Raw Food - Why Don't People Get It? - A Rant

[Charybdisjim]

I'm somewhat surprised at the responses I've heard people in this thread received from doctors. Most doctors I've known have always advocated diet and exercise as being the two key controllable factors in a persons health and weight. That is I've never heard one of them emphasize exercise alone, its always diet and exercise and failing that then at least improving the diet. The ways I've always heard them describe improving one's diet was less meat and more fresh fruits and vegetables. I'm shocked to hear doctors incredulous as to the powerful role diet plays in health - considering that is something that has been taught even in the most commercial of main-stream medicine for decades and born out consistently by literature. These don't just sound like doctors stuck in convention but doctors who aren't even familiar with convention let alone the less conventional.

That is not to say that my doctors and friends of mine who are doctors have not consistently expressed skepticism with regard to raw-food diets. They have, but when I explain things to them and they realize I've done my homework they confess that they're not skeptical about the potential of such a diet so much as they are of their average patient's attention to nutrition required or will to see it through without giving up. Given the other patients I see in the waiting rooms though, its hard to blame them too much for being becoming jaded and skeptical when many of them don't seem to be following the simplest changes they suggest.

Of course they did have concerns about vitamin b12 in such a diet; but as the owner of this site, Alissa, points out that is something that an informed raw-vegan should be careful of. My most recent doctor has explained that this issue is actually the source of what she apologized for as misplaced frustration and skepticism with discussing nutrition with some of her vegan patients. She eventually realized though that responding to her vegan patients who refused to listen regarding the B12 deficiency potential by closing down herself and refusing to work with their desire for a raw-vegan (or even just vegan) lifestyle was both hypocritical and unhelpful.

[LexieW]

Great thread, everyone. It helps me out when I end up in a situation and have to explain why I won't eat this or that.

I went home for the 4th of July and my family had a big BBQ. I'm not one to force my beliefs or lifestyles on anyone else, but you should have seen/heard everyone when I sad down at the table with my fresh, raw Pico de Gallo and salad while they tucked into all their grilled meat. And it wasn't like I bought anything up, it was they who couldn't stop commenting on MY diet.

Meanwhile, I'm the only one who is healthy. Hm....

[Raw Angel Mom]

On top of not wanted to change, we are so so addicted to cook food and what make us sick. There are a lot of fear about this.

I feel that the main cause is brain washing at school at young age and for our medical doctor at their school. Many of their material is sponsor by pharmaceutical company. So there are a great deal of bias thought.

I think the plan is to inspire by doing what is right for us. When people see the result, they get curious and want what you have (youth and health). I am careful of not bringing up the subject of my diet, unless i sense they truly want to know. My sister has a juicer, the other, is more discerning and my father are started to read the label now. It is a start.

My doctor is very much close mind on the property of food. Last summer when i went for a blood check because i am vegan and wanted to check if i was ok with b12, she also got me check for way more. My result came absolutely perfect. She now pay attention when i share what i do. She knows my age and clearly i don't look my age. Again, these are things that plant the seeds. I feel we need to take care of us, and our family but to trust that in time, others or our birth family will observe the result and get curious about it.

[Harmony_me]

Great thread, everyone :-)

I've found people will change when they are ready. I've pleaded with cancer patients in my family to open their minds, but they are so invested in what their doctors say - and the doctors unequivocally disagree that a raw diet can mean life instead of death. So sad....but we each make our own choices and live with them.

As far as doctors - I can't afford health insurance and don't go.....they've messed my life up more than they've helped it anyway. My apologies out there to all the good doctors, and I do know they exist :-) Anyway - I live what I consider the "natural" life....if I ever have a life-ending illness, I will go naturally, not with the interference and false hope of doctors.

[CaiHong]

Hi Happylife,
There does seem to be a real need here for healthily raw food. People have said I shouldn't be so "narrow" . They don't understand the scope of raw food and I am not going to compromise.
We have to do that most of our lives.

