Another Interview with a Fruitarian - See also: Sun~Roses Blog, Sun~Roses Website & Sun~Roses Book
Hi Sun~Rose,
Thanks for taking the time to answer some questions!
Could you please start off by telling us a little about yourself, how old you are, where you are living/grew up?
Sure. I’m a grandmother, and live in New York, on Long Island, in the same town in which I grew up. I feel better than I did at fifteen, or thirty. I run, swim, ice skate, rollerblade …
I believe you've recently published a book right? - Could you tell us a little about it?
Yes, a year ago December. It’s called: A RADIANT LIFE: Raw Food and the Presence of Love. While it is definitely a raw vegan food book, its emphasis is a bit different from most of the other books on being raw.
I’ve found that the most wonderful benefit of the experience is what it does for your mind, and of course, when your mind is peaceful and joyous, the body follows along like an obediet puppy on a leash. While I have been hearing Divine Guidance since I was a child – and the Guidance became much more frequent and steady once my daughter slipped into autism after infant vaccinations (and this is almost 40 years ago!), once He told me to begin fasting, and then, later, to become vegan, the Guidance lifted to a new place.
To be hearing this Voice for Love Guiding Us is a wonderful thing.
So what's your view on a 100% fruit diet?
From my own experience – as well as my Guide’s constant encouragement to do it – I think it is wonderful. The lighter we eat, the happier and clearer our minds become. With this frame of mind, I’ve found it is easier to ride whatever storms might come. Like Babe Ruth:
to look at every ball as if it had ‘home run’ written on it.
How long have you known about fruitarianism, and how did you hear of it?
Oh gosh, maybe thirty-five years ago, reading Dick Gregory’s great book, and Viktoras’ Love Your Body and Survival into the 21st Century, and of coure, Arnold Ehret, and Morris Krok.
Do you know many (or any!) others eating just fruit?
No! - Only you all on this website, and Rejean Durette, whose book you have. Personally, no.
What has your diet been like while growing up?
Awful. Lots of meat, often three times a day. White bread. Meat and baked potatoes. At least no canned vegetables, but canned fruit. So much dairy. Always sick, and with a chronic, from childhood sinus condition. The best thing was fresh-squeezed orange juice whenever we were at a hotel on vacation.
Can you tell us a little about your health when you were eating that way, and how it has changed since moving toward an all fruit diet?
Always sick, and with a chronic, from childhood, sinus condition.
What do your parents think of you going fruitarian?
My dear parents are gone. My mother did become vegetarian to heal her arthritis. And in the decade from 80-90 she was never sick.
What about the rest of your family? partner/children?
When I had my in-a-moment switch to become vegan, my husband became vegetarian and the children vegan. My stepkids ate vegetarian whenever they were with us.
Also I cared for my mother-in-law after she had a massive heart attack and a stroke. I put her on a raw vegan diet. She wasn’t thrilled, but she got so much better, and developed a sense of humour!
My husband apparently went back to eating terribly with his third wife, and suffered massive heart problems in his fifties, dying at about 60.
Are you at all into supplements - Stuff like vitamin pills, spirulina or similar?
From the moment of becoming vegan, I just stopped all vitamins, including the 4000 Units of vitamin C I was taking every day, just to be able to breathe through my nose. After the second day of being vegan, I noticed that I was breathing just fine, and had forgotten all about the vitamins.
About five years ago, after a long ordeal my daughter and I went through, I started to take some natural vitamin C powder occasionally. Lately I've made some by drying organic orange peels and grinding it up. We use it rarely, although it is a good chelator for metals.
So you are not at all concerned about not getting enough calcium/protein/B12/whatevers??
No! I’ve been vegan for 34 years, no dairy! I never worry about that stuff. Also from a dog bite, and then about 5 years later a freak accident, I had broken bones. The first time was ankle and foot bones, and I was back to work as a gardener in 3 days, although still in pain; two and a half weeks later I was rototilling up sod with no problem. Have you ever rototilled? It’s hard work, and I’m small. So it was a great healing, even the scars and little bumps on the bones where they healed are gone. No medical treatment at all. All prayer. I didn’t even wash the foot till the third day. No infection.
The second time I broke one side of my face: jaw, nose, cheekbone, eye socket, eye damage. The healing – also with no medical care at all – took a little longer because I had to overcome the fear of being disfigured. Everything healed beautifully though.
As far as B12, I don’t even think about it. There’s a chapter in our book sparked by other people’s concerns. I have a phenomenal memory.
Do you or have you suffered at all from cravings, or have you ever binge eaten?
