Day 4 October 4th 2009

Food Eaten: Apples, almonds, celery, organic peanut butter, raisins, olives, raspberries, grapes
Quality of life: Ebbing slowly.
Activity level: Went to the aquarium, envied the jellyfish
Raw Food Percentage: 100??

Are olives raw? Is peanut butter? If the olives are pitted, if the peanut butter is organic and not made from roasted peanuts? Is it possible to make peanut butter without roasted peanuts? Can a man survive in this manner for much longer?

Tomorrow I make gazpacho. More recipes will follow. This process is unpleasant enough without putting myself in a foul humour from having no real meals to look forward to.

On the upside I'm beginning to understand what vegetarians, vegans and people with food allergies go through. Knowing that you've got only a few places you can expect to eat, and if you're not near them, you go hungry. It must have really sucked being vegetarian before it really got off the ground. You go out for dinner, you're having salad as the entree. Maybe pasta if you can find one where the meat is seperable from the rest of the plate. Though I suppose it still sucks now, you have a vegetarian option, but only one or two. Vegetarian restaurants seem to do well if only for having a small but deeply loyal customer base.

I imagine food allergies would be like me wondering if olives are considered raw, except instead of being embarrassed when I realize they're not, I would be dead half way through the dish.

Wikipedia tells me olives are generally picked then cured and fermented. Which would not appear to involve cooking. However, there are raw olives on the market, as described by this slightly smug article (http://www.practicallyedible.com/edible.nsf/pages/rawolives). So... what's the difference here?

Ah, here we go, is it raw or not (http://www.living-foods.com/articles/rawornot.html). Wait, so vinegar is bad? Salt or brine is bad? I'm a little lost, I can't quite figure out what principle this person is eluding to that the olives violate. I think I'm just going to conclude that olives are probably fine but maybe I should double check with trustworthy sources before I eat more.. Also apparently, the definition of raw refers to more than just temperature.

Anyhow, felt a little odd for most of today. I'm starting to wonder if I really don't have the enzymes necessary to digest a 100% raw diet. I guess we'll know more later.