FullyRaw means feeling good enough about YOUR perfect health enough to WANT to share the gift of life/health with others.
A raw
foods diet is made up of fresh, whole, unrefined, living, plant-based foods:
fruits, vegetables, leafy greens, nuts, and seeds, which are consumed in their
natural state, without cooking or steaming. People who adopt this diet are
often referred to as "raw fooders" or "raw vegans."
.
Are all raw food diets
the same?
No, there
are different approaches for eating a raw diet. Most of them are designed to
obtain a high percentage of daily calories from fats, by eating significant
amounts of avocado, nuts and seeds. These diets tend to be unsustainable since
too much fat, even raw fat, causes health problems and results in the
underconsumption of carbohydrates. On the other hand, one cannot eat primarily
vegetables as a diet, because they don't contain enough calories. Therefore, a
sustainable raw foods diet draws the great bulk of its daily calories from
fruits, which are high in calories, along with liberal amounts of vegetables
for their high mineral content, and small amounts of nuts and seeds.
Which is the best
raw foods diet?
The diet
we recommend is called the "low-fat raw vegan diet." Although the
diet is not new, the term for it was coined by sports nutritionist and
chiropractor Douglas Graham over twenty years ago. This diet has been used
successfully by many amateur and professional athletes as well as many
non-athletes to achieve top performance and health. Dr. Graham also refers to
this diet as "The 80/10/10 Diet" or "The 811 Diet." The
numbers refer to the percentage of calories that are ideally obtained daily
from the three food elements: carbohydrates, protein, and fat. Put another way,
80% of your calories will come from simple carbohydrates, 10% from protein, and
10% from fat. So in a 2000 calorie per day diet, 1600 calories will come from carbohydrates,
200 from protein, and 200 from fat. This works out naturally if 90 - 95% of
your calories come from sweet fruit, 2-6% from leafy greens, vegetables and
non-sweet fruits, and 0 - 8% from nuts and seeds. This is generally
accomplished with two or three large fruit meals during the day with a large
salad in the evening.
Why
Raw, Why Not Cooked?
Can a person survive on
only raw foods?
There is no essential nutrient in meat,
grains, legumes, or dairy that is not also available in fruits, vegetables,
nuts and seeds, and in a form that is easier to digest. Indeed, there are many
essential nutrients that can only be gained from plants. People thrive on the
raw diet, often telling others how it has improved their health and their
lives. Fruits, vegetables, and leafy greens not only contain sustainable
amounts of carbohydrates, protein and fat, they have them in the percentages,
ratios, and quality that are optimum for human health. When people integrate a
proper raw diet with other healthful living practices, they rarely, if ever,
develop weight control problems, chronic or even short-term illnesses.
What are the benefits of eating a raw diet?
The first
benefit is that you stop abusing your body each meal with toxic residue that it
must deal with, leaving it free to cleanse and heal itself. Next, the proper
raw diet eliminates constipation, and the transit time of waste matter shortens
to 24 hours or less, avoiding the buildup of toxemia from the recycling of
toxins from the colon. Most people on the standard American diet experience
transit times of 72 hours or more during which time their food ferments and
putrefies. The resulting foul gas and unpleasant smelling feces highlights the
fact of fermentation and putrefaction taking place in the colon.
What is wrong with cooked foods?
Applying heat to foods provides no
nutritional benefit to the food and is detrimental to the person ingesting the
cooked food. There are reported instances where, by heating food, certain
nutrients are more easily released, like lycopene from tomatoes. However, this
ignores that hundreds of other nutrients in that heated tomato that were
damaged or destroyed; and also assumes that more of a specific nutrient is
better, instead of trusting that the body has learned to extract just the right
amount that it needs for optimal health. Many nutrients are deadly toxic if we
overdose on them, more is definitely not always better. Many foods that are
cooked would otherwise be unappetizing or inedible to humans, such as meats and
grains, thus bypassing sensory safeguards that would normally protect the body
from ingestion of unnatural and unhealthy substances. Studies have shown that
the immune system often reacts to the introduction of cooked food into the
bloodstream the same way it does to foreign pathogens such as bacteria,
viruses, and fungi. Cooking food denatures the proteins, carcinogizes the fats,
and caramelizes the carbohydrates; most other nutrients are damaged, deranged
or destroyed by the heating process, leaving mostly empty calories. The regular
consumption of cooked foods results in the detrimental enlargement of the
pancreas.
