When you change your eating habits it feels like a revelation -- an epiphany about all kinds of things that sensible people already know, and just sigh if you say them. Like: Eating better makes you feel better.

A bad cold with painful cough, chapped and sore lips, and sore back convinced me I had to take action because my system was breaking down. I thought my skin tissues were becoming friable, because my lips would heal a little, then get bad again. Maybe I had a serious vitamin deficiency.

But now, after a few days of choking down fruit and tofu every morning (instead of an English muffin with too much butter), then a huge salad for lunch or dinner with spinach, lettuce and lots and lots of broccoli and cauliflower, and more tofu, rice and fish too... I am beginning to feel actually good.

I have never chewed so much. Cold vegetables aren't fun in the winter and I feel like a paper shredder. But after that huge salad every day, I feel so different. Prior to this, I'd eat mostly cheese and bread and bread and cheese and then when I run out I'll stop and get ugh, fast food, since I hate to cook. Also taking several supplements now.

Fruit is a weird thing I just never cared much about, not like some people. Especially in the morning! How can people face anything sweet then? The sugar and acid just attack your mouth, slap it around and make you wake up before you're ready! It's so -- perky. So chipper and rather loud. Morning to me is a dark time in which I am forced to rekindle the fires of my ancient self against my slow will. Coffee, black, sour and spartan, is perfectly appropriate at such a time. Plain bread (and the inevitable cheese) or toast was also acceptable.

This green food is changing everything. I don't know what the future will bring. I may leave the trogs and join the hunter-gatherers on the grasslands.