Eating without Heating

Contents
Foreword
Notes From Sergei and Valya.
Part One: Savory Foods
Chapter 1: How We Make Our Food Tasty.
Chapter 2: Appetizers
Chapter 3: Salads
Chapter 4: Dressings
Chapter 5: Soups
Chapter 6: Entrees
Chapter 7: Fermented Foods
Chapter 8: Juices and Drinks
Chapter 9: Crackers and Breads
Part Two: Desserts
Chapter 10 Smoothies
Chapter 11: Cakes & Pies
Chapter 12: Candies
Chapter 13: Pudding
Chapter 14: Cookies
Chapter 15: Ice Cream
Part three: Travel Foods
Chapter: 16: Seasonings
Chapter 17: Quick Mixes
Chapter 18: Trail Mixes
Notes From Sergei and Valya

Sergei:

Dear children, adolescents, and adults,

I wish there were some way that I could get this message out to every single one of you. A message that would touch your lives and have you see that happiness is not sold in little baggies or a 40 oz. glass bottle. I wish that there were some way to show you, my own generation, that we can all be happy and free without drugs. I wish I could stop you from hurting your body and make you see how much you will regret it later in life. Most of all I wish that I could unite all of you and show you that every single one of you is beautiful and miraculous and that life would not be the same without you. Unfortunately, that is impossible, because the only way of teaching is actually not teaching at all! The only way I can get others to follow is by being a good example and sharing my story when asked. The words of even the wisest man are worth nothing if no one wants to hear them!

This is my story:

Before I ate raw food, I always wanted to be cool. I wore baggy pants with trendy names and had flashy skateboards and other toys, but for some reason I wasn’t cool. The harder I tried, the less cool I was. When I started eating raw food, I hid it from my peers because I thought I would be even more un-cool. Later on, however, I found out that in their eyes eating raw food actually made me pretty cool. In fact, I noticed that a person doesn’t even have to be way different to be cool. All one needs in order to be cool is sincerity.

Eating healthier made me more open. I stopped caring what people said and thought about me. I became more sincere and started speaking openly. People started noticing my sincerity and as a result I made new friends. When we are sincere, people gravitate toward us.

Are you or your children worried that by eating raw food you’ll lose some friends? You might lose some friends but I promise you, you’ll gain three times as many new, quality friends. If you are a raw fooder it is best if you didn’t seclude yourself from the rest of the world and only hang out with raw fooders. You don’t have to try to convert everybody to your “raw-legion.” In fact, it would be un-cool for you to say, “Stop eating that crap; that pizza’s going to kill you.” If you did that, you wouldn’t have any friends at all!

I like what Howard F. Lyman, the author of the best-selling book Mad Cowboy says, “Don’t tell people what you are doing unless they ask, and when they ask, you have thirty seconds to respond. That’s about how long their attention lasts. If they want to know more they will research on their own or ask more.”

Occasionally, people make fun of me for eating raw food, but they’re not usually too hard-core. They never say anything like, “You’re stupid.” They rather make fun of me gently, like, “Have some milk; oh, I forgot you can’t have that cause you’re crazy.” I just respond with, “Yeah, I am crazy, a crazy raw fooder that is! I only eat fruit,” When they hear how I start making fun of myself, they lose interest.

In Ashland, people know me as the fruit boy, I just laugh with them. I’m notafraid to make fun of myself! Because I am healthy and happy, and I don’t care what people think. It’s only thoughts.

Valya:

I know that I would not be the same person I am today without changing my diet. Before going on raw foods, I was failing every subject in third grade except art. I couldn’t read, so naturally I couldn’t write. Learning< geography was out of the question; I was quite happy in Denver Colorado.

History? Yeah, right. That would really come in handy. Who cares about a bunch of dead guys? I was under the impression that THEY were going to teach me without my having to do anything. I had a hard time concentrating and could not remember anything. Fact: to learn, one must have the ability to remember. My energy would bounce from so high that I would be racing through the house back and forth, to so low that I wouldn’t have the energy to change the channel on the remote control.

Before I went on raw food, I had asthma. Like many other sicknesses, asthma is considered incurable. I had trouble breathing at night and could not sleep. Whenever I ran, I felt like I was suffocating. My nose was always clogged, and I was pale no matter how much time I spent outside. My health was getting worse.

