The Sense of Smell

The process of moving from The Other (junk food) to fruit has brought many wonderful and magical changes to all levels of my being.

One of the first things I noticed was that all my senses started to improve/heighten. In particular, my sense of smell has become extraordinary. This can be both a good and bad thing.

If I am in Nature, it is a great thing since I am able to really enjoy all the fantastic smells of the natural world. Yesterday, while out walking, I suddenly discerned an overwhelmingly sweet perfumy whiff that seemed to envelop me. It was so beautiful and powerful that I had to know what it was coming from. I looked around and saw only trees and lots of huge green "weeds" around 40 ft. away. I was able to follow the path of the smell and went directly to a lone flower cluster sitting atop one of the weeds (pictured above.) Up close, the scent was intoxicating. I smelled and smelled! But left the flower where it belongs and lives. I can go smell it any time I want!

Back when I was eating The Other and was half-asleep, dull, confused and clogged up, I probably wouldn't have noticed this heavenly smell. Yeah, I was missing out all around. I think most people are missing out by not having full access to their senses, their intelligence, and their feelings.

This heightened sensitivity to smell is super good for a frugivore human foraging for fruit in Nature. You would be able to locate orange trees and mango trees and to enjoy all the perfuming flowers like honeysuckle and ylang ylang and trees like the pine. You could love smelling oceans and waterfalls and rain. And all fruit trees smell delicious!

The downside of this improved sense of smell is smelling all the bad odors that humans have created: gasoline and car fumes, cooked decayed flesh of animals (oh, bless their hearts), plastic, chemical and industrial plants, and the smell of humans themselves. Yes, most people smell bad and try to cover it up with toothpaste, mouthwash, chewing gum, soap, shampoo, deodorant, and artificially-perfumed everything. What is causing this bad human odor? The worst offenders are meat (animal flesh), cheese, butter, onions, and garlic. And then all the other dead junk that just rots in your system.

Oops. Went a little crazy there ranting, folks.

If you are eating only fruit, you will smell like. . . . a piece of sweet fruit! You will feel sweet, too.

And, fortunately, there are still places on earth where it smells better than a city.

Daily Fruit + Play

Yesterday I ate:

9:00 . . . several glasses watermelon juice
11:00 . . couple glasses watermelon juice
2:00 . . . bit more watermelon juice
3:00 . . . few tomatoes + few pickling cucumbers
5:00 . . . more tomatoes + cukes
7:00 . . . ~3lbs. muscadine grapes

Play: barefoot walking/running ~ 4 miles, 1/2 hour New Secret Obsession, dancing, stretching

Those 3 lbs. of muscadine grapes amount to about 100 grapes. That means I got to sit there and eat 100 pieces of Nature's candy! They taste better than a Nehi soda.

Lovely, Mark Twain!

Many thanks to Mark Twain and the talented artist of this picture.

This is a gift bag I found in one of my favorite produce stores. It stands in my kitchen as a tribute to the melon I love most.

Daily Fruit + Play

Yesterday I ate:

9:00 . . . 1/4 watermelon
12:00 . . 1/4 watermelon
2:00 . . . 1/2 watermelon
6:00 . . . tomatoes and pickling cucumbers
8:00 . . . lots of watermelon juice

Play: barefoot walking/running ~4 miles, dance training, 1/2 hour New Secret Obsession (still excited), stretching

As the light changes, there is now a feeling of the upcoming season change. I'm thinking of how I must appreciate and enjoy the summer's bounty. This is a time of great joy for a fruitarian.

Monotony?

Sometimes people comment on the repetitive nature of my "meals."

"Don't you get tired of all those oranges?" or "Watermelon, AGAIN?" or "That's all you're gonna eat, cantaloupe?"

I know where they're coming from, because relative to the complicated meals we've been incorrectly taught to consume, it might appear boring to eat just grapes, or just watermelon, or just bananas.

But the truth is that if the fruit is of a good quality, I NEVER get tired of it!

Do people get tired of their coffee every morning? Or Diet Pepsi throughout the day? Does a chocoholic get tired of their chocolate? Do snackers get tired of their favorite chips? I used to work with a woman who ate the exact same three meals, day after day. And she loved it! I know some people who live mostly on coke and cigarettes.

