Moein Nejad: ‘Human Beings Are About Finding Harmony’

I am a 21-year-old student of life! I was born in Iran (Persia) and am living in Malaysia for now. The most important thing that I can tell you about myself is that I was always a very curious boy, curious almost about everything. This curiosity led me to do research about health and nutrition and finally become a raw vegan.

Ever since childhood, I’ve always been interested in health and healthy eating. Still, despite not eating fast food or drinking alcohol, in my teenage years, I was very unhealthy. From the ages of 16 to 18, I had severe headaches almost every day for two to three hours. I caught colds several times every year until I became a raw vegan. After that, I caught a cold only four times during my three years of being a raw vegan, and each time I healed much faster. I also suffered from some digestive disorders. Doctors didn’t do anything for me except prescribe some poisonous pharmaceutical drugs.

As I witnessed sicknesses in others, I thought that maybe getting sick is not a natural phenomenon. Surely, there must be a way to cure and prevent many sicknesses. So I started to research natural and easy therapies in my free time by reading books, magazines, newspapers and, of course, the greatest source of information, the Internet!

In March 2011, I found an experienced Iranian raw food activist on the Internet who lived in the Netherlands. He had treated his kidney diseases with a raw vegan diet 50 years ago. The idea made a lot of sense and appealed to me because it didn’t require any chemicals, expensive drugs or surgery.

Because chemical medical drugs have negative side effects, I always avoided them as much as possible and instead tried natural therapies to prevent and cure diseases.

A little after that, I found Raw Eating by A.T. Hovannessian, who was the first Iranian-Armenian raw foodist. This book was very inspiring to me—so much that I decided to change my diet immediately after reading it.

At first, I really wanted to go completely raw vegan because I’d found it very useful, but it was not very easy at first, especially because of social reasons. I found out it was possible at least to go vegan. So I became a vegan in October 2011, when I was 18 years old. My headaches stopped and never came back. I have more energy and feel more relaxed and connected to nature, which I didn’t before. I also feel more inclined to explore my spirituality, which I didn’t before.

I spent more time researching nutrition and read more books and articles in Persian and English and started to write my own e-book in Persian about living the vegan lifestyle a little after that. During this time, I decreased my consumption of cooked foods in my diet and increased my intake of raw foods step by step. After six months. I became 80 to 90 percent raw vegan. I felt better than being just vegan, so I continued with raw veganism after that.

I have edited my Persian e-book four times and published it successfully on Persian websites.

Now, I’m working on updating my English e-book, Raw Veganism, which is different and more complete than what I’ve done before, and I want to update my Persian e-book after publishing the English version.

About eight months after adopting a vegan diet, I launched my Persian website and started an English website shortly after that. I was in contact with many vegetarians all over the world asking them about their experiences so I could learn more about the vegan lifestyle. My English website is VeganIdealWorld.com.

At the time of writing this, my Persian website, VeganDownload.com, is the largest vegetarian file center including e-books, documentaries, movies and clips related to vegetarianism, raw foodism and natural health.

By getting involved in related activities, I found very good opportunities to learn more and more every day. By increasing my knowledge and experience, I enjoyed sharing it with other people as well.

The most important things that I’ve learned after going raw vegan were these four necessary changes to improve my diet. These caused me to become healthier every day:

• Be gluten-free
• Go fruit-based raw vegan
• Eliminate salt from my diet
• Adopt a low-fat raw vegan diet

All these changes have different scientific reasons that are truly confirmed by the experiences of raw vegan individuals throughout the world.

I’ve explained all these changes with complete details in my book. When I was a speaker at the 41st IVU World Vegfest in Malaysia in October 2013, I also highlighted these changes. It seemed that what I reviewed was a new subject for the vegetarian audience because most of them hadn’t heard such views to improve vegetarian, vegan and raw vegan diets one step more. This is what I want to do: to introduce an improved and healthier raw vegan diet that is compatible with our body and nature and beneficial and ideal for us in all aspects.

When I changed my diet, my friends didn’t accept this idea. They frightened me, telling me how sick I was going to be. All that has changed. Now they respect me and my lifestyle. Unfortunately, they usually say something like: “It’s good, but too difficult so I would rather have some disease and die sooner. I want to enjoy all the junk foods on the planet!”

Anyhow, everyone is the most responsible and effective person about his or her health. I believe human beings are about finding harmony and achieving oneness. Life will become joyful and meaningful with balance and love, especially unconditional love.

I always recommend others to do enough research, make it clear for themselves and be sure many voices before following any idea. Unconscious following is just a waste of time and energy. We are here to experience a conscious life. If we choose our manner consciously, we won’t have many unwanted difficulties. Conscious power will help us to live in the best possible state.

Fortunately, nowadays, we can access many useful information on the Internet about veganism, raw veganism, gluten-free and other healthy living lifestyle aspects. Many websites and social networks are devoted to healthy lifestyles, and these are very good places to communicate with people about similar interests, exchanging information and experiences.

I think we should appreciate these resources we have today and never existed even one decade ago. If we want to make changes, I think there is no excuse anymore! Because now it’s became easier than ever to change our lifestyle and habits by learning about mistakes that others made through our reading about their experiences. We can also share our experiences, opinions and knowledge as well.

There are many useful related groups on Facebook. I also created the group Vegan & Raw Vegan Experiences, a public group for all people to discuss nutrition and health, whether they are vegan or not.

The Most Important Steps to Change

The first step to change lifestyle is to gain enough knowledge because it is the basis for other steps. Knowledge is power!

After becoming knowledgeable, we have to do our best regarding our physical and mental health as well as financial and social issues.

Unfortunately, governments subsidize only meat, dairy and grains, which are not our natural foods. Subsidies aren’t made for fruits, which are the best and most necessary foods for humans. Thus, a fruit-based diet is more expensive than popular diets in many countries. Fortunately, though, there are still some tips to go on a healthy and economical raw vegan diet. It can even be cheaper than other diets. There are some books dedicated to this subject, which can be very useful. Fortunately, a raw vegan diet reduces many diseases and the cost for treatment and, thus, is the most economical diet.

If governments remove subsidies for meat, dairy and grains, they will be much more expensive than fruits! Because fruits produce more amount of product in comparison with other foods—with the same amount of cultivating area—they can, with government subsidies, become much cheaper than other foods. Fruits also don’t have any harmful effect on the human body or environment.

We have to start changes first within ourselves and then across a wider area. I think it is really not logical that our taxes be paid for those foods that not only are not useful for us but are harmful to our planet! Now that global warming issues have become very important, change is really necessary. Until everyone changes himself or herself, however, nothing will change very much as a result.

Every individual is responsible for his life and our planet.

Wishing for a better world!