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We run colder. Those of us who have increased the amount of raw food in our diets will attest: it's harder to stay warm in the winter months when eating cold food. How are we going to keep from shivering away the wintertime while maintaining our healthy diets? How are we going to stick to our health ideals and not pack on that “seasonal ten”? Eight years as a raw vegan, touring through Denver's blizzards, housing in Chicago's ice storms and even just getting damp in Los Angeles's rainy season, has offered me many chances to consider this question: How does a raw vegan—who wants to stay a raw vegan—stay warm in winter?

I'm no scientist, but I'm a smart cookie. And I figure if the body really does run colder when eating high percentages of raw food, it’s because when eating a cooked meal, the body responds by increasing white blood-cell production and blood flow to deliver those white blood cells to the "area of infection," which in this case is the digestive system. Yes, the body sees cooked food as an illness to be fought off; there is no increase in white blood-cell count when consuming raw foods.

Or maybe the body temperature increases as it does naturally when digesting, except as cooked foods take so long to digest, the increase in body temperature is long-lived and so seen as part of the basal average.

Or maybe the temperature of hot foods actually does raise the temperature of the whole body. Combine all three possibilities and you've got cooked-animal-product eaters experiencing potentially warmer base temperatures than raw vegans.

My perspective is that it is natural to feel how I feel when eating my raw vegan foods—no matter what the temperature. I'm not sure I want to factor in white blood-cell production, increased blood flow, extended digestion times and food heat into my normal average. So I encourage raw fooders to first see their current "colder" state as natural, stop judging it, stop resisting it and, instead, celebrate it. You did it! You are running cooler. Good job!

But in actuality, my basal body temperature has changed not one iota since transitioning from cooked vegan to raw vegan. I personally have zero proof that I am actually running colder than before. Maybe I just feel that way. Maybe it is emotional perspective that has got us plastic-wrapping our drafty windows and cranking up our furnaces. Could it be that we were raised to seek comfort food when in emotional stress and that comfort food in winter was often hot soup, hot oatmeal and a huge cooked meal? Maybe I was trained to value the feeling of hot cocoa as familial and so when I want to feel the love of family now, I automatically go for a hot cup of cocoa.

That being said, what's so wrong with a hot cup of tea? For me, so long as it's a clean herbal tea, without refined sugars, flavorings or colorings, I'm all in! Not just sipping, but even holding my favorite mug of tea warms my hands and insides, and is quite accessible—whether I’m traveling, at work or at home. Try making that tea out of an irritant herb, like ginger or cayenne, and you'll really get the insides fired up, if that's what you are going for. And if you have any seasonal mucus, well, those irritants will help move them towards the surface while you’re sipping away.

Joanna Steven and I have just published an entire eBook on this subject, The Winter Warming Diet, with additional perspectives and ideas I've personally utilized to keep warm over the years, including how to eat as local as possible when the tomato plants are under ice, how to acclimate to Jack Frost nipping at your nose and, of course, my actual dietary menus (with nutritional analysis) revealing how a real raw vegan's diet naturally alters according to the season. But for the most part, I think perspective is key and this quote from Winter Warming says it best:

"I definitely run at a colder temperature now that I don't put heated foods into my system. And let me tell you, the first few winters of my raw-vegan experience were jarringly chilly! I drank ginger tea, I took extra hot baths, I wore winter socks, ate more fats, put on more fat and still felt the Jack Frost shiver all the time. And worst of all, I resisted. It is true that resistance is the source of all pain. I mean, there's the cold, then there's resisting the cold. When I finally got it into my head that this "chill" was a feeling, not a disease, I surrendered, allowed myself to finally really feel what I was experiencing and… nobody died. Cold is just a feeling."

Cold is a feeling, not a disease. Choosing to increase your intake of raw produce is a choice to get in touch with your body and develop its sensitivity. I no longer wish to suppress the signals and feelings my body gives me. When I feel cold, I now celebrate that as another authentic feeling I get to experience. My feelings are sacred. Cold included.

[Sign up to be notified each time Tonya publishes a new Clean and Green Everyday blog entry on EcoHearth. Also, see a complete list of writing by Tonya Kay on EcoHearth.com or visit her Clean and Green Everyday blog. – Ed.]

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