If you look to Nature, you will see that most animals eat just one thing, or at least very simply. Horses and cows are perfectly content and nourished to eat just grass (if allowed to live naturally on their own), squirrels eat nuts, birds eat seeds and grains. The koala lives all its' life on just eucalyptus leaves.

So relative to other animals, humans as frugivores have a dazzling variety of food to eat. There are hundred of varieties of just apples throughout the world! There are lots of different types of cherries, mangoes, bananas, papayas, sapotes, durians, pineapples, melons, and on and on. There are amazing fruits you've never seen or heard of because they are unique to one region or must be eaten right off the tree or they'll go bad. Some fruits don't ship well.

To me, it shows how mixed up we are that anyone would think a meal of oranges is anything less than the amazing miracle that it is.

I feel like a princess or a glutton when I get to eat all I want of the sweetest watermelon, the creamiest bananas, the most sugary grapes. Thank you, Universe.

And no, I never get tired of it.

Daily Fruit + Play

Yesterday I ate:

9:00 . . . juice from 1/4 watermelon

11:00 . . juice from 1/2 watermelon

12:00 . . bit more watermelon juice

6:00 . . . lots of muscadine grapes (~2 lbs.)

7:00 . . . 2 cantaloupes + a few tomatoes

9:00 . . . bit of watermelon juice

Play: barefoot walking/running ~ 3 miles, 1/2 hour New Secret Obsession, yoga

Am still grateful for the sun and the heat. It can't be too hot for me. Everything I eat is cooling to the body.

Ponder This. . .

What if. . . . you spent all your time:

Improving yourself

or

Inspiring other people to improve themselves

or

Being inspired by other people/beings to improve yourself???

OK, I wrote this one for myself. Time to ponder now. . .

The Key

I have found, for myself, that The Key to maintaining the fruitarian lifestyle is to always have access to PLENTY of fruit that you love.

I just picked up all the fruit in the picture above at the Farmer's Market for under $30. That's a lot of food there. And just looking at it makes me feel rich. Why would I want anything else when I have all that? And I know it is all of the best quality: the sweetest watermelons, the tastiest tomatoes, the most sugary scuppernong grapes. (The purple muscadines are my faves. Already ate them.)

At any given time, I know where all the best fruit is in town. I put my thoughts and energy about food into that pursuit. And the Universe is always sending fruit my way.

In my future utopia, I will be picking all my fruit right off the tree/bush/vine. But for now, I am grateful for all this abundance.

Daily Fruit + Play

Yesterday I ate:

9:00 . . . ~quart fresh orange juice

12:00 . . . 5 bananas

2:00 . . . big handful of cherries

4:00 . . . 1 lb. muscadine grapes

5:00 . . . 1 lb. muscadine grapes

6:00 . . . some watermelon juice

7:00 . . . 3 lbs. tomatoes + 10 pickling cucumbers

9:00 . . . bit more watermelon juice

Play: barefoot walking/running ~ 4 miles, 1/2 hour New Secret Obsession, dance training, stretching

Oranges aren't really in season, so they're not at their best, but I had a hankerin' and they tasted delicious!

Farmer's Market

I've been to the farmer's market more this year than any other, even though it is on the other side of town. I'm usually there twice a week to load up and I have my favorite peeps. I know who has the best tomatoes, and who has the best watermelons. It is sweet to visit with the families who are there every single day, literally sharing the fruits of their labors. They are keeping me vibrantly alive!

For those of us living in the northern hemisphere, produce is really rockin' now. This is the time to visit farmer's markets in your town where the fruit is just-picked and abundant and cheap! It's a beautiful sight.

And while you are there, you can thank the growers for all they do. There will be smiles and love all around!

Daily Fruit + Play

Yesterday I ate:

9:00 . . . juice of 1/2 watermelon
11:00 . . juice of 1/4 watermelon
4:00 . . .1 lb. muscadine grapes (pictured above)
5:00 . . .1 lb. muscadine grapes
6:00 . . .2 cantaloupes + 3 lbs. tomatoes
8:00. . . more watermelon juice

Play: barefoot walking/running ~ 5 miles, 1/2 hour New Secret Obsession, dance training, stretching

Funny Conversation

I wish I had a dollar for every time I've had this conversation:

Other Person: Hey, you wanna get together for some pizza and beer?

