SOLD: Beautiful Happyzine

Lovin’ life raw allows me to walk my talk about the environment, but I got more than I bargained for living with wind power. The non-stop media chatter about cows and the amount of methane they produced, brought the word flatulence to our family table sharing air space, noise pollution and a growing sense of toilet humour.

Tummy gurglings, blow offs, pop pops and farting has had the girls crumpled over their plates of plant food, crippled with snorting laughter. On the other hand, as my eldest struggles with becoming aware of who she is, the laughter subsides and embarrassment creeps in. Looking closer to our plant eating friends chewing the cud, gave us an insight into what’s missing in our fast forwarded lives. Chewing!

When I started my journey, my body talked to me in more ways than one. Inner rumblings, gargles and explosive, volatile interruptions joined my bloated tummy in either waiting and waiting and waiting in constipation or had me leaping for a toilet bowl straight off the starting block. Fermenting my foods took on another meaning as gasses built up inside and increased as I fumbled around confused and embarrassed. Years of eating proteins and carbs together, refined processed foods, animal products and combining sugars and fats, was enough to create a pop factory fizz inside of me.

It’s been interesting to watch how, when and which foods combined, produce gassy guts, as even my children who’ve been built on a predominantly raw diet, get a bout of blowing bubbles from time to time. Understanding that my previous diet gifted me with an intestinal tract heavily burdened with undigested matter, squirreled away in wee pockets of my long intestine, and inner muscles that’d never had a good work out due to not eating enough fibre, has taught me to care for my engine.

Water, crucial to all moving bodies, helps eliminate in digestive matter and toxins. Keeping fluid levels up enjoying a cuppa; fennel, peppermint or ginger tea, has calmed our lively tummies and helps to prevent formation of gas, giving windy days the heave-ho. I also found that having a green
juice in the morning was easier, as the nutrients were used up straight away being directed straight to cells, unlike green smoothies that tended to sit in the stomach longer, gently fermenting with underworked muscles.

Chewing, chewing, chewing all foods, green salads masticated until pulped, and even chewing our smoothies, allows digestive juices to be properly released fulfilling the digestive process. Nuts and seeds which had never been a large part of my diet, taxed my under-used system in the early days, my liver and gall bladder not working at their optimal levels. By adding ground flax to biscuits, salads and cereals, I slowly added a gentle fibre that eased old matter outa my body. Enzymes, crucial for our digestive process, were an added extra for a while, supplements guaranteeing a difference in energy and comfort levels.

It took some time for my body to be totally comfortable with raw foods, but avoiding too much blending, enjoying walking and yoga and rebuilding my digestive muscles through the slow addition of fibre, was the key to bringing my active volcano under control and got me using my jaw muscles
for what they were intended, as my cherubs keep pointing out, talking with your mouth full just ainta option.

Sarah Lea

Tags: raw