragged. Nothing ruined – I hope.

And I’m standing on my front porch now, being angry with the world for forcing me to hold the yard sale a second day, and getting up early a second day, and dragging couches until my back went out a second day, when all I made was two dollars and fifty cents in change… and then got rained out!

THUD!

And suddenly my eyes are riveted on the road, where the noise came from.

Everything rushes by in a blur and my brain is rewinding and fast-forwarding in hyper-speed, trying to piece together what just happened.

Rain. Grey truck. Rain. Speeding truck. Feathers. More feathers. And rain.

“Why feathers?”

The sound of flapping jolts me alive again, flapping wings, flapping… now fluttering… now silent.

A bird. The bastard hit a bird.

The bird has landed, almost at my feet, after flying in a crazy arch across the road, leaving a heap of its soft feather drifting around on the road, drifting down to the pavement, soaked in rain.

I stoop over, still in shock. Horrified at the spectre of pain now twisted at my feet, the pile of feathers with wings splayed, head cocked sideways at an impossible angle, beak cracked open slightly, eyes rolled back in its head… it’s alive – barely – and breathing ragged spurts out through its beak. It’s whole body shudders, hiccoughs, with every breath.

I stand, still in shock. And as I stand, the shock drains from my skull and pulses like hot blood through my body and floods out of my hands, my kneecaps, my pores.

“Oh, God!” I exclaim, but it’s not a prayer.

A spit of rain slaps my face from an insolent cloud. I run to the heap of crappy clothes I had just a few minutes earlier been selling for 25 cents, and I grab a red shirt, my fiance’s shirt, and run back to the bird.

It gazes at me, heaving more now, breathing less now, hurting more now… and I hold the red shirt over it, stooping down to protect it from the rain, and crying.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” I keep saying to it, holding its yellow-eyed, frantic gaze and watching it die.

I wonder if it has always been a bird, if souls are limited, if this bird is not a human trapped in feathers, if I’m doing it any service by stooping over it, whispering “It’s okay… it’s okay…. I’m so sorry” over and over helplessly.

And then I realise. We are none of us immortal. We are all of us locked in a desperate downward grip with the fates, and we are all of us doomed – to die.

I begin to cry inside, tears welling up in my soul. But my eyes are dry.

Oh God, please…. it’s in pain…. just let it go.

That is all I pray. And just as quickly, the bird’s head lolls slowly to the side, it’s wing slowly relaxes, it’s beak slowly closes, it’s eyelid slowly flutters down and it dies.

I don’t cry. My soul is empty of tears. The heap of feathers is empty of life.

I gently wrap it in the red shirt. My goodbye is said. The bird I had only just met, is gone for good.

We are none of us immortal.

So

live now and live well,

lest you die

while still awake

and the years you hold as limitless,

end

while your back is turned.

Story Copyright Dauntless Diva 2008

The Nature-Nurture Connection

Nature versus nurture is a phrase I’ve heard used often when friends are discussing what factors mold us to become our present selves. I thought it would be rather amusing to flip that phrase on its head and use it in a different context:

Nature Nurture… the act of embracing the nurturing power of nature and the natural in your life; pursuing natural healing, restoring natural wholeness, and achieving natural happiness in your Life.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident…”

Nature is by its very nature, nurturing. I challenge you to spend 15 minutes basking in the glimmer of sunlight that might appear over the rooftops of your apartment dwelling or to walk alongside the swift flowing creek behind your home. Find the Nature in your surroundings today, and give it 15 minutes of your day. Your day and you won’t regret it.

What is Natural, enriches… what is Synthetic, counteracts the natural processes and even destroys them. (FYI, I’m not directly referring to something obvious such as holistic medicine vs. prescription drugs, although it could apply.)

A rather far-fetched but humorous image that might help you visualize my meaning behind this, is a slightly fictionalized Tale of Two Children:

The first child subsists on a diet of pre-packaged School Meals made of ingredients equivalent to salted cardboard, Hamburger Helper dinners at home and Sprite for liquid sustenance. This child is raised to believe that a salad is two pieces of iceburg lettuce topped with grilled chicken, dehydrated-and-re-hydrated cheese flakes, and fourteen cups of ranch dressing. Heaven forbid anything green and still living encounter this precious child’s fair lips. He might get e coli, after all. This child is also fed a steady diet of Television in the evening after his cardboard dinner, and is on prescription drugs to ‘stabilize his moods’. He sleeps somewhat poorly and when his parent(s) attempt to get reciprocation out of him on some family-related topic, they are met with the disinterested stare of a “typical teenager”. In other words, the first child is your standard American youngster in 2010.

