'Raw' is Bliss in Parkville

What is the key to a long, healthy, and happy life? This is a question many people ask on a regular basis. Sometimes people find the answer to this question isn’t the same for each person.

This past weekend’s Bliss Fest held at English Landing Park in Parkville provided some alternatives to the traditional approaches to healthy diets and lifestyles. The day-long “Conscious Lifestyle Celebration” was the second year in what organizers are hoping will become an annual event. There are already plans in the works for next year’s celebration which will include additional and unique aspects.

Last year’s event, which was held on a private piece of land in the Bluffs of Parkville, had a turnout of over 300 people. Prior to that, potlucks and luncheons had created increasing momentum and interest in the Kansas City area. Over the last year, word spread throughout the region through the internet about the buzz surrounding Bliss Fest. There were so many inquiries, event organizers were worried the previous year’s venue would not be sustainable for the much larger crowd that turned out this year. With only weeks to spare, the city of Parkville voted unanimously to reserve English Landing Park as the new location. The Main Street Parkville Association along with local businesses provided sponsorships to help provide financial support.

Bliss Fest promotes, among other things, a raw lifestyle. One involving a diet made up mostly of natural living plant food like those grown in your garden. Event organizer Maureen Veto-Slater says it can be effective even if a person only applies fifty percent of his or her daily diet to “fresh, full food, not boiled or fried, but real food that we grow off a tree or from the ground.” Creative food vendors with vegetarian fare, consultation sessions from eco-educators and health practitioners, yoga workshops, vibrant music, and speakers from around the country were on hand to tell their dramatic stories about how a raw lifestyle changed their life for the better.

The idea behind the festival is that ‘going raw’, as many call it, isn’t supposed to be a fad diet, but a lifestyle change. It’s an approach similar to the one vegetarians follow, but focuses less on being classified into a specific category with strict dietary rules and more on a natural lifestyle. There are only broad guidelines, so most diet decisions are left up to the individual. Many of the participants and speakers at the festival made the decision to ‘go raw’ to cure medical and health problems by trading in their prescription medications, which were causing negative side-effects, for the raw lifestyle.

“For me, high-vibe and a positive outlook is the key,” said Veto-Slater, who also has her own personal story and motivation.

As a corporate advertising director, several years ago she saw her life become increasingly hectic with the balance of family and work causing stress and anxiety. She sought medical help, but medication only caused more side-effects and health problems. After a gain in weight and trip to the hospital, Maureen decided it was time for a change. She ‘went raw’ and exchanged her medications for a powerful, healthy diet and began to spiritually and physically return to health.

“Too many people spend their entire lives stressed in jobs they hate with the goal of building financial freedom, only to spend their later years, using all their money trying to get back their health. It's not a religion, it's about being liberated.”