People have been surviving on cooked foods for a long
time.
What's the big deal?
People thought the world was flat for a
long time. In order to progress with science, we had to come to grips with the
false nature of that paradigm. As humans moved away from the tropics, they
began eating the flesh of animals to substitute for missing fruits and
vegetables. The farming of grains, the hunting of animals, and civilization's
reliance on eating them cooked, came within the last 10,000 years, the same
length of time man has been using fire to prepare food. As such, cooked foods
are considered to be a major contributor to what are called the diseases of
civilization: cancer, heart disease, and diabetes.
Isn't it hard to switch
from a cooked food diet to a raw diet?
Learning how to eat a raw food diet properly
takes time, patience, and effort. Although there is a blueprint for doing it
correctly, most people find it challenging to adopt the raw diet 100% the first
time out, unless they get professional guidance. It seldom occurs overnight
and, in fact, can take years to accomplish. Because our taste buds have
experienced the excitement of salt, sugar and spices, we may miss those tastes
initially when they are no longer part of the daily diet. However, most people
find that the tradeoff for good health and longevity is worth it. Once the
taste buds are no longer exposed each day to these "excitotoxins,"
they once again develop an appreciation for the taste of sweet, fresh fruits
and vegetables.
How do you make the change from cooked to raw?
The best way to begin is by increasing
the amount of raw food you eat, while decreasing the amount of cooked food. For
example, you can replace cooked grains and milk (cereal, toast, etc.) for
breakfast with fruit that is in season, such as melon in summer or grapefruit or
oranges in winter. Later, a lunch made up of a sandwich (baked grains) and
chips (cooked corn or potatoes) can be replaced with another type of fruit or a
banana/berry smoothie. Start the evening meal with fruit, and follow that with
as much raw salad as you desire before committing to the cooked portion of
dinner. Eventually, you can replace the evening cooked meal with a large salad
made up of lots of leafy greens and some non-sweet fruits like tomatoes.
What are some of the toxins that accumulate in the body
from
eating cooked foods?
Eating cooked meat creates excess uric
acid and ammonia in the body, both of which are toxic to the system. The
proteins in cooked food become denatured, and, as a result, the polypeptide
bonds cannot be broken down into amino acids. These polypeptides are treated as
foreign invaders and must be excreted through the kidneys. The kidneys don't
allow for easy transport of these substances, causing the distress that leads
to kidney stones and eventually to kidney failure. Cooked grains cause
fermentation in the body that produces gas, alcohol, and acetic acid;
protoplasmic poisons that kill every cell with which they come into contact.
Calories and Food Volume: How Much to Eat?
Do I have to calculate
percentages every day to make sure I'm eating properly?
No, but it truly aids in your
understanding of what you are doing! By eating primarily fruit, vegetables, and
leafy greens, your diet is automatically close to the ideal of 80-10-10.
However, you may want to use a calculator to determine if you are getting
enough calories for the day to meet your basic metabolic and exercise needs.
Nutridiary (www.nutridiary.com) and FitDay (www.fitday.com) are two free online
resources for analyzing the food you eat to make sure you are getting enough
calories per day from raw sources. These resources are especially helpful to
the newcomer because it is common to undereat fruit and overeat fatty foods
when beginning the raw vegan diet. We recommend that you input your food
information into Nutridiary* for at least a week to make sure you have the
relevant information about your calories and the caloronutrient breakdown
(percentages of calories obtained from carbohydrates, protein and fat.) It is
easier to ask for help and advice from others when you can provide this
information as part of your question.
How do I know how many fruits and vegetables to eat
each day?
