Welcome to Raw Food Right Now 2.0
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A New Dawn for RFRN…. (Sunrise photo via Flickr)
Change, Growth…a new Vision Emerges
As we post more openly about our newer dietary changes and journey, the amount of feedback and curiosity we receive from our readers continuous to astound us. Instead of receiving pounds of hate email from you, most of you have taken an open and fascinated view about where we are heading on this journey. We are getting emails every single day from people asking for help (more on that in a future post later this week).
And as many have you been asking us for more information, our promise to you is that we are going to deliver it to you. You see, earlier this year we started having second thoughts about running this particular blog that we’ve had up since August 2006. We found our journey and choices changing and growing so quickly, that we wondered if it would make any logical sense to continue to talk about and share this information on a blog called “Raw Food Right Now.”
However, the more we thought about it, the more we realized (and discovered) that our readers are quite a hip and open-minded bunch. Most of you are not here necessarily for “100% raw food only”…you are here because you are interested in creating a higher level of health for yourself and your family. You aren’t necessarily married to any dogma or dietary path, but you know (or have heard of) the power of a raw food diet. That’s why we are all here.
But things are changing. Many of us are finding success and satisfaction (or fatisfaction!) in eating quality animal foods and heat-treated foods.
And it is because of you, dear readers, that we are going to keep going with this journey on this site while we build our new “health home” on the web (to be launched soon!).
To help make this new RFRN 2.0 direction have some sense, we have decided to completely redefine what this site (and the word) raw means to us. We have revamped and rewritten from scratch our original About Us we wrote back in December 2006.
Below, you will find the entire text regarding this change in direction.
We both sincerely hope we have been of some benefit in your journey through this crazy “optimal health” world so far. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and want to give up with all the conflicting information out there. And with your friends and family consistently giving you a hard time about your “insane diet”, it doesn’t make it any easier.
Let’s take this new step together. Please read our new vision and tell us what you think.
In health and happiness,
~ JS and Heidi Ohlander
About Raw Food Right Now
Welcome to Raw Food, Right Now! You’ve stumbled upon a site that is dedicated to exploring the further regions of Optimal Health through diet and lifestyle.
This site started out with a bang in August 2006 as a place to publicly explore our passion for the raw food lifestyle. Today as I write this it is January 2010 and a lot of things have changed.
There is no doubt about it, the raw food movement is changing and growing into something bigger and (we believe) better. It is literally growing beyond its dogmatic boundaries as more and more raw vegans are pushing into new territory. A lot of us in this movement are no longer tied to a particular dietary dogma (i.e., an only 100% raw food vegan diet). Those of us who have opened our minds and hearts have moved into including and exploring other foods and substances into our diet like raw and cooked animal foods, Chinese herbalism and other herbal systems, healthy “cooked” foods, fermented foods…the list goes on.
Raw Food Right Now was one of the first online raw food voices to substantiate that a 100% raw food diet is not necessary to get the benefits one is looking for through such a lifestyle change. In fact, we have discovered that it is the obsession with the 100% raw dogma that is responsible for many eating disorders, negative attitudes, and less than optimal health for many in our movement.
To bring our readers up to speed with where we are at and where things are heading, we are redefining what this site is about and what the word “raw” means to us in this new, forward-thinking movement.
What does “raw” mean on Raw Food Right Now?
- Raw – unprocessed, untreated foods in their natural, whole state. This is the standard version of the word “raw”, which is still a very large part of our work. Plant foods taken in their raw state and either eaten as is or “processed” into a meal by blending, chopping, dehydrating, etc.
- Raw – primal, feral, untamed, wild. This represents all of the various food kingdoms, including the plant, fungal, bacterial and animal kingdoms in their raw or gently heat-treated (”cooked”) states. This part of the word “raw” also represents wild foods and wildcrafted foods — foods found untouched by humankind and finely crafted by Nature Herself. These wild foods can bring us more back to our “feral” and wild roots.
- Raw – whole, nutrient-dense, optimal, balanced, minimally processed. Properly heat-treated foods (otherwise known as “cooking”) and fermented foods. This version of “raw” means taking our unprocessed foods in their whole state and treating them with some form of processing to increase their nutrient value or to lower the presence of any inhibiting nutrients (oxalic and phytic acids, etc.) or making our foods more digestible (by steaming, poaching, etc.) When we say “cook” something we mean that we process food using heat in a very conscious way. Examples of this including boiling water for herbal tea, heating water for gluten-free grains, gently searing raw grass-fed meats, etc.
- Raw - The last definition of the word “raw” on this site, is that we believe that all foods should start out raw and whole when possible. This means acquiring the “raw materials” to create your own foods, whatever you decide to do with them. This also refers to trying to avoid acquiring foods that have already been heat-processed if possible.
By redefining what the word “raw” means to us, we are by no means taking away from those whole still promote a 100% raw vegan or a raw animal foods diet. Those are both valid diets for specific purposes and bodily constitutions. We just wish to use the word “raw” in a new, non-dogmatic way. In our own way.
And with all of that said, the focus for this site still remains making these dietary and lifestyle changes as easily as possible. We no longer rush into dietary changes in this new movement. “Slow and steady wins the race” is an applicable mantra here. We understand and firmly believe that the body is a magnificent machine that needs to be treated gently and with honor and respect.
But we want these dietary and lifestyle changes to not seem “impossible.” We want these changes to remain simple and easy. Something you can add easily into your currently lifestyle…right now. Not something that “other, more healthy people do”. Or something I “may want to do in the future”. This is about making consistent, smaller changes in a constant and upward direction.
- Raw Food Right Now – News and information about health and nutrition that you can easily incorporate into your daily lifestyle…today, right now.
Since we have started this site, we’ve been known for taking a very balanced and open perspective towards a raw food diet. We are very well known for our honesty, integrity, and openness. Even though the specifics of this site are growing and changing, we will always maintain that particular vision and outlook.
Eventually we will probably outgrow the word “raw” altogether. But we will always eat “raw food”…in all its many definitions!
Welcome to Raw Food Right Now and enjoy the ride!
~ JS & Heidi Ohlander
http://www.RawFoodRightNow.com
