Raw Dish!

Breakfast- 5 large Navel oranges

Lunch- A large salad: Romaine lettuce, chopped fresh tomatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, cucumbers, shredded carrots, marinated artichokes, walnuts, raisins

Dinner- Mock mashed potatoes (cashews & caulifower), sliced tomatoes, Real Pickles raw Kimchee, fresh Guacalmole from Westerly, Dill "cheese" crackers, dried bananas, and Ms. Lillian's Berry Lover's "Cheesecake"

I really like oranges; I wrote that yesterday.  Sometimes however, when I'm walking to work I smell the fresh coffee from the street vendor's cart and I see the donuts and pastry and I really wish I could have that for breakfast.  Sometimes I think, "Why do I keep doing this, eating only raw food?  Is it really going to make a difference in my life.  There's not a lot of evidence that raw foodism extends life, people die around the same age, they just live healthier lives.  Why not just eat what everyone else is eating?  But noooo, I get to eat oranges - whoopee!"

I don't know why I keep eating raw.  Yes, I think I feel better, but everyone else who eats cooked food gets through life one way or another.  I think I keep eating raw because I feel that I have to; its almost as if raw foods chose me and not the other way around.

About last night's dinner, I had planned to eat a few oranges because I would be eating late after returning home from an evening yoga class and I didn't want to eat something heavy and go to bed with a heavy full stomach.  "The road to hell is paved with good intentions..."  -the pie was already in the fridge and the little package of nuts was in my cupboard and I like to eat when I get home at night regardless of the time.  You know the rest of the story.  There are worst things I could do (like having coffee and donuts for breakfast) but I'm not giving up on making the healthier choice.

The other side of the story is that I felt a strong urge to skip the oranges this morning and leave for work early enough to go buy Didi's raw Fudgy Brownies and fill up on them for breakfast.  I recognized that the choice felt a little compulsive and crazy since I already had the oranges at home, I'd have to leave the house much earlier, and I'd have to eat at my desk in my office at work versus a more leisurely consumption of oranges at my beautiful wood dining table in my own living room.  I don't regret choosing the oranges, I can eat Didi's brownies tomorrow if I still want to.

Dinner was pretty good in a traditional kind of way.  I had a plate with servings of several different things of various colors and textures and then I had dessert.  It would have been a fairly good example of basic proper food combining exept for the dessert.