Eating plant food is sometimes
like living on two different planets, one where people do not know anything
about raw food and one where everyone seems to do. Usually, our surroundings,
including family and friends, are unaware of the lifestyle and believe that you
will lack nutrients, especially protein and calcium, without eating animal
products and drinking cow’s milk. If you travel to raw food school or take a
course, you are all of a sudden surrounded with people who believe eating raw
is the most natural thing in the world! These people are excited to tell you
that you can get all the needed nutrients by eating a variety of organic
vegetables, nuts, seeds and fresh fruit. And that greens, like broccoli, are a
wonderful source of protein and calcium.
Broccoli contains protein? How
many of your friends would believe that?
And it is no wonder. We have
all grown up with the information that fruit and vegetables contains vitamins
and minerals and that animal products gives us protein. Even myself, who had
been a vegetarian for a long time, took up to a year to believe that broccoli
contained protein. Nuts and legumes were natural sources of protein, but
vegetables? The thought was completely new and almost seemed too good to be
true. And that is the way it often is; usually, we need some time to change our
thoughts and beliefs especially around topics that we have been told since we
were born. So it is no wonder even our healthiest friends can seem to be a
little bit skeptical to all the new information. Just give them some time. Next
time they hear it from another person, they will remember what you said and
gradually change their minds too, especially if they read in a magazine that
scientific studies have discovered it. Then they often quickly change their
minds :-)
