Slovenia Fruits and Health Festival 2013

In August 2013 I travelled to Slovenia to attend the Fruits and Health festival, an 801010 festival set in Hotel Utrip, high in the hills not far outside of Ljubljana.  I stayed the first night with my friend Zare who I had met in Thailand.  He met me at the airport and we headed to swim in a lake which was a perfect antidote to a few hours spent in a plane.

The night before the festival Dr Douglas Graham was giving a talk in Ljubljana to an audience of over 100 people.

Zare and I walked in a little late and I saw my friend Grant Campbell in the audience and went over to sit with him.  Doug was on top form that night and it was interesting to see him speak in front of an audience that was not made up of fruit festival attendees that already knew the basics of his message.

After the talk there was an awesome raw food party nearby, abundant fruits and fruity people and some Slovenian music too.  My friend Helen was there with her husband Cedric who I was meeting for the first time.

Next day Zare and I got up early and headed to a local shop to get watermelon for breakfast.  We headed to a local market later to get some figs and nectarines and we were told by a police officer that we could be fined for walking around topless.  We drove to Zare's garden to eat some freshly grown cucumbers and got an intense workout in squatting, lunging and sprints.

Zare dropped me off at the Hotel but unfortunately was not joining the rest of us for the festival, he had signed up for Woodstock instead and I would see him later in the year.  Dr Graham gave the opening lecture and later Grant spoke, followed by Yuliya Tarbath from Rawesome Healthy speaking about travelling as as an 801010er.

In Doug's fitness class in the morning we ran, skipped and backwards-walked up and down the steep hills around the site and moved a pile of wood from one place to another.

The perfect recovery breakfast was provided after that with piles of watermelon set out for us.  I attended more lectures and after Grants's ultrarunning lecture in the evening some of us went outside to play music and sing by the campfire.  We stayed for a bit of a spontaneous prayer circle later that was a very powerful and memorable experience.

The next day was more fitness followed by watermelon, and lectures.  We played an enjoyable game in a circle in which we divided ourselves into different countries and asked a question about our country to the rest of the group.

Fitness again the next morning had me carrying Cedric up a hill and Doug gave some inspirational teachings on training and recovery.  We all gathered for a closing speech given by Professor Rozalind Graham that had almost the entire room crying and a spontaneous hugging session happen, her talks really are that powerful and inspirational.  We held hands outside in a circle during the closing ceremony and shared memories then we were all given a box of figs to take with us as a present.

 

Dushko (probably incorrect spelling) gave me and a few others a lift to Ljubljana and I met up with Zare again.  I was still high from the great feeling of the festival and me and Zare cycled around Ljubljana at night and as I cycled I started singing "living a life of love, all around the world..." a song I have yet to finish.

I have some videos of the festival on my youtube channel here:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLutoSbzrNCKnf3m7b9PKhyzRgQP6aDTfc&action_edit=1

and some more pictures up on facebook here:

https://www.facebook.com/ronnie.smith.7777/media_set?set=a.10152104755508574.1073741828.586408573&type=3

For more information please check the festival's website here:

http://fruitsnhealth.com/2013-2

Is The Raw Food Diet Dead?

A recent article by Frederic Patenaude was shared around the internet and commented upon by many raw food advocates recently.  The basis of the article was stating that most of the raw food leaders of the past had went back to cooked food and implying that it was a failed experiment and not a diet that fully promotes health.  I have also seen Frederic write that a raw diet is not good for children and that babies required cooked starches to get enough calories.

I spoke to a friend of mine about this who has been on a raw vegan diet in England for about 15 years and she said that this happens often in the raw food movement.  There are highs and lows and the popularity can boom for a while then disappear again and all throughout it some people come and go and some people just continue eating raw as they have for a long time.

If you are interested in raw foods especially eating in the 801010 style you are always invited to come to my the fruitluck i put on in Glasgow at www.meetup.com/Glasgow-Fruitluck

The raw food movement in my mind will continue to grow at a natural pace before eventually the tipping point will be reached, when this will happen is anyone's guess but the truth will always find a way of getting out.  Before there was a lot of confusion in the raw food world as the leaders had varying opinions on how to eat but now more and more people are aligning behind the high fruit eating 801010 fully vegan style of eating as promoted by Dr Doug Graham and a growing number of healthy and inspiring advocates.

