Be sure to check out Monday’s blog post (part one of my six-month high-raw mostly-vegan adventure!).

Not only am I planning on going high-raw and mostly-vegan for the next six months, but I’m also planning on going as gluten-free and organic as I can. I’d like to go local, but bananas, tofu and greens powder are not easily found nearby. The foods that I can get local, I will, but it isn’t my main priority at this point in time. I’m sure it will be much easier to make local choices during the summer, though, with the farmer markets available!

Gluten-free

I got blood tests done several months ago to check for gluten intolerances and everything came back in order, which suggests that I don’t have any problems with gluten. My nutritionist friend Nicole says that often gluten intolerances aren’t picked up by blood tests, however. I don’t necessarily think that I have a gluten intolerance, but I want to really reduce the amount of gluten in my diet just because I just feel like it isn’t necessary in my diet – the same as dairy. I don’t think there’s any real nutritional benefit in consuming either of those things that I can’t get from other sources. That’s really what my six-month adventure is all about: putting things into my body that it needs, and simply avoiding that which isn’t necessary. I’ve already begun having quinoa flakes in place of some of my oats and I’m on the hunt to find a good brand of gluten-free oats right now (but I have at least found local oats, so that’s a good start!).

Organic

I’ve gotten to a point of being financially secure enough that I’m comfortable spending more money for higher-quality food. I’m growing greens and herbs with my friends in our urban indoor garden, so all of that is local and organic. Organic tofu is important to me because it’s non-GMO. I normally do not buy organic bananas and apples, but since they make up such a large portion of my diet, I’m going to try making the switch and consuming more of them. Well, I’m a bit on the fence with bananas, seeing as they normally don’t contain that many pesticides anyways what with their thick skins. We’ll see.

Isn’t this ridiculously restrictive?

Many people would say that doing this doesn’t sound like much fun, but I’m convinced that what we put into our bodies has a huge impact on our health. I have a history of cancer in my family, I’ve had sleeping issues (nightmares, semi-insomnia and fatigue) for most of my life, I need to lose some winter weight and I so much want to re-build my relationship with food in a positive way. I’m not looking at this as restriction: I’m looking at it as making my body feel great and to prevent disease and other health problems.

Besides, I’m doing all of this as a “weekday” type of thing. Any time I go to someone’s house or go out to restaurants and such, I’ll have what I like – whether it be on plan or off plan. But I have a feeling that the more raw vegan foods I eat, the less I’ll want to eat other things, so I’ll (hopefully ;)) end up making very healthy choices when dining out anyways. There are so many amazingly delicious raw vegan foods out there that I’m looking forward to eating on a daily basis.

What do you think? Am I crazy? Are you going to join in my adventure with me? It’s going to be great! I’m so excited to see what kind of positive changes will happen to my body 🙂