Van Boughner

I love Orange Juice and it has been a big part of my diet for almost three years. I attribute a good deal of my health and the improvement of my eating habits to the simple practice of drinking Orange Juice every day.

It all began with a gift from my friend Rupa, who gave me an electric orange reamer. The reamer has a straining basket to catch the pulp, but I enjoy throwing the pulp back in (except for those pithy white stems from the middle of the orange). It seems more like eating the whole orange. I try to drink it slowly, and chew the pulp a bit before swallowing the juice.

Each morning I drink water as soon as I arise, wait an hour or two until I’m hungry, and drink 40 oz. or more of fresh-squeezed, unpasteurized, organic orange juice. There were a few days I tried using oranges in a second meal, but I found a single citrus meal each day to be the best for me.

I used to occasionally go to Jamba Juice when in a hurry. But as I started drinking larger quantities, I would occasionally get headaches from drinking their juice. I suppose there were a few reasons for this:

• they don’t use a reamer like I do, so some of the skin of the orange is getting into the juice and I understand the skin contains toxic substances (to protect the orange from insects and birds)
• their oranges are not organic
• their juice doesn’t have as much pulp in it, so I imagine the sugar uptake to be quicker
• I was in a hurry and driving my car (my digestion is typically better when I only sit and eat and do nothing else)

Since I’m drinking so much, I tend to draw out my breakfast over 20 - 30 minutes. After each glass of OJ. I wait a little bit, trying to listen to how I feel, before I get another glass.

When you are in the mood to have a little variety in your OJ meal you can cut a couple of pomegranates in half and ream them just like the oranges into the rest of the juice (throw out the seeds). It gives a little different color and flavor to the juice. Or, blend a bit of nectarine or mango into your juice. I’ve also found that I can eat nectarines or mangos about 10-20 minutes after drinking the juice and they seem to combine well. Another favorite combination is dicing up kiwi fruit or strawberries in very small chunks and adding it to each glass. It makes for some enjoyable, chewy texture. The added kiwi fruit is a favorite of my son, Michael.

Orange juice can be left out on the counter all day. Other folks in the family drink it in quantity too, and it seems everyone would rather have it at room temperature than cold from the fridge. Nevertheless, if you know you are preparing OJ for tomorrow, put it in the fridge right away. Left out on the counter all day and then refrigerated overnight it doesn’t taste as good.

I used to need my OJ right away in the morning, but as I become better nourished, I find that I can wait longer and longer before drinking it. Occasionally I wait until noon, run several miles and then drink, and it’s a pretty phenomenal feeling.

As I transitioned to the 80/10/10 Diet, I had days where I binged on cooked food. I found that when I felt bad (clogged up, icky) the next morning, an all orange juice day was a nice idea. I would fast as long as I could in the morning, then drink only OJ all day as I got hungry. Sometimes I felt like eating a lot of greens later in the day on those days (or even bananas), so I would go ahead and not be too strict with myself. The effect of an OJ day is very cleansing, but I never needed to extend it beyond a day. The next day I usually feel more like myself again.

An electric orange reamer can be had cheaply, for less than $20. These days we juice so many oranges, that I splurged on a bigger, more sturdy model that cost $80. It was well worth it.

That surely cannot be all the secrets oranges have to offer. What are your experiences?

Today I was inspired to write a post on a message board about Dr. Graham, because I hear he has yet to be invited to speak at the Raw Spirit Festival. Perhaps because of the difference between his message and that of the mainstream raw movement. (Wow, isn’t it cool that the raw food movement has become big enough to have a ‘main stream’ component?!)

Here’s what I wrote:

I attended the festival in 2006 and loved it! It was a fabulous opportunity meet many new, interesting people. My partner and I were near the beginning of our path to raw food and it gave us quite a boost. We enjoyed listening to talks by a wide variety of folks with different viewpoints. Some great new viewpoints that I didn’t even expect to be exposed to were represented, such as Hiran Ratan, who came to speak about Sun Gazing.

