Becoming Raw; Research on conversion to the Rawfood movement

Abstract

In this research the theory of conversion is compared to the process one goes through when becoming part of the Rawfood movement. Firstly, the history of conversion studies are explained. Conversion theories are based on mostly religious (protestant) happenings. Very often one still thinks of the New Testament "Pauline" experience in that one all of the sudden changes its beliefs because of a specific occurrence. However as the theories show, conversion is very often a process that happens over time. The theory of Rambo (1993) explains conversion in stages and it is this theory that is compared to the people who become part of the Rawfood movement. Secondly, to do this, seven rawfoodists were interviewed and were asked about their personal experiences they had when becoming raw. All the stories were structered by a system of coding and the conclusions were presented in the results. Lastly, the results were interesting as it showed that even though the theory of Rambo is not up-to-date yet, it shows a lot of similarities to raw vegans and how converting to new spiritual movements has traits of more traditional religious conversion.