Eva Lovisa Nelson: Fruitarianism

Our resident web designer Eva Lovisa Nelson discusses personal health and the little-known practice of Fruitarianism. Fascinating!
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Eva Lovisa Nelson

Fruitarian

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Highlights

Eva Lovisa Nelson, Certified Regenerative Detoxification Specialist

Fruitarianism

Simon Sinek and the Golden Circle

Eva's beloved horse Lady

Transcript

IVAN STEGIC: Hey Everyone! You’re listening to the TEN7 Podcast, where we get together every fortnight, and sometimes more often, to talk about technology, business and the humans in it. I am your host Ivan Stegic. In this episode of the Podcast, Eva Lovisa Nelson, our resident designer at TEN7, and a Certified Regenerative Detoxification Specialist. She’s our go to web designer and all-around nice person to work with. She’s also a fruitarian, which will be the focus of our time together. Eva, it’s my great pleasure to welcome you back to the Podcast.

EVA LOVISA NELSON: Thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

IVAN: You’re welcome. I saw that you were a fruitarian and I don’t know anything about it, so I thought that might be a nice thing to talk about.

EVA: Yea. A lot of people don’t know. I didn’t know that long ago. So, I mean, it’s pretty new to me too. (laughing)

IVAN: Well, let’s start with the origin. So, you’re from Minnesota, right?

EVA: Yes. I grew up on a farm in rural Minnesota. So, I grew up doing chores, driving a tractor, all that stuff. Very different than my life now, here in Minneapolis. So, yea, that’s where I come from.

IVAN: What part of Minnesota? Where was the farm?

EVA:& It’s a tiny little town called Murdock. It’s not even on most maps, so usually when people ask, I’ll say, “oh, do you know where Wilmar is?” And, they’re more likely to know where Wilmar, Benson or Alexandria is. It’s west of the metro here.

IVAN: Do you visit often?

EVA: No, not too often. It’s about two and a half hours away. Yea.

IVAN: And you went to school at the U of M?

EVA: Yes, I went to the Morris location of the U of M, and so, I went in that direction as well, and I studied Studio Art and Art History, which led me to this career as being a designer.

IVAN: And, I think you were just at the U of M, right? Didn’t you spend some time at Brainco?

EVA: Oh, yes, and then I was at Brainco, which is a portfolio school here in the Twin Cities. I don’t even know if it’s in the same location. When I went it was in Hopkins, Minnesota. So, I’m not sure if it’s still there or not. But, yea, I did a couple years there, I think, and then I got a job at Pixel Farm, which is an agency here in town. But, I guess prior to that I was doing a Junior Design position working with an amazing local designer named Amy Kirkpatrick, and that’s how I got introduced to Ivan. And then I got my agency job. I also worked at Zeus Jones for a year, and then I went freelance, and I’ve been partnering with wonderful people like TEN7 ever since, and it’s just been really great.

IVAN: That’s right, we met through Amy Kirkpatrick, through Kirkpatrick Design, while you were working there, and I knew Amy from the local Twin Cities Creatives Group, and we did some work together as well. That was quite fortunate. I don’t think we interacted for…

EVA: Yea, it was a long time where we were both doing our own thing, and then another mutual friend was like, TEN7’s looking for some design help and I was like, “that name is so familiar.” (laughing) So, it was really fun, like full circle kind of thing.

IVAN: Yea, that worked out really well, and I think you had just started your freelance business around the time.

EVA: Yes.

IVAN: Yes, so now you’re a successful entrepreneur, right?

EVA: Yes. Oh, it’s been so fun. I never expected this, but it’s been amazing. (laughing)

IVAN: I love your belief that being a successful entrepreneur means that you have to remember that we’re all human, you have to be human. I read that on your website. I love the way that sounds. It rings true to how I try to run TEN7, and what I think about the business that we’re in, and I noticed that you like Simon Sinek, as much as I do. So, I wanted to ask, how has Simon influenced you in your life and in your business?

