Read my story about transitioning from junk-foods to a raw vegan, fruitarian diet
Check out my short introduction video on DTube HERE!
ABOUT ME
Name: Morten
Age:23
Nationality: Norwegain
Interests: Travel, health, music, sports and crypto-currencies
Instagram: Fruitbasedliving
Website: Fruitarianism.com
Diet: Fruits and occasionally some leafy greens and non-starchy vegetables.
Content contribution
- Fruitarianism
- The ethical side of veganism
- Fruits
- Health related topics
The durian fruit is known as "the king of fruits" its odor and taste is intense and its high-fat content makes it a creamy, satiating taste-experience!
My raw vegan, fruitarian journey
I want to tell you about my experiences while changing my diet upside-down from eating mostly junk food, to eating a raw vegan fruitarian diet.
How it all started?
I never really questioned my eating habits, and ate whatever was cheap and tasted good - I felt fine eating pizza together with my trusted coca-cola for most of my dinners. However, I’ve always been curious about different lifestyles and got very interested in vegetarianism after being exposed to it. I couldn’t help wondering how it would be to not eat any meat at all. Another part of me also started to question the ethical and environmental implications of our diets. After some pondering I decided to try a one-month experiment eating a vegetarian diet.
The first steps into the unknown
At the that time, I was a seventeen-year-old gamer with no cooking skills other than unpacking the daily pizza capricciosa and throwing it into the oven. I remember feeling frustrated when looking for vegetarian options, at the time there were very few meat-free options compared to today's situation.
Not only was it challenging to source out vegetarian food, but also the social aspects of practicing vegetarianism got more and more prominent as I got asked critical questions, and was met with lots of doubts, but also curiosity towards my experiment.
I’d eaten meat my whole life, and even though I decided to try a month without it, I hadn't become knowledgeable enough to give proper answers to all the questions I received. I felt overwhelmed with questions from others, but it also spiked interest within me. I started to educate myself more about the vegetarian and vegan lifestyle. I felt coincidentally better with each meat-less day and this fueled my interest to learn more and finish the challenge I'd started.
Halfway through my 30-day challenge, I could feel some benefits of the vegetarian diet and felt a certain lightness in my body and improved mental clarity. I was positive that this was a right step towards a healthy lifestyle. At the same time, I felt less trustful towards the current social and political status quo, as many of the things I had learned from schooling and growing up proved to be wrong in my own direct experience. It became more obvious that most of the experts, the nutritional sciences and governments were giving out contradicting information in terms of dietary advice. My faith in authorities faded, instead, I chose to follow my curiosity and apply whatever I was drawn to into my own direct experience.
After stabilizing into a vegetarian diet, my interest and passion for health and food kept growing and it was then I asked the question that directed my health journey for the following years: What is the optimal diet?
The search for the ultimate diet
The only strategy that made sense to me was to eliminate whatever food I suspected had less than an optimal influence on my health. I removed products like milk, eggs, sugar and bread - the more food groups I'd let go of the better I felt and the more health benefits I noticed: As one of many examples I experienced a much better sense of airflow and sensitivity to smells in addition to less mucus in my throat almost instantly after removing dairy products from my diet.
I started writing down how I felt after eating different foods as I stayed very present with it and contemplated how enjoyable it was to eat it. Did it create any mucus or bad effects? Did the food make me feel heavy or light? Aware or sluggish? These questions helped me realize what my body wanted or more precisely what it didn't want. As soon as I realized something wasn't serving me, the next step was to let it go from my diet - which didn't always end up to be an easy task.
My vegan diet was now limited to mostly vegetables, rice and fruits. I couldn’t eat anymore at restaurants, or what my family and friends ate. This also led to a certain feeling of alienation in situations where I had to expose my dietary choices, but with time I learned practical solutions and changed my attitude in a way that didn't interfere with my initial goal. Simultaneously I experienced a better sense of well-being as my diet became based around suger-free whole-foods.
I felt confident about the direction I was headed in despite the challenging aspects these changes presented. Nevertheless, I had no idea where this initial search would take me...
A-ha!
I remember feeling less and less inclined to research nutritional data, and to listen to the so-called educated experts - none of it really spoke to me. It was all just words against words and I wanted something that just made sense, what if it was all just very, very simple i thought to myself. Eating is simple for every other species on the planet, they don't need to consult with their higher authorities about what they should eat or not, they just know it instinctively, could that also be possible for us?
Once I discovered raw veganism it was almost like something evoked inside of me - you know that feeling of, "A-ha! this is it!" ... In a strange way it made perfect sense to me, and I just kept following that intuition.
It really resonated with me with it its simplicity and down-to-earth logic and I couldn't wait to try it in practice since the arguments for raw veganism were presented in a more understandable and in a simpler way than I'd experienced from other dietary lifestyles.
The assumption that cooked foods improve our health and well-being was now being challenged.
Trials and tribulations
I slowly tried to transition to a raw, fruit-based diet. Sometimes I would just focus on getting most of my calories from fruit, while other times I would challenge myself further and try to eat only fruits for periods of time. I did my best, but I would often give in to the cravings for cooked food. I remember one time that I binged eat to the extent that I experienced intense cramps in my stomach, throwing-up the whole night because I completely overeat on vegan junk foods that my stomach wasn't longer accustomed to in huge quantities.
Eating raw food made me feel more and more stripped down and I discovered things about myself that I didn’t recognize before. I never considered myself a person who emotionally eats, but as the raw, stimulative-free food became the basis of my diet, it stripped me naked and revealed things I hadn’t acknowledged before. It worked as a great inner-tool for me to become more self-aware as well as leading me to greater health and well-being.
Those years were a period of challenging transitioning and detox, but even in the midst of it, I received so many confirmative benefits that kept me going; I ate all these tasty fruits and satiating salads and noticed a great appreciation because of better energy, improved digestion, mental clarity and many other astonishing benefits of my new way of eating.
Today
After spending some time in Asia - where the fruit availability and quality is amazing, I’ve really been starting to love this lifestyle. I’ve experienced immense benefits in terms of health, mental and emotional clarity as well as enjoying the simplicity of a fruit-based diet.
The fruitarian diet is for me synonymous with peace and beauty; picking and eating fruits are non-violent activities that benefits planet Earth, its plants and beings. Fruitarianism expands way beyond the benefits for the individual and is a way of life that is positive for the whole - moving towards a more vegan, fruit-based diet is a very direct and powerful action to encounter the threats of global warming, animal suffering and deforestation.
My journey started with the search for the optimal diet, but it ended up as a journey towards greater health, self-discovery and freedom, while spontaneously falling deeper and deeper in love with the beauty of fruit and it's implications on our health and environment.
“Man may live entirely upon fruits, in better health than the majority of mankind now enjoy. Good, sound, ripe fruits are never a cause of disease.” – Charles W. De Lacy Evans
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I plan to contribute as an active participator in this community by creating quality content, sharing my passions around fruitarianism and health. I will be responsive in my feedback and re-follows and hope to create many good connections with people on steemit!
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Nothing in Nature lives for itself.
Rivers don't drink their own water.
Trees don't eat their own fruit.
Sun doesn't give heat for itself.
Flowers don't spread fragrance for themselves.
Living For Others, is the rule of Nature
Fruitarianism is a way of eating, in which ethics, health and sustainability merge together based upon no harm principles, nourishment and cooperation between man and nature. Read more about the beauty of fruit.