I made it through the first week without too much trouble. I’ve settled into a routine, at least for my morning and evening meals. For breakfast I have a green smoothie with 7 bananas, a heart of romaine lettuce, a cup of frozen strawberries, and a cup of frozen blueberries; for my evening meal I have another smoothie, except I replace the blueberries and strawberries with frozen pineapples. For my snacks I have been having oranges throughout the day. I have also been eating nuts on most days; it’s an easy way to make sure I am getting enough calories each day, although I must admit that on some days I eat way too many cashews. I even survived going out for dinner; we went to California Pizza Kitchen on Saturday, and I was able to order a plain salad. I just had to ask them to hold off on the candied walnuts – a small price to pay for going raw.

When I tell people that I am a vegan, and then add that I try to be a raw vegan in particular, inevitably the first question they ask is, “Where do you get your protein?” It is actually pretty hard to suffer from protein deficiency in the United States, but it is a serious health issue in developing countries. For the most part, as long as you are getting enough energy intake in the form of sufficient calories, then you are likely getting adequate protein. Here’s a brief article about protein that dispels some of the myths about protein. The one deficiency I am concerned with as a vegan is B12, so I take a B12 capsule most days.

If you’d like to read about an incredible athlete who advocates the Raw Diet, here is a link to Tim VanOrden’s web site. There is a wealth of info on the site, including his race results.

To your health and happiness.

This will be my third time to go raw for at least a month, but this time I wanted to see what the effect of sharing my 30 -day trial with the readers of this blog would be. I figured it’s a way to hold myself accountable by providing periodic updates on my progress.

Based on past experience, the hardest part is going to be making sure I have the right food available, particularly bananas. So my plan is to buy a case of bananas once a week, a few days in advance of when I plan to eat them. There’s nothing worse than having a case full of green bananas that you can’t eat, and there isn’t any other food around the house. In those situations, I usually end up eating way too many nuts just to make sure I get enough calories. I think once I am able to establish a routine, things should be fine.

So my first day was a success. I started the day with a green smoothie (7 bananas, heart of romaine lettuce, a cup of frozen strawberries, and a cup of frozen blueberries). For lunch I had several oranges, sitting on the steps of the church at Villanova, enjoying the warm weather. For dinner, I had another green smoothie, with 8 bananas, a heart of romaine lettuce, and a cup of frozen pineapples. Why so many bananas? I find it’s the easiest way to get the requisite number of calories while on a raw diet.

My dining room for the next 30 days...

If you want to read about another person’s (Steve Pavlina) 30-day trial of being on the raw diet click here. If you want to read about the general diet approach I plan to follow, you can visit Doug Graham’s site. I will post my progress periodically over the next 30 days.