Raw Diet?

[Late_Lotus]

I eat a lot of garbage here at my moms, and I want to eat healthier. I keep all my animals on really healthy diets and pay close attention to what types of nutrients they get from different foods. So I told myself it's time for me to treat myself as well as I treat them. I'm not overweight or anything, but I've noticed I'm often tired and becoming lazy. So I began reading. One book in particular had a great rule system: "Eat FOOD (not garbage). Not too much. Mostly Plants." I always eat my meat last anyways, when I get around to it, so I figured this won't be difficult for me to hop into, and started looking at vegetarian diets.
Then I came across Raw diets. Based on the idea that when we cook our foods we actually destroy many of the nutrients found in them.
Most people on Raw diets are vegetarians or vegans, and I decided to try it out for a couple of days. I only ate fruits, veggies, and nuts for those two days without cooking anything and I couldn't believe how much ENERGY I had. You feel very alert, happy, and awake!
I wanted to see who else on here may be on Raw Food? I know there are many vegans and vegetarians and if there aren't many people on Raw, perhaps some of you will try this.
Just TWO days! Even just ONE day, and I began feeling a change. I'm going to research more, but I think it's safe to say I will be following this simple way of eating. I suggest you try it!

[Individual]

I don't think it's healthy.

Maybe it has something to do with gut bacteria having to adjust to a new diet, but I tried the raw fruits and veggies thing once, and no matter how much I ate, I was constantly tired and hungry.

Plenty of info here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_foodism

Of particular interest is this study:

A study surveying people practicing raw vegan diets of varying intensities found that 30% of the women under age 45 had partial to complete amenorrhoea and that "subjects eating high amounts of raw food (> 90%) were affected more frequently than moderate raw food dieters". The study concluded that since many raw food dieters were underweight and exhibited amenorrhoea "a very strict raw food diet cannot be recommended on a long-term basis"

Amenorrhoea is a side-effect of malnutrition.

I think it's good to eat lots of raw fruits, but vegetables should be cooked. They taste better cooked and they're better for you.

The Buddha also specifically forbids monks to eat raw meat and grain (somebody else can dig up the sutta reference).

[Viscid]

These types of diets, I find, just lead to people getting neurotically obsessive over what they eat.

"Is this raw? Is this organic? Does it have xyz ingredient?"

Then you can never take them out somewhere to eat, because you have to be considerate of their delusional obsessions and spend considerable time deliberating on a suitable venue for face-stuffing.

[alan]

By your own admission you ate a lot of garbage. Just getting off that will make you feel better. It's not the raw foods, it is the fact that you are off the garbage, that makes you feel better.

There is no reason to eat only raw food.

[tahariel]

I have some experience with vegan, vegetarian and raw diet. What I can recommend is vegan diet. I have never been for long period (more than 6 weeks) on raw diet but for me from time to time it is very good.
@Viscid any obsession is not good, so if you from the beginning give this label to people who consciously and freely choose what they eat is not fair.

[Viscid]

@Viscid any obsession is not good, so if you from the beginning give this label to people who consciously and freely choose what they eat is not fair.

You're right, of course, but there are people who take it too far.

[Sanghamitta]

I have some experience with vegan, vegetarian and raw diet. What I can recommend is vegan diet. I have never been for long period (more than 6 weeks) on raw diet but for me from time to time it is very good.
@Viscid any obsession is not good, so if you from the beginning give this label to people who consciously and freely choose what they eat is not fair.

Show me a culture more than a couple of decades old where a group of of human beings choose to adopt a raw food diet and i will concede the point. The fact is that conscious choice does not come in to it...wacky food propaganda does.

[Ytrog]

I heard/read somewhere (could be radio or a science news site, don't know anymore) that scientists suspect that eating cooked food allowed humans to develop the brains we have today. Cooked food is easier to digest than raw food, so more energy could go to the brains instead of digesting the food. This resulted in more brain growth.

Maybe this is something to think about when you're pondering eating raw food. There was an evolutionary advantage in prehistoric times for people who ate cooked food. There is a reason that fire was so important for survival other than keeping you warm.

[poto]

I heard/read somewhere (could be radio or a science news site, don't know anymore) that scientists suspect that eating cooked food allowed humans to develop the brains we have today. Cooked food is easier to digest than raw food, so more energy could go to the brains instead of digesting the food. This resulted in more brain growth.

Maybe this is something to think about when you're pondering eating raw food. There was an evolutionary advantage in prehistoric times for people who ate cooked food. There is a reason that fire was so important for survival other than keeping you warm.

From what I understand any cold food that you eat has to be warmed by your body. That takes energy from your body to produce that heat. Warm food does not drain energy from your body and can actually add some thermal energy to your system. I have read some speculation that heated and cooked food may have been one reason our species has survived through numerous ice ages.

