I was a child who ate

spam from a can

People often ask me how I became interested in raw food, how I found myself living this lifestyle, and whether it’s difficult to maintain. For an honest answer, I need to revisit my childhood and explain what eating was like for me growing up.

When I was very young, I was incredibly fussy. Dad had to come up with strategies to get me to eat what was on my plate. He would divide the plate into sections and I had to eat at least half; I’d sit there for ages, struggling to get it down. Of course, I would spread everything out across the plate as thinly as possible, so I would have to eat far less than was intended.

Fast forward to my early teens, when I developed the voracious appetite I have now. I still remember the day I became a ‘food monster’. I was in a large food court and Mum gave me $20 to get something to eat. Usually I’d get a medium serve of chips, and that would be enough – but this day was different. I just couldn’t find enough food to satisfy my hunger. I ordered two entire meals from a chicken joint, and a double cheeseburger meal from a fast-food outlet. I ate all of it, and that became the norm for me for the next decade.

My parents are Filipino, and for us a standard meal consisted of Spam (yes, the one from the can!), eggs and garlic rice. Filipinos eat quite a meat-heavy diet, with lots of white rice to balance the strong flavours. We also like to celebrate our many special occasions with lechón (a pig on a spit). Food is a huge part of our culture, and the easiest, quickest and most delicious way we show each other love.

Growing up, I honestly didn’t know many vegetables besides potatoes. I loved potatoes, especially with corned beef (also from a tin!) and onions. It wasn’t until I left home that I began to notice all the different vegies that were actually available. It sounds extreme, but by no means were my parents doing a bad job – they just fed us the same food that they’d been fed when they were growing up.

So, you can imagine their horror when I told them I had taken up yoga, and that not only did I no longer eat meat, I had become vegan, meaning I didn’t eat any animal products at all. Filipino restaurants tend to be challenged by the concept of ‘vegetarian’ food – when I ordered a vegie dish at a Filipino restaurant in New York, it arrived at the table with minced pork in it anyway. I remember looking at the waiter and saying, ‘I’m sorry, but I asked for no meat,’ and he, with utmost sincerity, leaned in and whispered, ‘Yes, maam, but how else will you get the flavour?’

Working as a nurse and then in pharmaceutical sales, I had been exposed to the big business of healthcare. Even then I was taken aback by the pharmaceutical industry’s power and influence, and how much profit there is to be made, particularly from the ongoing pharmaceutical treatment of lifestyle diseases. I am very aware of how such companies have helped produce a plethora of medical advancements, but I couldn’t help feeling there were also loads of drugs being marketed to treat problems that might be improved by simply eating well and exercising.

My new way of eating and my daily yoga practice had my mother questioning whether I had become a Hare Krishna. Many worries emerged: how was I to be catered for at family gatherings? What was I meant to eat when we went out? Who was ever going to marry a vegan? The standard concerns.

After making every vegan recipe I could get my hands on, even I began to wonder if there was more variety and excitement to the vegan diet. I’d been buying vegan versions of all of the junk food I used to eat, and ordering one mock meat dish after the other… and it was less than satisfying. Then along came ‘raw’ food, and I was hooked. Raw food was vibrant, beautiful and fresh. I began eating a wider variety of food, and more fruits and vegetables than I had ever eaten in my life. And everything was so delicious, I didn’t feel I was missing out on anything, and it made me feel so good. I had loads more energy, my skin became brighter, my mind clearer, and the food was quick and easy to prepare. This was a huge bonus, because my career back then involved lots of travel and left me with little spare time.

all we can do is educate ourselves, try out a bunch of things and see what works best

I also experienced my fair share of trials – not knowing what to eat when I went out with my friends, having my family think I’d gone crazy, even people who were downright rude about my new lifestyle choice and attacked me for it. People have always been afraid of what’s different – but why fear positive change?

However, the way to most people’s hearts is through their stomachs, and with a little pre-planning, and a whole lot of making awesome dishes for everyone to try, I managed to spend time with family and friends and not be a total pariah. My boyfriend at the time also became vegan and helped me open Sadhana Kitchen.

So, in time, my parents went from freaking out to meeting me halfway, and helped support my new lifestyle with considerate little gestures. One memorable attempt was at a large family gathering, where they cut the head off the pig on a spit, and from a whole fish, and replaced the heads with faces made of creatively sliced vegetables, so it wouldn’t upset me so much. The fish’s new head was made of julienned carrots with raisin eyes and a sliced celery mouth. The pig was given a whole iceberg lettuce head, cherry-tomato eyes, carrot ears and a maniacal sultana smile. Not particularly comforting, but I had to hand it to my mother for trying.