Avocados were what I’ve always craved, until about two weeks ago. Never junk or meat or dairy, nothing like that. Oh, and seaweed: laver and wakame. And fresh spinach. I think the wakame craving is because it pulls heavy metals, and Sarah and I had a bad pesticide (heavy metals) exposure years ago, that sent her back into autism.
How do/did you deal with such times?
Either give in, or don’t! Depends.
Give us a brief run down of what you might eat on a typical day?
Lots of fresh orange juice. Avocados, tomatoes, seaweed, sometimes sprouts.
Whatever fruits are in season; lots of mangos in the summer, fresh dates in the fall. Salads. I’m starting an orange juice fast tonight.
And for how log have you been eating this way?
Lots of years.
Do you have a good variety of fruit for you to choose from where you live now?
Not like Australia or the tropics! We have some wonderful stores on Long Island though, with organic fruit.
Do you normally tell people how you eat?
Sure, all the time. And Sarah, my daughter, is constantly proselytizing, converting people!
What do you think is the most common question people ask you about your diet?
Well I used to hear the calcium question all the time. No longer though.
And then there’s the “Where do you get your protein?” I’ve always said that I don’t think protein, per se, is important at all, and that I almost never even eat vegan sources of it like nuts. So-called protein foods give me a stuffed nose!
Do you have a favourite fruit?
Durian! What else. And I love orange juice, tangelos, Haitian mangoes, sticky dates, figs, and up until a short fast of a week, a couple of weeks ago, I was addicted to Hass avocados Suddenly I don’t want them at all any more. ???
Can you recall the first time you tried a durian?
Oh yeah, the first durian. I can even give you the date: it was June 5, 2001, parked near the World Trade Center. My God-granddaughter was taking the Children’s Forum, and we picked one up on our way downtown through Chinatown. I couldn’t believe how I loved the smell and the taste!
Where and how do you see yourself living and eating in 10 years from now?
Pure fruitarian, or just juice. We’d really like to live someplace warm where we could grow fruit all year round.
How do you feel if people tell you that you must be crazy, and that you can't possibly survive eating the way you do??
I laugh and remind them that I’ve been doing this for 34 years – vegan, raw a lot of the time, a lot of fasting. When people hear that I fasted for 400 days, that usually boggles them enough so that the comments stop. And everyone notices my boundless energy and good humour and patience, despite a very trying life for the past 40 years!
Wow! 400 days..! That must have been some fast! Do you mind telling us a little more about that? When you say fast, do you mean a "fast" fast, with nothing at all, but water,or do you mean more of what is sometimes called a juice cure, or juice f(e)ast?
That one, juice! Otherwise, I guess I'd be breatharian.
What made you do that?
Well, Sarah (My daughter) developed autism early on from vaccinations. This was almost 40 years ago when We didn't know anything. With a lot of Listening to Guidance and work, She got well. At around 20, after a pesticide exposure, She went back into autism, especially after My mother -- Her grandmother with Whom She was very close -- died from it.
It was very difficult, and when I asked for Guidance on what to do, what I heard was (from the Bible): "This kind comes out only by prayer and fasting." -- and the direction to fast until She got better! So I did. And tremendous improvement came a year to the day that I had started.
Do you mean that just you alone were on the juice, or that Sarah was doing it with you?
Just I. I made her enormous meals. And fasting and prayer together make it very interesting. When I had first begun to fast, years before, I had a minimum of three other family members for whom to prepare food. On the weekends, that went up to seven or eight. It was never a problem. I'd just call one of the kids to taste things for me. And I was never tempted. The fast itself becomes such a beautiful experience. And so it was with this one. You might wonder how it helps another person?
This is how my Guide explained it to me. When one is fasting, there is a lightness that comes; first the body, then the mind, with many experiences of illumination. For those for whom the fast is offered, the experience is like someone resolutely wanting to stay asleep in darkness. They resist sound, often bringing the noise into their dream, and staying asleep. Then someone comes and pulls back the drapes, and the light pours in. They start to stir!
Can you tell us what kind of things you were juicing, and how often you were drinking juices?
During the season of summer, usually honeydew melon juice. When they were out of season, the base was usually a carrot-orange juice mix with other vegetables, and always hot pepper and garlic. Usually about 50 lbs of carrots a week. Although the little fruit market close didn't have organic carrots (which I would always use now), it was the only store close enough, and they'd give me great deals, sometimes as little a $5 for 50 lbs! It was quite delicious. During this fasting time -- and later fasting on this juice -- I was caring for the small children of Friends. They always had Their little faces in My juice wanting it! The oldest, Charis, is 19 now, and She asked Me recently for the recipe. And she's become vegan. I'd just like to add that these kids ate mostly fruit and seaweed, and raw corn salad and were so conscious! At 2 1/2 Charis could read about 60 words and write and spell 12 words by 3. Two of Them, independently, when each was about 4, about 3 years apart, when They first heard the song "
It's in Everyone of Us" said "What's that song?" Grabbed the tape player, and played the song over and over again. If You look up the words, You'll see why I found this so interesting. On this kind of diet, the children -- Who didn't watch tv at Our home, as We don't have one -- were on this wonderful ... wavelength, for lack of another word to describe it.