EVA: Oh, my goodness. I was first introduced to Simon Sinek in his approach when I worked at Pixel Farm. My chief creative officer, Quan Hoang at the time, he was a huge influence on me, great mentor, and he really, really was a big Simon Sinek fan. So, when I started there as an intern, that was one of the first things that, they were like “this is how we’re going to do things.” So, I was like, “this makes so much sense”, you know? Focusing on the why first and that emotional piece of what motivates people, instead of just saying, “I do this, what do you think? Do you want to buy it?” The other way around is so much more powerful and so, I try to carry that on when I work with small businesses and my own clients, you know, let’s flip this and see how much more impact it can have.

The Golden Circle

IVAN: And the Why Statement and the whole golden circle is so important to the way we interact with each other in society. It’s nice to see another business that has that approach.

EVA: Yes, and that’s such a good visual. It’s really easy for people to understand. It’s really neat.

IVAN: Do you have your circle published online somewhere? Do you find yourself referring to it very often?

EVA: You know, I really should. I am redoing my website right now, so that’s a wonderful idea. I will do that.

IVAN: Anytime, we’ll see that. Okay. Good.

EVA: Yes. But, that’s a really good idea.

IVAN: So, in your signature, when you send emails, I saw that it says Certified Regenerative Detoxification Specialist (CRDS). I don’t know if that’s the actual acronym. I’m sure it means something. Tell me about that.

EVA: This step changed my life, and, I’m busy enough with my design business. I don’t need to be doing this. But, as soon as I learned this I was like I really have to be doing this, it’s that important. So, yes, I know that’s a mouthful, and most people don’t know what it is, but it has to do with Fruitarianism. Further into this I was like “oh, my goodness what’s possible?” So, I went back to school this winter and I got certified. I did an at home, distance learning. I had textbooks to read, and I had a test this thick I had to submit in the mail. I took pictures and scanned every page in case it got lost. Then I’ll be going back again for more schooling in October. I’m going to be flying down to the school for just a week intensive, and then I’ll do another exam after that. So that’s in October.

IVAN: And you said that was in the South?

EVA: Oh yes, it’s in Florida.

IVAN: In Florida, okay.

EVA: Yes, I’ll just be gone a week, so don’t worry, I won’t be unavailable.

IVAN: And so, when you have this certification, what does that mean?

EVA: It means I get to help people with their health, and not only just people, it’s people of all ages and then it’s also dogs and cats. I do have some experience with horses, but I want to get a little bit more training before I start making custom herbal blends for horses. So, for right now, I’m certified to work with humans and dogs and cats.

IVAN: And you said Fruitarianism – is it the basis of this, or is it related? Tell me how those two connect together.

EVA: Yes. So, the approach we always use in regenerative detoxification is two parts. The first part is a species appropriate diet, so it varies. You would work with a cat different than a dog, different than a human. So, you use a species-specific diet first. And then the second part is herbal support. So, we always target the kidneys, endocrine glands, lymphatic system and GI tract, and then any other organs that are showing weaknesses, we support with herbs that way. And, it’s amazing what’s possible. No one believes me. It’s funny but, I’ve seen things firsthand with myself and my own pets, so, after seeing that I was like, I want to get certified. I want to help others. And now I get to do that. That’s kind of my little weekend gig.

IVAN: So, did you become a specialist first and through that specialty you were introduced to Fruitarianism? Or did you start with Fruitarianism first?

