"Coming Out" to My Family

My family came to visit me this past week in Austin.  My father is a "meat and potatoes" vegetarian.  My mother is mostly a pescetarian, but she eats a wide variety of things and is probably at least 50% raw.  My bother eats red meat and cheese.  That is all.  They thought it was extreme when I went vegan for the first time a few years ago, so I was really wondering how they'd react to the fact that the next time they see me I will be eating mostly fruit.  Of course, they all had different reactions.  My mom thinks it is a great idea and she understands that I am educating myself.  My father has all these crazy ideas and said that I will become sick because my body will "cool down" too much, yet his main food group is processed, fake, soy meats.  Gross.  My brother is 19 and more or less thinks I am insane.  He said that meat is what makes you strong.  I watched him devour bacon cheeseburger after bacon cheeseburger at every restaurant we went to and he ONLY drinks Mt. Dew or Dr. Pepper.  He had a migraine the entire trip and has developed such bad acne that it looks like welts on his back and neck.  It made me so sad, yet I can't change him.  He will have to make the choice to be healthy on his own.  Then again, when I was his age I would eat an entire Domino's pizza by myself almost nightly and my standard lunch consisted of salt and vinegar Lay's, Pepsi, and some form of chocolate candy!

So, I let them know of my goals for my diet and made sure to show them that I wasn't just jumping into this, but rather educating myself and easing into it.  I did feel a little sick and bloated for a good bit of their visit due to the fact that I was consuming so much more salt at the restaurants we were going to.  I forced them to try Beets Cafe at one point.  It is a raw vegan restaurant in Austin, TX.  Both my parents were quite pleasantly surprised!  They loved their food and admitted to feeling quite a difference after eating raw (success!).  My brother, on the other hand, wouldn't order a thing and even refused to try a bite of my chocolate cheesecake that tasted exactly like fancy chocolate mousse!

They are now gone, but my fridge is filled with leftovers and dairy.  I have been trying to bring some of the food to work to feed the hungry boys that will eat anything and clear out all the not-so-good temptations, cause I WILL eat it before throwing it away/letting it go bad!  I went to the grocery store last night and loaded up on some fruit!  I was surprised to find a bunch of great deals on organic fruit at the nearby HEB.  In fact, I bought mostly organic.  Wonferful!

I received in the mail a few books by Matt Monarch recently.  Now, I know he has VERY different views regarding the raw lifestyle than what most people in this community believe/follow, but I'm finding a lot of what he has to say very interesting.  He talks about when he first went raw and how it made him feel like he was from another planet, how hard it made his social life.  I guess these are things I should prepare myself for.  I am not friends with a single other vegan, let alone raw vegan, and my roommate is the only other person I know that doesn't drink.  My family will love me no matter what, but a bunch of other people might start to find me weird or boring, especially the meat-eating heavy drinkers (90% of the people I know).  I am somehow okay with this.  This is a cleansing process, and I suppose it will cleanse my life of not-so-real friendships as well.

<3 Ria