What changes did you notice after the year past?
A major healing for Sarah. It was wonderful.
At that point, I was actually quite hungry -- had been for a few months -- and so was Listening for Direction again, and about a month later heard to stop for now, and I would be directed. So I did.
Why exactly 400 days?
It was years later that it occurred to Me to wonder how many days, so I counted them, and it was 400.
There's so much I could say about this fast, and the incredible Peace and Grace I experienced, despite the extreme difficulty of the situation.
You mentioned also, that 6 weeks after that 400 days, you started on juices again for 6 days a week, can you tell us how and why you chose to do that, and how long you continued that for?
Shortly after I'd stopped -- and was waiting for direction, this green sheet of paper called Realities came in the mail. They were facts from John Robbins book:
Diet for a New American. One of the facts was that 40,000 Children a day were starving to death. I remember just sitting there, stunned -- and getting the strong feeling from My Guide that I could "not go on 'business as usual' " after reading that.
I asked what I should do, and He told Me to think about what the cause of famine was/is, and to ask Others. So I did, and all the answers: greed, money, economy etc. all came down to one thing: selfishness. So then He told Me: Be the Correction by being unselfish. When I asked how? He suggested that I fast 6 days a week, so as to not get as hungry, and to invite others to give up a favorite thing as an ongoing act of unselfishness. So I did. I fasted like that for 2 1/2 years, then spent a year eating just fruit, another one only eating one salad in the evening; 14 months on an extended Ramadan fast. I had begun some years before -- again from My Guide -- as a prayer for Peace in the Middle East -- to fast for Ramadan.
Then We had some very major stress and I stopped the constant fasting (not for health reasons at all). And My Guide constantly encourages Me to go back to it.
In case I haven't explained the Principle clearly enough, let Me Listen. In a world where ego and selfishness reign, the very act of unselfishness begins to leaven the density of the 'me' mentality. New possibilities occur to consciousness. Just as kindness also permeates the darkness. Minds are opened.
Finally, is there anything you'd like to add as words of encouragement to those that are aspiring toward fruitarianism?
Go for it! When we allow our minds to shift, and change, then it becomes easy. There’s also a game I like to suggest that helps with cravings too, and that’s called redoing the past. That’s in the book too. Just rewrite the past. Who needs an unhealthy – or an unhappy – childhood!
It’s really fun. And in the rewriting, let your new wonderful parents raise you as vegan or fruitarian. This way, when you’re upset, or stressed, you reach for an apple because you were always rewarded with an apple for good things.
A new past is a thing of beauty. And quantum physics tell us that ‘time’ can go in any direction. I once had a wonderful experience of that understanding that brought back a friend’s missing wedding ring: the idea that if you change your mind in the present, the past has to shift to accommodate the new present. Her ring had been lost15 months previously, 200 miles away. It was returned to her right in Port Washington within 4 days.
It’s really all in the use to which we put our minds.
And a hug to You Mango for the wonderful websites, and for being Who You Are!
Thanks Sun~Rose!
hug,
Mango.
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I'm 39 years young, will be 40 in October. I'm originally from Houston, Texas. I now live in Idaho Falls Idaho. I moved here in 1979 from Texas, well because thats where my dad moved us and I've been here ever since. 
first practicing fruitarian was my ex husband whom come with me to australia. he became fruitarian the same time as me only for different reasons than me: i was feeding him, he loved fruit, and to save as much money as possible /my idea/ for the first 6 months we lived on the cheapest fruit that was available, mostly bananas, oranges, melons. we saved money on electricity: no cooking no fridge. He, as I, was a small eater and didn't fuss much about food. He would eat anything what was given to him. i never really discussed my reasons why i decided to live on fruit only. true he was at times binging cooking for himself /i refused to cook/kill spaghetti with tomato sauce and at times he would get pizza.alcohol. i noticed it made him depressed and alcohol aggressive. but there were months and months when he would eat only raw fresh fruit. traveling living very simply. walking swimming a lot...we never spoke about it. He was bit introverted, but i very soon noticed he looked very very healthy compared to others and he was happy and an easy person to be around. he went back to eating vegetarian cooked food and alcohol soon after we separated. 
