As a writer, teacher and mother, teaching others about the incredible benefits of a fruit-based raw food diet is her absolute passion, and she does this through one-on-one health coaching and her numerous entertaining articles on RealRawNutrition.com, Facebook at Real Raw Nutrition, YouTube at Anthea Frances Falkiner and on Instagram, also as Real Raw Nutrition.
Brian’s note: I began 10 sentences with targeted words, presented in boldface below, that serve as conversation starters and asked Anthea to complete the thoughts in this condensed “interview.”
My catalyst for lifestyle change was severe and chronic pain in the gut that would keep me up for hours every night, pacing the house and waiting for it to subside.
When I went to a gastroenterologist, he told me my only two choices were either surgery, which he told me was not a permanent solution, or Nexium tablets for the rest of my life.
“But I don’t understand why I’m experiencing this problem at my age. I’m not even 40 yet,” I said and probed him for a reason.
Like all physicians I’ve visited in my lifetime, he didn’t have an answer, only a Band-Aid solution.
But I had studied some Natural Hygiene about eight years prior and had experimented with a raw food diet back then. I knew there was a reason, and dietary overhaul had to be the first part of that picture.
At 39, I had already experienced years of ill health, including chronic low-immune function, rhinitis and allergies, irritable bowel syndrome, sinusitis, acne, asthma, eczema, blood sugar swings and fatigue, candida and regular urinary tract infections, to name just a few.
All this, understandably, made me feel very depressed. 🙁
But I made a decision upon leaving that I would refuse drugs and surgery and treat myself by allowing my body to heal itself through dietary and lifestyle change.
Since then a profound transformation has occurred. And I’m so grateful for listening to my god-given intuition—it has brought me the greatest gifts in life.
Reading voraciously enabled me to feel confident in my own convictions. It strengthened my intuition and my ability to make empowering choices for myself.
Sometimes I think I’m a book junkie, but each book has given me access to the greatest wisdom of the greatest minds on the planet.
Reading one book and taking its philosophy as gospel is not only limiting but dangerous, because you are exposed only to one person’s viewpoint. Read 20 and they will all have information of both value and extraneous nature. Some stuff will resonate with you, some won’t.
The things that are repeated time and time again by various authors—they’re the things you want to take deep into your psyche and make your own.
But reading also sharpens your critical faculties so that you are able to distinguish a profit-driven message from an authentic and genuine one.
If you want to be an activist, it is your duty to educate yourself, and you cannot do that without reading widely.
Books are the richest vein of gold and wealth on the planet and reading is the only kind of mining I ever condone.
My introduction to a raw food diet came firstly through Harvey and Marilyn Diamond’s Fit for Life in about 2005. I became really interested in Natural Hygiene, and the concept of the body as a self-healing organism made perfect sense.
From there, I read David Wolfe’s Nature’s First Law and was inspired by U.K. raw foodist Shazzie. I began a 100 percent raw food diet and spent literally hours creating raw vegan delights using dehydrators, blenders, spiraliser. I got my lowest weight ever, felt amazing, but after six months, I fell off the wagon, onto hot chips and that quickly progressed to the other fatty, refined carbohydrates that I’d used as comfort foods my whole life.
Health issues such as irritable bowel syndrome and asthma are totally unnecessary and a pain in the butt. They are symptoms of an underlying dysbiosis—a disharmony in the body’s natural processes. And both can be healed relatively quickly by following nature’s laws.
When we eat our right diet of fruit and, if needed, tender leafy greens, our body’s nerve energy is freed up to do the work of healing itself.
I would say, though, that if you are older and you have many more years of abuse to overcome, that healing can take longer. Everyone’s journey is going to be slightly different. But the closer you stick to nature’s laws, the faster will be your results.
I refuse to let ill health steal one more second of my life and prevent me from fulfilling my purpose. I feel it is my responsibility to be the healthiest I can be so that I can be a great custodian of this precious earth.
If I don’t take responsibility, how can I expect my children, my husband or anyone else on the planet to do the same?