I look forward to the lifestyle growing to the point we have an abundance of interesting new fruits and vegetables entering the supermarkets every year,

Ronnie

Are Starches A Good Back Up To Fruit?

I am hearing a lot of people saying that starches are a back up in times when you can not get fruit. Personally I would say for anyone who is serious about staying on a raw food programme like 801010 you should not consider starches as being part of your diet in anyway.

I have consistenly heard the excuses about there being insufficient quantities of ripe fruit around but this never matches the reality.  The shop you are buying starches from, especially if it is a supermarket in the UK, most likely has an abundance of edible ripe fruit for a number of people for a good length of time.  This is obvious to you when you are raw but when you are back to eating starches and other cooked food the fruit often becomes a 2nd or 3rd choice when it should always be first.

As soon as you add starches back into your diet it is the inevitable start of a downward spiral in which fruit becomes less and less appealing and cooked food becomes a bigger part of your life robbing you of that extra level of vitality that comes with fruit.  Once you get hooked again your creative monkey mind will go into overdrive creating excuses for making starch the mainstay of the diet again.

Fruit will never be as stimulating as starches, refined sugar or other foods and they will seem dull and plain in comparison.  I often hear people say that fruit is boring and really they are just reacting to the fact that fruit is one of the few foods they eat with no stimulants added.

Leave the stimulants and starches behind and make fruit your fuel for a stimulating and enjoyable life.  There is an abundance of backups, dried fruit, juices, smoothies, frozen fruit, canned fruit and many others.  For a starchy hit try some freeze dried peas or sweetcorn if you have access to that.

Cheers me dears,

Ronnie

My Experience at the Danish Fresh Food Festival 2013

On the 17th of July I flew to Copenhagen for a fruit festival in Denmark known as the Danish Fresh Food Festival.  This was the 5th time the event had been held and as far as I can see it if the longest running of the modern fruit festivals specifically aimed at raw vegans and those following the 801010 diet.

I had arrived a day early and took a bus tour around Copenhagen and a boat trip along the canal. I was amazed at how pristine the water was in the harbour and surprised to see some some people swimming in it, not something you see in the River Clyde in Glasgow.

I saw some of the sites such as the famous Little Mermaid statute and was picked up later by a friend who I stayed with over night.

We drove to the festival the next day with passengers who had requested a lift on facebook, Jerome and Katie who I recognised from videos of FoodnSport events and from Woodstock 2012.  We were some of the first to arrive and went exploring around the venue.  I was full of excitement as this was the first fruit festival I had been to since Woodstock nearly a year before.

The festival started with a parade up to the main lecture hall as we followed the music made by Petr Cech playing flute and his friend Leif playing Accordion.  Petr and his wife Alexandra were the organisers of the festival and they started the opening ceremony.  They introduced Doug and Roz Graham to give the opening presentations which were very powerful and inspirational.  Later we played games on the playing fields as a kind of icebreaker which I enjoyed a lot.  I met my room mate later, a cool guy called Benny from Iceland.  The rooms had two beds each and were very comfortable.

I participated in Dr Graham's fitness classes just about every morning and there was something different going on each time as he led us to different areas of the grounds.  I attended lectures by Dr Graham, Professor Rozalind Graham, Eric Karlsson, Louise Koch, Grant Campbell and Petr Cech. I signed up to do some some work in the kitchen which involved mostly preparing mangoes while singing a mango song with Axel.  The weather was perfect the whole time and I was able to hang out in the sun with my friend Rob Freedomfighter also known as the Raw Viking.

On the last night we sat around the campfire and sang Happy Birthday to Katie in many different languages and then played guitar and I got people to sing along to my silly blues song "Fruitflies in my blender".  It was a special night and we all connected quite deeply and expressed ourselves in different ways.  There was a large group hug that seemed to go on for hours.

I made a lot of friends at the festival, ate lots of delicious fruit (in particular some amazing organic Danish strawberries) learned a great deal about the lifestyle and in general was really glad I went.  I would recommend it to anyone and hope to see you there in the coming years.

I have a playlist of videos from the festival on my youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U_g6MxDWac&list=PLutoSbzrNCKmMNJZylB_Zqx3Y-dY4WG7h

The website of the festival is www.freshfoodfestival.com

Yours in fruit,

Ronnie