My husband Ed and I married in 1970, riding on the wave of the Summer of Love. We weren't actually hippies ourselves-- Ed was from a German immigrant background and grew up poor in Vancouver and I had parents in Saskatchewan who had the means to bail us out occasionally-- but we did aspire to the more natural, healthy aspects of the hip culture.
A year after we married,
Ed became a Seventh-day Adventist. While I wasn't convinced for a few (okay, many) years afterwards, I did start listening to what he learned about the effects of eating particular foods, called "
unclean" in Leviticus, and I did lots of my own learning from books like "
Diet for a Small Planet". Although I still had the occasional piece of bacon on a hamburger, we were probably close to being ovo-lacto vegetarians in the early years of our marriage.
In time I was totally convicted about
the toxins and parasites in factory-farmed livestock, pork in particular. I also heard about the abysmal conditions under which a lot of "food" animals are raised. And the high fat content of most animal foods was also a concern with what was known about how cholesterol clogged arteries creating inflammation and disease. And even though fish is much touted as a health food, we know that
heavy metals like mercury are present in all sea food today.
It was tough to make the flip from vegetarian to vegan because we were quite dependent on cheese and eggs to provide us with protein.
To go from vegan to raw vegan was also a challenge, and certainly we have not achieved that 100% raw vegan status yet-- maybe we never will.
What helped us to adopt a vegan diet as time progressed? Well, our sons spent part of their childhoods in day care centers that eschewed any sugary foods-- and they grew to adulthood with
no cavities-- certainly not our experiences. That got our attention. Clearly,
diet does have something important to do with health.
Two or three or more other people and events have made a lot of sense to us over the past few years. We moved to a lovely part of our country, Vancouver Island, and are fortunate enough to have a
Raw Foodist community where we live. During the fall/winter/spring we meet on the last Sunday of each month for a raw food potluck. Quite often there are speakers and vegan leaders like
Howard Lyman, Victoria Boutenko, and the like, are brought in as guests in the community-at-large.
It almost goes without saying that as raw vegans we also choose to eat about 90%
organically-grown fruits, vegetables and greens. We might pay a little extra (actually not that much) but the taste and the nutritional aspects really make up for the additional cost.
We are also blessed in this Eden-like part of the world to access
locally-grown organic fruits that we only fantacized about eating fresh when we were living in Saskatoon. In our own little 1/2 acre yard we have planted blueberries, figs, thornless blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, apricots and cherries. There is a mature grape arbor, plums, apples, and blueberries already. Our neighbor has three fig trees that he invites us to harvest (bless him!). Down the street there are lots of wild blackberries (I filled up a freezer with them last summer/fall) and other wild fruit like salmonberries and thimbleberries. We compost and grow a few greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, and "ground cover" (like clover, winter rye, and other forage crops that put nitrogen back into the depleted soil). Our yard looks pretty scraggly still-- it's a work in progress-- but we derive a lot of satisfaction from the food it produces, and we are very grateful for the opportunity to live here.
Next to the availability of all this wonderful fresh, organic, delicious fruit I would have to say that the
Vita-Mix Whole Food Machine (now called the Vita-Mix 5200 or The Total Nutrition Center in Canada and internationally) passed down to me by my father has made the greatest difference in our health and our ability/willingness to maintain the adherence to a 70-90% raw vegan lifestyle.
If you are interested, click here to read how the Vita-Mix has impacted our lives.
We believe that life is a sacred gift. A healthy body and a peaceful, loving outlook are intertwined with an awareness that we do not have to raise and kill other creatures to eat-- that we have knowledge about the superiority of a plant-based diet that the Creator ordained for us from the beginning of time.
www.manitobaharvest.com