These days, my parents and brother drink green smoothies every day, have cut out most meat from their diets, and occasionally eat seafood. It’s amazing what happens when people see and feel ‘healthy’. It’s powerful when people start to take sovereignty over their own wellbeing and make more conscious choices for themselves, the beings we share this planet with, and Mother Earth herself.

So, how do I feel when I see Spam these days? While I’d never touch it again, it is associated with many happy childhood memories and shared family bonding sessions. To me, it signifies how far I have come. It tells me that we all have different backgrounds and experiences that colour our current viewpoint. It reminds me that there is no ‘one size fits all approach’, and that all we can do is educate ourselves, try out a bunch of things and see what works best for us.

Why be healthy?

Seriously, do I really need to be healthy? What actually is the point of it all?

When I first started getting into my yoga practice and changing my diet and lifestyle, I’d be asked this question all the time. And it really made me think: what actually is the point?

For me, being as healthy as I could be meant I’d be as happy as I could be – and I mean, who doesn’t want to be happy? I was a really sickly child. I had pretty bad asthma, I had chest infections any time the weather changed, I’d always catch whatever was going around, and was generally quite frail. I was taking asthma maintenance medication right up until I became vegan. Not long after making the change, however, I no longer had a tight chest, persistent cough or any wheezing. I no longer got sick during the change of seasons and, amazingly, I’d be fine when people around me were knocked sideways by colds and flu.

It has now been about five years since I’ve needed to take any pharmaceutical medication. If I do ever feel sick these days, my symptoms are much less severe and my recovery time is super quick. I really feel I have been able to prevent illness and heal illness with the food I eat.

Life can be challenging and busy enough – so, being sick when you can otherwise avoid it just doesn’t make sense to me. And when you’re feeling your best, there is very little standing in the way of living the life you want.

Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food. Hippocrates

How often do we hear others, and maybe even ourselves, complain about feeling run down, or not having enough energy? When you live a healthy lifestyle, your body and mind get taken care of, so you can go about your day with more freedom and vitality.

Our bodies are the vehicles we use every day to navigate life. It’s a simple concept, but easy to forget. How our body feels every day is a major contributor to how we experience our lives, and to the overall quality of our life.

How was your day at work? How was your weekend? Whatever you did and whoever you were with, I’ll bet it probably sucked if you were feeling tired, hungover, bloated, irritable, distracted, or just generally gross. Many things can contribute to such uncomfortable and all-too-common feelings ruining our days, but it’s pretty clear to me that the food we eat is a major player. Get that right and you should notice the difference: more days feeling happy, friendly and more content, whatever you are doing.

The tyranny of choice

We live in a world where we are spoilt for choice. It is widely accepted that having the ability to make choices in life is important and beneficial. Some might think that if having the ability to choose is positive, then the more choices the better. However, recent evidence suggests that having the ability to choose benefits us, but only to a point. Several assessments of wellbeing by social scientists suggest increased choices and affluence can actually result in decreased wellbeing.

American psychologist Barry Schwartz, in his bookThe Paradox of Choice, distinguishes between ‘maximisers’, who always aim to make the best choice possible, and ‘satisficers’, who aim for choices that are good enough, regardless of the options available. Perhaps surprisingly, he found having too many choices can have negative effects, including regret about declined opportunities, regret about options that have been chosen, and high expectations, which make it easy for experiences to fall short of what we had imagined. Compared with satisficers, maximisers often experienced less satisfaction with life, were less optimistic and more depressed.

What does all this have to do with living a healthy lifestyle, eating well and being well? Simply that there are so many eating plans, diets, programs, supplements, lifestyles, exercises and health experts out there that one can be forgiven for feeling overwhelmed and not knowing where to start. It is also easy to understand why some people become obsessive about their lifestyles, to the point that the entire practice is no longer healthy or positive.

At Sadhana Kitchen, people often ask us: What is the absolute best type of food to eat? What is the best diet to follow? What is the best exercise to do? Is paleo better than vegan? Should I eat carbs? Should I quit sugar? Do I need to be 100% raw? Should I only eat bananas?

