Oh, and sharing foraging spots with others is something I think is great for all. Anybody in Tas, there's HEAPS of ripe yummy plums in New Norfolk (in bushland). PM me if you want directions!

If you are into freezing and drying, I find it a great way to save money on fruit. Buy up local, in-season fruit when it's at peak production and have a supply of exotic fruits when they aren't locally available. Like Gosia's kids I lived on mainly apricots for weeks and now have a steady supply dried and frozen. I am planning on also drying plums. You could do that with the grapes you have access to if in good supply. We have 2 dripping grapevines so that just gave me the idea too! Mmm diy saltanas!

Sprouts are wonderful...I buy seeds in bulk from an organic wholesaler sharing with others. That saves money, and also time and fuel that would be used in regular shopping. Sunflowers are super easy to grow so I am growing them for sprouting seeds. For those with little space sunflowers make a great food-producing trellis.

I have been thinking lately of which fruits I can begin growing that begin to produce quickly. I don't know for sure of all these but I imagine fruits like passionfruit, pawpaw (usually within a year), strawberries, melons in summer. And of course savoury fruits like cucumber and zucchini. Can anyone think of others?

An even better business to support is http://www.puregaisha.com.au/
I know one of the women in Adelaide who runs it, she is so lovely. Friends say her makeup is divine.

I have a few of Inika's mineral eyeshadows and eyeliners, very bright colours. I haven't used them for ages but they are really beautiful...shimmery. I feel like a fairy when I wear them! The make-up brush I got with them was made from horsehair. I complained, they apologised and offered me a synthetic brush which they have phased in now I think.

The time lapsing between my posts seems to be increasing. I do really want to post more but there are also many other things I want to do!  Things are going well. I'm digging into am apricot/young coconut smoothie...rich, energising and sweet.

I've rawly survived a few social occasions the last few days. Lunch with family...took cherries, a big raw tabouli and avocado, my mum went and plucked some beetroot and purple carrots from the garden and grated them into a salad. My salad went down a treat... no problems at all.

Then a beachside vegan potluck bbq on Sunday. I made a delish raw chutney (all from the garden except a few sunflower seeds) and cooked some fritters for the others. My lovely friend suprised me with raw burgers and brought a salad too so no probs at all. Homegrown green gauge and blood plums too (mmm I am currently loving plums!).

A friend came to stay for a few days after the bbq. My man used the excuse to buy lots of vegan junk food because he finally had someone to share it with! He enjoyed that thoroughly. I made my own food and shared some. The best bit was that they LOVED a zucchini dip I made and served with cucumber slices. They asked me to make more the next day so I made a huge bowl! I had to keep sending out cucumber gatherers to the garden. The four of us went foraging for plums and picked at least five different varieties. These trees are absolutely loaded and some are in a secluded spot that I don't think anyone else will find...and there's plenty to go around!

Been doing some reading of recipe and raw theory books. It's good to take it all in. The more I read, the less I know, and the more I trust my body to be the doctor! I enjoy reading others' ideas though as there are many wise experienced raw folk out there to make the journey easier.

I'm going fruit shopping tomorrow which is great because we have been low for days.

I was in a negative headspace for 24 hours and I really didn't like it. I was feeling so alienated, and not just for being raw, for many reasons. Today I feel great. I have had a marvellous day! Time with the family...talking about fruit and veggies...loving our little boy...loving living out of the city...eating abundant blueberries just picked (and not by me haha!).

I'm learning so many lessons at the moment. Some big ones are trusting the abundance of the Universe, trusting Time to allow me a chance to breathe, being patient with others. I love big learning curves. I love this quote that reminds me of the abundance of the universe.

"Life is constantly providing us with new funds, new resources, even when we are reduced to immobility. In life's ledger there is no such thing as frozen assets.
-Henry Miller

shauna, thank you for all of your sweet words! It sounds like you are doing really well. The sundried tomato crackers you made sound a delight! I'll be making some of those (my version anyway lol) - yum! The percentage talk gets confusing...but the point is I guess that you have upped your intake of healthy, simple raw foods...rawsome! I wish you sooooo much strength, energy and love on your journey xx

Jen, thanks    Jarrah (my son) and I are both discovering the world for the first time in a way...both so young...lol...your kids are so lucky to have had your influence of your healthy example...kids really deserve that xx

Hello lovely Jen!

How fantastic that you had the Chance to experience some time of relaxation. I really hope that you can juggle plenty of relaxation in your everyday life...as easy as it is to stress!

The photos of your family are so full of love and moved me.

Enjoy everything!

Love x

Thanks heaps for your lovely comments. I will reply in more detail soon but just wanted to thank you for now!

Lots of Love and Light to you tonight xoxox

Today is Day 30!
Well actually I did eat some cooked food last night so I made it 28.75 days on all raw! I really feel fine about what I did and see it as the most responsible thing to do at the time. I had been eating way too lightly for my super-busy existance and with no appropriate  fruit in the house, super-tired and emotional, on a cold day I was feeling funny in the tum after raw zucchini for lunch. I couldn't stomach raw veg. I felt I had the choice to either a) walk to a supermarket and buy some fruit or b) cook some fresh local potatoes and organic garden beans for my partner and I. With many factors influencing I felt better about option b. I now feel so much relief from my harsh expectations of myself. I want to be at a place where I am 100% raw but I got to make the journey, enjoying it thoroughly, to the place where it is at home in my life.