The second child is eats more carrots than rice crispies, and plays actively both outdoors and indoors, generally twice as long a day as he spends watching National Geographic movies. His eyes are alive, and rather than dousing his creativity with prescription drugs, his parent(s) recognize his active (exhausting) brain for what it is and invest extra time in equipping him with the tools to use his abilities for the good of himself, his family, and the future in which he will most definitely play a role. When his parent(s) speak to him, this child responds intelligently, because he has been given the tools to communicate fluidly with adults and his peers. He wears jeans, loves contemporary music, plays sports… he is normal, but he’s better than normal, because he’s “normal supercharged“… healthy, stable, active and always in development. Equipped, rather than restricted!

The natural leanings of his mind are fostered by his parent(s) and others.

The natural world fills his Life and covers his breakfast Table. He is nurtured by the food he eats, the programs he watches, the books he reads, and the people he calls friends.

The first child will have much to overcome should he ever develop the gumption to overcome his upbringing.

The second child will shake the earth and move its foundations, from the doorways of his neighborhood to the Nation he calls Home.

I said my example was far-fetched, didn’t I? It may surprise you but I based my description of the two children on myself and my peers growing up. I was the second child, and today I am an empowered, earth-shaker-in-development.

I was surrounded by the natural as a child, and Nature and the natural became my strongest influences, my Nurture.

Today, on Raw Food Talk, a curious newcomer posted a brief rant about what a struggle eating Raw is for her. I posted the following response, and since it dovetails with this article, I’m sharing it with you now:

Givin’ it all you have implies struggle. It’s only a struggle if you want it to be and if you somehow subconsciously thrive on internal chaos. (I used to!!! And boy, nothing in life was working…. not Raw, not College, not Relationships, NOTHING…)


Release your grip on “struggling”…. it’s much more pleasant and just plain FUN to be alive when you do!

Allow me to elaborate briefly, then I will retreat into the shadows of exam preparations from whence I came…. I live a double life, you see. Raw Vegan gadabout by day, Opera Singer by night. 

Relax... raw is natural for your Body. There will be so many who will argue this, trying to convince you (as they are convinced to their detriment) that raw and living foods will somehow harm you. Ignore them, or just smile and wave as you pass them by.  And there will be many in the Raw Foods family who will try to project their own fears and insecurities about life/their diet on you, as well. The “smile and wave” approach works pretty well there, too.

Eat RAW... surround yourself with vibrant beautiful LIVING foods and give into the temptation to eat THEM whensoever it strikes. Eat LOTS of food, eat OFTEN, and ENJOY what you eat! If you don’t enjoy something, don’t eat it. This is part of how you transition successfully.

Live… life encompasses much more than just your diet. For starters, get off your chair/couch/desk and MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!!! Exercise is NOT a dirty word… it’s a life-infused action of self-preservation and motivation. Your Body relies on YOU to get up and move her!!! So do it.  I don’t enjoy sweaty, smelly gyms, so I do Yoga at home every evening. This is a new development! I avoided exercise like the plague until recently…. now, my life is richly enhanced by daily MOVEMENT.

Surround yourself with life-enriching People, Books, Ideas, Music, Activities, Foods, Animals, Sunlight, etc. what goes in must come out – that applies for your Body, your Mind, your Spirit and everything in-between!

REMEMBER: what you THINK is what you ARE.

It really IS that simple… but don’t let that frighten you, because your THOUGHTS are in YOUR HANDS…. change them to reflect who you desire to become/be and what you want to experience/have/give in your Life, and you will attract to you those things, experiences, people, and “things” that create your new Life.

It works. I’m living it. I’m far from alone. This is not “hippy dippy nonsense”. This is solid wisdom.

Blessings,

The Diva

Namaste.