Raw Bento

It’s been a long time coming but I would really like to talk a little about this e-book that was published late last year.

Me Raw You Cooked is written by Emma and Rod MacDougall from the UK and it’s about their story as a raw-cooked couple and tips on how to navigate such a partnership.

I had to get it. At £7.99, it was a steal to ease some of the troubles I was having with my non-raw man at the time.

First things first, I would recommend this book for sure to any raw person with a cooked better half, but I wouldn’t necessarily say that it’s a good read for the cooked person.

Their love story was a lovely read and I did sympathize with Emma but I could clearly see how Rod just didn’t get the raw lifestyle for a long time. I thought they were enormously lucky to have broken up and then got back together and now they are married. I think Rod decided to go vegetarian, and that, to me is just amazing.

As for the advice part, I think the tips for the raw person in the couple were excellent. It made me see how crazy absorbed one can get when you first jump onto the bandwagon of raw. It’s a natural reaction, though, because you suddenly feel and look so good, you just want to shout it from the rooftops of your lungs.

I think this e-book also taught me how to be more understanding of the cooked person. If anything, this story is about letting the other find their path and still love them for it. And it dawned on me that this applies to any glaring differences in a relationship.

Unfortunately, this book is still extremely raw-centred in the sense that I don’t think a cynical cooked person would take it seriously, especially if they are coming from a place where they think it’s ludicrous to eat a mostly-raw and all-raw diet. There’s a lot on the raw lifestyle but it’s not compelling enough because I don’t think it will break through what is more of a psychological block than it is a lack of information.

The advice for the non-raw person is to just accept that becoming raw is an irreversible situation. Hmm, I agree with that. I don’t think I could turn back on the principles of eating fresh, unprocessed food, but it’s really cold comfort to read for the cooked person. And the other piece of advice that was dished out was to find another raw-cooked couple so that your cooked partner could have someone to relate to. Logical, but in reality (or my reality), this is just impossible. I don’t even have any raw friends in Tokyo, let alone another raw-cooked couple.

More and more, and I say this with great hesitation, I’m seeing that a person’s diet reflects a system of belief. You may be vegan for animal cruelty/environmental reasons or for health reasons, but it’s a systematic structure of belief that you live by. This situation sort of reminds me of couples who have different religious faiths — all they can do is love their partner and hope that one day they would come around.

I think that’s the only answer. It’s not a solution but a way of embracing serious differences and being optimistic about the future.

On a lighter note, the recipes look like fun to try out but I wish they included more raw-cooked ideas. I don’t think it’s rocket science to dish out a meal that includes raw and cooked foods using more or less the same produce, but it would still be nice to see what they eat as a couple.

Me Raw: You Cooked was just what I needed at the time and if I feel a little down about my own raw-cooked relationship, I think I would go back to its key points to get some motivation and hope.