Yesterday I began my five day regimen of raw food from Karyn’s Raw in Chicago. I met the woman/owner of the restaurant/market during a great intersession class at ID taught by Bill Hill from MetaDesign. He took us there for a special lunch to experience raw food as part of our course on understanding and designing “wellbeing.” Karyn was certainly passionate and an interesting character… and probably the hottest 61 year old woman I’ve ever seen. But, I think her beliefs are a bit too extreme for me. She told me the two worst things I could possibly consume are caffeine and dairy… which are pretty much my two favorite things (espresso and cheese). She didn’t have many nice things to say about chocolate either.

Anyway, the visit during class was eye-opening and intriguing. Everyone in the class reported feeling better and more energized after just that one meal. No one felt tired or sleepy like one often does after eating.

So, finally, a few weeks later, I decided to try the Karyn’s At Home service. It’s five days worth of food (three meals a day plus a snack each day) for $175. Not terribly expensive.

Yesterday’s selections were pretty decent. Breakfast was a green smoothie drink, contents of which I don’t really know. It was pretty tasty though. Lunch consisted of a tamale type thing, corn soup, and I ate some of the “bread sticks” which I think were meant for dinner. Dinner was “fettucini” (julienned zucchini) with a tahini sauce, the rest of the bread sticks, and a tasty carob cake for dessert. I ate my snack (grapefruit with some unknown stuff in it) a couple hours later.

Today, day two, however has been rough. Breakfast was okay (”oatmeal” with raisins in it). Lunch and dinner were pretty disgusting, I must say. Overspiced, oversaucy purees, which made me feel like I was eating baby food. The “white bread” was decent and at least had a nice, adult texture. The saving grace was the dessert (once again, sweets win) which was some kind of coconut cake.

Anyway, I drank a cup of coffee today, which was nice. Yesterday I didn’t make espresso at home and ended up with caffeine withdrawal headaches by the evening. I’m certain I’ll lose weight this week, since the discipline to eat only what’s been individually packaged for you for every meal is easy. For a lot of this stuff, even though it’s not a lot of food, the unpleasant taste makes me not even want to finish.

We’ll see what benefits, if any, I might feel from the diet. I certainly don’t find it enjoyable (I would consider myself a bit of an epicurean or sensualist). My GI tract isn’t too happy. And, I have no idea how anyone gets enough protein eating this stuff.

I’m not convinced.