One thing I used to find, living on a raw food diet, was an increasing difficulty to relate to others... When one has all the facts in front of oneself, raw food-ism just makes so much sense, but when one moves against the maddening crowd, every step is difficult. At times it seemed it would be just so much easier to let go, and flow with the current, but the more we are aware, the more we realise we must struggle on, and the more opposition we encounter.

I'd been trying to live raw for 2½ years, becoming ever more consistent, living mostly on just organic fruit, and once a week or so, the occasional plate of bean sprouts, lettuce leaves and carrot from the garden. I rarely ate after 17:00, and frequently skipped breakfast too, (which was normally just oranges), but still I was forever aware how much mucus my body was storing. I often woke up with the one or both nostrels blocked, and the many attempts at fasting ended normally during day 2, or 3, as I just felt so rotten and sick, and am not good for anything when I'm like that. Mood affected as much as anything.

I knew that food was the cause of my feeling down in the dumps, but not the diet I was then on, rather all the other junk I had been eating for over 30 years, but the people I lived with did not at all share the same conviction, and blamed my one sided diet for my woes...

Anyhow, I do recall, that sometime in March of that year (1995), I decided to just eat pineapple for a few days. We had an abundance in store, of the ripest juiciest sweetest pineapples.. Anyhow, roughly days into my pineapple cure, I was in the middle of a marathon nose blowing session, when suddenly out popped this 2cm long, ½cm wide piece of fatty flesh. I know it sounds disgusting, but I examined it, and realised that it must have actually been attached and growing in their someplace.

Parts of it looked a very unhealthy white colour, which I immediatly (quite possibly falsely) diagnosed, in my lay doctor capacity, as cancerous. Anyhow, for about 30 seconds after that, my left nostril just felt so so clear. More so than I ever recall it being before. But the feeling lasted only for about 30 seconds, and further blows to clear the new blockage, revealed masses of mucus mixed with a little blood. Now, I've no idea what was happening in there, and there was a little frightened voice in me that piped out "Oh shoot! Mango, you're blowing bits of your brain out..", but I tried to remain calm, and reasoned that if it was all there, and loose like this, then it was better out than in.. so continued.. Anyhow, this blockage/clearance pattern continued for about 2 days, on and off, and as it only really made me feel lighter and well, I decided to discard fear completely.

I guess it all reached its peak, when I woke one morning with a bad throat, and chesty cold. Personally I looked at all these events as positive, as I had faith that my body was doing it's best to rid itself of years accumulation of poisons, but it was not at all helping my blatant raw food stance. Everyone else there was in seemingly good health, on there cooked grains and potatoes diet, and any faith they may have had in raw foodism when I first talked with them (I biked down here from Norway, and arrived in seemingly excellent health), had disappeared completely.

I really looked forward to that time of "perfect health" that raw food writers rant and rave about so much... and well.. what do you know.. here I am.. 2004, and it was all well worth it.. Still got some cleaning to do.. maybe I should eat another pineapple..