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