Martha Ash

My name is Martha Ash. I've been eating 80-85% raw foods for about 6 weeks. The biographies of you other raws eaters have been inspiring to read.

I grew up in suburban New Jersey in a big family (5 kids). I shudder when I think of how I ate then. It was not unusal for me to buy and consume 5 boxes of candy per day. My mother cooked the SAD (she didn't know any better). After my parents got divorced she assauged her guilt my buying each of us kids a shopping bag full of junk food (Twinkies, Ring Dings, etc.) every week. I was an overweight and lethargic teenager.

In college I saw a movie based on Diet for a Small Planet and was intrigued. When I began cooking for myself I hardly ever chose dishes with meat--sometimes poultry and seafood. Also became a runner and eventually a marathoner.

Ten years ago I adopted an ovo-lacto vegetarian diet. Five years ago I got married to Mark, whose two kids were not wild about my eating style. I capitulated and ate and cooked all the bad stuff for the first year, felt awful, and went back to vegetarian for Mark and me. I tried going vegan unsuccessfully a few times, and have found the move to raw somehow easier.

I eat raw for 16 out of 21 meals per week; Mark does two all raw days a week with me. When I eat cooked it's "healthy" stuff--grains w/ veggie. I think this gradual transition has helped keep me on track. Even after only 6 weeks I feel better and look better.

I find the support of like-minded Internet buddies essential. We live in a small town in southeastern New Mexico where beef is big. There are at least three huge plastic cows displayed in town (one in my neighbor's yard.) Thank God there is a buying club that orders from Tucson Cooperative Warehouse each month, or I'd be sunk. A vegan friend from my co-op and I are trying to start a vegetarian society in town.

That's about it for now...

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