Just like you. :)

Photo by Neal Gillis

I’m a geek girl. Other terms I’ve associated with in the past include: nerd, freak, Software Engineer, and gamer.

I’ve got a thing for bad puns.

Okay, maybe not bad puns. But I like giggling over the choice of a word.

I like that this site can be read as Raw Food Switch and Raw Foods Witch. It tickles my geek fancy.

I’m also a book worm. Like woah.

I love reading. In 2008 I read 52 books. In 2009 I read 62. Who knows how much I’ll read in 2010. Honestly I’m trying to tone down the reading so I can relax a little… and be gentler on my overstimulated eyes.

In high school my two favorite classes were English and Computer Science. (Though Physics and Calculus rocked my knee-high socks too.)

In the end I picked a Computer Science related field for college, but the artsy literature part of me never went away.

I wrote geeky articles in college.

I’ve always had a thing for writing. From angst-driven teenage poetry to participating in NaNoWriMo in 2007.

One of my employers encouraged me to publish my poetry, but other than a few personal web sites I’ve keep a pretty tight lid on it.

I did muster up the courage to write a few geeky articles for my University’s MathNEWS publication. (If that isn’t geeky, I don’t know what is.)

One of them was even selected as best of issue, and I got some geek cred to add to my arsenal.

Me and some classmates during frosh week.

I cry because of Joss Whedon. A lot.

A lot of my life has been influenced by the writing and works of Joss Whedon. He’s the creator of shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, and Dollhouse.

I may have over-identified with some of his characters while growing up. Willow the witch comes to mind here. If she had been raw, I think this site would make even more sense.

Last night my geeky boyfriend Robin and I were watching an episode of Firefly. And I cried.

Part of me cried because of the brilliance of the show. The characters, the emotions, the story. But part of me cried because I feel there is so much left to explore.

And somehow that just reflected my life and what I see out in the world. It feels like there is such a huge potential, but somehow it’s not being expressed.

I guess that’s why we live for more than a few hours… so we can truly express our potential and make a difference in other people’s lives.

Or make them cry. Thanks, Joss Whedon.

If there was a point, this would be it.

I would like to make this site a place where other geeks can come and giggle together. Over bad puns, tricky intellectual problems, or health tips. Who can resist laughing about bowel movements, anyways?!

I think there’s so much for us to explore, so much potential in each of us. In you.

This place is safe for you. It’s a geek’s haven. There’s no dogma, no judgement, just an open sharing of information.

Other Geekgirls I Love

• E from Geeks Dream Girl started a salad revolution… it’s both geeky, brilliant, and healthy! Check out Salad Club on her site.
• Erin Blaskie is a fellow Canadian who keeps coming out with more astoundingly cheeky creative stuff. And she’s got the gaming thing down.
• Ali Hale from Aliventures wrote an article about her love for computers and writing. I felt inspired after reading it!
• Charlotte Bowen from Fictionnette is another geek girl who has a sense for writing and computers. She melds both in her business.
• Laura Roeder has got the classy geek girl thing going on, and she uses her powers for good to help entrepreneurs use technology for their business.
• Elizabeth Potts-Weinstein might not appear to be a geek girl on the surface, but I know she’s got the goods and she’s got the twitter street cred to prove it.
• Rachael Acklin who writes at Antithete is another Joss Whedon fan who has a way with words, and kicks some major design ass.

Share Your Favorite Geekgirls!

Know someone who seems to fit my description? Wanna share your favorite geek girl crushes?

I’d love to connect with more like minded people. If you’re a closet geek girl let me know in the comments or @ me on twitter too. :)

Welcome to the March, 2009 edition of the Raw Food Transition Carnival.

This is the very first edition of this ongoing carnival. If you’re new to blog carnivals, the concept is essentially like an online magazine composed of individual blog posts, and published monthly at a blog!

I really hope you will enjoy discovering new raw food blogs, and maybe reading one of the blog author’s favorite blog posts! I think we got some awesome resources here for people at all different stages in their raw food journey.

Going Raw

Raw Girl Too presents My Journey posted at Raw Girl too!.

Sabrina Susen presents Ego Getting In Way of Healing posted at Raw Foods and Stuff.

Debbie Took presents RawforLife Blog: Are some foods ‘better for us’ cooked? posted at RawforLife Blog.

Lenette Nakauchi presents How To Save More Time and Money on the Raw Food Diet posted at Go Raw Have Fun!.

Emma Deangela presents All You Need To Know About Lemonade Master Cleanse posted at Lemonade Master Cleanse.

Raw Psychology

Amanda Taylor-Snelson presents Commitment
posted at Raw Living Arts.

Pamela Reilly, Naturopath & Living Food Life Coach, CNHP, CPH presents Taming the Roaring Lion of Food Temptation posted at Rawvolutionary Healing, saying, “Information about what causes those nasty cravings with tips for successfully combating them.”