I appreciated the opportunity to hear about things I hadn’t been aware of before, because I strongly feel that each person needs to find their own way in life. Different things work for different people, or even for ourselves, at different times in our lives, and we must be free to experiment. I tried Sun Gazing, for example, and although I ultimately decided not to pursue it (because it didn’t quite feel right for me at the time) I was glad of the chance to hear about it.

I’ve been struggling with raw food for 2 years, and for a long time I couldn’t stay on a 100% raw food diet for more than 4 days in a row. I’d start to feel weak and experience bouts of vertigo and nausea after workouts that made it too difficult to continue. Nevertheless, I’ve continued trying and within the last six months I finally found an approach that works well for me. Now I’m able to stay 100% raw for much longer than 4 days at a time. I’m 7 weeks into it so far right now, my longest stretch ever!

The approach that is working for me is to greatly increase the amount of fruit and greens I’m eating, and reduce the amount of fat. A lot of the raw food recipes I’ve seen rely on avocados, nuts, and seeds to provide calories and substance to the meal. However, dishes that contain large amounts of nuts don’t work well for me, so I ended up avoiding them altogether and just focusing on the salads and avocados. It took me a long time to realize that’s not enough calories with the way I exercise, and as such it was only be a matter of time on each stretch before I’d feel weak and dizzy.

I found a new approach last summer, when I read Dr. Douglas Graham’s book, The 80/10/10 Diet. Here was someone telling me why it’s okay to eat fruit instead of fat on a raw food diet for the calories I need. For me, reading his work was like having a light bulb go off in my head. A big “Aha!” And after trying it for the last 6 months, I can now say it really works better for me than anything I’ve tried so far. I wish I’d been exposed to the idea of eating more fruit back in 2006 at the festival.

I understand that Dr. Graham has yet to be invited to speak at a Raw Spirit Festival. I think it would be a boon to many folks to hear from him. He’s a fine educator, a thoughtful, sincere person, and has been proving the effectiveness of his approach by living it the last couple of decades. The level of health and fitness he has attained is enviable. I had an opportunity to meet him in February, at one of his events, The Walking Tour of Costa Rica, which I attended with my partner and about which I wrote numerous blog entries.

I hope the folks running the Raw Spirit Festival will find it possible to include Dr. Graham at the event this year, so that people can be exposed to the widest possible variety of approaches to the raw food diet. When I think back to the festival in 2006, there wasn’t anyone there that I remember who advocated eating like Dr. Graham does, and this meant a year-long delay before I found these ideas (while surfing the web one day).

When I attended the festival in 2006 and heard such wide ranging views, that included Sun Gazing, I felt confident that I was getting exposed to the state-of-the-art info on diet and health. To remain competitive and relevant, I hope the festival will continue to entertain as many viewpoints as possible, and let the attendees decide for themselves which approach to apply.

I wish I’d been there in 2007, and I hope to attend the festival again some day. To all that are headed out to Arizona this year, I hope you have a great time and enjoy the friendships and experiences you will have!

Best regards,

Van

I hope it helps influence the organizers of the event to invite him to speak. I hear he is willing and ready!

Today I got to do my long run. I’m training for the Napa Valley Marathon on March 2nd, and today was about the time I should be doing the last of my long runs.

I really should be going 20 miles on a flat road, but it’s totally hilly out here, so there’s no chance of doing that. Instead I figure I need three and a half hour of sustained effort.

I got that this morning: the first two hours were spent walking uphill with my fellow walkers at a brisk pace, then half an hour of running/walking uphill on my own, and an hour running back down the hill. I ran up a road that eventually becomes a footpath where cars could go no further. I passed two interesting shacks which looked like temporary housing when out tending the farm. There was a spot by the river perfect for taking a quick dip in the water (refreshing!)

It felt great, it’s hard to believe all I had for breakfast was cantaloupe and watermelon at 7am, yet I could make it all the way to noon with that effort in between and feel fine. In fact, at certain times, the running felt nearly effortless. I had to slow down when running down at one point, because I was going so fast I placed myself at risk of spraining my ankle. That would be no good! After 3 hours had gone by though, some of the running started to feel like work, as I was getting tired.