Me: Well, that's not gonna work for me, since I don't eat pizza. Or drink beer.

OP: What?!? You don't eat pizza??? What do you eat?

Me: Fruit, just fruit. I eat fruit.

OP: (long silence) What do you mean you eat fruit? What else do you eat?

Me: I don't eat anything else. I just eat fruit. That's all I eat.

OP: (more silence) I never heard of that. Are you serious? Like what do you eat for dinner?

Me: Well, last night I had some mangoes and tomatoes for dinner.

OP: Ha! Tomatoes aren't a fruit.

Me: Actually, they are.

OP: (processing this new info) Do you eat vegetables?

Me: No, just fruit.

OP: Really.

Me: Yes, I know it's unusual, but I really do live on fruit. It's the correct food for humans.

OP: Do you eat mashed potatoes?

Me: No, just fruit.

OP: What about tofu? Do you eat tofu?

Me: No, no tofu. Just fruit.

OP: Hmm. Do you ever eat cheese?

Me: No, I definitely don't eat cheese.

OP: (determined now) What about peanuts? Thanksgiving dinner? Ice cream? Halloween candy?

Me: No, none of it. I used to eat that stuff, but it did not bring me health and happiness. Now I only eat fruit and I feel amazing.

OP: Wow. I could never do that. You're missin' out.


I have lots of patience because I had the VERY SAME REACTION when I first heard about it myself. What kind of nutty person would want to live on fruit???

: )

Daily Fruit + Play

Yesterday I ate:

10:00 . . .juice of 1/2 watermelon (pictured above)

1:00 . . . 1 lb. muscadine grapes

2:00 . . . 1 lb. muscadine grapes

4:00 . . . juice of 1/2 watermelon

6:00 . . . 1 cantaloupe + 3 pounds tomatoes + 6 pickling cukes

8:00 . . . more watermelon juice

Play: walking/running barefoot in Nature ~ 5 miles, 1/2 hour New Secret Obsession, lots of stretching

August and September are my favorite months because I get to eat DAILY 2 of my favorite fruits: watermelon and muscadine grapes. I am officially in heaven!

Salt Hurts

Salt, in all its' insidious forms, is a poison.

I didn't fully know this until I went for about 3 weeks of eating only fruit and then ate some lemon tahini salad dressing. Wow. I used to love that stuff, but this time it tasted TERRIBLE, like being knocked down by an ocean wave and having salt water go up your nose and gulping it down your throat and then trying hard to spit all this salty stuff out.

Plus, it hurt my lips and the inside of my mouth. And later, it hurt all the cells in my body which swelled up and it hurt my brain and my thoughts.

I've eaten plenty of salt in my lifetime, but I honestly didn't KNOW it was harmful. I'm sure there were phases when I even believed it was good or necessary. My circus coach had us taking salt pills in the summer, to replace the salt we lost through sweating. Yikes! And when you are eating it all the time, your body gets numb to its' harmful effects, like a smoker who can't feel how much it hurts to smoke.

So when I started giving up all salt and eating only fruit, I was amazed to find how harmful it really is. It's one thing to have someone tell you this, and quite another to experience it yourself. I fell out of the fruit tree MANY times, and each time it was to eat something salty, some sort of condiment, usually. It didn't take much of this cheating (on myself?!) to figure out that the human body reacts really badly to salt (and correctly so), with pain and nausea and dark thoughts.

I was shocked to discover that salt causes REALLY dark and weird thoughts. After my first little binge on salty stuff, I began thinking about how I wanted to hit people in the head with a shovel. What?!?! I'd never had such a thought before in my life. I felt an out-of-control kind of anger that was new.

Another time, I ate some soy "bacon" bits, another previous favorite, and they had an extreme effect. I became flushed and got some scary heart palpitations and started crying like a child having a tantrum. I felt like I had been poisoned and I had! That stuff is super salty and contains several different forms of salt, like MSG, the ultimate brain poison. That was 3 years ago, and the last time I put any of those in my mouth. I'm afraid of them now, thankfully.

Salt is such a toxic substance that your body will hold POUNDS of extra water just to dilute it and reduce the harm to your cells.

Some people have committed suicide by ingesting large doses of salt.

So what are you doing if you are ingesting small doses of salt???