The endless number of choices can leave people feeling defeated before they’ve even begun – or completely fanatical for fear of missing out on that elusive ‘very best’ choice. Neither of these outcomes results in a happy life. I have found that this is one of the reasons people find making healthier lifestyle changes so difficult – they become paralysed and confused by the number of choices, many of which seem contradictory and confounding.

This is why it’s so important to work on the wisdom within, while also staying open to the fact that with greater knowledge and experience, you may change your tune from time to time. It’s okay to just try being vegan, or eating raw, for a little while. Maybe you’ll come back to it later, maybe you won’t. Either way, you’re learning more about what works best for you, empowering you to make better choices for yourself.

The KISS principle

Most systems work best if they are kept simple, instead of being made complicated. It’s just like the KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid.

The same applies to creating a healthy lifestyle. A good place to start is to look at what you really want, then compare this to what you think you should want. For example, ‘I want… to be the fittest and healthiest version of myself’ rather than, ‘I think I should… lose some weight and hit the gym five times a week.’ These are two very different goals. It’s easy to think we need that photoshopped model’s body, when all we really want is just to look a little happier, and feel a little more confident and energised.

Be honest about where you are right now, compared to where you want to be, then set a goal to achieve what you want. Your goal could be as simple as: ‘I want to be happy eating well, and do activities I enjoy that also keep me fit.’ Then identify your first steps that you can stick to. Don’t choose too many things to change all at once; just pick maybe one or two things that seem interesting or fun. Maybe it’s a class you’ve heard of, or trying a vegan dish that looks particularly tasty. These simple steps can go a long way towards creating a happier lifestyle. Better than creating a complicated five-year plan – unless, of course, that is precisely what works for you!

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. Aristotle

Bad habits can sometimes be hard to break – but good habits can also be easy to form, if you set yourself up for success. When something makes you happy, then it’s pretty easy to stick with, so the trick is to create positive habits that also bring you joy.

When people share with me their struggles to become and then stay healthy, a big obstacle is the inability to form lasting positive habits. Often this is because they set their sights too high to begin with, or their new healthy habit is unrealistic to achieve.

When it comes to the crunch, the outcome has to be worth the effort. Kicking bad habits is a challenge, so you need to accept from the outset that it won’t necessarily be easy, but it will be worth it.

Setting yourself up for success

Here are a few simple tools for forming and sticking with positive habits that I’ve learnt along the way.

Break it down. Your overall goal is important, but if you are feeling a bit overwhelmed or not sure where to even start, it can be helpful to break the whole thing down into small, mini goals that are easily achievable. So, if your overall goal is to be healthy, you can break that down into eating well, exercising and looking after your mind.

So, depending on where you’re at, your mini goals may be:

You’ll get a feeling of satisfaction from achieving your mini goals, and at the same time get a taste of the benefits your new habits can offer you.

Plan for the times when you just want to give up. Let’s face it – new habits are especially fragile, and so many things can unfold in our days that can affect our motivation levels and self-belief. So always have a back-up plan for those shitty days. It may be as simple as sharing your goals with a friend, asking them to help keep you accountable by scheduling motivational phone calls or texts.

Another effective strategy is to figure out exactly what is causing you to abandon ship. For example, you’re meant to go home and eat a healthy dinner you’ve prepared the night before, but you have to attend a work function instead. Missing that goal of eating well at home could trigger a chain of events where you lose motivation and get further away from your goal. I mean, you know there’s going to be free booze at this function and hot chips at the bar, so might as well give up now, right?

Not necessarily. Instead of fretting, feeling bad and giving up, you can say: ‘When I get to the work function, I will choose the most nutritious thing on the menu and enjoy it.’ We aren’t always going to be in complete control, and part of being happy is learning to roll with the punches by adjusting our frame of mind and making the most out of each moment.

Which brings us back to some helpful advice from American psychologist Barry Schwartz. Rather than always searching for that elusive ‘best’ choice, just find one choice that meets your core needs – then stop thinking about it. Learn to accept ‘good enough’, and don’t worry about what you might be missing: FOMO (fear of missing out) can be paralysing and is not conducive to mental clarity and peace, both of which are essential for a healthy and happy life. Teach yourself to focus instead on what is being satisfied by the selection you make.

Another helpful strategy is to control your expectations. The adage, ‘Don’t expect too much, and you won’t be disappointed’ may sound clichéd, but is useful advice if you want to be more satisfied with life. We can all cultivate practices that will help us find peace in our current situation. For example, yoga is a tool that I use to help me stay mindful and present. I have found that dissatisfaction and distress can only occur if I’m in dismay about the past, or worried about the future. So by trying to be present, I find myself not being too attached to specific outcomes and more able to make the most of each moment instead.

connecting with your inner wisdom

What is personal wisdom? It’s our intuition, our instincts, our innate ability to seek true health and happiness and make conscious choices. We all have it in us and we all inherently know what’s good for us.