EVA: Yea, I started experimenting with a high fruit diet about 5 years ago, and I was eating one to two fruit meals a day, and getting results, feeling a lot better. I was diagnosed with 4th-stage kidney failure, and I had every food intolerance you could imagine practically, so I was in bad shape. And all those went away. My food intolerances went away within a month of doing raw food experiments. I didn’t even know what I was doing honestly, so I was eating fruits, I was eating vegetables, I was eating nuts and seeds. As long as it was raw I ate it. And, just after that, I went and got tested again, and I started eating things I hadn’t eaten in a decade. I hadn’t had gluten in a decade. I ate so much bread after that (laughing), I was so excited. Then my 4th stage renal failure, I got it down to Stage 1 in about two months. I don’t know if it happened faster than that, that’s just when I went back to get reassessed again, and they were all like “what are you doing?” I said, “I’m eating lots of fruit.” And they just looked at me like I was crazy, and I was like there’s something to this. So, I haven’t gotten back to get tested again. That was about four or five years ago, but I still have some symptoms, so I’m sure that I still have kind of stage one renal failure still, but the symptoms have drastically decreased, and I’m confident they’ll go away completely if I just keep continuing on.

IVAN: Is being a fruitarian exactly what the word says? Does that mean you eat only fruit? And is it just a diet?

EVA: Oh, good question. Yes, there are different people that might disagree with me, I don’t want to be the sole representation of Fruitarianism. My understanding and my interpretation of it is, that you can eat fruits, vegetables and nuts and seeds and these are in their raw form. So, that’s kind of a baseline. If somebody’s a fruitarian usually that is what they’ll do. There are some people that are like no nuts and seeds, just fruits and vegetables, and then there are people that say, “we’re fine with just fruit.” So, as a detoxification specialist, we use mostly fruit for healing. Vegetables are a little bit harder to digest and process, so they can slow down the body's healing capabilities, just because more energy is being diverted to digestion instead of healing. It’s not that the vegetables are bad, it’s just they kind of put the brakes on things a little bit. Then nuts and seeds even more so. So, usually we cut those out, and if somebody wants some fats they can have avocado; or coconut is another way to get different flavors in there. Because sometimes it’s hard for people to transition. It was for me too. But now it’s easy.

IVAN: Does that mean that it’s a raw diet? So, you don’t actually eat anything that’s cooked?

EVA: Yes, it is a raw diet, and there are variations within that as well, and I’ll be the first to admit I’m not perfect in this realm. For instance, I consume maple syrup. If I’m making homemade lemonade I put maple syrup in it, and that is a very cooked food. So, I like to say I’m like 98% raw, and that’s pretty common, and there are people that are more dogmatic about it and be like “oh, my gosh, no. I won’t even use smoked paprika.” They just won’t use anything like that, but I do that. I’m not perfect about it, but it’s just what you feel comfortable with at the time. That’s where I’m at. Maybe I’ll change later.

IVAN: And I’ve read also that some fruitarians will only eat fruits that naturally fall from trees. For example, they won’t participate in anything that’s been harvested. I’m not sure, but I think that has to do with affecting the natural state of the universe, but I don’t know. Do you know about that?

EVA: Oh, my goodness. I’ve heard that just from a movie, like a quote from Knotting Hill, but I’ve never actually encountered anybody in real life who has that philosophy, but I’m sure it probably exists. I mean they probably got it from somewhere. That’s not a strong theme in the community that I’m in anyway. That’d be hard, I think. (laughing)

IVAN: I think it would be very hard. Well, it sounds like you’ve had a number of positive effects in your life by changing to this way of eating, this way to trying to heal yourself. How has it affected your immediate family and those around you? Or, has it affected them?

EVA: My husband was like “what are you doing?” (laughing) But, he’s been very, very supportive, and even when I was figuring out how to store all this fruit in our house, because I got to have fruit around all the time, he was very okay. I got boxes behind me. I just picked up a bunch of fruit from the dock this morning so, I just got all this stuff laying around, but it’s really important to have fruit on hand. My husband is eating more fruit now which is really great. The only thing that’s different, I think, for family and friends is that, when we get asked to go out to dinner, I will bring a salad dressing that I make at home, and I might bring some cut up vegetables, and then I’ll just ask for a really large plate of lettuce, and I’ll mix it all up, and so I’ll have my raw salad just the way I like it. It’s really fine. Some people will look at me and be like “are you sure you’re okay with eating that? Like, is that going to be enough for you?” I’m like, “I brought this. This is great.” So, I just do me and it’s totally fine. I don’t mind.