My favorite food were milk and cheese. (This could be the reason my asthma got so bad). I used to cut a two-inch thick slice of cheese, put it between some wonder bread, and eat it. Sometimes I’d eat the cheese without the bread. My family would go through two gallons of milk a day. My mother bought six gallons of milk at a time so that it would last for a while.

My father was capable of eating three chickens in one sitting. At the age of nine, Sergei could eat an extra-large pizza all by himself! As you can imagine, we were all overweight. The doctors discovered that Sergei had juvenile diabetes, my dad had hyper thyroid, and my mother had a bad heart condition.

Health, however, was far from being my biggest problem. I was unhappy. I tried to entertain myself with movies, restaurants, and theme parks, but pleasure could never fill my feeling empty inside. My life was slowly zipping by. Every day was just like the day before.
I would often wonder where all the time went. It seemed rather fast, like something was missing. I dreamed of adventure and doing exciting things, but it all seemed pretty hopeless. I was going to get held back in school.

As soon as I went on raw food, I switched to home schooling and started learning about the things I wanted to learn about. My grades started going way up. Learning became exciting for me. I learned by following my curiosity. I found that I was full of questions. It felt like a curtain had been lifted.  My brain was filled with a sharp clarity. I began to remember things so much more easily. My energy became balanced. I could sit down and study now. Reading became my favorite thing to do. I understood that I was the only one who could really teach me anything. I saw thousands of opportunities like doors in front of me and I became aware that I had to open them myself, no
one could do that for me. I stopped expecting to grow up some far off day and suddenly knew what I wanted to do with my life. I realized that I already was the person I was going to be the rest of my life. My life had already begun!

Before I went on raw food I had hard time breathing, especially in spring. When my first “raw” spring came I was suddenly aware I could
breath through my nose! Many of my friends had colds, runny noses, and allergies. I used to have all of those, and I had nothing! At that moment, I felt that all my suffering with food cravings was worth it. I realized that I wanted to eat raw foods for the rest of my life.

After I changed my diet, I never had another asthma attack. I lost some weight and started running in the mornings with my brother. I even got to the point where I could whistle while running! Raw food has changed my life.

It has made me a healthier person. When a person is healthy, it’s easier be happy. My life is definitely easier than it would have been if I had not changed my diet. I don’t ever need to worry about being sick with any of the thousands of diseases, viruses, or infections. I do not need braces, glasses, or Ritalin. I don’t have headaches, toothaches, earaches, colds, allergies, acne, parasites, ADD, (Attention Deficit Disorder) anorexia, or obesity.

Sometimes I feel guilty that I’m not sick because I have nothing to relate with other teenagers about. My friends like to talk about their symptoms and  I have nothing to say!

Last week I went to the dentist. He was so surprised. He told me that I had some of the best teeth he had ever seen in a teenager.

Sergei:

Back when I was nine years old, my sister and I would talk to each other about the day we turned eighteen. This day would be a special day because on this day, we would stop eating raw food. We would dream about what kind of food we would break the diet with. Corndogs, pizza, nachos, and crab were just some of the foods we were going to order on that magical day.

As the years went by this dream seemed less and less appetizing until one day when I forgot about thought altogether. I started noticing that food did not run my life as before. No longer did my whole existence revolve around it. Spending less time eating gave me more free time during the day. I began using this time for observing others and myself. I noticed how my mother, who worked sixteen-hour days, would have a huge pile of dishes waiting for her at the end of the day, or how my father, who some days did twelve massages in a row, would still have to wash the floor in the kitchen before he passed out. I observed how I felt when I just sat around watching TV
while my parents worked and I pretended like I didn’t notice.

I still remember the day I made up my mind to wash the dishes for my mom and the floor for my dad. It was the first time in my life that I didn’t try to get away with doing as little a possible. I turned on the radio to my favorite station, put on some gloves, and washed those dishes until I could see my reflection in them. The floors always seemed to me like a lot of hard and dirty work, but appeared to me surprisingly easy to do. The reward for me came when my parents, who were so used to washing the dishes and floor, came into the kitchen and found that everything was already done. It was like someone zapped them with a stun gun. It was such an incredible feeling that I decided to help them out more often.

It was after that day that I had my first major revelation: I, Sergei Boutenko, enjoyed helping people! I felt good inside every time I helped
someone, so I naturally started doing it more often. Once again, I learned how things in life are not always as they seem. When I avoided work and tried to get happiness from entertainment, I was unhappy. When I began working to help others, I was no longer as bored and became happy…