In the beginning, most people don't eat
enough raw foods to obtain the necessary daily calories because they are used
to eating concentrated cooked foods. You have to eat a larger volume of fruits
and vegetables to obtain the same amount of calories that you do from cooked
food, because fruits and vegetables are not as calorically dense. They contain
a considerable amount of water and fiber, other nutrients that the body needs.
Fruits are high in calories, while vegetables and leafy greens are not. So, it
makes sense that most of a raw fooder's diet will be made up of mostly fruit,
with large salads regularly to provide balancing minerals, such as sodium,
calcium and magnesium. A healthy diet contains approximately 90-97% calories
from fruits, 2-6% calories from greens and 0-8% calories from vegetables,
non-sweet fruits, nuts and seeds.
How do I go about eating so much fruit all at one
time?
Quoting Dr. Doug Graham: "It takes
some practice to develop the ability to consume what, from the raw perspective,
should be thought of as "normal" amounts of food for a human.
Somewhere in between "all you care for" and "all you can"
there is a happy medium that will enable you to increase the amount you
consume. The stomach is very accommodating in this regard and will stretch
quickly to allow you to consume normal/healthy quantities of fruit. At the same
time, your image of what is a healthy amount, and your mindset about quantities
of fruit will grow to match your ability to eat it." If you practice
eating a meal of just fruit, only fruit, and nothing but fruit, it will get
easier and easier to consume appropriate volumes.
Nutrients and Nutritional Concerns
Will I get enough of the
nutrients my body needs from fruits and vegetables?
The very best quality vitamins,
minerals, antioxidants, phytonutrients, enzymes, co-enzymes, fiber, water,
protein, carbohydrates, and fats come from fruits and vegetables. They are
complete nutritional packages and provide the body with everything it needs to
function properly. Of all foods, fruits are richest in vitamins and water, and
second richest in minerals and fiber, while vegetables and leafy greens are
richest in minerals and fiber, and second richest in vitamins and water. The
other two nutrient groups, proteins and fats, are needed in smaller quantities;
so, while fruits and vegetables are not high in protein and fat content, they
still remain their ideal source. All nutrients come in the proper proportions
and ratios that the body can utilize optimally. No man-made vitamin tablet or
other supplement can compare with nature's handiwork. Essentially, fruits
supply nutrients in quantities that most closely approximate human nutritional
needs and vegetables come in second place.
Where will I get my protein from, and is 10% enough?
There is more than enough protein in the
raw diet to satisfy your body's needs in sweet fruit, which averages 4 to 8% of
calories from protein, and vegetables and leafy greens, which average 15 to 20%
of calories from protein. This is a surprise to most people, who have been
taught incorrectly, that they need large amounts of protein to be healthy.
Actually, the reverse is true: most people suffer from an overdose of protein
each day, and this accounts for a great deal of ill health, such as
constipation, leading to toxemia and eventually, cancer. While excess protein
consumption is linked to many acidic conditions in the body and resultant
diminishing health, there is not even a medical name for the condition of
underproteinization. The acidity caused by excess protein consumption must be
counterbalanced by the body. It is done by taking the precious alkaline
mineral, calcium, from the bloodstream and bones, setting the stage for
osteoporosis and tooth decay. It is no coincidence that fruits and vegetables contain
just the right amounts of protein to build and maintain the human body.
Don't you have to cook grains in order to get their
nutritional benefit?
This question presupposes that grains
such as rice, wheat, barley, and oats are helpful to the body's nutrition.
Actually, they are not. The fact that they must be cooked to be edible is the
first clue that something is wrong with them. They are bland to the taste and
are virtually inedible without salt, spices, and condiments, the deadly
"excitotoxins". Grains are acid forming in a body that needs to be
slightly alkaline. Many people have substituted cooked grains in place of meat
in their diet, and as a consequence, have shown a marked reduction in
cardiovascular disease. However, because cooked grains create a condition known
as acid toxemia, these same people will instead, suffer from a higher risk of
arthritis and cancer. Cooked grains also contain opioids (which are addictive),
cause daily mood swings, and contribute significantly to obesity.
Don't fruits run counter to the low-carb mania
inspired by the high-protein diet gurus?
