Ben Swets

About the Author

After all, Hitler was a vegetarian.  They say that to help us vegans stop feeling superior to meat eaters.  Was it anti-social of me to carry my premade sunflower swirl pate to a restaurant to spread on the restaurant lettuce and tomatoes? Was it rude of me to tell a prostrate camera operator with a back-ache on a movie set that his diet was his problem since I suspected he ate meat? 

One part of beginning a vegetarian diet includes scolding meat eaters. I was there.   Another part of changing my diet was to provide abundant alternatives for myself at all times.  My sunflower seed raw recipes helped me keep meat alternatives ready constantly. They are easy recipes.

One of my detached heroes was a vegetarian woman of 75 who said, she fed meat to her two children and husband. Within one year of moving out as adults, each child became a vegetarian.

Committing to never eat cooked food, even vegan cooked food, is still something I struggle with.  My vegan diet is easy for me to stick to.  If somebody hands me a cookie or a bowl of soup, I easily drop it if that I discover that it contains milk as an ingredient.  But as long as the cooked food is vegan, I often consume it with self-recrimination. I know cooked food incrementally decays my body. One day I shall pay a price with my hardening arteries or dissolving cartilage. I can more easily commit to a good habit when it protects others than when it only protects me. My writing of this raw food recipe book is part of what I need to do to keep myself surrounded by totally raw food, which I do love enough to feel completely satisfied by.

A vegan diet implies protection for all the species of the forest that vegans avoid plowing to graze cattle for human food.  Birds, foxes and fishes are all freer when we stop artificially inseminating cattle to feed humans with cattle by products. I weep for the destruction of ecosystems that human food habits imperil.

How much bad must I cause for my good to be seen and felt?  We drive cars that spit smog.  We spend money on merchandise and services that often support paradoxical wars or exploitation.  Although we are all part of some problem, we may be part of some solutions too.  Please enjoy my book and videos. I offer them to help heal. I am in wonder and gratitude for the variety that a raw vegan diet offers.