musings on being Seasonally Raw

Why eat seasonally? Eating seasonally means enjoying the ripest, freshest food at the height of it’s natural harvest time. Seasonal foods taste much better, and are more nutritious. As the natural world fluctuates with seasonal changes, so our nutrient and energy requirements also fluctuate through the seasons. Eating local, seasonal foods attunes us to the energy of the particular climate and season of the place we are living in.

If we choose a high-raw lifestyle we need to pay particular attention to the kinds of foods we are eating and the way we choose to prepare them in order to maintain climatic and digestive balance throughout the year, especially during the cooler months. Why?
Well, it's easy to follow a high-raw lifestyle in Spring and Summer when Raw Vegan Foods (seasonal fruit/vegetables/wild foods) are abundant.

But what about Autumn & Winter?

I ask myself 'Why do people eat more cooked foods in winter?' What do we get from cooking our food? And can we achieve that same quality using methods of food preparation that preserve the enzymatic and nutritional integrity of our food? Where does nourishment come from? If we are not preparing our foods with fire in the traditional way, how can we use and generate the element of fire to keep our inner warmth glowing throughout the cooler months?
If we are choosing to maintain a high raw lifestyle during the autumn and winter months, then we need to pay particular attention to the raw foods we choose if we want the experience to be enjoyable! I don’t believe in struggling through and feeling deprived just so that we can fulfil the ideal of ‘being raw.’

Why is it an ‘ideal?’
Choosing to maintain a raw lifestyle is a personal choice. If it feels good, then go for it, and if it doesn’t, then don’t! Most of us choosing to transition towards a high (or all) raw lifestyle have experienced how eating this way liberates so much energy and latent potential with our beings that there really is no turning back.

So being ‘raw’ in autumn and winter requires an intelligent, considered & creative approach! The more i delve into this subject, the more i realise how deep one can go. There are no 'right or wrong' answers here. I am not against cooking food. I would not turn down a plate of baked winter vegetables or a steaming bowl of slow-cooked vegetable soup. In fact, it is likely that during the winter i will include cooked veggies with one meal daily. But i am curious, i want to understand how to align myself with the energy of autumn and winter whilst maintaining a mostly seasonal, local, living foods approach to nutrition.

I have been brainstorming ideas for recipes using pumpkins, apples, pears, warming spices such as cinnamon, ginger & nutmeg, kale, carrots, garlic, etc. So i expect we'll be demo-ing creative versions of old favourites such as apple pie/ pumpkin soup etc. for the winter warmers workshop next Sunday. If you can't make it to the workshop, I'll be blogging some of the recipes afterwards.

& in the kitchen the dehydrator has been humming non-stop and the sweet scent of cinnamon fills the air in preparation for the Festival of Life in London this Saturday. I'll be there with a few yummy things.....probably granola and brownies. Come and say hello :) and have a nibble!