With respect to Dr. Atkins, his thesis
missed the mark. His first error was that he failed to distinguish between the
two types of carbohydrates: simple and complex. Fruit is a simple carbohydrate
from a whole food source, and cooked grains such as bread, rice, pasta, and
cereals are complex carbohydrates. Simple carbohydrates are easily digested,
and their sugars are readily absorbed by the cells of the body for use as fuel.
Complex carbohydrates are more difficult to digest, require substantial amounts
of energy in the conversion to sugar, and are denatured by the cooking process,
making them difficult for the body to assimilate and creating toxic byproducts.
In short, they are fattening and unhealthy. By eliminating nearly all
carbohydrates from the diet, Dr. Atkins ensured that the fat villain, complex
carbohydrates, would not be available, and the followers of his diet would, in
fact, lose weight. The problem however, is that he threw the proverbial baby
out with the bath water by removing simple carbohydrates from the diet, as
well.
Do I need to take supplements?
There is no need for supplements if you
are eating an adequate raw diet and engaging in frequent vigorous activity. All
the vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients the body needs are supplied by
eating a variety of fruits, vegetables, and leafy greens. Indeed, most
supplements are concentrated from plant foods, and the body does not appreciate
these concentrated levels, having to work to expel them similarly to the toxic
residue from cooked foods. It is always better to correct the diet than to
supplement it. Many people hold the belief that more is better, but actually,
supplements do little besides foster nutritional imbalances. That said, in
individual cases it may be necessary to supplement the diet nutritionally
during the initial phases of lifestyle change rather than risk potential health
damage. The health of each individual always takes priority over any philosophical
position.
What about Candida, Diabetes, Blood Sugar and Fruit
Sugar? Is fruit too hybridized?
The process of hybridization is a
natural one. There is nothing wrong with hybridization, per se. All plants and
animals are hybrids. What humans have done is much the same as nature has done
for thousands of years, with one significant difference: Nature created hybrids
as a method of survival, while we created hybrids in order to enhance specific
tastes or other features. We selected seeds from the best-tasting fruits and
planted these instead of the seeds of inferior fruits. The same process of
hybridization and seed selection that Nature has always used, man has applied
to all vegetables and fruits so that today, all the food that we buy has been
hybridized for hundreds of years. Problems arise when fruits are hybridized for
purely commercial reasons. For example, many fruits are hybridized simply to
make them sweeter, to create a variety with a longer shelf life, or to develop
some other marketable quality. The result of this hybridization has often been
the creation of fruit of inferior nutritional quality, especially with respect
to the sugar-to-mineral ratio. If a fruit is sweeter, this does not make it
bad, it just means that we have to eat less of it in order to get the same
amount of carbohydrates. If the mineral-to-sugar ratio has been altered in
favor of sugar, we can reinstate balance among these nutrients simply by
including more young and tender greens in our diet. In the future, we can hope
that humanity will come back to its senses and nurture the development of foods
for their exceptional taste and nutritional value, rather than for the cosmetic
and commercial features currently promoted by market forces.
If too much sugar is not good for you, why the
emphasis on eating so much sweet fruit?
Before the body's cells can utilize food
for fuel, the food must first be converted into sugar, whether the originating
food is carbohydrate, protein, or fat. Carbohydrates are the easiest to convert
to useful sugars. Fruits are mostly simple carbohydrates. It is much easier on
the digestive system to process fruits for fuel because they are composed
primarily of sugars, requiring much less digestive energy, and they come in a
complete nutritional package of vitamins, minerals, proteins, and fats. When
there are insufficient carbohydrates present to convert to sugar, the body will
transform fat and protein into sugar, but at a higher cost: more time and
energy spent on digestion with the creation of toxic residues.
I have candida or a yeast infection. How can I eat so
much fruit?
Excess fat is the culprit in candida,
not sugar, per se. When fat levels in the blood rise, so does blood sugar,
because excess fat inhibits insulin from performing its function of escorting
sugar out of the bloodstream. The excess fat lines the blood vessel walls, the
cells, insulin receptor sites, the sugar molecules themselves, and the insulin
with a thin coating of fat, thus blocking and inhibiting normal metabolic
activity.