IVAN: Do you end up eating more during the day in fewer amounts?

EVA: I eat a lot! (laughing) It’s kind of funny. I eat out of mixing bowls. It’s a lot of volume when you eat fruit and vegetables all day, because they’re just such low calories, so the amounts can be kind of shocking for people, initially, but it's like “yea, that’s how much I got to eat.” And, that’s actually one of the pitfalls, I find, with people who are starting this, they might not eat enough, because they’re just not used to eating that much. I eat normal meals. I work from home here, so I’ll have, like this morning I had a cantaloupe for breakfast. I had a bunch of orange juice for lunch. Tonight, I’m going to have bananas. (laughing) It’s easy.

IVAN: My understanding is that fruit is very high in sugar as well. So, would one of the risks be of eating so much fruit every day, that your sugar intake actually goes up as opposed to down?

EVA: Yes, that’s a really common question and concern for a lot of people, especially those who have high blood sugar issues. A lot of my clients that come with detox questions, they might have blood sugar issues. They might be categorized as a Type 2 or a Type 1 diabetic, and they’re concerned about this. They’ve been told their whole life to watch out for that fructose, and it’s really not a problem. It’s interesting, I have one person in my family, in particular, who has blood sugar issues, and her doctor was just so confused why she was eating so much fruit. She’s like “well, I’m working with this person” and her insulin needs are going down.” It works. That’s another thing – my horse basically had the equine version of type 2 diabetes, and that remedied itself in about a week, and she had that for most of her life, so once that happened I was like “holy cow! This is amazing.” (laughing) And, we gave her lots of fruit and lots of grass, of course. She had lots of sugars in there too. What’s really interesting about fruit -- it doesn’t require insulin to enter the cell wall. I have a friend who, she’s actually the one who turned me on to all this. She’s a Type 1, and she only need insulin when she eats vegetables, otherwise she can go long spans of time, just eating fruit and not having to use insulin, which saved her a ton of money! (laughing). I think the longest she went was 11 months, I mean that’s huge.

IVAN: It is huge. I want to back up and say that I did notice that you said you had a horse. What’s your horses name?

EVA: Oh, yes! My horse is Lady. She’s been with me a long time. She’s 19 years old.

IVAN: Whoa!

EVA: I know! And, it’s fascinating because horses typically live, I mean you hear about 20 years old, 25 years old is pretty old for a horse, and before I detoxed her, she looked like she was going to kick the bucket any day. She wasn’t doing well at all, and now she looks half her age, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she lives to be in her upper thirties. So, it’s been amazing! (laughing)

Lady Before And After

IVAN: Now, a horse doesn’t eat processed food from McDonalds, right? Or, from Walmart or wherever you buy processed foods. It generally has probably a fairly balanced diet. Now that you’ve detoxed her, what did you take out of her diet that helped her?

