Purpose Driven Raw Vegan Living: The Model Diet Deep Dive with Toni @rawliciousyou
Purpose Driven Raw Vegan Living: The Model Diet Deep Dive with Toni
From suicidal skateboarder to 22 year raw vegan, and why this lifestyle is ultimately a call to come back home
Some conversations go places you did not expect. Toni from @rawliciousyou sat down with me as part of the Ultimate Raw Vegan Bundle and what started as a conversation about The Model Diet turned into a full origin story, a breakdown of the biggest lies in mainstream nutrition, a discussion of purpose driven raw vegan living, and what I actually believe this lifestyle is at its deepest level.
This is one of the more personal conversations from the bundle launch window and worth a full watch.
Where It All Started
I found skateboarding at five years old and from that moment forward, everything else was just a vehicle to get back to the board. School, friends, moving cities, all of it organized around skating. That passion-driven way of moving through life never really left. It just evolved.
When I moved out at seventeen with a group of friends, the plan was San Francisco. The budget said Vancouver instead. Nine of us crammed into a two-bedroom apartment, living on ramen, rice with soy sauce, and 49 cent cheeseburgers on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That went on long enough that my body started breaking down, slowly at first and then more noticeably when I moved to Edmonton at eighteen and added heavy drinking, daily pizza, a pack of smokes, and serious athletic training all into the same equation.
By 1999, I was genuinely suicidal. Not in a way anyone around me knew about. I was still the funny one, still partying. But the partying had shifted from celebration to escape and I was going to bed most nights wishing I would not wake up. I knew something had to change and I had no idea what.
The answer came from a 99 cent VHS tape at Walmart. Yoga. Specifically power yoga, which slowed me down enough to start feeling my body again, which opened the door to yogic philosophy, which pointed toward compassion for all living beings and plant-based eating, which led me to a bookstore and a copy of Fit for Life, which started a four and a half year transition toward a fully raw vegan diet. All of it, every single step, originally just to skate better.
Meeting Dr. Graham and the Moment Everything Changed
In 2003 I enrolled in holistic nutrition school CSNN in Vancouver, reading every raw food book I could find but still unable to piece it all together. Then I went to a vegan health festival and Dr. Douglas Graham was one of three speakers.
He was literally glowing. First time I had ever seen that without plant medicine running through my system. I sat in his talk and listened to everything, then hung out with him afterwards while he ate a full crate of blueberries for dinner. He simplified the whole thing in about two sentences. When you are hungry, eat fruit. When you are craving salt, eat vegetables. Just keep doing that as many times as it takes.
The next day I was one hundred percent. Walking down the street in Vancouver toward a produce market with spotted bananas at nineteen cents a pound, crying. Feeling connected to everyone, everything, my purpose, my path. That was the moment purpose driven raw vegan living stopped being a concept and became my life. It took another four and a half years to feel ready to broadcast it publicly, but the direction was set from that day forward.
The Biggest Lies Modern Nutrition Tells Us
Toni asked me flat out what the biggest lies in mainstream nutrition are and two jumped out immediately.
The first is that cooking is what made us human. That theory is still just a theory and there are genuinely compelling alternatives, particularly Tony Wright’s work in Return to the Brain of Eden, which proposes a complex biochemical relationship between humans and fruit that created a positive feedback loop driving brain expansion. The more our ancestors reasoned their way to riper fruit across wider territories, the more calories they accessed, the more their brains developed. Fruit as brain food, not fire. I go deep into this in The Model Diet with links and references so people can follow the thread themselves.
The second is protein. The idea that we need enormous amounts of it, that animal protein is superior, and that plant protein is incomplete has been shoved down people’s throats so effectively that it is now just assumed to be true. The research does not support it. Protein deficiency on a varied abundant raw vegan diet is almost impossible. The amino acid profile of mixed fruits and vegetables covers all the bases in optimal ratios. Studies comparing equivalent amino acid intake from plants versus animals show the same results but only benefits from the plant version, with none of the downstream degenerative effects that come from animal products.
Why Purpose Driven Raw Vegan Living Is Not a Rule Book
One of the things Toni appreciated from the book is that it does not read like a rigid protocol. That is completely intentional. Purpose driven raw vegan living is not about following rules perfectly and judging yourself when you miss. It is about coming home to something that feels aligned and then dancing with it over time.
Toni shared something from her own journey that resonated, the experience of coming into this lifestyle from a place of caring about the animals first and then slowly discovering that taking care of herself had ripple effects outward. When she felt heavy, sluggish, and emotionally reactive, that affected everyone around her. When she felt vibrant and grounded, that radiated outward too. You cannot separate the two. Compassion for all living beings has to include yourself.
That is one of the central ideas in The Model Diet. Veganism is not just for the animals. It is for all beings, including us. And the more we nourish ourselves well, think compassionately, speak kindly, and choose from love rather than fear, the more effective we become as examples and as stewards.
What the Model Diet Actually Is
The name works on three levels, as I have shared before but it keeps coming up because it keeps resonating. Nature’s model through comparative anatomy and species-specific design. The ideal holistic framework for human health. The diet that leads to genuine vitality and attractiveness through nourishment rather than restriction. The cover leans into that last angle as a way to pull people in. The substance behind it is the other two.
In the most distilled version I offered Toni: it is a complete framework for compassionate, centered, heart-based living. A guidebook, not a rulebook. A call to come back home. To remember who you actually are and what you are actually here for, which I genuinely believe is to live as fully and lovingly and freely as possible and to remind each other of that when we drift.
That is purpose driven raw vegan living as I understand it after 22 years of living it.
Sweden, Skating, and What Life Looks Like Now
We talked about how I ended up in Malmo, which surprises people who assume I must want to live in the tropics permanently. Honestly I prefer a temperate climate with trips to the tropics over living there full time, at least for now. Malmo has an incredible skate scene, proximity to Copenhagen, great market deals year round, a solid community of friends, and Kamila, who I met in Bali at a raw food chef training and followed here in the best possible way.
The pro skateboard dream came true a couple of years ago. The Raw Advantage is sixteen years strong. The bundle this year is the seventh and the best yet. Life is pretty good.
About Toni and the Bundle
Toni is at @rawliciousyou and brings a genuinely warm and grounded energy to everything she does. We also did a inspiring previous live together earlier in the bundle launch window which is also up on my site if you want more.
The Model Diet and the 80/10/10 Diet Masterclass with Dr. Douglas Graham are both included in the Ultimate Raw Vegan Bundle alongside 30+ other brand new resources. Over $1,500 worth of content for just $50 until midnight Pacific time May 11th.
As Always
Wishing You Much
PeaceLovenSeasonalFruit ck