When it comes to food, the way our bodies and minds react can let us know whether or not what we have consumed has been good for us. Have you ever felt immediately weighed down, tired and sleepy after a meal? Ever woken up after a huge night drinking and felt like death? Ever eaten that whole block of chocolate, ran around like a crazy person for an hour and then crashed for the rest of the day? I know I have.

Our bodies are remarkable machines that have an intelligence that allows us to be truly happy and healthy, if we just take the time to pay attention. Just as we have adverse reactions to what isn’t so great for us, our bodies have built-in mechanisms to seek out what is good for us. After eliminating what we are addicted to from our diets, such as processed foods and refined sugars, we naturally start to crave foods that are actually good for us. All it takes is to honestly pay attention to your body and allow it to guide you to the healthiest and happiest version of yourself that you can be.

Taking sovereignty over your health & wellbeing

You might be thinking, dude, what does that even mean? In short, it’s about taking back power, responsibility, authority and influence over your health and happiness.

Taking it back from whom? Basically everyone who has a lot to gain from the way you choose to live your life.

Perpetuating your health problems is big business, and the upsetting truth of profit-driven business (as opposed to values-driven business) is that the more unhealthy and unhappy you are, the easier it is to sell you things you don’t need – even though the most effective and sustainable solution to such lifestyle diseases is to create a healthy lifestyle that you enjoy.

Some of the biggest killers in our modern world are ‘lifestyle’ diseases, which only come about because of the lifestyle choices we make. Diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes can be prevented by eating the right foods and exercising regularly. A lot of the items we refer to as ‘food’ in our society are unrecognisable from what real food is actually supposed to be. A great deal of profit is made from selling cheap, processed, high-sugar items that provide little to no nutritional or health value. Many of the bodies we see posted on billboards and social media feeds are not realistic for us to achieve, or sustainable for long-term health; this makes it easy to unknowingly set unrealistic goals and expectations, and then be disappointed even when we do succeed at creating a healthy and sustainable lifestyle for ourselves.

That’s why it’s so important to cultivate your own personal wisdom. Only you know what you really need to be healthy and happy, and only you can discern what choices provide the best results. Every single person is unique; there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach.

Instead of becoming overwhelmed by all the different information you come across, use it as an opportunity to connect with your inherent wisdom. Try things out for yourself. Think, feel and see what resonates with you most. Free yourself from the fears and insecurities around you and be inspired to take responsibility for how your actions affect you and the world in which you live.

Oh baby, I like it raw:
What is raw food?

Raw food is like magic. It grows in the ground and, through the wonder of nature, becomes this vibrant, nutrient-dense stuff we can eat – vegetables and fruits, and plant-based wholefoods. This is real food, grown the way nature intended, and filled with all the nutrients that the human body needs – not just to survive, but to thrive.

Raw foods are free from animal products and haven’t been heated over 40–46°C (104–115°F). This is important as most enzymes – as well as many essential vitamins and minerals – become diminished or destroyed when heated at temperatures higher than this. Enzymes are made of various proteins and are essential to all bodily functions, including digestion. Our bodies produce some enzymes, but we also get enzymes from the food we eat.

If you eat food with its enzymes still intact – as they are in raw foods – your body doesn’t have to use its natural enzyme reserves to digest the food, which keeps them free to fulfil all the functions they were meant for: repairing and regenerating your body.

Nature has thankfully accounted for our need of digestive enzymes by placing them within each unique food – so if you’re eating broccoli, there are exactly the type of enzymes within its chemistry that allow you to digest it. In the same process, you are absorbing the maximum amount of other vital nutrients, such as proteins, vitamins and minerals. This is why eating raw foods is so beneficial.

Personally, I’ve found that incorporating a large amount of raw, organic foods into my diet has resulted in many positive changes, including increased energy levels, clearer skin, more muscle tone and improved mood. Enhanced concentration, productive sleep, better digestion, weight loss and reduced risk of heart disease are some of the other health benefits you may enjoy.

Without a doubt, including an abundance of organic, plant-based wholefoods into your lifestyle – whether you are paleo, or raw, or a panda! – is going to do you a whole lot of good.