I made it back with 15 minutes to spare before lunch, so I drank a lot of water and showered first. My need for food didn’t feel as urgent as I would have predicted, but those bananas at lunch were certainly satisfying once I reached them.

I got up early this morning and did a run before breakfast. I feel like I am acclimatized now to the altitude here at the Rio Chirripo Retreat (about 4000 feet in elevation). This makes the area cooler and less humid than lower lying areas in Costa Rica. The weather is quite variable, since sometimes clouds come in and cool things off quite a bit.

Breakfast was all watermelon. I made a particular effort to eat slowly, taking a new piece only when Phillip did. That worked well until he was done, after which I had no crutch, and had to pay attention to my own eating speed. It seems if I eat the melon slowly enough and chew it well enough, I don’t get “melon belly”, that uncomfortable feeling of being overfull. Fortunately melon belly seems to pass in about 15 minutes.

The walk today was to the Blue Mountain waterfall. A long walk up past the village of Los Angeles. It was a pleasant swim there, the water was cold again, like yesterday’s swim at the “Ol’ Swimming Hole”, but very refreshing after such a long hike. It seemed to take ages to get back, and so bananas at lunch were highly welcomed.

When you “earn your fruit” by doing a lot of exercise, such as walking, it makes it that much more satisfying to eat meals. Certainly it makes it easier to enjoy plain foods. I noticed myself eating a lot of greens today, after previously wondering whether I even wanted them at lunch or not.

At Karen’s request (thanks for your comment, two posts ago), I’ve included a pictures of Dr. Graham playing ping pong with Stephanie (Faychesca is watching), and one of his wife Roz, with their daughter Faychesca at the table. Ironically, Stephanie is in both pictures (nice work Stef!) Faychesca is 3 years old and when she talks she’s absolutely adorable.

At dinner time, the papaya orange juice smoothie combination didn’t do much for me, but the soup was excellent. It was tomato, celery, and mango, garnished with a few half slices of tomato and small stalks of celery. Phillip found it particularly satisfying, because he’s been craving salty things rather than so much sweet fruit, and has been finding sweet fruit a little difficult to eat in large quantities.

The third course was spiralized cucumber, covered in a delicious sauce made from sun-dried tomatoes and red pepper. Time had been taken to creatively decorate it with slices of cucumber.

We discussed at the table for a while whether such a thing should be called “pasta”, since although that is what it reminds you of, it certainly isn’t going to weigh you down like a big pasta meal.

The only disadvantage to a delicious meal of tomatoes and celery, is that although these vegetables have a lot of minerals and vitamins, they are low on calories. Thus I find myself not getting enough calories from the meals. It helped a lot to add some mangos (I think I ate 4 of them), and at the end of the meal I felt satisfied.

After dinner a couple of folks decided to watch the movie “Chariots of Fire” in the common area, but Phillip and I opted to return to our room, read a while, and get to sleep early (8:30pm) in preparation for a full day tomorrow. We have a trip to the beach planned.

I slept in a little this morning, and hung out in the room with Phillip until breakfast. That was relaxing, we’re getting a lot of sleep here, 9 or 10 hours every night so far.

Breakfast was lots of watermelon. I didn’t try to mix it with cantaloupe today (and they didn’t serve cantaloupe anyway), so I felt a lot better. That was, until I ate too much watermelon too fast. That made me feel pretty overfull for about 15 minutes until the feeling passed. It’s so simple to eat just watermelon for breakfast, if you eat slow and enjoy the company of the people around you (i.e. don’t eat it fast like I did.)

We walked up to the hot springs today. A beautiful, but steep walk. We were ready for a break by the time we arrived, and getting in the water felt great. There is no sulfur smell to the water here like other hot springs I’ve seen. Two rustically finished off pools, provided a couple temperatures to choose from. Time passed surprisingly quickly. We got back a little late for lunch, and we were hungry.

Lunch: banana smoothies, as well as solid bananas, and “me-mei”, a fruit that tastes a lot like sweet potatoes (or perhaps pumpkin pie filling). Naturally there was lettuce as well, but I’m found today I felt like waiting for dinner for a salad.

