The way to the raw food diet

 

After I was born, in 1972, I lived a plain, simple german childhood with peas and carrots, spinach and fried egg, sauerkraut and mashed potatoes, sunday roast, bread and cheese and sliced pork sausage handed over the counter at the butchers (something tipical for german children... ;-) ... ).

My Mother made a lot of things herself and my father had a small garden which enriched our diet with fruit and lettuce.

In their way my parents also made their point on health and passed this on to me. Thank you for that!

Then later the "blessing" of the modern supermarkets came to play more and more. Which meant more sweets, processed food, etc.

 

Neveretheless after my A-levels I was still very interested in becoming a nutritionist, as I did believe that health comes from a healthy lifestyle. So I started a training to become a dietician.But the first week in a hospital kitchen put a sudden end to this. As for me it was awful. But I guess I was misinformed on this. This profession was more a specialised cook. But I wanted to council people. But even though I still liked eating everything I even in those days absolutely did not like cooking. It has never been my hobby, my passion. I was alway glad when somone else cooked. 

Therefore I am even happier with my lifestyle now. Everything is so much easier this way!

Always paying attention that nothing burns, nothing overcooks, everything being ready simultaneously and to please everybodies taste buds. Awful!

I know for a lot of people it is joy and fun and I definitely don´t want to deny that to anyone. But it just has never been my cup of tea. Having to deal with all of that just never interested me.

And there I was. In this canteen kitchen! And that this food in the hospital was suposed to contribute to people´s health was even back then hard to believe for me. 

I left after 3 days and canceled the whole thing.

To study nutritional science wasn´t an option either as chemistry also wasn´t my cup of tea. And anyway I also wasn´t sure if I would understand all this.

Looking back I am quite relieved that it came that way. I would have learned a lot of things I today do not need and do anymore and something I don´t believe anymore either...

 

Instead I started an apprenticeship as a nursery-school teacher and so distanced myself quite far from this topic, also privately. 

However in my younger adult years I then changed my lifestyle. Instead of plain, home-style cooking there now was Pizza, Pasta, Chips, Kebab etc. ...  And also inspired by the typical society coffee, cigarettes and alcohol. Although I always found that terrible as a child.

All the pleasure drugs didn't taste good to me at first either. But I wanted to join in, I associated it with being grown up. So to make it palatable I made my coffee with milk and sugar, my beer with limonade and when I was tipsy I also could stand the first cigarettes... Later I could take coffee black, the beer straight and more and more cigarettes... not to forget crips and chocolate. So called party years. From the village to the city. The whole lot.

Looking back I am so glad I got my act together! It just took a while.

 

When I met the first vegan in my early 20`s, I thought, what a weirdo!

Living vegetarian was understandable to me, even though I wasn't doing that yet, but milk and cheese were basic foods, I couldn't get my head around that! The first book on that subject a little later convinced me, but I was simply not yet in a position to implement this. Work, clique and the old habits kept me under their spell. After 3 days I gave it up again. I didn't know what I could eat.

At the time, I simply didn't have the time and energy to change my diet

 

But mid 20 I slowly started waking up and shifting my mind.

The booze buged me more and more and started worrying me. I didn´t want to get problems with this. The same with cigarettes. I felt so dependent and wanted to be free again.

Not to mention ... all the money, the smell und the side effects!

 

I read a motivating Non-smokers book and actually did manage to quit. 

 

That was great! Luckily I was able to take my hands off the booze from one day to the other. I just didn´t feel like it anymore. I guess I also hit a good time. I had had this issue on my mind for quite a while already and obvisously I was just ready for it.

 

So things just moved on and on. My change of career into a health food store gave me my next boost. Now I had tee instead of coffee, brown instead of white sugar, organic cheese and wholemeal bread, vegetable spreads, tofu, juices etc. 

 

Then the Diamonds book "Fit For Life" came into my life and I practised food combining and became a vegetarian more and more. 

 

I now thought I was living soo healthy. I thought I had made it!

 

About half a year later the book "„Willst Du gesund sein, vergiss den Kochtopf“ ("If you want to be healthy, forget the cooking pot") from Helmut Wandmaker fell into my hands on a car boot sale.

The titel made me curious and 50 cent then turned out to change my whole life!

Despite the somewhat difficult writing style, I read through the book in one day.  

The truth behind those lines made such sence to me, there was no way back. Even before I had finished the book it was clear for me that I wanted to do this!

 

I straight away rearranged my kitchen and gave my cooker away a few days later. 

 

Full of enthusiasm I ate loads of fruit during the day and a big salad in the evenings. This worked quite well. I started a remote course with the Fit For Life College to become a Health practitioner for natural health and now wanted to become a nutritionist again.

 

But before this happened it was still a while to go. It takes not only a certificate and theoretical knowledge, but also a lot of experience. A whole load of raw food experiments later I now do see myself capable of this. For me it didn´t work from the beginning to live what I believed. And I made a bunch of mistakes. But now I feel authentic and real and live what I truly believe and know many pittfalls and problems and have solutions.