Why bother with organic?
The REAL cost of food

One of the biggest misconceptions about eating organic food is that it’s too expensive – so what are our eating choices really costing us?

When we talk about the cost of food, we shouldn’t just consider what we pay at the check-out. Most produce these days is grown using chemical pesticides and fertilisers, in order to yield greater volumes at cheaper prices. However, commercial farming practices contribute to soil degradation, meaning subsequent crops need to be further chemically treated to yield any produce, and many studies have also suggested that such produce has a lower nutritional content than an organically farmed equivalent.

Too often with mass-produced conventional food, we hear about farmers being treated unfairly, our soil eroding and our waterways becoming polluted. If that wasn’t enough, that conventional produce is often processed until it’s completely distorted and mixed with various chemical additives and filler ingredients devoid of nutrition. What we see at the end of the process is often a pretty package that’s cheap and convenient to buy. But the reality is that most people are not paying fair or real prices for their fruit, vegies and grains – and in the end, consumers are paying with their health and wellbeing.

What people often don’t realise is that the nutrients in food come from the soil that it is grown in. Food from degraded soil may still look good, but will contain fewer nutrients every year. Sad times. Part of attaining ultimate health is making ultimate choices to consume ultimate food. Our health and wellbeing are worthy investments. When we choose organic, pesticide-free produce – which is often tastier and denser in nutrients, and kinder to the farmers as well as our bodies – we are investing in our long-term vitality and choosing not to contribute to the ongoing destruction of the environment.

For me, all of that is worth the small difference in price between conventional and organic produce. At Sadhana Kitchen, all of our ingredients come from organic producers where possible.

As the old adage goes, we are what we eat. Literally.

It doesn’t have to cost the earth

Purchasing organic, plant-based wholefoods can be affordable in the short term, and save you a whole lot of time and money by keeping you healthy and happy over the long term.

You can grow some of your own organic produce on your balcony or in your backyard. Herbs are a great place to start and are fairly low maintenance.

These days, organic farmers markets and groceries are popping up all over the place. Most of these have a direct relationship with the organic farms they source from, or are the farmers themselves. By supporting them, you’ll also get really good prices for the freshest food. And you’ll be eating with the seasons, rather than buying produce that has been cold-stored for lengthy periods. Seasonal produce will be the cheapest, most delicious and most nutritious produce you can get at any time.

Why not start a food swap in your area, or join a community garden, and buy or trade locally whenever you can? Many people have an occasional excess of backyard produce and would be happy to see their lemons go to good use, rather than fall off the tree and rot.

Another great idea is to join an organic food cooperative – many of them offer volunteer positions and give great discounts in return. Or you could buy food in bulk and distribute it among friends. It’s often much cheaper to buy larger quantities of items such as nuts, seeds and superfoods – and you’ll also help reduce waste by using less packaging. You can join the social media pages and mailing list of your favourite companies for great deals and giveaways.

Sometimes you’ll be able to find second-grade produce; so long as it is fresh, it is just as delicious and nutritious as first-grade produce, but often much cheaper simply because it doesn’t look quite as pretty.

And don’t forget to use your freezer space. When fruit and vegies are fresh and cheap, you can chop them up and freeze in snap-lock bags, ready to be turned into smoothies each day. While heat degrades and destroys enzymes, freezing doesn’t affect the nutritional content.

When organic produce isn’t available, you can cleanse conventionally grown fruit and vegetables of pesticide traces by soaking them in a mixture of filtered water and apple cider vinegar – 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar per 1 litre (35 fl oz/4 cups) water – for 20–30 minutes.

Eating for wellness & beauty

There is mounting evidence that the standard Western diet is not the best for longevity and wellness; billions of dollars are being spent each year on pharmaceutical drugs to treat diseases, including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer, that could perhaps more easily have been avoided through addressing our diet and exercise.

personal wisdom... We all have it in us and we all inherently know what’s good for us

Government dietary guidelines throughout the West, and from the World Health Organization, are consistently urging us to consume more vegetables, fruits and legumes and less saturated fat, sugar and salt.

While it’s important to do your own research, it’s not always feasible to keep abreast of all the latest evidence, especially when a lot of it seems contradictory and quick-changing. If reading scientific papers is your thing, then great, please do more of that and let your deductions and understanding help you to create your own culture of health. When seeking health advice, always ask yourself, how healthy is the person giving you advice?

