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| Blueberry, Coconut smoothie |
My shift to living foods has indirectly affected everything in my life in such a positive way. I was happy prior to my shift, but now, I am unstoppable. I manifest my dreams and create new ideas everyday. I have followed through with things that have been sitting on the back-burner for years now. I am like "Dayna-ultra" now. It is truly incredible. I feel that because of the way I feel, both physically and emotionally, that this is the most natural, healthy and organic way for me to live. I know there are always exceptions, but for the average person, they will thrive with raw foods.
My children have made such incredible changes in their food choices since my husband and I became raw. They have complete and total freedom of what to eat and bring into our home. They have been on their own path with food since our choices have changed. Tiff, my 10 year old daughter, has become vegan. The other kids are pretty much vegetarian. All labels aside, we have just immersed ourselves in this new world and the way that they feel from doing so has inspired them in such positive ways. The partnership that we live together has been enhanced because of the inspiration and follow-through being kicked up a notch.
Tiff started her own business, Devin is building and creating more and Ivy and Orion are loving my new passion as a way for us to connect in the kitchen. Ivy *loves* raw foods and tries everything I make. Orion and Devin still love their breads and cheeses, and I am supportive of their choices, but now, I am more in tune with organic and wholesome sources of these items, so my shift has affected them too. Going raw has trickled down to everyone in my family in new ways and I want to sing it from the mountain tops!
The kicker is... it all started with me. I don't think we realize sometimes as mothers, what a powerful influence we have in our family. I know for years I kind of "blamed" Joe for us not eating healthier, claiming he wasn't supportive of making a change. The truth is, I just wasn't educated about it, or ready. Once I began reading more and more about raw foods, the more inspired I became to try it for a while. Once I felt the difference, I knew that this was something bigger than I ever knew. It was about much more than food. It was a powerful level of awareness and connection to the earth and myself that I had never experienced before. When I became passionately inspired, my family did too. Joe was instantly on board as soon as I was clear about our new direction.
I know that I am the guiding energy of our home. My choices and attitude about life leads everyone in various ways. It is such an important responsibility to accept and understand. You never have to force or coerce your family to eat what your eating. You just have to be grounded in the realization that living foods are more than just "good for you," they are an extension of you. Period. They contribute to your well-being and happiness in ways you can't even imagine! Food creates your life, in a sense and my new-found love for what I am eating is infused with love as I take it into my body. Every cell feels this love and in turn, I am brought to higher levels of consciousness and awareness.
My family has benefited from my shifting to a living foods lifestyle on so many levels. I am profoundly grateful for coming to this life when I did. I never would have guessed that this would be me, but it is and I love myself in a way that I never have before. My passions in life have expanded, yet they are all connected. I love helping others on their own personal journey in life walking the road less traveled . I have begun a weekly teleseries about the radical life choices that I have made and how others can come to higher levels of joy in birth, parenting, eating and loving. Check out my series, "Rock Your Life! to learn more.
Thanks for reading and Rawk On!!
14 comments:
Dayna,
I found you on YouTube several years ago, late one night, when my twins were 3 years old, and I was ravenously researching everything Unschooling. When you recently started posting about your raw lifestyle, something inside of me changed irreversibly and I was inspired to try it for myself. I put myself on a "30 Day Raw Challenge".
The words you've written here could have come right from my own mouth. Although I'm only 30 days in (today), I know my life has changed for the good forever. Like your family, my husband got on board as soon as he understood that I was serious. Not sure how successful I would've been without that! My boys (about to turn 6) are making more raw choices every day. And they BEG to help with the juicing.
Like your family, we enjoy a co-sleeping, radical unschooling lifestyle (and now raw foods!) Thank you for your willingness to reach out and share your story. I imagine it would be much easier to just go about your business and not put yourself in the spotlight. Your passion is contagious.
You are very inspiring, Dana. I would love it if you could give us a sample "day in the life" of your raw food diet. I can usually do breakfast and lunch quite easily. But dinner is another story. What are your typical meals?
Thanks!
http://happyorganicfamily.blogspot.com/
Edwards_Twins, I love reading about your 30 day challenge! What a great idea. It's great when I can write something that others can relate to. Yes! Once we shift to a confident place with a decision, our family follows! It's amazing. My kids love to help with the Vitamix. They all know how to use it to make their own smoothies.
Thank you for sharing and posting!
~Peace & Love, Dayna
Vegan Mama, My typical raw meals are veggie wraps, veggie pasta, raw pizza, raw tacos, or tostadas, veggie sushi, various salads, raw stuffed peppers or tomatoes, mock tuna melt, raw stir fry, veggie pate... the list goes on and on!
