Cooked food and the hungry gap…

After some feedback and discussion, I have now removed the section from the information sheet/Terms and Conditions that asks people not to talk about their consumption of cooked food at the festival. Perhaps the way I wrote it sounded a little militant, and I didn’t mean it to come across that way. If it did then I am very sorry.

That said, I would just like to say something about why it was there in the first place.

I personally have had the experience of having to ask someone not to talk loudly and enthusiastically at the dinner table about how much she loved certain kinds of cooked foods. I spoke to her after the event, as politely as I could, to try to explain what I am about to try to explain here.

People come to fruit festivals to eat raw food. For some of them it is their first time. They may be dealing with withdrawal symptoms or cravings, and they may be thinking how much they would really love a pizza and a cup of coffee, but what they really don’t need in that situation is someone else telling them how great pizza and coffee are! What they do need is sympathy and support to get through what can be a very challenging first step on the raw road.

For other people, they have been eating raw for a long time. Maybe they have really struggled to eat raw in their home environments. They may have encountered opposition from friends, family and work colleagues (can you tell I’m talking from experience here!?!). Coming away to spend a week surrounded by people who are 100% supportive of their choices is really, really precious.

For all of us, wherever we are in our journey, eating raw is a lot easier when you simply can’t see, smell or hear about cooked food, and that is why we have agreed to keep the Welsh Fruit Festival a 100% raw event. Even that one little concessionary bowl of brown rice at the back of the buffet table keeps that psychological back door open. It really is better just to close it completely (even if only for a week in August!).

I say this as someone who still hasn’t quite closed it in my own life. This year the only cooked food I have had so far is a little bit of miso soup. I might release this last little thing I am clinging onto when the weather improves, but then again, I might not. What I do know is that when fruit festivals are held in campsites surrounded by other people’s barbecues, that really isn’t helpful at all. The fact that we could have the whole Trigonos site to ourselves was a really important factor in choosing them as the venue.

So, you are of course entirely free to talk about cooked food at the festival. You are actively encouraged to seek support with any issues you may have around withdrawal, cravings, or the releasing of psychological attachments. We have all been there. Just please do so in a way that is mindful and sensitive to the other people around you who may be having their own struggles.

And finally, we are here to teach people about the health benefits of low fat/fruit-based raw food. I didn’t have the miso soup because I thought it was healthy: I had it because I am an imperfect person and it was freezing cold and I like it. I understand that in real life some people choose to make health compromises. we choose ‘good enough’ rather than ‘perfect’ because sometimes life is tough and other factors come into play, but I will gently challenge anyone who claims that cooked food is healthy. Just for the record, although I talk about high raw and will defend our right to each make our own choices to the death, I also believe in informed consent. We all have the right to make unwise choices, but we also have the right to be told the truth.

There is no situation in which blasting our food with heat increases its nutrient content. Period. So if there are speakers or other people in attendance who are busy telling people that there is, I will probably be trying to engage them in some conversation around that! To be clear, heating food may have benefits in terms of breaking down toxins or destroying harmful bacteria, but these benefits come at a price. We pay for our food safety with nutrient-dollars.

And yes, heating food allows us to store it for longer, and in past times in cold climates that has helped us to survive the ‘hungry gap’. The hungry gap is the two or three months we are in now, when the stores have mostly run out, the ground is frozen, and spring has not yet sprung. We are fortunate not to have to survive on bread and jam and tins of spam any more in January and February. Let’s recognise our incredible privilege in the modern world, and extend the hand of gratitude to all those wonderful people around us who make it possible for us to continue to eat fruit year-round. Long may it last x