A confession, then moving on

I must start with a confession. I ate a cooked food meal on Friday night. I'm doing fine now, except for a cold I've developed. But I want to just document my experience here (I'm supposed to be raw and real here, right?) and emphasize the raw food goodness I have gleaned from this incident.


The evidence

So I was feeling a bit depressed after a demoralizing day at my new job. No need to get into that--let's just say I realized working there is not a good fit for me. I'm not actually getting to do what I want there, which is talk to people about raw food. I am not into giving ladies spa treatments. So, I think I'm going to have to find another avenue for spreading the raw food message.

But back to what happened. Well, I was just down. Worried about my finances. Feeling unappreciated, alone. Not in touch with my higher self, obviously. So I said, what the hell, why not make myself feel a little worse and eat some cooked food? I got off the bus and wandered around in my neighborhood. First, I found a place that had lotto tickets and bought a couple. Now why did I think that would be a good idea? I've never even done that before. And I said to the universe or whatever--if I don't win, I'm going to get some Thai food. Of course, I didn't win. So I stoically marched over to the Thai restaurant down the street and ordered my usual curry.

I raced home with it and proceeded to down it. But here's the funny thing. It didn't taste that good to me. First of all, it felt weird to have something hot in my mouth and going down my throat. It felt too hot, even though I know it had cooled down on my walk home and was a perfectly normal cooked-food temperature. Aside from that, it just seemed bland and mushy. Now this was a spicy red curry, so I know it wasn't bland. But, it was just...uninspiring. The vegetables were soft and bland, and the tofu was decidedly plasticky-tasting. Tofu has always seemed like a franken-food to me, and now my taste buds confirmed it.

So, I ate this thing and proceeded to feel way too full and kind of zoned out. Now looking back, it's silly that I did it. But I'm not upset about it. It is what it is. I am where I am.

What I like about this experience is that it confirmed for me how superior raw foods are. They just taste more vibrant, more piquant. They don't smell as much, though...hmm, maybe that's what it is with cooked foods: all the flavor goes into the smell. Cooked food really is quite smelly, don't you think? That was one of the things I noticed early on. It started to repulse me. For example, the other day, I was on the train, and this guy opened up some kind of beef sandwich. And I swear to god, it just smelled like dog food to me; I had to cover my nose! Smells really get me these days. But my point is, cooked food has less flavor and more smelliness. So maybe the smelliness tricks you into thinking it tastes good, while really it is quite bland.

I don't know; I'm not going to analyze cooked food too much, because I just don't need to dwell on it. It's not my bag anymore. But I'm glad I tried that food the other night, dipped my toe into that other world for just a moment. Because it reaffirmed to me that I'm on the right path. This way of eating is so much more sensual and delightful and life-giving.