EVA: That’s an excellent question. I knew how to feed myself, but I had to find somebody who was doing this with horses, because I was like “I really don’t know what to believe. There’s many different opinions out there.” So, that’s the exciting thing about working with animals, too, you nailed it. Their diet and lifestyle is much more natural than ours, so they turn around very quickly. And so, my horse, she was previously eating grass, and she was eating grains, we gave her grains every day, and even if it wasn’t like a processed thing with lots of molasses and mixtures of stuff, it was just oats. And, we gave her carrots and apples and stuff, and she got very sick when she was two years old. So, it was a long time ago. So, we just kept trying to keep her comfortable. The vet never told us to alter her diet, and then she got diagnosed, later we were trying to figure out, why can’t she walk some days? Why are her feet getting deformed? Why is she looking so bad? It was really rough. Somebody said “maybe she’s insulin resistant. Maybe you should try cutting out all the sugar from her diet.” So, we did that, and she started feeling a little bit better, and we’re like “oh, wow, maybe we’re onto something.” Then she got really worse. So, it was like this short-term, and then not so good. So, I found a detox specialist that works with horses, that went to the same school that I attend now, and she told me “horses should only eat things that grow above the ground.” So, no carrots, no beets, and beet pulp and carrots, I mean, that’s a huge part of today’s horse industry diets, and so that was fascinating to me. But when you think about it, if they did eat carrots, they’d eat the tops of it, they wouldn’t pull it out of the ground. So, I took that to note, and anything that falls off a tree is fair game, so nuts and seeds, and also fruit. So, I started just feeding her tons of that, and tons of grass. You know, they told me “don’t fed her any grass”, and she’s been amazing ever since. Her feet were completely deformed for, oh gosh, 17 years, and I was told that would never change. She has textbook perfect feet now. So, it’s just amazing. My farrier did a phenomenal job helping us.

IVAN: Now, your horse doesn’t live in South Minneapolis with you in your home?

EVA: Unfortunately, not. I’d love to have her in the backyard, that’d be amazing. (laughing) She’s down in Rosemont right now at a farm that’s been so wonderful to us. I really wanted to find a place that was naturally focused, and they don’t use a lot of chemicals there, they don’t require us to use a lot of products on the horses for fly control, or parasite control. I use all herbs on her, and they’ve been very, very, just accommodating and I’m so happy there, and she’s doing really well adjusting to that new environment.

IVAN: And how often do you get a chance to see her?

EVA: Oh gosh, a few times a week. For a while I was able to make it out there every day, and now that I’m done detoxing her, it’s not as big a deal for me to be out there every day giving her herbs, but I still try to make it out there two or three times a week if I can.

IVAN: Do you bring your cat?

EVA: There are barn cats there. My cat is terrified of the horse. We did try introducing them once, and my horse loves cats, so it was kind of disappointing. She really wanted to say hello to our cat, and our cat was just like “get me out of here.” (laughing)

IVAN: Does your cat also depend on a fruitarian diet?

EVA: Oh, he has a species appropriate diet. (laughing) So, my cat is similar to me in that he also had kidney problems, and I think I was working with you guys one time, and my cat was in the hospital for a long time.

IVAN: Oh, that’s right. Yea, I remember that.

EVA: Yes. This was before I knew about what was going on, and so then I got a cat specialist and I started working with him. Yea, he’s doing great now. So, he eats a raw meat diet, so most of his diet is raw chicken, which is surprisingly inexpensive, even if you get organic. It’s a lot cheaper than buying canned cat food or prescription cat food.

IVAN: Oh, there’s prescription cat food?

EVA: Yea, that’s what they wanted us to use and we were like “oh, my gosh, this is so expensive.” And, when I found out about this I said let’s just give him chicken, that’s easy. (laughing) So, we just go to the grocery store now. We don’t even have to go to the pet store. It’s really convenient.

IVAN: That is convenient. And, is there anything you miss about not being a fruitarian?

EVA: Gosh, I don’t know. I mean, there are little odd things, and it’s a funny complaint, but like, when you’re a fruitarian you’re eating raw food, you can be full, but you don’t have that tired, weighty feeling. So in the evening sometimes I crave that feeling heavier. If that makes sense. It’s a weird thing, but once you do it you kind of get used to it, but, it’s really a nice thing where I can eat a big meal of fruit, and then I can go ride a bike or go for a run or something right after, I don’t really have to wait. But, sometimes I miss that feeling of being full in a different way. But, otherwise you can make just about anything. I made raw pizzas the other week.

IVAN: How do you make a raw pizza?

