INLSA

Deon Marais, who became a father for the second time at 53, says he took up the 30-day raw food challenge in an effort to live a healthier lifestyle.

Becoming a father for the second time at the age of 53 has encouraged Deon Marais to radically change his diet and live more healthily in an effort to ensure that he would be around to see his daughter grow up.

“Finding yourself with a newborn at my age makes you take a whole new look at your life – will I be around for her 21st?”

Marais says a friend jokingly suggested he try a raw food diet and when he found an invitation to the Cape-based Rawlicious 30 Day raw food challenge, he signed up.

“I have made a few small changes to my eating habits over the past couple of months, but this challenge could not have come at a more perfect time,” he says, holding little Caitlin in his arms.

As part of the challenge he had to give up his life of beer, garage pies (when on the road) and up to six cups of coffee a day. Instead, since the beginning of the month, Marais and his wife, Tonia, have been living on raw meals, juices and smoothies.

A raw food diet is plant based and involves food that is uncooked and unprocessed – in other words, mostly organic fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds. If food is heated, it cannot be heated above 40°C.

The diet was developed by Swiss medical doctor Maximilian Bircher-Benner, who invented muesli.

Bircher-Benner recovered from jaundice while eating raw apples and conducted experiments on the effects of raw vegetables on human health, before opening a sanatorium in 1897.

Two weeks into the challenge, Marais says he thought he would be craving coffee and beer, but wasn’t. “I think 90 percent of the time I ate junk food out of habit.”

He also has been less inclined to drink alcohol. “I’ve had my fair share in my life and because we just moved to the area I don’t have drinking partners.”

Marais says the biggest change was to his kitchen. A year ago the most used tools were his “oven, frying pan and microwave”, but he now hardly uses his stove.

The most important kitchen utensils now are his knife, chopping board, juicer, blender and measuring cups.

He and Tonia also had to throw out their tinned food, salad dressings, sauces and other processed food to replace them with vegetables and fruit.

The hardest thing, he says, was getting used to the taste of green juice made with green vegetables, such as aloe, cucumbers and wheatgrass.

Instead of feeling lethargic as he did after a big meal, he now feels lighter after meals.

And although he’s not sure whether it is related to his new diet, he also sleeps a little better at night.

What’s helping him through the challenge is the support offered by the organisers, who offer the five participants, including Marais, advice via regular e-mails. ”This has been a mixture of failures and triumphs,” says Marais.

Although he’s not committing to a life of raw food yet, he plans to incorporate some of the things he’s learnt into his daily life.