This afternoon I had a chance to ask Dr. Graham questions about bananas, receiving tips on how many to buy and how to stage them. He and his wife go through a case of 100 bananas (about 40 pounds), in about 3 days. At any particular time they might have two to four cases in the house in various stages of ripeness.

They use different parts of the house to ripen them, at speeds necessary to insure a constant stream of ripe bananas. That many bananas is a 6 to 12 day supply, which they will allow to dwindle in numbers whenever they’re about to leave on a trip, and they need to let the number drop to zero by the time they leave.

When the bananas get ahead of them, and too many are ripe at once, they have an extra banana meal (it’s usually bananas for lunch, so this means dinner too). Or, perhaps they invite someone over for a workout and have banana smoothies together afterwards.

When they get ahead of the bananas, and have a shortage, they instead may have whatever other fruits are in season. In fact, when persimmons are in season, Doug said he might not even be eating bananas at all, instead concentrating on persimmons.

Tonight’s dinner started with tomato/orange juice and mangos. Then there was a big platter of cut vegetables and fruit (pineapple, mango, papaya, cucumber, and chayote) for dipping in a personal bowl of sun-dried tomato and red pepper sauce. Skewer sticks were provided, and it was sort of like fondue, but all ingredients were raw and remained uncooked. Tasty and light.

I’m up early this morning, at 6 am, to catch up my writing. I hope keeping a record of my experiences will help others decide whether this is the right thing for them. I know that for us it was a leap of faith to come to Costa Rica without meeting any of these folks first. I’m so glad we did.

10 hours of sleep felt really good, and I think I’m pretty close to being adjusted to the time changes and the travel. Breakfast isn’t until 8 am and I am decidedly hungry already. At home I would normally have eaten something already. But here, I am going by scheduled eating times. So far that’s made me more hungry at mealtimes than I am at home, where I tend to satisfy the urge as soon as it appears. I like the way waiting makes the food taste, and now I want to eat just three times a day when we get home.

Ah, breakfast felt great. Cantaloupe and watermelon. Hanging around in the kitchen beforehand, I learned a new way to cut these fruits. You can cut them like I was already cutting kiwi fruit. Cut the ends off, place them on an end and cut the peeling off in strips down the sides. The watermelon is easier to do this with if you also cut it in half first (in a plane parallel to the cuts you made on the end.) Watermelon is an excellent thing to eat before going on a hike (think of this comment as foreshadowing…)

After breakfast, Thomas, one of the interns, asked me if I’d like to get a “before” picture taken, to compare with another one at the end. It should be interesting to see the difference. I expect to lose some weight, particularly water weight, from water my body might still be hoarding to dilute the toxins in me (perhaps from things like that rice and bean burrito we had Friday night

When we arrived at the airport in San Jose, Costa Rica, I sort of felt like I was stumbling through immigration. It was 5 in the morning, California time, and I hadn’t slept at all on the plane. For some reason, the idea of going through immigration made me feel nervous.

The man at the immigration counter was friendly enough though, and he tried to hold a conversation with me in English. I don’t remember much of the Spanish I’ve learned, I need to work on that. He commented that his uncle had worked at the Rio Chirripo Retreat. Wow, small world.

We took a taxi to the hotel. That went pretty smoothly. They have a bunch of taxis waiting for folks like us at the airport. It makes the process pretty easy for stumblers and bumblers like me.

Once at the hotel we were told by the staff that Dr. Graham was out “running around the hotel”. We figured he’d be back from his errands soon and we sat in the lobby to wait for a while with some other folks that had arrived. When he returned we found that he actually had literally been running around the hotel, for exercise. I had to remind myself that it was 7 in the morning, a pretty logical time to be working out.

He came into the lobby shirtless, tanned, and unmistakable. He’s a smaller man than I imagined him to be, and very fit. I suppose when you are reading books and seeing pictures of people on the internet you don’t get much idea of their relative size. I have to admit that I had probably built up a larger-than-life image of him, since I have enjoyed his writing so much (he wrote The 80/10/10 Diet).

