how can i be a successful part time raw-foodist?

[alcor]

Hi

I've been aprox 75% raw for the last few months. I ended up with trouble digesting and IBS-like symptoms. I suspect it has to do with how I mix the foods and the quantities. My salads are usually big, I eat fruits and sprouts as well. I think my portions in general seem to be bigger that what I have seen on various web sites.

I do not think I will become 100% raw and I was wandering what I can do to make the "part time version" work better for me? Thanks!

[dreamrawalwz]

Everyone has their reasons for being the % they are, but I'm just wondering why you probably won't go any further? I would suggest to change your mindset to "at the moment I won't go 100% because it doesn't feel right for me yet, but i'll leave my mind and options open to adding more and possibly going 100% raw later in my life, even if it's years later." Sometimes if people set their minds to "i will never do xyz..." then they most likely won't.

Food combining: don't mix fruit with fat. Keep melons seperate. It's hard on your body if you eat cooked and then anything raw since the digestive juices are different. It'll take longer to eat the cooked and the raw will just sit there and ferment. In the 25 % cooked what is it? Is it meat, dairy, grains, junk food? That can have a huge impact. The other side is that your body wants you to go completely raw.

[Rawkinlocs]

Eat a LOT of raw food (the majority) and whatever cooked things you choose to eat, make sure they're healthy and whole and not processed or SAD-based.

Visit here often for ideas on incorporating MORE raw food into your diet as we're here to support the raw aspect of your diet! :)

[lissomllama]

It is hard to really reap benefits from not going all the way raw because you can't truly detox unless you take the plunge and if your body is still toxic, you probably won't have much luck with losing weight, although I don't know what your goals are. Do you want to lose weight? Or get clear skin? Or cure degenerative diseases? Or just be more healthy of a part time cooked eater? It's as simple as this: If you're not 100%, then You and your body will not reap the maximum benefits you could from going 100% And the things like clear skin, no body odor, curing diseases etc. usually only happen after having been very high-100% raw all of the time because it takes a lot of time and consistency for your body to repair itself and totally turn back the clock on all that damage. Everyone needs a different timeline though, and it took me a year to get where I am. Most raw foodists get up to 100% after a long time of failures and testing the waters and we all come back because we can't stop thinking about raw and our bodies start to crave it and we can't help not thinking about the fact that we're eating dead food and we know it's not giving us all that we could have, so eventually, most people take the plunge because they really do want it so much. Keep in mind that all you're sacrificing here is a few moments of a few cooked tastes and textures and the taste goes away so fast and then you're left with food of a compromised nutritional value but there is something to be said for truly believing in whatever it is you do. So if you need to be only half raw and eat whatever cooked foods you eat, that's your choice and do it with joy.

[alcor]

Hi

Thanks for the answers. Why I started - one day I just woke up with this idea in my head to try it and I did. I had weeks were the % cooked was lower than other weeks. I suspect it will vary in the future as well. I had few patches of psoriazis and they healed almost completely. My face looks better too. The weight is not moving much even though I started running for about 4 weeks (about 30 km/week). There are a number of resons why i do not think i will get to 100: I do like food and I think I will still want to ocassionally have pasta or whatever; some of raw recipes i do not like whatsoever(like hummus, most of the soups i've tried - they taste like grass and so do some of the smoothies, some vegetables i don't like raw either, i love nuts but i try to stay away because of the calories, i do stay away from the deserts too for the same reason, I cannot easily find all the nuts and they are rather expensive some of them, I do not have a dehydrator - so that cuts a lot of other recipes too. This has worked so far because I live alone.

I do not usually eat junk food. In the cooked: eggs few times a month, some milk with the coffee, fish once a week, sometimes bread but not that often. Every few months, some cheese or chicken. I have 90% chocolate every day one square. I will get away of the eggs. Eventually the fish too - or make it more like once a month or something like that.

Alcor

[dreamrawalwz]

Hi

Thanks for the answers. Why I started - one day I just woke up with this idea in my head to try it and I did. I had weeks were the % cooked was lower than other weeks. I suspect it will vary in the future as well. I had few patches of psoriazis and they healed almost completely. My face looks better too. The weight is not moving much even though I started running for about 4 weeks (about 30 km/week). There are a number of resons why i do not think i will get to 100: I do like food and I think I will still want to ocassionally have pasta or whatever; some of raw recipes i do not like whatsoever(like hummus, most of the soups i've tried - they taste like grass and so do some of the smoothies, some vegetables i don't like raw either, i love nuts but i try to stay away because of the calories, i do stay away from the deserts too for the same reason, I cannot easily find all the nuts and they are rather expensive some of them, I do not have a dehydrator - so that cuts a lot of other recipes too. This has worked so far because I live alone.

I do not usually eat junk food. In the cooked: eggs few times a month, some milk with the coffee, fish once a week, sometimes bread but not that often. Every few months, some cheese or chicken. I have 90% chocolate every day one square. I will get away of the eggs. Eventually the fish too - or make it more like once a month or something like that.

Alcor

There is a HUGE difference between 95-100% even for weight loss. That one tiny cooked item could be haulting that. You don't need recipes at all! Don't worry about calories and try to get rid of the SAD thinking. Raw calories shouldn't matter at all. I don't have time to expand on that, but I hope others will come behind me and do so. Even taking the first steps as you have is great!

