By Brian Rossiter
All the lush, rolling fields in Ireland I saw while vacationing in this beautiful country in June 2006 shone with a shade magnificent enough to make anyone green with envy to live in The Emerald Isle.
Oh, wondrous green and, yet, some can’t bear to watch me consume green smoothies because of their hue. I tell these folks that green is the color of grass and leaves as well as one of the world’s most popular colors, but still, some can’t stand to see the sight of bananas blended with greens such as romaine lettuce.
It is this magical meal that turned this eater of the standard American diet as well as a smoker and drinker into a new man, built from vitamin-loaded bananas and other fruits plus mineral-rich tender greens such as red leaf lettuce and celery. The first green smoothie I made was a kale-dominated disaster, but after just seven days of finessing recipes and consuming these concoctions along with my small fruit smoothies, I was able to quit smoking for good. I was beginning to feel like Superman, filled with rising confidence and soaring energy levels, but looking back, I hadn’t seen anything yet!
About 10 weeks into my green smoothie revolution, I flew to Texas for a 24-day vacation in The Lone Star State and the South—traveling with a single duffel bag that included a blender. Nothing was going to stop me from enjoying green smoothies! From my first stop, in Austin, I began having green smoothies twice a day. When I arrived in each city, practically the first thing I did was to go on a large produce run, bringing bananas, frozen fruits and greens to the hostels at which I stayed.
By the time I got back home and just weeks after eating lots of barbecued foods in the nation’s ribs hotspots, the lure of animal products quickly began to vanish. One day, I made one of my signature recipes, white chicken chili, on the meat’s last day of refrigerator freshness and packed it away immediately into my freezer. When I starting eating it days afterward, I could tell my taste for meat was no more. I gave away the rest of the chili. Days later, I couldn’t stomach two slices of pizza.
I was ready to be a vegan, and on October 1, 2010, I started a new chapter in my life. Just three months later, I would go raw vegan, joining a friend during his annual month-long cleanse to kick off the new year. I added vegan burritos into my menu for about three dinners a week the rest of 2011 and early into 2012, consuming the other 90 percent of my calories from raw food, with an emphasis on increasingly more fruit as the year marched forward.
Once I learned about critical elements of a raw food diet such as identifying staple foods, counting calories and combining foods properly did my path truly open up. By the end of the year, however, I discovered I had to eliminate the last bit of cooked food—these hot-sauce-laden vegan burritos—from my diet. These meals caused me to suffer from brain fog, but it took a while to understand this, especially since the fog creeped in during the morning after eating them while consuming my day’s first green smoothie.
Come February 2012, I was wholly raw. I lead a fruit-based, low-fat raw food diet. What this means is that I enjoy three meals of fruit—or fruit with greens such as a green smoothie—a day along with a salad featuring a homemade fatty dressing or, some days, another fruit meal for dinner. I enjoy this way of eating—and, even better, the way I feel—so much that I think it’s the key to rejuvenating one’s body and staying forever young. I celebrated my 38th birthday three weeks ago, and, regularly, people tell me they think I’m 10 to 15 years younger. Several months ago, my 9-year-old niece let it slip that she thought I was in high school!
I’ve learned in my diet and nutrition studies that human beings are designed to consume almost entirely or even entirely, some say, pure, fresh, ripe, raw fruits. Bananas, mangos, watermelons, jackfruits (divine!) and much more. If you think about it, human beings are the only species to cook foods and prepare recipes, and we’re also the only species to eat outside our natural, species-specific diet not out of desperation but because of upbringing, tradition, conformity and addiction.
A fruit-based raw vegan diet can open, clear and free the mind and help the body purge toxins. This diet can also help us serve ourselves, loved ones and the world as the best version of ourselves possible, truly unlocking our potential and exposing what awesome powers we have within us like mighty torches against even strong winds.
In the past three-plus years, I’ve devoted my life to spreading this message loud and clear on my website, Fruit-Powered.com. I’ve written six books: the raw food transition guide Alive!, the raw food primer A Taste of Raw Food: 7 Days of Smoothies ’n’ Salads and the four-volume Mouthwatering Recipe Book Series, featuring 80 recipes from myself and 10 raw food authors from around the globe. I’ve also built the world’s largest raw food magazine, Fruit-Powered Digest, featuring world-renowned guest writers and, as of this writing, 88 transformation stories of success on a raw food diet. I offer coaching services to guide transitioning raw fooders to live a life of sheer raw bliss.
All your dreams can be realized by connecting with nature and yourself, honoring your higher purpose for the greatest good. Give green smoothies an honest run and pay attention to how you feel. Make these drinks rich in calories from fruit—enough to sustain you as a whole breakfast and until your next meal—and stick with tender greens such as lettuces because we’re simply better suited to digest them.
You might find yourself having a green smoothie every day for 1,250 consecutive days like I did! And you might look back with a toothy grin on how your beautiful, rewarding journey all began one day by hoisting a nutrient-packed green smoothie!
Bless you and bless Ireland!
_________________________
Creator, publisher and editor of Fruit-Powered.com and author of Alive!, a raw food transition book featuring a four-step program designed to help anyone go raw vegan, A Taste of Raw Food: 7 Days of Smoothies ‘n’ Salads and the four-volume Mouthwatering Recipe Book Series. Brian offers coaching services to assist health seekers and transitioning raw fooders.