EVA: Yea, there’s a couple different ways. I actually have only done it one way because I’m lazy, so there’s another way where you can make crust and dehydrate it for an entire day, and then you make toppings and dehydrate it for another day; so, it takes two days to make a pizza. I’m like “I don’t have time for that.” So, what I do is, I take an hour. I will buy some of those big portobello mushroom caps, and I’ll hollow out the inside, and you can even save that, chop it up and use it as topping, and then you can put it in your dehydrator for a little bit, and then you make your toppings and whatever. You can make pizza sauce and chop up veggies. It’s surprisingly good to have zucchini slices in these. I don’t know what it is, but it’s something about dehydrating zucchinis, it tastes really good, it’s very strange. (laughing) Then, that’s your crust and you top it up, and you could make cheese out of cashews and it’s really good, and it’s just warm, it’s not super-hot because it’s only been in the dehydrator for about an hour, but I really like doing that when I get a pizza craving.

IVAN: So, it doesn’t sound like apple pie is allowed?

EVA: Oh, yea. You can make things like that. So, there’s pies, tarts, crumbles, crisps. And, all you do for the bread part, or the crust, is usually a combination of dates and then crumbled up nuts. You can also use dried apples to cut down on the nuts if you don’t want it to be so high in fat. Another good bread substitute is dehydrated bananas. It's surprisingly good. I’ll make cinnamon rolls and pancakes and waffles out of dehydrated bananas. But, yea, you can do all those things.

IVAN: It sounds like you have to be more cognizant and careful about how you prepare your meals, how you think about it, and it’s maybe harder to do at first, and maybe as you get used to it it’s easier?

EVA: Yes, exactly. The learning curve at the beginning, because it’s very different than how we’re used to living, right? Like just pick up, like even just thinking that “all juice is raw right?” No, it’s not. Some of it’s pasteurized. So, you got to read all that stuff. But, it’s so simple now. I don’t have to scrub pans. I have fewer dishes. This morning I cut a cantaloupe in half and stuck a spoon in it, I mean, good to go. It’s easy (laughing), it’s fast, and I feel so good. And there was a time in the beginning where I was like “gosh, this is so hard, I don’t know if I’m going to like this.” But, now I love those things. Sometimes you just got to give things a little bit of time.

IVAN: Yea. It must be hard to eat out in a restaurant with your husband and you if you go out with friends. You’re not going to go to Martina; that might be a little tough.

EVA: Yea, like I said, it’s easier to do salads if you’re going to do that. I haven’t been very bold about this, I’ve been bringing my own dressings just in case, because I’m like “I don’t wanna be stuck if they don’t have anything for me.” But a lot of people will say, “I have this special diet that I’m following, could you help me with this? I’m looking for a big plate of greens and then any fruits that you have? Fruits and vegetables. And then maybe you could give me half a lemon or half of an avocado that I can mash up on there for dressing.” Usually they have something like that, but I’ve just been bringing my own stuff. Especially if we’re going somewhere, like if we’re going to an Asian restaurant with my family and my friends, then I’ll also bring an Asian inspired dressing with me, so I can still kind of be part of the group that way.

IVAN: I was glad to see you bring something when we were meeting a few weeks ago in our in-person.

EVA: Oh, yes, yes. That’s what I normally eat is just a bunch of fruit for lunch. That’s what I do. (laughing)

IVAN: You said you have a whole lot of boxes to store all the fruit you have. How do you keep it all fresh?

asian pears, oranges, persimmons, dates, kiwi

EVA: Oh yes, that’s another learning curve thing, to kind of monitor your fruits and know where to store it. What needs to be refrigerated, what needs to be out on the counter. I just picked up four boxes of fruit this morning from a lovely place in St. Paul that sells fruit in bulk, and it’s all organic. So, the first step that you do is you bring it home, and you go through it all. You open everything up, because just like they said, “one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch.” So, you got to go through it all. So, I was going through all my plums this morning making sure “oh, are they ok?” Then I put half of them in the fridge and then I got some sitting out on the counter and I’ll monitor those. I haven’t even tried them yet. There’s a new kind of plum called Honey Punch. They’re supposed to be really sweet.