Too much sugar in the blood is as life
threatening as too little and can result in serious illness or death. Yeast, or
candida, is a constant presence in the blood; it serves as a life preservation
mechanism, blooming when there is an excess of sugar in the blood stream to
bring blood sugar down to a non-threatening level. When the sugar is
distributed and used by the cells of the body, the yeast quickly dies off as it
is supposed to.
If fat levels stay chronically high due
to a poor diet, sugar will remain in the bloodstream and feed the large candida
colonies instead of feeding the 18 trillion cells of your body. Starved for
fuel, these cells can no longer metabolize energy, and you become tired, and
feel rundown. Because all carbohydrate, fat, and protein that we eat is
converted to simple sugar (glucose) if it is to be used by the cells for fuel,
the way out of this cycle is not to eat less sugar, but to consume less fat.
When fat levels drop, the sugar starts to get processed and distributed again,
and the yeast levels drop because there is no longer excess sugar available.
Is it okay to juice fruits and vegetables?
With a few exceptions, it is preferable
to consume the whole food rather than to extract part of it and drink it.
Drinking fruit or carrot juice without the pulp being present to slow the
absorption rate of the nutrients can spike the blood sugar and throw your blood
chemistry out of balance. It is far better to consume the whole fruit. One
exception is fresh-squeezed citrus fruits, since a significant portion of the
pulp is generally retained with the juice. The other "exceptions" are
to blend fruits such as melons, and to make smoothies out of various fruits
like bananas and strawberries. Liquefying the entire fruit in a blender turns
it into a juice or a thick smoothie, while keeping the entire nutritional
package together. Blending whole tomato, celery and orange together makes a
thick, tasty, salad dressing.
Okay to Eat or Take This?
I personally never recommend anything to
anyone that I would not consume. I personally do not consume oils, condiments
(salts, peppers, ketchup, etc.), dried herbs, seaweeds, or and
"special" type of exotic supplement that requires packaging. My basic
rule is that if it comes in a package, it is most likely not fresh. I prefer to
eat the olive as opposed to the olive oil, or I enjoy more the water and
filling of a coconut rather than the man-processed product of its oil. Why
consume a dried herb when you can eat a fresh one and obtain its fresh juices
of life. Fresh is always best!
Should my fruits and vegetables always be organic?
Organic produce is always to be
preferred, but life is full of compromises and choices. It may be better to eat
non-organic raw vegetables than to eat cooked or steamed organic vegetables,
but it is a difficult choice. The goal of this site is to define the ideal, the
target, while encouraging and assisting the reader in vectoring towards those
goals. It is better to eat plenty of non-organic fruits and meet your daily
caloric requirement than to under eat on insufficient quantities organic fruit
and grow weak from lack of adequate nutrition.There are usually more vitamins
and minerals in organic produce. It is also true that organic produce has
little or no pesticide residue, while non-organic often does; nevertheless, the
amounts involved are not usually critical to health, and it is far more
consequential to avoid the pathogenic effects from cooked food. To worry about
pesticides while eating cooked food is like stepping in front of a moving train
to avoid the sting of a bee.
Can I keep drinking coffee on the raw diet?
The beans in coffee are cooked, making
them non-raw. The fatal dose of caffeine is 10 grams, the amount in
approximately 70 cups of coffee. Many people take one tenth of the lethal dose
every day. Moreover, caffeine decreases the amount of pepsin in your body,
pepsin that is needed for protein digestion. Caffeine is also known to deplete
the body of water, calcium, potassium, manganese, and the vitamin B complex. It
is ironic that many coffee drinkers on the Standard American Diet (SAD)
criticize the raw diet because they believe they would not receive enough
protein every day, while their daily intake of coffee blocks the absorption of
the very protein they claim they need.
What about spices like garlic, onion, curry, cumin,
cayenne,
chile powder, and
oregano?
We have a saying in the raw community
about this: "If you can't make a meal of it, it is suspect at best."
