Mary Applauds Victoria Boutenko’s Message
Victoria, thank you so much for this article. I think this is such an important concept for the raw foods community to embrace. I maintained a 100% raw lifestyle for 22 months, lost 65 pounds and experienced extraordinary improvements in my health. I was inspired to do this as I had seen my sister Annie saving her own life with a strict raw regimen. By the end of 22 months we were in high demand to teach others how to make the same changes in their life with raw foods – so we added raw foods classes to our already rigorous work schedule. It was rewarding and completely exhausting. And then we crashed. Why?
The answer is complicated and I will not go into all the reasons here. I will say that in great part we crashed from the incredible social isolation of being 100% raw foodists. Dinner invitations had become non-existent as friends were totally intimidated by our raw diet. I missed the simple fellowship of sitting in a restaurant and eating and people watching. I hated feeling restricted to only raw restaurants. I had tried raw meet-ups and absolutely despised them. I didn’t want to spend all of my time with fellow raw foodists where the atmosphere was always charged with a highly competitive edge about who was maintaining a higher percentage of raw. Lots of folks were scrambling to see how they could make money as raw foodists – the element of greed was palpable. Everywhere I turned I saw my fellow citizens suffering and dying from diet created illnesses like diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, fibromyalgia, even cancer and here were healthy, vibrant, privileged raw foodists competing with each other over how to maintain purist standards when the population at large is starving to death, ignorant and in jeopardy from food misinformation and deadly food preparation.
Annie and I are no longer 100% raw. But our most vibrant, creative, and productive days – our favorite days – are still 100% raw. We no longer maintain the finely chiseled jaw line of pure raw foodists and we are definitely up a dress size, but our health is still phenomenal and our commitment to the benefits of raw foods is unwavering. A third sister, Clare, has joined us on our raw adventure and in many ways I think by not being so pure, so fanatic, so 100% raw that she has been the most successful. Immediately friends and colleagues note that she has dropped 30 pounds and that she has restored so much youthful vibrancy. As her sisters, we are more delighted that she has healed a very serious respiratory condition and made extraordinary life affirming changes in her personal and professional life. Clare did not stridently eliminate all cooked foods from her life. She did not stop entertaining or functioning socially as Annie and I were forced to do. Instead she began to saturate her life with living foods and she brought friends and colleagues along for the ride. A party at her home is most likely 20% cooked and 80% raw and she is discovering that her friends are enjoying participating in her raw adventure – – because there is no judgement.
And so I thank you Victoria for all that you have meant to our lives and to our healing. Green Smoothies are the one component of a raw lifestyle that we have never given up. Green for Life was a watershed moment in our living foods journey. It is the one book I recommend to everyone and anyone who is curious about our raw lifestyle. I consider you among a handful of truly enlightened souls in the raw community; a woman of integrity like no other.
And now I really have to get going. I have a Green Smoothie to make – today I think it will be my absolute favorite “Igor’s Favorite” and maybe later I will make “Kiwi Enjoyment” another big hit. Still later today I’m making mango soup and a big green salad for lunch; time permitting I will get a batch of flax crackers into the dehydrator. But, I’m not ruling out a last minute invite from friends having pizza. For sure I’ll have a piece or two, and I know they will love my mango soup and my green salad being on the table as well. So, here’s my sign off, my raw designation for anyone who cares to know. I remain: 100% in love with community and fellowship and choices, 100% engaged by life; 100% curious about the nature of the universe, 100% concerned for my fellow citizens who are in poor health due to dead food; and 100% grateful to living foods and all they have healed in my life.
Mary C. Duggan
President
Duggan Sisters, Inc.
http://www.duggansisters.com proud makers of lifestinks™ deodorant