IVAN: Is that your favorite fruit? Do you have a favorite fruit?

EVA: Oh gosh! I don’t know if I have a favorite. There’s so many good ones. I love mangoes. I always have dates on hand. Have you ever had jackfruit? It’s amazing. It tastes just like bubble gum. So, there’s just so many good ones. Yea, I love so many of them. Pineapple is a great one too.

IVAN: Do you ever go to Jamba Juice? Is that a place where you could have a smoothie?

EVA: Oh, yea. You know, I haven’t been for a long time, but I suppose you could. I’m pretty sure that you could do that. I go to Chipotle every now and then and get a salad there, so that’s easy. It’s so funny. The people in the line are always like because I just get lettuce (laughing) and tomatoes and guac and they’re just like “WHAT!” Sometimes I’ll cheat and have some corn. That’s a little cheat of mine.

IVAN: I guess it’s technically not a fruit or a vegetable is it?

EVA: Yes. So, every once in a while, like a few times a year, I’ll have some sweet corn and it tastes good. (laughing)

IVAN: Is there any fruit you can’t get that you would love to be able to have on hand?

EVA: Oh, gosh, yea! I mean, there’s so many. There’s this one called mamey sapote, and I tried getting some – I know, right! You never heard of it! I had never heard of it either. It tastes like pumpkin pie. I mean, doesn’t that sound good?

mamey sapote

IVAN: Does it really!

EVA: (laughing) Yea, and so I found some at an Asian market in St. Paul and I was so excited I bought six of them. I chopped them open and only one of them was half edible. The other ones weren’t ripe, they were picked too early, so they were just gray on the inside. They’re supposed to be bright orange. They look like a cooked sweet potato. So, the one that I did get to taste a little bit of, I was like “oh my God,” I could see the potential of this, yes that tastes just like sweet potato or pumpkin pie. Like this is amazing. So, I’d like to try a good one of those. That would be really great. And there’s just so many exotic fruits I haven’t tried yet that I’ve been curious about, so yea. It’s harder here in Minnesota. We don’t have as many. We got a lot of apples, you know. That’s always good.

IVAN: A lot of apples! Is it harder in the winter?

EVA: That’s a really good question. I had my first raw winter. I’ve only been doing this 14 months now, so, I got a dehydrator and that was a lifesaver here. And the other cool thing is, so you can heat things up in the dehydrator, to as long as it’s under 118º Fahrenheit, then it’s considered raw. So you can get things pretty nice and warm in there, you just got to eat it right away. And then the other thing is if you have a high-speed blender, like a Vitamix or a Blendtec or something like that, you can turn stuff on high for about 3-5 minutes, and it gets hot. So, if I’m making a soup or something like that, I can do that, I can have a warm broth. So, yea, there’s little tips and tricks, and you can always have hot tea and all that stuff if you’re real cold.

IVAN: Are there any vitamins or minerals that you don’t get by being a strict fruitarian that you have to supplement somehow?

EVA: That’s a great question. That’s very common, especially with people who are new. I was wondering about that too, and it’s amazing. It’s a very simple approach to this, fruits and vegetables, and the philosophy that I have, it has everything we need. When I started doing this and I wasn’t even completely all fruitarian, I went and got some nutrition tests done and the gal was like, “what are you doing? You have the best scores I’ve ever seen. You must be taking a lot of stuff.” I said, “no, I just eat a lot of fruit.” She was like, “WHAT!” So, it’s funny. I have a friend of mine here in the Cities, who’s also another raw fruitarian. His name's TJ, and he actually will go and do blood work tests. He’s from Maryland, so he’ll go down, I think he has a doctor in D.C. that he visits, and he’ll actually just do fruit for a couple months, and he’ll go do his blood test. And he said it’s common for his doctors to go over the blood test with him with younger doctors that are learning and be like, “just check out what this guy does, and look how good his scores are.” He likes to do that. I don’t know if he does it every year, but I know he’s mentioned it to me. So, you could definitely fill up all your levels that you need to hit, just with fruits and vegetables.