I start every day with a green smoothie, have a snack, usually apple or celery with raw almond butter, have a veggie smoothie or coconut smoothie for lunch and a sala or some kind of wrap or raw dessert even, or left-overs from the night before, then dinner.
Hope this help to give you some insight!
~Peace & Love, Dayna
Dayna! I am so happy to read this from you! We are a raw unschooling family and just like the mom with twins who posted the first comment, I found you on YouTube when my twins were about 4 and I embarked on the unschooling boat. We are now in Costa Rica for 5 months, traveling, unschooling and eating amazing raw food. I invite you to read the 80/10/10 diet from Dr Doug Graham. Eating high-carb raw vegan is AMAZING. I felt great on raw gourmet (what you do), but I healed and feel RAWSOME on 80/10/10 (mostly fruit mono-meals and green smoothies and salads). Check this forum: http://www.30bananasaday.com/forum
I am excited to read about a raw fooder who lets her child completely free to choose what they want to eat. We came to the raw food lifestyle when our girls were 5 and they have eaten meat, cheese and all the cooked food treats you can imagine and I don't want to force anything on them. They are completely free. But as you say, it is amazing to see them gravitate towards what we do and get inspired. I met with Ka Sundance (the raw food family) here in Costa Rica, but since most of their children are raw from birth, I felt a bit alone in this boat. It is great to know you are there too. Don't you feel it hard to cook the meals you once enjoyed for them and not eat them? This is the part I found hard... Yesterday, we were invited to bake chocolate bread with the village baker here in Costa Rica and I just could not resist warm chocolate bread from the oven...
Dayna,
Thanks for all of the info. Do you create the recipes yourself or do you have a go-to cookbook that you can recommend? I happily was raw for breakfast and lunch again today but had a regular dinner. I have to say that I felt much better throughout the day than I did after dinner. I just felt too full after having bread and other non-raw things. I am really liking the vitality that the raw foods are giving me!
Lydia :)
happyorganicfamily.blogspot.com
Dayna, what are your favorite green smoothie recipes?
I do both. I love my raw cookbooks for inspiration and ideas. I do create many of my own recipes.
~Dayna
Hi Catherine, I never considered the raw food that I prepare, "gourmet." It is interesting to me that you call it that. The food I prepare is less complicated that when I was making meals on the SAD diet.
I do not think it is hard to make my kids meals that I used to enjoy. If it is something I like, I focus on the smell and the way it looks and find gratitude for experiencing it with those senses. I do not have to eat it to feel satisfied. I trust so completely eating raw that it is so rare that I want to eat what they are eating.
Thank you so much for posting and sharing your thoughts. I appreciate your insight and kind words.
~Peace & Love, Dayna
Courtney,
I love banana, apple, kale, spinach, maca, ginger, goji berry, blueberries and aloe. Thanks for your question!
~Peace & Love, Dayna
Thanks for your answers, Dayna. I sure wish you will share more here about the daily reality of a family with members that eat raw and others cooked and how this can work peacefull and respectfully.
I mentionned raw gourmet food because this is how it is called in the raw food lingo... There are two categories the High carb low-fat raw (30 bananas a day.com and Dr Graham 80/10/10) and the high-fatt raw, which is the raw gourmet. Many people feel great and see a huge transformation going from cooked food to high-fat raw and it IS a great transition to have all the flavors and food you used to enjoy on a cooked diet, and it works well because you take out of the diet most of the food that is bad for you (additives, dairies, gluten, prepared food, sugar, etc.). However, on the long run, the very high-fat content of this diet is not good for health (most raw gourmet meals are over 70 % fat with all the nuts, seeds and oil). If you feel inclined, I invite you to read more on the 80/10/10 diet and try a 30 day of just frutis and vegetables (no oil or salt) and FEEL how AMAZING it is!
Catherine,
Thank you for the information and for commenting.
~Peace & Love, Dayna
Dayna - you are inspiring. I realize the influence I have as mom ... the shopper and cook at our house! We are a family of eight and over the years have change a great deal to organics and read labels and have a garden, etc... but feel like we need to have another big change. I feel like I have no idea where to even start, so any advice would be wonderful. Also how to you encourage your children to join you ... the reality is that if i let my children go at the grocery store it would be quite insane ... some would be very healthy but some, not so much! Also I just can not afford to have everyone have separate meals all the time (or at least I am not sure how to afford it). We are on a budget! Any thoughts would be great!
Peace, love and kindness, Amy
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