Can the raw food diet be done with only your own food?

[shaunamom]

I'm very interested in the raw food diet, but there is one issue that I don't know if I can overcome, and I'm hoping some of you here might have some ideas/advice on the subject. :-)

I have a few food allergies that aren't too hard to avoid, but I also have a sensitivity to gluten that has so completely changed my life and how I eat that I feel like I am on another planet right now. I discovered that I am so sensitive to gluten contamination of my food that I can no longer buy food at the grocery store - I get sick too often. My reaction is a neurological one, so it's always clear when gluten has 'zapped' me vs. another food allergy.

My grocery trips are to local farmer's markets, where farmers that I have interviewed typically have a few foods in season that I can eat, if they haven't been coated with anything, grown with any fertilizer with bad ingredients, mulched with the wrong ingredients, grown near the wrong foods - the list is really long, and there aren't many farmers that qualify. I am trying to grow most of my own food, at this point, because it's the only way I know that I can eat safely.

So what I'm wondering is: has anyone hear tried the raw food diet using only ingredients they can grow themselves, or that small farmers in their area can grow themselves?

I have found a safe salt, thankfully, but no nuts. Grains are pretty much out except for some wild amaranth that grows where I live, but it is very small, poor producing, hard to cultivate, and only available one time of year. I can get pomagranates in the fall, maybe some apples or cherries around the late summer from a couple farmers. I'm starting berry bushes so maybe I can have those in a few years when they've grown. Otherwise, as produce goes, it's pretty much veggies only. Even honey is iffy - medicine put into the hives to eliminate mites contaminates the honey. :-(

But...can you do it? If you could only eat what you can grow in your own yard, is the raw diet even possible, or is it not nutritionally viable with the limit I have on my diet? Any ideas?

[Revvell]

I don't know where you live yet, these folk live here in SoCal and they grow all their own produce. You can have your own bees as well ~ http://dervaesgardens.com/

Pretty sure they said they eat all their own produce during the summer and have to add in the winter. Not sure of my stats or what it is they add without reading about them again. They grow enough on 1/10th acre to sell produce to local restaurants. Takes some time to build up to that.

I would suggest you begin a sprout garden indoors.

[Barbie2]

Yes, you can grow most of your raw foods, it just takes time and room for your produce to grow. Do you want to grow your veggies outside, on your patio, or inside? I have cucumbers, tomatoes, blueberry plants growing in my house, near a south facing window. The cucumber plants already have blossoms, the blueberry plant is young, but it will produce blueberries next year. I have seeds for more container gardening, squash, beans, peas, lettuce, microgreens, banana peppers, and many herb plants growing inside by my kitchen window. We also have 10 fruit trees and they should have fruit this year, it takes about 3-4 years for young trees to produce fruit. We also have walnut trees and a mulberry tree. I'm not sure if we will have an outdoor garden or not this year, but I do have the seeds for one. Probably will, even though our rotiller is not working. But it can be done. Plus it is fun!