So, can you eat a bowl of cumin? Of course not. These spices are referred to as
"excito-toxins," in that they stimulate and excite our taste buds,
but deliver no nutritional benefit. In most cases they act as an irritant and
cause the body to produce mucous to protect itself from them. In other cases,
they disguise the bland or noxious taste of cooked foods to seduce us into
consuming foods that would not attract us on their own. Cooked pasta and rice
without seasonings, are bland and virtually inedible. Finally, like salt, the
spices skew our taste buds away from appreciating the natural taste of fruits and
vegetables on their own. The same holds true for condiments such as mustard,
ketchup, and mayonnaise.
Are dehydrated foods OK to eat?
Dehydrated food is not a whole food; it
has had its water taken out. As such, it could never be as good as the whole, fresh
food, even if the water is replaced. Some of the nutrients inevitably get
damaged in the process of dehydration and rehydration. This becomes a personal
decision, but dried foods should always be considered at least a second choice
behind fresh, whole, organic, ripe fruits and vegetables. Current research
shows that B12 changes to an analog and unusable form where it is found in
dehydrated foods.
Are frozen fruit/veggies OK to eat?
Some damage to living foods must occur
when they are frozen. Cell walls expand, and often burst when frozen,
diminishing vitality. However, some foods, like nuts and seeds are designed to
survive through cold winters, so these foods are definitely okay to freeze. As
for fruits and vegetables, freezing should be used sparingly but not
necessarily totally eliminated, as it is often the best way to preserve foods
with minimal damage. No known toxins are formed from freezing, as opposed to
other forms of preservation. Generally, the lower the water content and the
higher the fat content of a whole, fresh food, the better it will take to
freezing. At the same time, frozen and ice-cold foods kill the bacteria in the
gut that are responsible for the production of vitamin B-12.
Can I use vinegar in my salad dressing?
Vinegar is diluted acetic acid, commonly
known to be a poison in its pure form. Acetic acid stimulates the thyroid gland
to pull phosphorous from the adrenal glands to negate the effects of acetic
acid in the system. Depleted phosphorous results in impaired function of the adrenal
glands and thus the entire endocrine system. The outcome of all this can
include body odor, pains in the heart, rapid pulse, increased mucous
production, and headaches. Repetitive use will also result in hardening of the
liver.
Are refined oils, like olive, canola, sunflower,
safflower, coconut, etc.,
OK to use in dressing?
Because they are refined from their
original state, oils are no longer safe to ingest into the body. In their
concentrated forms, they are pure fat and large amounts of that fat will be
directly absorbed into the bloodstream, adversely affecting the blood viscosity
(thickness) and the blood chemistry. However, eating some fresh olives, coconut
flesh, or sunflower seeds, in moderation, is not bad for you. These whole foods
assuredly contain plenty of fat but it is in a form that is combined with all
the essential nutrients designed by nature to accompany that fat.
Is eating sea salt all right?
Extracted sodium chloride, in any form
other than the small amounts naturally occurring in whole plant foods, is an
irritant and is toxic to the body. It causes a decay of the sense of taste,
retards digestion/excretion, and impairs the critical cellular potassium/sodium
ratio upsetting our natural water balance. Drinking sea water causes dehydration
and results in death in only a few days due to the salt content; extracting the
salt from the water and ingesting it leads in the same direction. "You
would not drink ocean water, as the salt in it is vile, caustic, irritating and
in quantity, deadly, even though it is diluted by a lot of water.
Why shouldn't I eat all the avocados, nuts, and seeds
I want?
Avocados, nuts and seeds are extremely
high in fat content. When it comes to fat, it doesn?t matter so much its
origin; fat is fat. Fat goes from the lymph system directly into the blood. Too
much fat will thicken the blood, causing the red blood cells to clump together
so they cannot deliver oxygen to the cells. Excess fat also blocks the action
of insulin in bringing sugars to the cells, which leads to diabetes. It is
better to eat small amounts of avocados, nuts and seeds, and not to eat them
daily. There is more than adequate fat for the body from fruits, vegetables and
leafy greens.