Personally, I consider a raw food diet to be an ascetic diet. While it may work for some people, I wouldn't recommend it for most people.

[Laurens]

Its not healthy at all. Cooked food arguably might lose some of its nutrients in the cooking process, however it also helps to break the food down which means our body requires less energy to digest it. Cooking played a role in the evolution of our species, getting more energy from less food is key to our success.

Eating a raw diet would mean subjecting oneself to tiredness and lack of energy. The energy you would normally use to be active during the day would be spent digesting food, and one would have to spend more time eating to be able to keep one's energy levels up.

You might lose weight, but you wont be healthy.

[alan]

Good point, Laurens.
Fact is, there is no reason to eat raw food only. It is just another dumb fad which is not based upon reason.

[timmbuktwo]

Fruits go through your digestive system in mere minutes , vegetables hours and meats days . Raw or cooked is not the key , although raw fruits are ideal . Your body needs virtually no resources , energy , to process fruits.

[Jhana4]

Just TWO days! Even just ONE day, and I began feeling a change. I'm going to research more, but I think it's safe to say I will be following this simple way of eating. I suggest you try it!

I've been a vegetarian over 30 years. I started off with a raw diet, got very ill, got educated and started a life long hobby of being a nutrition buff.

Living off of just produce is a nice tonic for and break from sloppy eating, but it isn't a sustainable diet.

Like someone else wrote earlier, you feel better because you gave your body a break and stopped putting garbage into it. You probably got more vitamins and water into your body by the simple fact of eating more of any kind of produce.

Most authors of raw food books have no expertise in nutrition and often write many things that contradict basic science that has been known for centuries.

Brenda Davis RD, is a coauthor of the American Dietetic Association's Position Paper On Vegetarianism. She recently became interested in raw diets and incorporating ( partially ) many more raw foods in her own diet. She published a book called "Becoming Raw". It is probably the only book on the subject based on facts and written by a researcher.

I would encourage you to enjoy more produce on a regular basis, but I would discourage you from trying to eat raw food 100% of the time.. If you must, for your own self interest, do it after reading "Becoming Raw" and following the advice in the book.

[kansascoder]

Late_Lotus,

The best thing to do is to follow your body's urgnings and honor your consicence. Some people get sick on raw and others thrive. no one but you can how your body will respond. I was on an all juice and raw diet for about 3 months and felt fantastic. Check out this fellows site: http://www.therawfoodworld.com/. I'm sure you already have but it's worth mentioning. He has lots of youtube videos and I personally like his energy.

There are endless variations in our diet. I began to attend to my conscience when eating meat and now eat almost entirely vegetarian foods. Lots of folks tell me it is unsustainable to live this way but I feel fine. I find it less and less necessary to eat meat but in the beginning if I felt a need for it I ate it. A comment here about getting hung up on diet is in my opinion wise. Listen to your conscience and be conscious abouthow you're making choices. It'll be interesting for sure!

Rich

[Jhana4]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKKvmFZBALo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD11em1uXgk[/video]

I thought these videos were excellent. I like to read up on nutrition as a hobby so I had a sense that what Concordance had to say was correct. I was disappointed that I could not find out what his name, education or research experience is. To me that is a bit ironic as the raw food movement exists because its members believe what they read without checking into the background of who is saying what.

[meindzai]

I researched it and tried it for quite awhile. I'm glad I did as I learned a lot, and got a lot of great recipes that I occasionally use (like raw apple pie).

But for the most part it's expensive, unrealistic, extreme, and alienating.

Expensive: In order to get the calories needed on a daily basis from raw foods alone you need to eat a lot of them. $20 to $30 a day is not unusual for raw food. This includes a lot of nuts (raw ones of course, not toasted, and you're supposed to soak them to make them "alive") which have never really been a part of the human diet on the scale required to sustain a raw food diet.

Trying it for a few days is actually a nice way to clean out the body and get a little burst of energy, but it gets old quick.

Unrealistic: No carbs from bread, no pasta, no potatoes (because they cannot be eaten raw) no rice, no coffee, no tea, no salt, no pepper (condiments are "toxic!" according to raw foodies). No beans of course, a major source of protein for most vegans and vegetarians, unless they are simply soaked and perhaps sprouted, a very tedious process.

Extreme: There is simply no need to eat in such an extreme way when there are many healthy cooked foods, including some whose vitamin content is actually helped along or more readily absorbed when they are cooked. (tomatoesand broccoli are two examples).

Alienating: Have fun at family dinners, restaurants, and even, yes, monasteries trying to put a whole meal together with raw foods. "Can I have another salad? Can I have more salad? No thanks I can't have the carrots/potatoes/broccoli/cabbage/beans you've spent all that time making. Can I have four bananas and an apple?"

In fact it was at a monastery where I broke my raw food phase since I simply wasn't going to get the calories I needed in the two meals (Theravada monastery so no meal after noon) from the uncooked food that was there.

