> You are right about not having to have food to socialize - but there are
> some situations where the greater, wiser, thing to do is to sit down
> with the people and eat for the most part, with them, like they are
> eating. You will find that it is smarter to take this perspective
> sometimes, both for your own good health and peace of mind, and also if
> your goal is to "win friends and influence people", particularly if you
> want to influence them in the area of their diet.

Liza, I feel my body really wouldn't benefit from any cooked food, at
least at this time, as I move through ever greater levels of
self-realization... Now, if I "had" to stuff some food down the gullet
in order to do some particular bit of socializing, I would ask them to
share in partaking of delicious raw foods...Maybe I would impose my will
on them...I would tell them to get those nasty cooked abominations the
heck out of my sight...:) I love raw foods. Cooked food tastes so
bland... I don't understand how I could have ever eaten the stuff... The
flavor is cooked right out of it...Maybe that's why so many ridiculous
condiments are so commonly and profusely slathered all over the stuff...
I just about orgasm (mentally at least) when I eat my romaine lettuce or
dates, etc... ;)

> And anyway, it's always better to have a flexible attitude towards your
> diet, rather than a rigid unbending one (like "ALWAYS RAW NO MATTER
> WHAT" or any other rigid dogma).

Believe me, I've been there... I was a cooked eater but now I ain't... I
used to be anything but rigid -- i.e. open up that can & pop it in the
microwave... Or - pick a fast food joint, any fast food joint... ;) I'm
now flexible within my 100% rawness. Before, I was flexible within my
100% cookedness (and S.A.D.-ness), and later I was flexible within my
mostly-raw-but-with-some-cooked-ness...(:

By the way, I don't eat 100% raw just for the sake of eating 100%
raw...That's not how I operate...There's a bigger brain operatin' here
than you seem to give me credit for... ;D

That dogma word sure seems to pop up a lot these days in raw-la land,
huh? :)

Tickled pink in (100%) "raw-la land" and non-dogmatically yours,

-- Wes