I am soooooo super stoked with my efforts! In one hit I have given up caffiene, non-raw nuts and seeds, cooked foods, hot drinks; mininmalised oils/salt/garlic/onion; increased my excercise majorly; increased my intake of greens, fruit and sprouts hugely; learnt to forage for greens; started to practice food combining; etc, etc.

I love being raw and will continue my raw journey with much anticipation...

peace!  

I initially became vegan mainly for environmental reasons (I now know of the social, ethical and health benefits too, of course) and it is definitely a factor in me becoming raw. I think promoting the green-ness of the diet may be one of the best approaches to getting others into raw eating.

Is there a term for free raw vegan? Raw freegan or Frawgan? lol

Thankyou very much Jen, I'm flattered. Your extremely beautiful belly is rather inspiring too! I hope you are well and anticipating the birth. xx

I haven't been journalling as much as I had planned to. I feel more confident and in the swing of things than I had expected to at this stage.

I'm up to Day 26 of my 30 Day 100% Raw Challenge. Still feeling great. I am attracting so much abundance into my life. On Saturday my lovely stepfather dropped around with a huge benchful of freshly plucked organic veggies and fruits from their amazing organic garden up in the hills. The soil there is prime and the garden is watered by rain and snowmelt. Their property backs onto National Park. You can taste the life in the food they produce! So we gratefully received a harvest of various varieties of tomatoes, cucumbers, fat (and phat!) blueberries, carrots, beetroot, chillies, striped zucchinis (one was massive! about 45cm), various onions and rainbow chard. Then my fella went for a drive yesterday leaving me with a day home to myself, which was lovely. He went to a meeting at someone's house and the whole time he was sneaking gazes out the windows at the loaded fruit trees! So he brought home a huge basket of lemons, oranges and incredible sugar plums. The kind lady "who's place it was" didn't even know they were edible! There's a heap of sugar plum trees along the river where I walk and jog in the morning but they aren't ripe yet so we're very happy! There are many other varieties of foraged plums we've had from there though so we weren't worried. On this morning's wander I noticed that the blackberries are in full production so we will go and collect a heap later. Our large cucumbers are coming on in hoards too so I am really looking foward to fulfilling my desire to eat many cucumbers every day instead of one! I'm eating a real garden salad right now that is made up of about 12 different greens from the garden, cherry and tigerella tomatoes, cucumber (2 sorts), a little red onion and alfalfa sprouts only dressed with lemon juice, a tiny ammount of olive oil and some kelp powder. So all the fresh stuff is from 15m from where I sit right now! It's so colourful - many different shades of green, purples, pink, reds, whites, browns... Now I'll just have to create a real garden dressing!

I am finding it easier to excercise. My spurts of jogging (while pram pushing) are getting longer and easier. I love using my mind to tell my body that I CAN jog a bit further! I'm not pushing myself to extremes though because I always want to make sure I have enough energy to get home!

I'm really looking foward to a meal I'm planning for later. Maybe not the best food combining but I'm gonna do it anyways. A sweet, sweet pineapple (first I've had this summer) with mint and young coconut - smoothied or just chopped up. Now that's a pina colada I want!

I figured out that my macadamia binging (which isn't a big deal - I know I need fat) is probably a comfort thing in two ways. First, fats are comforting. But also, the beautiful tropical-fruit-laden Heaven of a piece of land I grew up on was surrounded by a Macadamia farm. We were welcome to feast on as many nuts on the ground as we wanted. So now living in Tasmania and missing tropical fruits and Qld in general I think the taste of a macadamia is really comforting! I get the same feeling from coconuts, bananas, pineapple, mango, melons. It's amazing the emotional associations I have with food.

I best be off to enjoy my garden salad while it's still living!

Peaceful Love to everyone

I think Greg may want to know which ones and why...I too would like some more clarification on this point of view. Like a doc might tell me to "eat meat - you need it" I wouldn't just blindly believe him!

awesome Acacia info, thankyou! I read in a Aboriginal bushfood book that you can pick wattle branches with mature pods, lay them in a sheet and thump them to encourage the seeds out. Will give it a go. I tried a wattleseed that is common around here and it was tasty so I assumed it was edible. I will try to ID it...

I hope this helps you Greg...

I find The World's Healthiest Foods website provides some useful information, and the following link lists the nutrients that are essential. If you go through them they also includes major sources - you could check if you are eating food for each nutrient.

http://www.whfoods.com/nutrientstoc.php

If you aren't eating the major sources you could go through and check the nutritional profiles of each food you do tend to eat on the food list here...

http://www.whfoods.com/foodstoc.php

Of course we don't know if this info is correct but may serve as a research startpoint.
Good luck and I hope you find the answer you seek 

It all depends on what one classifies as a vegetable too. As I understand it many, or perhaps most, produce that people tend to call "vegetables" are botanically fruit - pumpkin, zucchini, peas, beans, cucumber, choko etc. are all encasing the seeds of a plant. It's only really the stems, roots, shoots and leaves that are botanically not fruit.

I'm being technical I know but I do find it interesting that less sweet fruit like tomatoes and avos are usually seen as fruit but a pumpkin is seen as a vegetable.

On a side-note a fig is botanically a bud!

Sorry everyone, I do agree that that isn't chickweed. I haven't seen the real thing since living in Qld but now remember the difference. I was thinking "I thought chickweed flowers were white, not orange" but put that down to my memory!

Thanks for fixing up the thread Jen, it is all back to normal size!

rawfoods bloke, that's great news on your book plans - much luck with it!

I am looking for info regarding which species of wattle/Acacia seeds are edible. anyone know?