Should I continue taking medicine prescribed by my
doctor if I adopt the raw food lifestyle?
The medical profession and its
supporting industry, the patent medicine makers, operate from the theory that
there are 400 or so separate illnesses whose symptoms can be treated or
suppressed by ingesting synthetic chemical compounds. Our approach is entirely
different. Other than a few genetically inherited abnormalities usually arising
from generations of poor dietary and lifestyle choices, there is only one
illness: toxemia, an uncleanness of the blood and tissues, caused primarily by
poor diet and lifestyle. This toxemia, and its concomitant enervation, gets
progressively worse over the years, leading to all manner of health problems.
In order to "cure" a disease condition, such as diabetes, cancer, or
cardiovascular disease, you must eliminate the underlying toxemia of which the
"disease" is only a manifestation. With a raw diet, you no longer
overload the body daily with toxic residue. The body will begin to clean the
blood, tissue and organs of their toxicity, and the medical condition for which
you are taking the pharmaceutical medicine will fade away, ultimately removing
the need to continue taking the medicine.
Healing and Detox: Will I lose weight on the raw diet?
Most people report losing weight on the
raw diet, if they started with excess. However, there is no set standard on how
this works; results are strictly individualized. Some people start losing right
away; others take several months before significant weight losses begin. It may
prove useful to know that there are three types of weight that can be lost:
water, which can represent significant weight loss in a relatively short time;
muscle, which occurs through atrophy due to lack of use, generally not
attributable to diet; and fat, which is rarely lost at a rate higher than one
pound per week. If one were to lose five pounds in a week, it is likely that a
maximum of one of the pounds would be fat and the other four or more would be
water loss.
Will I get gas from eating raw foods?
Reports range from no gas, to mild gas,
to extreme gas depending upon the individual, as he/she transitions to the raw
diet. Initially, gas problems may arise from an impaired digestive tract, which
holds foods in little pockets of the intestines, where they may ferment or
putrefy and cause gas. Over time, this will stop, as the intestines heal. If
the gas has an odor, it is generally from the putrefaction of proteins (cooked
food residue); if it is odorless, then it is generally from the fermentation of
sugar (overeating or high levels of fat in the blood). Long term gas problems
on the raw vegan diet are generally correctable by being conscious of proper
food combining, limiting fats and by not eating more in one meal than the body
can quickly digest at this phase of transition.
Will I experience detox symptoms eating the raw diet?
Most people experience temporary and
generally mild symptoms of detoxification from beginning the raw diet, as the
body is no longer being overloaded each day with toxic residue. This is the
body being allowed to cleanse and heal itself. The body is wise and will always
eliminate toxins in a way that requires the least effort while doing itself the
least harm. Detox symptoms that can occur range from tiredness, runny nose,
digestive challenges and skin conditions to retracing phenomena, weight loss,
drops in blood pressure and other signs that the body is making a healthy
adjustment. Each person is unique; therefore, the duration of significant
detoxification will vary, based upon health, vitality and environment and the
degree of commitment to a healthy lifestyle. It can last from days to years. We
must also remember that we are in a constant state of toxifying and
detoxifying. We absorb environmental toxins, and the body works to eliminate
them. We ingest foods, even the best sort, and the body creates metabolic
toxins as a result of its cellular metabolism. Not to worry, however, because
we are equipped with an entire eliminative system, composed of kidneys, a
liver, lungs, bowels and the skin, to rid ourselves of these toxins.
Are some foods better for you than others (healing
foods)?
It is important to understand that foods
don't heal us; the body does all the healing. Foods, cooked or raw, simply
supply the materials the body uses in its various functions. However, low fat
raw vegan foods provide the widest range of high quality materials and are,
therefore, more likely to have the perfect proportion of raw materials needed
by the body for healing. Beyond that, no specific raw food is better for
"healing" than any other. Each supplies a form of raw material that
the body may need and use. Unlike cooked foods, raw foods do this without
leaving a toxic residue that can overwhelm the body's ability to maintain a
healthy, balanced state.
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