The A-Team

I didn’t exactly write it down on a calendar but I do know it was in the first full week of March. We’ll average the week and call it Wednesday the 7th of March 2012. That makes today 100 full days.

But 100 days from what you ask? Change.

No, not the false load of tripe peddled to us as “change” by the sock puppets we call “leaders” in this country. I mean life-altering, beneficial, true change. And not by coercion or mistake either.

I am now 100% powered by plants.

It’s been a slow transition from the standard American diet coming since around February 2011. At a minimum I call myself a vegetarian on all days, with perhaps 4 days a week vegan or fruitarian. Regardless of what you call it I no longer look to animals for a source of food. And remarkably I have been craving free and without regret (mostly, more on regret later).

I’ll break this post into 3 segments: Cravings & Regret; Ok, but why?; What is a normal day’s menu like?

Cravings & Regret

To quickly put it, any meat/dairy cravings you may imagine are immediately squashed by merely satisfying our body’s innate desire for raw, natural, sweet, high carb items. Succinctly put, eat plenty of raw, fresh fruit throughout the day = no cravings. The human body will more or less use whatever we put in it (whether high or poor in quality) for fuel and energy. Cravings of any sort are merely our body’s built in way of trying to compensate for a deficiency. Since I satiate my carbohydrate/protein/fat needs without animals, no cravings.

The “without regret” part above has to do with making life difficult for Anna and planning meals or grocery shopping. Processed food is very cheap compared to fresh fruits (I mostly don’t eat veggies unless I’m doing a rare salad or stir fry) so I’ve jammed a wrench in the grocery budget and bombs away if the kids ever follow my footsteps! To top it all off this all happened during Anna’s pregnancy and I have to tip my hat to her for being awesome and working magic to embrace my personal decision while she’s pregnant. I will not force this on the rest of the household, though I hope to share information with them to make their own decisions. So I don’t regret the choice, just the timing and expense.

Ok, but why?

I have nothing against steak, hamburgers, or hot dogs. Nor pork chops, chicken, nor bacon or eggs. By complete accident in the beginning, and then by pure nerdy curiosity later, I’ve simply just read too many well cited articles, books, and viewed enough documentaries to ignore the facts and so I made the change.

If you can read books like The China Study, Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills, and 80/10/10, or watch “Forks Over Knives” with an open-yet-guarded mind as I have I think you’d understand and probably even do the same. For additional information there’s Mad Cow disease, Pink Slime, White Slime, increased allowable limits of somatic cell counts (pus) in dairy product, and the FDA approved irradiation of food as a means of allowing a higher fecal content in USDA inspected beef and other foods. For extra credit, or for those still thinking ol’ Aaron is crazy, I implore anyone to read 9 CFR 319.180, the Code of Federal Regulations section that regulates what is allowed in hotdogs and bologna.

Folks, I wish I were making this stuff up. I have an iron stomach and do not mind being elbow deep in baby poop (I’d prefer not to), yet I find our present food supply chain is unhealthy and utterly disgusting.

Lastly, it isn’t exactly headline news, but it also isn’t a secret than veganism and vegetarianism are sort of known within serious athletes as a means of achieving your body’s full potential. Look no further than your nearest Bible as well! Now, I will not go so far as to say that Jesus or the Bible commands vegetarianism. However, take the story of Daniel and his preparations in the courts of King Nebuchadnezzar:

Daniel 1:11-16

11 So Daniel said to the steward[a] whom the chief of the eunuchs had set over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, 12 “Please test your servants for ten days, and let them give us vegetables to eat and water to drink. 13 Then let our appearance be examined before you, and the appearance of the young men who eat the portion of the king’s delicacies; and as you see fit, so deal with your servants.” 14 So he consented with them in this matter, and tested them ten days.

15 And at the end of ten days their features appeared better and fatter in flesh than all the young men who ate the portion of the king’s delicacies. 16 Thus the steward took away their portion of delicacies and the wine that they were to drink, and gave them vegetables.

What is a normal day’s menu like?

Ever the contrarian, the way I eat is rather unorthodox for Americans, but it works well for our house, so we roll with it. We’re still trying to figure out how to eat normal meals without just eating boring crap like sides of corn, green beans and mashed potatoes. It would be impossible to thrive on that. As I indicated above, I’m mostly a raw fruit guy now. My menu is mostly non-existent, I just graze or grab and go (yes, raw fruit is God’s original FAST FOOD), so here’s a sample of what I might go through in a typical week recently:

• 1/2 pound or more of whole grain organic pasta (so tasty!)
• 2lbs of long grain brown rice
• 10-20 lbs of bananas (There’s about 4 to a pound, yes I eat more bananas than Curious George)
• 2lbs of Medjool dates (God’s candy!)
• 3lbs of strawberries
• 2 whole pineapples
• 3 oranges
• 2doz half pints of blackberries
• 2 pints of blueberries
• 2lbs of apricots
• 6 Romaine hearts
• 1lb asparagus
• Five peaches
• 1 large sweet potato
• 1 whole coconut
• 2 cans of organic, naturally low fat beans, rinsed to remove sodium

Three or four days a week I’ll eat as low fat, raw vegan (limited cooked food and no eggs, milk, cheese, ice cream etc), the balance of days vegetarian with only perhaps one extremely light serving of shredded cheese (on a pizza for instance), or if an egg is cooked into a food item. From my days working in the produce department at Marsh Supermarket in high school, I really love and appreciate the abundance and variety of fruits the Lord our God has given us. I try to live a high performance life, and fruit helps me achieve that. I don’t really track it, but I probably eat 3,000 or more calories each day, and well over 2/3 of that is from raw fruit.

I eat as much raw fruit and other low fat whole foods as I want and not gain even a tenth of a pound (look up “dietary thermogenesis”). Just ask Anna, I’ll carry a tray upstairs in the evening of food that would make a roomful of Weight Watchers folks faint: A heaping bowl of brown rice, an orange, a giant bowl of mixed berries (blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, blackberries), maybe an apple, a few bananas, and a glass of water to top it all off. I do this throughout the day too. We live in a society that on average gorges on the wrong types of food, we don’t eat enough overall calories each day to thrive, and we suffer because of it. Not me anymore. The best part about all this is it seems the more daily calories I eat, the better I feel and the more weight I lose. Don’t forget, I’m standing now at over 60 pounds less than 5 years ago, and I intend to never ever go back as long as I my heart beats.

I’m only getting started with this lifestyle change, but I feel just as strong and way more energetic as before. I run 3+ miles a day, sometimes 40+ miles in a week, assist parenting  2 (soon 3!) small children, have a full time job and help out around the house and still have enough energy left to author weird internet posts at 1:30am. Like your doctor I urge everyone, whether you give up animal-based foods or not, to eat more raw fruits, veggies and whole grains. Whatever you’re doing now, triple it and see how much better you feel! Live a high performance life along with me!!