[lissomllama]

That's fine if you still want to eat cooked but just know that wanting to be raw and wanting to still have the taste of pasta, coffee, chicken, fish etc. is just an empty desire. These things won't bring you health, instead, they will bring the opposite and then you may start to feel that it is the fault of the raw diet because you aren't seeing the results you want. Most people automatically fault the raw diet when something goes wrong because they see it as radical and different and cooked food brings some kind of comfort. Regardless, cooked food and especially processed foods and meats bring trouble, even in very small amounts. I hope I don't seem rude but these desires to keep eating certain cooked things are just fueled by the Standard American Diet way of thinking. Remember also, that you don't need a dehydrator or fancy raw recipes or even a blender. You will actually have better results with just eating mostly leafy greens, fruits and small amounts of nuts and seeds when you can afford them. Everything may taste like grass in the begining but your taste buds will adjust. I swear, if you go 100% you'll start loving the taste of things you wouldn't touch before. I used to hate spinach and bitter, leafy greens and now they truly do taste good to me. I hardly ever make recipes or use my dehydrator. I try to eat everything in its whole, natural state and each day my taste buds pick up new and complex tastes and textures that I never noticed before. This may sound cliche` but you shouldn't worry about having to spend a little more money at first on raw, whole foods because that is money that will never have to spent on hospital bills and medication later in life if you keep eating cooked and once you learn to find bargains and all that, raw can be cheap as well. I wish you luck with whatever you choose.

[rawfigure]

When I first went Raw I transitioned by eating a cooked food at dinner, thats one item cooked and the rest Raw. I found that way I ate Raw all day, and then over time I did not want a cooked dinner at all !!

IF I were to eat cooked I would only have it at dinner, last meal. If I ate it early in the day I felt OFF all day and ate more cooked than I liked.

[rawpriestess]

if you are going to eat some raw and some cooked, you can do the best for your body, and your digestion by eating raw fruits for breakfast, raw salads and veggies for lunch, then eat a cooked dinner.

[rawnora]

In addition, proper food combining will be very important. The improvements you've made in your diet will allow your body to heal to a certain point and to that extent it's going to become more sensitive and vital. That means it won't put up with things it used to. Tolerance is a sign of ill health. INtolerance is a sign of returning vitality. We all know people who can eat anything and not get symptoms. To contrast, think about how often young children throw up, get diarrhea, etc. They have the vitality necessary to reject poisons, including those in cooked foods, junk foods, bad combinations. When children get sick, adults generally stand around and scratch their heads, blaming microscopic life forms. The truth is, poisons are easily repelled by a vital human body, and adult human bodies in a junk-eating culture just lack the ability to do that. Over time, the body of a cooked food eater builds up more or less permanent walls to protect itself in the form of thickened, hardened membranes that prevent poisons *and* nutrients from getting into the bloodstream. It's a long-term alternative to having to expend all the energy necessary to produce vomiting and diarrhea. These protective barriers are one reason why most people in our culture are malnourished, in addition to the fact that the nutrients they are eating have been destroyed by heat. Your eating of raw food will allow your body to get rid of its protection and you'll therefore be more sensitive and vulnerable. This is good!

Getting back to combining foods properly, you might wonder how two or more foods improperly combined can equal poison. Digestion is both a mechanical and a chemical process. Each food that you eat requires a different chemical environment in order to be broken down. Some foods require an acid environment, and others require alkaline. When foods from both or many categories are eaten together, the chemicals that would otherwise cause their digestion are neutralized. That means, very little of the food is digested. What happens to food that doesn't get digested? The same thing that happens if you leave it out on your counter at 97 degrees. Rotting food is poison, as you know if you've ever seen, smelled or tasted it. The body has no choice other than to quickly remove it, IF it has the vitality necessary to do so (most adult bodies do not, that's why most people are seen to "get away" with combining mistakes and why the entire concept is poo-poo'd by mainstream nutritionists).

Combining is much more important to people who are still eating cooked food because although improperly combined raw foods create problems, those caused by undigested cooked foods create a significantly larger mess in the digestive system. It's not that those following a "high raw" diet are going to have more problems from miscombining than people eating the SAD, it's that their problems will be more obvious and visible.

Until the pinnacle is reached, health is really a moving target. That's why I think "high raw" is pretty much an unsustainable lifestyle. The body will continue to heal, and as it does so it demands further improvements via symptoms. How the body expresses symptoms is extremely individual so some people will be able to put up with them while others will not. Certainly the symptoms of eating some cooked food forever are going to be a lot easier to bear than those caused by eating the SAD forever. If I was going to continue eating cooked food, I'd try to learn as much as possible to help me understand why symptoms happen, so I could avoid the fear that they cause most people. All that is necessary is to figure out what transgression you committed caused the symptom, ease the digestive burden on your body for awhile so it can recover, and then go back to what you were doing before (or make improvements). The alternative is running to the naturopath every time something arises, in which case you'll constantly be entertaining fears about whether eating raw is the right thing to do, in addition to taking herbs and other remedies to suppress your body's healing expressions. Not only are naturopaths and other 'health professionals' notoriously ignorant about the need of the human body for raw, biologically appropriate foods (and often recommend against them), they all see symptoms as problems that must be turned off, rather than as the outward signs of internal cleansing and renewal.

Dreamrawalz's post is very good advice, too, imo. It's hard not to be overwhelmed by the idea of not eating cooked food ever again in your life, so it's best not to think in those terms. Leave your options open, either way.

Hope this is useful.

Warm wishes,
Nora
www.RawSchool.com