Welcome to my blog

Welcome. After many years of toying with blogs, fiddling behind the scenes and staying too attached to my paper diaries (and the wonderful experience of hand-writing them), i realise it is now time i started publishing these gems. Here, the greatest obstacle has been (as has always been the case with my written diaries) how to organise the blog (s)? Do i have one blog, or many? Do i organise them by personal and professional, by topic or how? As an information management consultant, it seems ironic to be held captive to the classic dilemma of the "cobbler's children". Whatever. So today, in the spirit of a "do it now" impulse, i am launching this raw blog.

It's raw because i want to gather together my thoughts on how i live. This is the journey of my experiences with food. Occasionally it digresses into related areas; growing food (permaculture, community gardens), housing (sustainable living practices) and other sustainable practices (eating vegan, buying local, food miles, sustainable transport); but the theme is food and the food is primarily raw and living.

What is raw? The raw foodists call it food that has not been heated above 45 degrees celsius. Below that temperature, the food is still "alive". It still contains living enzymes, minerals and has a high nutritional value. Heat it above that level and the enzymes, minerals and highly nutritional things die. Raw food is not processed. Unless the label says so, all processed (generally, food that comes in a packet; including drinks) food is cooked or pasteurised. Cold does NOT equal raw. In essence raw food is whole, un-processed, fresh and as close to nature as is humanly possible. Some raw foodists include (fresh) raw animal flesh and other raw animal products (e.g. milk) in this category. As a vegan, I don't.

I hope you enjoy my ramblings. I hope you'll contribute your thoughts.