On the subject of alienation, the internet forums no better represent raw food people then they represent Buddhists, probably, so the following is a bit of an unfair judgement. I spent time on some raw food forums and I found most of the adherents there to be uber left-wing (that's a lot coming from a Buddhist, you know) paranoid and alarmist. They threw the word "toxic" around with regards to any and all foods not raw, including spices, tea, coffee, etc. Some would even debate as to whether it was ethical to eat seeds(you're depriving the plants ability to reproduce, you evil swine), and whether even certain parts of the fruits and vegetables were "toxic." People that did not eat raw food were automatically put into the category of "SAD" (standard american diet). Again, the internet crowd probably represents a sorry bunch compared to whatever a "normal" raw food eater is like, but they were a silly, sorry, lonely group of people.

Vegan/vegetarianism is ok - still somewhat extreme for me. But the most moderate bet is Michal Pollan's advice which you indicated above "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants." Learn to cook and cook well. Have fun with recipes. Cook real food, not from boxes or packages. Buy and plant fresh herbs and use them. Stay out of fast food places mostly, but go if you have too and don't beat yourself up for eating at burger king because you were driving across the country and you and your wife were starving and it was the only place available. (Hypothetically speaking). Buy local and organic when possible but neither beat up yourself when you buy from the local supermarket because the farmers market closed already and there's nothing for dinner.

There's so much hype and paranoia out there about what we're supposed to be eating when it's all really a pretty simple fact of not buying into any of the hype of the extremists (on one end) not paying attention to what the nutrition scientists say this week or that week about which berry you should have more of. On the other end don't fall into the fast food/packaged food easy stuff. Just apply moderate effort to reasonable eating and you'll be fine.

Sorry if that got ranty. It's something I've given a bit of thought to.

-M

[PeterB]

In my absolutist way I may have got the wrong end of the stick, but I rather thought that part of the raw food agenda was the pursuit of alienation.

Certainly those patients I have had referred to me who very early on declare themselves to be raw food devotees are among the most angry people I have ever met. Usually its a good way to worry mum/mom. Its a prolonged revenge for being born.

[Jhana4]

But for the most part it's expensive, unrealistic, extreme, and alienating.

LOL. Aside from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the show?

On the subject of alienation, the internet forums no better represent raw food people then they represent Buddhists, probably, so the following is a bit of an unfair judgement. I spent time on some raw food forums and I found most of the adherents there to be uber left-wing (that's a lot coming from a Buddhist, you know) paranoid and alarmist.

I've been a vegan for over 15 years and a vegetarian for over 30 years. Raw foodists tend to turn up at many of our events and places. Your assessment of the the internet Raw crowd pretty much fits the real world raw crowd too. I do know some really down to Earth people who are "raw", but they are the minority and I don't really consider them to be raw foodists. The nice ones typically describe themselves in such terms as "50% raw" or "70% raw". In other words, they aren't raw foodists, they are just people who like to eat a lot of salads.

Expensive: In order to get the calories needed on a daily basis from raw foods alone you need to eat a lot of them. $20 to $30 a day is not unusual for raw food.

Often ignored, but a very valid point.

Vegan/vegetarianism is ok - still somewhat extreme for me. But the most moderate bet is Michal Pollan's advice which you indicated above "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants."

Most of the articles Pollan publishes often revolves around him eating politically correct animal products most Americans can't afford. He hardly ever writes about "eating mostly plants" himself. This is a significant point given your criticism about raw foodism being expensive.

On amazon.com organic, grass feed beef goes for $8 a pound. Grass fed steak goes for about $17 a pound. Canned, wild salmon goes for about $30 a pound. I live in a pricey urban area, but I can buy organic whole grains and legumes for about $2 a pound.

[Jhana4]

In my absolutist way I may have got the wrong end of the stick, but I rather thought that part of the raw food agenda was the pursuit of alienation.

Certainly those patients I have had referred to me who very early on declare themselves to be raw food devotees are among the most angry people I have ever met. Usually its a good way to worry mum/mom. Its a prolonged revenge for being born.

Interesting thoughts Peter. I was a raw foodist for a year. I was 14 at the time and rebellion was completely what it was about. All in all, I think my parents got a break as I wasn't out wrecking cars and buying illegal drugs.

I've met and talked with many raw foodists over the years. The common theme I've seen between the lines for many of them is that they are looking to have something magic that sets them apart and above from other people.

They tend to be a bit OCD, as a crowd. I also can't agree with you enough that they tend to be angry people, as a group. My theory is that at least part of that is malnutrition. I always remembered feeling remarkably less angry a few weeks after quitting raw foodism.

[PeterB]

Of course its quite possible Jhana4 that I mostly get to see the ones whose alienation has an angry edge...and you are right lots of OCD, fear of embodiment which often takes the form of blood phobia.