A low-fat raw food diet came into my view in about 2011 when I came across a video of a lecture given by Freelee possibly at The Woodstock Fruit Festival. She had such a strong message it was impossible to ignore.
Her recovery from anorexia and bulemia was what initially caught my attention. She was talking about Doug Graham, his book The 80/10/10 Diet, and once I read it, I realized my previous raw food diet mistake. I simply wasn’t eating enough fruit.
This information was the missing link I needed to live successfully and sustainably on a raw food diet, and I also experienced so many more incredible health and spiritual benefits from basing my diet around fruit than I had ever experienced consuming copious amounts of nuts, dried fruit, sprouts and superfoods.
Eating disorders suck big time. I believe my compulsive overeating and binge eating was one of the major causes of ALL my health problems.
Overloading my digestive system every day put a huge strain on my body in every sort of negative way.
This low-fat raw vegan way of eating and living by nature’s laws has helped heal the nutritional deficiencies that were, in part, to blame for my chronic overeating, but I also needed to do a lot of inner work to deal with the mental obsessions that caused me to use food as a drug.
Diet alone was not going to fix me. I had to take a good hard look at the things that were blocking me from the light—my resentments, fears and self-centredness—and had to be willing to have all of these removed before I could really get in touch with my intuitive guide.
Once I faced those issues head on, my sense of purpose flourished. For the first time ever, I felt like I could actually follow through on my life’s passions.
That’s when I launched my website RealRawNutrition.com and began to put together the RAWmazing Life Summit.
I now feel absolutely incredible every day. That’s not to say that I don’t have down days or days of lower energy—I do. But compared to what life was like for me, my energy levels, clarity of mind and spirit are a gazillion times more heightened than they ever were eating devitalized cooked foods.
My favorite foods are, by far, mango and durian. Though I do love to sit down to a plate of peaches or nectarines. At the Australian Fruit Festival this year, I got to try black sapote (which is like chocolate), marang, rollinia, japoti kava and a whole bunch of other incredible fruits I’ve never tried before.
Tony Wright, in his incredible book Left in the Dark, talks about our symbiotic relationship with the tropical fruits that we left behind when humans left the forests of Africa. Our hormones are stimulated by the hormones in these tropical fruits, particularly the fattier fruits, like durian.
My personal experience really lines up neatly with his estimation. I have definitely experienced the durian “high” and now completely understand why it’s call the King of Fruits.
If you want to experience seriously the most abundant variety of tropical fruits anywhere in the world, then I highly recommend getting to the next Australian Fruit Festival in Far North Queensland in 2016. I absolutely loved going to The Woodstock Fruit Festival, but for me, The AFF definitely outdid Woodstock in its fruit offering. Incredible.
I’m driven to heal the planet. First in that equation had to come myself. Without healing myself, I couldn’t help another. Now that I’ve recovered, I have so much energy to give.
My goal in life is to help heal as many people and animals as I can. One of the best ways I know to do this is by setting a powerful example. Learning how to grow a food forest of fruit trees is one of my life’s goals.
Fruit trees really have the potential to heal our whole earth—ourselves, the malnourished billions around us and the huge tracts of deforested and devitalized land everywhere around us.
I always felt so overwhelmed about the state of the planet. What could I do to change things? I felt so powerless to do anything.
But now I have the perfect vehicle for change. Fruit, believe it or not, is the answer. It’s amazing how ultimate wisdom comes in such a simple package.
The RAWmazing Life Summit 2014 was one of the most mind-blowing, growing experiences of my life. A lot of fear came up for me about hosting it. Would I be up to the task? Would it be a tragic failure? But I had to realize that those fears were simply just another form of self-centredness, and since I recovered from my eating disorder, I no longer indulge in self-centredness.
Transcending those fears was so important for my growth. And now we all have those incredible interviews to help us on the path.
There are so many amazing long-term raw fooders who have such wisdom to share, and I want to make friends with them all.
Watch Anthea Give Her Impressions of The Australian Fruit Festival
Discover Anthea Frances Falkiner’s Top 5 Tips for transitioning to a raw food diet!
Hungry for more? Check out Anthea’s Fruity Muesli recipe!
