We regularly meet amazing people in the Raw Food world,

We are often asked about whats going on in different areas and can we help people get to meet others with the same passion for Living foods and health

Heres our latest Raw Food friend: 

Hi My name is Hana, and I am a volunteer Event Co-ordinator for the Raw Food & Healthy Living Community Group in Brisbane.

My evolution to raw food diet

My background in nature

My interest in natural health started back in my childhood. My family used to collect wild medicinal herbs every summer and dry them in the sun. When we suffered from common illnesses we used these herbs to help our body heal naturally. I never liked to eat meat and always gravitated to a plant based diet despite my family's habits in eating different kinds of meats and lots of dairy products. It was only after I was diagnosed with a very high cholesterol in my teens that I was confronted with the need to change my diet. 

It was either a new diet or a drug. So I stopped eating saturated fatty foods and my cholesterol balanced itself. Another problem that I suffered from were digestive issues. The food that I ate didn't assimilate in my body properly.

Becoming Vegetarian

When I left my family in Europe and started to live on my own in Australia I rarely ate meat. Yet it took me some time to transform my diet completely into a vegetarian lifestyle. Only after I had been exposed to the variety of vegetarian publications and read about the benefits of this diet for both the person and the planet was I converted. My health improved and my digestive system now started to function properly. 

No labels please

In this time and age it's not unusual to come across people who don't consume meat or even call themselves vegan (not eating any animal products). To have a label such as vegetarian or vegan was not very appealing to me. I wanted to eat what I wanted but feel good all the time. As meat was never my favorite it was not so difficult to change. What was the most difficult was to stop eating seafood and fish. That I did like, especially king prawns and salmon. However, the books I read on vegetarianism were very good and so I decided to cut out all animal flesh from my diet. That time it was not only myself, but also my partner, who fortunately read the same books and so we both made the same decision. 

Seafood and eat it

To enjoy all the varieties of meats and seafood for the last time we went to the Star Casino Garden Buffet at Christmas day. Their speciality was an unlimited amount of king prawns.

We filled our plates full of prawns and other 'delicatessen'. As I was going through my plate I was rather surprised to find that I no longer liked the flavor of these prawns. It was a great sign to me that I was ready for the change. Since then I stopped eating all animal flesh.

For the love of animals

Years passed and I was happy with the choices I've made in regards to food. Vegetarian dishes were rather easy to prepare, took shorter to cook and satisfied our taste buds. They still included cheese, eggs, butter and sour cream. My very good friend was a vegetarian and as the years passed, she decided to take a step further and become vegan. The love of cheese and dairy products was large for her, yet her compassion for animals was even larger. Her influence on me was firstly not so visible, yet with time we stopped buying eggs and later butter. I didn't want to be called vegan and had no intention to become a pure one. It just all seemed too complicated and not so necessary. I believed I already do enough for the planet by being vegetarian.

Raw Food Community Group

When we moved to Brisbane from Sydney we didn't know many people here. Our intention was to get to know some like minded people. We came across the Meet-up website and found few groups that were of interest to us. The Raw food group that we joined only just started and we went to their meetings. Later on my partner took over the organization of the group. The years went by and the group grew and now there are almost 1500 members. We meet once a month and share experiences, learn from experts and inspire each other.

100% Raw experiment

It's been almost 5 years that I have been involved in the 'Raw Food & Healthy Living' community group. As I said above, my partner and I were classed as vegetarians for many years. Although we ate a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, we still would have a cooked meal for dinner and occasionally a piece of chocolate or a cake. So we were neither 100% raw nor vegans. Only after a friend of ours brought us many DVDs with recordings of many Raw food experts and testimonials of people who healed themselves from illnesses with raw food diet, I sat down and watched half of them and finally had a mission. I decided to try 100% raw vegan.  

It's been two weeks now that I had nothing but 100% Raw Vegan food. It's an experiment that I conduct mainly for a health reasons. Few days into it I slowly got more energy than usual and I decided to make a blog about it. You can follow my experiences on my journey with raw food here: http://rawandtastyfood.wordpress.com

Whether you are only intrigued about raw food or are actually trying it for yourself, be patient with yourself and trust the process. I believe that there are beneficial results from having more raw foods in our diet.