Tiffany Washko presents The Live Food Factor posted at Goddess of the Garden – A Raw Food Blog.

Raw Recipes

Susan Powers presents Raw Strawberry Banana Crepes! posted at Rawmazing, saying, “Love these on Sunday mornings!”

Mary@SimplyForties presents Eurasian Spring Roll Salad posted at SimplyForties.

Raw Vegan Foodie presents Vanilla Pudding posted at Raw Vegan Foodie.

John Duke presents Acai Berry – Common Questions Answered posted at Pure Acai – Acai Berry Info Blog, saying, “The acai berry is a small berry about the size of a grape.”

Participate In The Next Carnival

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of the Raw Food Transition Carnival using our
carnival submission form. The next carnival will be all about smoothies, so let’s get some awesome smoothie-related blog posts together!

Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Link To The Carnival

If you would like to link to the blog carnival, to get more people involved, just place one of these banners in your blog’s sidebar! Thanks, I really appreciate it. :)

<a href=”http://www.rawfoodswitch.com/raw-food-carnival/”><img src=”http://www.rawfoodswitch.com/wp-content/uploads/rawfoodblogcarnival-20090316-214751.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”Raw Food Blog Carnival” /></a>

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Copy the code shown above, and you will automatically link to the Raw Food Switch Transition Carnival page! Thank you, and I hope to read your articles at the next raw food blog carnival right here at Raw Food Switch.

Most of the time, these questions come out of a desire to understand how it’s possible to eat foods that are cold, when you’re craving something warm and comforting in the winter.

I put together this short video explaining what I believe happens when we eat raw foods in the dead of winter, or in a cold climate.

Benefits Of Eating Raw Food In The Winter

• Although this isn’t scientific, it’s just my intuitive feelings about eating fruits in the winter, but here goes. Eating foods that were grown in the sunshine is like absorbing the energy of the sun, in my opinion.
• A single orange has probably seen more sun in its lifetime than we would during an entire winter.
• Eating raw foods keeps your immune system in top shape, so you can more easily ward off colds and other infections that make the rounds in the winter. This happens because you’re not overloading your digestive system with tons of complex foods, and most fruits contain tons of vitamins & minerals to keep your body immune.
• Raw foods can be warmed, without loosing their nutritious properties. For example, you can warm a raw soup on the stove or in your dehydrator, and if you keep it below 118F, you can enjoy warm and comforting raw foods.

The Environmental Effects

Photo by Julie Falk

One of the arguments that I hear the most when it comes to eating raw foods in the winter, is that you cannot eat locally.

Although a lot of people come to raw foods with the intention of reducing their ecological footprint, we need to be realistic when it comes to what we eat in the winter.

To be perfectly honest, if you live in a very cold climate, there will not be a lot of local foods available to you during the winter.

One alternative is to eat vegetables that were grown in a greenhouse. Of course, it takes energy to keep a greenhouse going, but you might reduce the amount of traveling that the produce requires to get to your door.

Whether you’re eating raw or not, you’re still going to be buying food items that are not local. For example, that pasta to you bought probably did not come from your neighborhood, or even your country.

Most of the foods we buy are packaged and shipped from faraway locations. You also have to take into account the amount of packaging that each of these processed foods require. Fruits and vegetables also use packaging, so it’s not really a convincing argument either way.

Still, you have fruits and vegetables that may be shipped from warmer locations. Although we all agree that it would be better to eat locally, we need to realize that living in the North means that we have a limited supply of food. We aren’t all hunters, and we can’t just migrate south, even though it would make our life easier.

The bread, rice, and pasta that you buy will likely have been shipped from far away. We’ve found ways to survive in cold places by importing the food we need to survive. Many animals do not survive the winter due to lack of food.

Some of the best things you can do to reduce your ecological footprint, is to grow your own garden in the summer. By growing your own produce, you are essentially offsetting some of the damage that you may have caused by buying overseas in the winter.

Another way to eat raw foods in the winter, is to pick a lot of local berries and fruits in the summer, and to freeze them for the winter. That way, you can still enjoy lots of smoothies made with local berries.

Photo by Julie Falk

Tips For Eating Raw In The Winter

• Take your food out of the refrigerator ahead of time, so it can warm to room temperature.
• Freeze fruits and vegetables in the summer for use during the winter. You can then put these in smoothies or to make raw ice creams. (If you like to eat ice cream in the cold months, that is!)
• Warm raw soups in your dehydrator or on your stove, as long as it’s below 118F it’s still considered raw!
• Make dehydrated treats that remind you of your favorite winter time snacks, they will be warm and gooey when they come out of the dehydrator.
• If you find yourself eating more in the winter, simply up your exercise. We all want to just curl up on the couch, but it can be revitalizing to move your body instead.
• If being all raw is too hard or expensive in the winter, revert to raw until dinner, while choosing healthy cooked alternatives for your last meal of the day.