Confessions

I'm not 100% raw. I'm probably closer to 95%. Here are the things that I've been experimenting with having in my diet:

Fresh rolls and raw buffalo shiitake mushrooms.

Spring-roll wrappers. My husband brought home some fresh rolls one night, and we made short work of getting them into our bellies. Yum! We have since purchased our own rice paper wrappers so we can make these at home ourselves. I have to admit, I'm feeling a little guilty about this one. These are not raw by any stretch of the imagination (although the filling is just raw vegetables), AND we make a cooked sauce to go with them. We aren't using any sweetened peanut butters, but the sauce is still as dead as can be. In addition, when I eat these in place of just having a large bowl of salad, it sums up to considerably less salad per meal (i.e. the amount of salad I'm eating in the wraps is less than it would be if I was just having a bowl of it). I've been eating these for about a week, and we've just about gone through an entire pack of 20 sheets. I'm not sure if I'll be keeping these in my diet - at least not this regularly.

Olives. I'm using these more as a condiment for flavor, and I'm totally fine with that. I've been struggling with getting the flavors of my food as strong as I'd like them, which tends to discourage me and turn me off to eating like this. So, I'm being a little more loose with what I'm using to flavor stuff. I totally draw the line at sugars and animal products, but I did just buy some salad dressings that aren't fully raw. One is some sesame thing, and the other is a vinaigrette sweetened with pineapple juice from concentrate. Right now, that's what it's taking to make my salads more palatable, so I'm doing it. However, we're also experimenting with making our own. We haven't come upon any winners yet, but when we do, I'll gladly make the switch.

Ezekiel Bread. My husband swears it's a living food, and is low-heated to preserve the enzymes, etc., but I don't believe it. I haven't done extensive research into this, but a quick Google search sided with me. However, I've still been eating a slice every other day or so when I'm making meals for the both of us. I've kind of been turning a blind eye to it and keep telling myself that I'll start making my own raw breads, and then we can phase this exception out completely. But... it hasn't happened yet. In the mean time, though, I will say that this bread has not been mucous forming for me at all, and it's been a nice foundation to build on with some of my meals.

Ezekiel Cereal. This is something that I've only had a couple of times. Again, my husband thinks it's raw, and the box even says that it's cooked in a way to preserve it's nutritional value, but I don't think it's actually a living food. I just think that if it was considered "raw" it would be labeled accordingly. I did bring a box of this to my cousin's house while traveling, thinking it would be a good "filler" while I'm on the road and desperate, but I haven't had the heart to open it. It's not good enough to be worth the guilt trip.

Store-bought Almond Milk. My husband keeps buying this milk, and it's sooo much easier and cheaper to reach for this than make my own. I've been drinking about a 1/4 - 1/2 a cup a day with my tea, depending on how many cups of tea I have. But again, it's something that I keep intending to phase out with my own home-made milk, but...

Store-bought Almond Yogurt. It's true. I ate one a few days into my raw diet, before starting to experiment with making my own, and I still buy one every time I go grocery shopping (I still haven't figured out the perfect way to make my own). I know that the base of this yogurt is raw, and it's thriving with active cultures, so I make this exception. I've found that I digest this well, it's not mucous forming, and it doesn't spike my blood sugar - if I don't buy a family-sized version of it and promptly eat the entire thing in 24 hours *blush*. I did that once, and I didn't sleep well that night because my adrenals were so off.

And that's it - that's my complete list of secrets. Oh! I do have one more confession. I ate a cracker! They were handing out samples of this chopped-olive stuff at Trader Joe's, and it was on a cracker. I totally ate that thing. I started to feel the mucous right away. Very interesting. And that was only a couple weeks into being all raw.

So now you know all my dirty little secrets... or do you?

Shhhhh.....