The key lies in realising that ultimately it is up to you to use your own faculties – your brain, your personal wisdom, your intuition and your personal experience – to create the best outcomes for yourself.

There are some things in life that we just inherently know. In the same way we instinctively understand that it’s probably not a good idea to walk off the edge of a 20-storey building, we also know it’s a safe bet that eating fresh fruits and vegetables is going to be much better for us than chowing down into highly processed foods filled with chemical additives.

Whatever your current lifestyle, eating more organic, plant-based wholefoods – especially fresh fruits and vegetables – will most likely benefit you.

Powering away on raw foods

Raw foods can sound daunting when exploring them for the first time – but the good news is that anyone can start incorporating more raw foods into their diet by simply eating more fruits and vegetables.

And rest assured that there are more than enough nutrients in raw foods to keep our bodies in optimum health. Plant sources of protein can easily provide all the essential amino acids we need; for example quinoa, almonds, flax, hemp and chia seeds are all rich sources of protein that the body can more easily digest than meat. As long as we eat enough variety of raw foods throughout the course of a day, our bodies can synthesise essential amino acids into complete proteins, making protein deficiency highly unlikely. Similarly, plant sources of iron, such as broccoli and bok choy (pak choy), also contain high levels of vitamin C, which the body requires to absorb iron properly; other good sources of iron include pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, quinoa, cashews, almonds, spirulina and dried apricots. As for calcium, kale, collard greens, almonds, sesame seeds, chia seeds, watercress, hazelnuts and dried nori all contain over 150 mg of calcium per 100 g (3½ oz) serve, compared with 118 mg in cow’s milk. And vitamin B12, which is mainly found in animal-derived foods and can be lacking in some vegetarian diets, can be obtained in small amounts from nutritional yeast, sea vegetables, fermented foods and some mushrooms; just to be sure, I take a daily plant-based organic vitamin B12 supplement from my local health food store.

Your own journey to raw – or to better eating in general – will be unique, but a good place to start is simply ensuring that each day you have at least one meal abundant in leafy greens and at least one whole piece of fruit. When you’re ready, try out the strategies below.

As you become more familiar with raw foods, you can begin creating so many amazing dishes and treats. You’ll find over 140 tasty and easy recipes in this book. Give them a go – I promise your body will thank you for it!

The gift of mindfulness

Since starting my yoga practice, my attitude towards how I consume food has completely changed.

In my previous job, I was lucky to grab something on the go in between appointments, catching taxis, catching planes and trying to get the most out of every work hour. This inevitably meant that every time I was feeding myself, I wasn’t paying much attention. Did I chew my food properly? Did I enjoy what I was eating? How did it make me feel? I wasn’t ever really sure, because I was trying to refuel as quickly as possible in between more ‘important’ things in my day.

My yoga practice opened my mind to the idea of being ‘present’ within every moment. Because food is such an intrinsic aspect of our lives, it makes so much sense that we should especially choose to be present when sitting down to a meal. This has so many benefits, from creating a more positive relationship with food, to becoming more mindful about how you are fuelling your body, to giving yourself adequate time to digest food properly and receiving the maximum benefits.

When I reflect on how my day went, it’s often the delicious and beautiful meals that I enjoyed the most. All the more reason, then, to slow down and pay attention while it’s happening.

When you are about to eat or drink, try the following:

This really doesn’t take long and you will quickly find yourself reaping the benefits of mindful eating. In our busy society, getting back to basics, practising gratitude and acting mindfully can really go a long way in cultivating the healthiest and happiest lifestyle possible.

The beauty of incorporating more raw foods into your lifestyle is that they are incredibly good for you, simple to prepare, kind to the environment and absolutely delicious. It encourages you to be creative, expands your knowledge of the best foods on the planet and allows you to heal yourself with vibrant, mouth-watering nourishment. The healthy glow and boundless energy are just bonuses.

I really believe that what we put into our bodies every day is part of our sadhana. I hope this book can help you to cultivate your own sadhana, and through that practice, rediscover your inherent wisdom, infinite potential and best possible health.

No one has all the answers and your path will never look exactly like mine or anyone else’s. Your own journey will be unique, with its own trials and tribulations. Your needs are different to mine and require an equally unique approach. The point is to learn as much as you can, while enjoying the ride. If you like what you’re doing, then it’s never going to be a chore or a hassle.

The good news is that living a healthy and happy lifestyle can be fun, rewarding, simple and delicious, all at the same time.

And it is totally within your reach.