IVAN: How does it affect the rest of your body, and not in term of minerals and vitamins, but does it cause weight gain? Does it cause weight loss? Does it affect your blood pressure? Does it affect other things? What kind of effects does it have?

EVA: Oh, yes. Really great, positive things. It’s very easy to lose weight on this. I mean, you can eat unlimited calories. You can eat tons of dates; like medjool dates are 60 calories per piece. I buy them by the 11 lb. box, (laughing) so I go through them really fast and it’s like you kind of just shrink down. A friend of mine who started doing this with me here in the Cities, her names Kristin, and she lost I think it was 40 or 50 lbs. in 30 days, and she was like “I’ve done Jenny Craig, I’ve done all this stuff, and this is the easiest thing.” I said, “I know, right.” So that’s another thing. Mental clarity is a huge one. I noticed that right away. Being my own boss, I have a lot of stuff going on a lot, and when I started doing raw, things became easier. My stress level decreased. It’s a lot easier for things to roll off your back when your bodies getting alkaline. It’s a weird thing. People would tell me that and I was like, “I don’t believe that.” But now I get it. Increased digestion, better energy, better sleep, improved eyesight. My eyesight’s improved, and I’m working with herbs now to try to boost that even more. There’s just so many things it does. It’s so cool! I just love it.

IVAN: You’re not a coffee drinker, though, right?

EVA: I’m not. It would blow me over the edge. It’s funny, the coffee, it’s a stimulant right! And then when you switch to fruit, you’re getting all this energy in the form of carbohydrates, and so it’s like, you’re fulfilling that need without needing external stimulants. So, a great tip for coffee drinkers who want to cut down on coffee would be to blend dates and water, and it makes this caramel, and you can even add carob powder to make it chocolatey, and it’s an energy hit, you feel it. So, I was doing that at the beginning when I was starting. I’d start every day with dates and water.

IVAN: That’s a good tip. Well, do you have any parting wisdom or advice to those people who are listening who are interested in maybe finding out more about fruitarianism? We’ve discussed a whole lot, but I’m sure there’s more to learn and more to learn, before we sign out.

EVA: Oh, yes! Yes! Definitely. If you are interested in starting this, the best advice is to start with fruit only breakfast. Just start there and see how you feel. That’s always the great initial step, and then also if you’re curious about cellular detoxification, then my teacher is Dr. Robert Morse. He has a wonderful YouTube channel filled with information. He is retired now. He just teaches and offers free information. There’s so many people doing this, it’s really incredible. Or you can always reach out to me too. I’m an open book when it comes to this stuff. I feel like if we all feel better on a physical level, we’re all going to treat each other better in life, and what an amazing world we have when that happens. So, that’s my whole mission about this.

IVAN: That sounds wonderful. Do you have any comments or thoughts about those people who criticize Fruitarianism? Who maybe see it as something that isn’t based on data. There’s lots of opinions out there about it, but there are some critics of this as well.

EVA: Oh, absolutely! And I encourage everyone to do their own research and definitely experiment with this yourself, if you’re curious about it. You’ll see. There’s a difference in believing theories and actually knowing, and once I saw what it did for me and my pets, and not just Fruitarianism, but the species appropriate diet, and for humans, Fruitarianism. I was sold. I was completely convinced, like, I get it. So, don’t knock it until you try it.

IVAN: Eva, thank you so much for spending your time with me. I really appreciate it.

EVA: Thank you for having me.

IVAN: So, you’re online at evalovisa.com, on Dribble and on Behance as evalovisa. You’ve been listening to the TEN7 Podcast. Find us online at ten7.com/podcast. And if you have a second, do send us a message, we love hearing from you. Our email address is [email protected]. Until next time, this is Ivan Stegic. Thank you for listening.

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