Hi Kirt and JL,

I get out of work-related pressures (eating in the cafeteria
or on business trips) by explaining that I tend to be
hypoglycemic, hence I eat frequent small meals that have
balanced protein/carbs/fat. This is not a lie, and I find
that staying within the zone helps me. This excuse allows
me to sneak out of meetings/etc every 3-4 hours to eat
one of my mini-meals. This also allows me to join meetings
in the cafeteria or in restaurants without ordering a
complete meal (I nurse a glass of water, or get something
from the salad bar.) Most of my colleagues are engineers
and are fascinated by the zone theory. I try not to go
into the raw aspect. If I do, I don't push the RAF aspect.
Though I suspect that being engineers, they would be
really receptive to the reasons.

Socially I'm a bit of a pariah, since my wife refuses
to mingle with my Martial Arts and Yoga friends. And
my wife's friends and our relatives think I'm really weird.
I avoid sticky situations by telling our hosts ahead of time
that  I'm currently experimenting with eating only fruit
for health reasons. This is easiest on the host,
and the health overtone seems to smooth things somewhat.

I managed to get some of our close friends enthusiastic
about the Raw Living Foods restaurant in SF. So we
have a place that we all like. The others are
still cooked, but they like the restaurant enough
to get recipes from me. A couple of friends made an
effort to prepare raw meals and invite us. (Tried
out the coleslaw with magnificient mayo from the
"vibrant living foods" book, and the Juliano's
"fat tomato soup".)

The reason I hide the RAF aspect is two fold: the
minor reason is that I'm worried about the wierdness
aspect. But the major reason is that I fear I'm
really confusing my friends and colleagues. Just
when I convinced them about the health benefits
of veganism, I go off and do something radically
different. I feel guilty because I think I had
an impact on their diets and their outlooks on
life. Now this :-)

Regards,

Roy