 Occasional cooked food
Thanks for doing this interview Steve. I've been eating raw since March with a few exceptions. Like you, the occasional cooked food is not really a case of giving in to temptation, but out of a desire to experiment and test how cooked food now affects me. Largely because I'd like to be able to eat sociably from time to time with my family and friends. I certainly don't feel great the morning after a cooked meal, but I recover within 24 hours. The last time I did it, I'd actually say I was ill. Had a very mild headache and probably a temperature. Not good.
Having done this several times now, the desire to eat cooked food is virtually nil, but I'm still not certain how often my desire to be sociable might overrule. (It hasn't yet!)
On a related note, I've occasionally felt tempted by foods I hadn't touched in years before going raw. Chips (meaning British-style potato fries!) and cheese and ham toasted sandwiches come to mind. The temptation completely vanished in both cases with the same kind of realisations:
1. The trigger came through my sense of smell
2. It wasn't the food itself (I hadn't touched meat in over a decade)
3. Rather it was the emotional attachment to them as "childhood reward foods"
The term "reward foods" maybe a bit misleading. What I mean is: both the "chips" and the cheese and ham toasties were specifically rare childhood treats. In a family that would rarely eat take-outs, these were real treats as a childhood - at a time then toasted sandwich makers hadn't quite made it into your average home...
Thanks also for the advice about creating social support for change. Everything you and Erin write at the moment is relevant and helpful to my situation. (-:
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