Sudden Health Freak

I had a 2-3 year period of hardcore veganism, but gave it up in recent
years in lieu of the "Boulder online journalist diet", which means
coffee, spaghetti, eggs, and Red Bull, and nothing else. But today, out
of combination of vanity, fear of death, and Google, I've turned into a
raw food vegan nazi once again. At least for today. Whereas usually I
pile pasta and sausage on a plate and wash it down with beer, tonight
I'm health-bombing my frail half-Italian body with a salad made in
yuppie Whole Foods heaven, which includes:

-lemon
-fresh pressed garlic
-arugula
-daikon radish
-clover sprouts
-pumpkin seeds
-flax seed oil
-avocado
-Dulse seaweed flakes
-green apple

This obnoxiously healthy/expensive combination may seem foul-tasting,
but it's actually pretty good and (for once) light! And the main
course? Quinoa, protein-heavy king of all grains, cooked in clarified
butter. It might be healthy, but I can only afford to eat this well
once a month, if that.

There is something joyful about eating living foods. Bright greens,
yellows, whites, all of it filled with water, plants plants plants. But
for such a diet to "stick", it seems it must run concurrently with a
philosophical re-orientation. For me, pounding 'Bulls and slurping down
semolina is a function of my high-paced, high-stress lifestyle, which
values productivity and communicative efficiency over everything else.
With an overflowing inbox, a task list that just won't go away, and a
hyperactive imagination inventing entire new career plans in a matter
of days (see previous posts), there's hardly an extra minute left over
to slice some pears and steam a carrot or two. To eat healthy, while it
is deeply invested in a future state of being where one is still
healthy or even healthier, is also paradoxically firmly grounded in The
Moment. If you're doing it right, eating is no longer a chore, but a
knife-wielding adventure, a daring act of combinatory food preparation,
with new astringent tastes, bitter smells, and exotic oils dripping all
over your finely-tuned body.

And this notion that raw veganism is for pussies is pure BS. Have you
ever tried to eat nothing but kale leaves, raw garlic, and brazil nuts
all day long? Do you have the balls to skip TV for an hour in order to
juice 2 yams, a bunch of spinach, a lemon, and sixteen kumquats? This
ain't yo' little sister's garden burgers and soy milk lattes: raw
veganism is for men. Seriously, raw veganism is to vegetarianism what
the meat lover's pizza is to carnivores: an extreme overdose of
typically boring, tasteless food. Eat nine pounds of seaweed and tell
me i'm wrong.