They had a breakfast buffet in the dining room at the hotel that included fruit. I have to admit that some of the other stuff looked good to me at the time, but my doubts disappeared when I tasted the yummy pineapple, papaya, and watermelon. I’ve never had papaya that good before.

Phillip and I were really tired, however, so after breakfast, rather than try to go to the farmers market in San Jose, or some other touristy thing, we decided to take a nap. We met our temporary roommates, Cam and AJ, who were on their way home after interning (Cam), and fasting (AJ), at the retreat during the last 6 weeks. They were headed back home that day or the next morning. I was impressed by the vibrancy of them both. Lots of energy and enthusiasm.

We had lunch on our own in the hotel restaurant after our nap, and made some good choices, ordering up salads and fruit plates. After lunch I lay in the sun for a while by the pool. I overheard Dr. Graham talking with his daughter, Faychescha. He told her stories about Winnie the Pooh and Tigger and Piglet, that had a decidedly healthy life and food slant to them. I thought it was cute, and I was entertained to hear him actually use the phrase “fresh, raw, ripe, whole, organic plant-foods” (not necessarily in that order, but using all six key elements) during his conversation with her. She’s going to be a giant raw food expert some day! Faychesca is about 3 years old, talks well, has a lot of energy, and is curious about everything.

Dinner was great, with everyone coming or going to the retreat there. Some new people had arrived, and the hotel staff served up watermelon juice, fruit platters, and two huge salads that we all shared. It occurred to me that this was the first time Phillip and I had ever had dinner with a bunch of folks all eating raw fruits and vegetables, where the meal included this much fruit. I didn’t even feel like a freak for eating nearly a whole pineapple by myself before munching down three big platefuls of salad.

Oh yum! I just had one of the tastiest meals yet. I juiced 2 lemons from next door, 12 oranges from my favorite organic farmer, and peeled and cut up 3 kiwi fruit into tiny chunks and threw them in (when I was near the end of drinking the rest, just for fun). What a combination! That’s about a quart and and a half of juice. Plenty of calories to keep me going today, the lemon gave it a nice twang, and the kiwi added some interesting flavor and texture.

I read a blog post today that inspired me to comment. I have worried many times that if I were to eat some cooked food, even a small amount, that I would fall back into old eating habits.

Phillip and I have been transitioning to a raw vegan diet for almost 2 years now. I have given in to the urge to eat cooked food a number of times. In each case, the severity and length of the “binge” has decreased. And likewise, the length of time I can now stay raw has increased.

These days, when I fall off the wagon, it isn’t for very long, and what I eat isn’t all that bad, as I don’t crave the really bad stuff anymore. I haven’t had anything deep fried in a long while, and dairy is not a temptation at all. Letting some time pass while you are transitioning is helpful.

I’m having good results following Dr. Graham’s 80/10/10 program, as described in his book, The 80/10/10 Diet. When I first started out with raw food, I was eating:

• a ton of salad, with lots of avocado
• “combo-a-bombos” (as I’ve heard someone describe them, ie. gormet raw foods with too much fat)
• not enough calories from fruit

I didn’t know it at the time, but now that I’ve read The 80/10/10 Diet, it seems pretty clear that the above formula, although nutritional, wasn’t giving me what I needed to sustain myself. After 3 or 4 days without getting enough calories, I got too dizzy and nauseated to function during exercise, particularly Tae Kwon Do practice, when we would do backward kicks. These require some balance and spinning, which exacerbated the problem. And some mornings I would wake up dizzy and weak from the get-go.

It was discouraging, because I really liked how the raw foods made me feel and I wanted to be completely raw right away. It makes sense to me now though. What I was doing was nearly like fasting, while still piling on my regular exercise program.

I’ve had more lasting success on raw food now that I am getting enough calories (like with the orange/lemon/kiwi fruit combination described above). I’m not losing weight so fast and I feel comfortable. It almost seems like if I eat right, some days there are no cravings at all. It’s just a matter of time until I figure out how to keep it this way for good.