When I open I will keep you updated on the responses
caiHong

[Dillon]

I totally agree with you.Raw foods are so effective for our health.It controls our weight and prevent us from many diseases.A you were facing cholesterol problem so you ate raw foods and got positive results.
Hence exercise is important for good health but good diet has its unique importance.

[lovelyjewellz]

This is the exact issue that inspired me to start writing a book. I want to design a program to help people stuck on the SAD diet to open their eyes to true health. It's a 7 week program, each week designed to remove one low energy food group with a high energy alternative so that the person can see and experience first hand how their body feels with that change without having to commit to a complete life style change. The program starts with the SAD diet and gradually shifts the person to a raw vegan diet by week 6. I'm hoping to help people to see how the way they eat is really affecting them and to help them feel the difference raw foods can have on them without radically changing their lives. I don't claim that the raw, vegan diet is the only way to go in the book. I'm hoping it will open people's eyes to that reality through their own personal experience. If nothing else I hope to get the average person to appreciate raw food more, to eat a greater variety of foods and to help them consciously choose what they eat based on how it actually affects them instead of just pre-programmed, subconscious habits. I want people to feel confident in their own power to create health for themselves. It's a shame how easy it is for everyone to experience better health but they are just so misinformed that they can't even acknowledge the truth. I hope I can help empower people to move beyond this way of thinking. Everyone deserves to be happy and healthy! :)

[aspie_and_proud]

This thread is very helpful. I think I have always had a good mind set to go vegan or raw, but I needed the right timing and push. I grew up on the outside of society, so it wasn't that dramatic of an idea. When I got fat and drugged up from medication prescribed to me that was what did it. It also helped that I never cared for meat either. I was about 175 in May and lost 20 pounds in less than a month after I began juicing and fasting. I now weigh 138 (in the morning) and feel so much better. I have encountered a lot of skepticism, though. I have had a friend say eating healthier was a "placebo effect," but to me that doesn't even make sense. I often go on rants to my online friends and even if they don't immediately take it with skepticism, they don't really think to do it either. I also had a girl say that she was does yoga every morning, but then she followed that up with, "and then I ate a few slices of pizza." -__-' Oh, and another girl who said, "caprice sun is a fruit!" O_____O Caprice Sun as in the juice packets.. You can be sure that I started ranting when she said that.

I do have a few problems, though. I have been having trouble with knowing what to eat, because it is hard to kick the idea of needing something to be cooked for it to be food. And I never feel confident making something if I don't have a recipe, so I keep thinking I need recipes to be more raw. I grew up eating whatever my taste buds liked, so it has been difficult not to stuff my face in the cooked foods I used to like.

The main person in my life is my fiance and he doesn't exactly eat that healthy, but he didn't criticize or even question me when I announced that I was going to be healthier, start juicing and make the transition to vegan (and then raw). He has even been warming up to it as I have shared the knowledge of natural remedies with him over these passed few months. We just recently watched a GMO documentary.

The movie about GMO's is brand new and it is called "Genetic Roulette," for those of you who are curious. Just do a quick google search. It was free for a few days, but that ended over last weekend. I knew a little bit about GMO's, but I learned way more from the movie. I realized that some of the things I was cooking for the fiance had GMO ingredients and immediately threw them out, or used them (because we don't have the money to waste).

I honestly think this country is full of lazy, ignorant and uneducated people. Sure, go ahead and be that way. It's your choice. But what annoys me is when people try to put you down for being healthier. Like being healthy is horrible. It is quite a conundrum.

[Gianni]

Double post.

[Gianni]

But what annoys me is when people try to put you down for being healthier. Like being healthy is horrible. It is quite a conundrum.

I'm going through the same thing. My in-laws think I'm crazy and being radical because of my new found vegan diet and because of my juice-fasting.

Yesterday, my father-in-law asked me, You're still on your "diet"? Don't you think you've already lost enough weight? Can't you fit into your old clothes? Aren't they loose on you now?

Well, first of all. I don't consider my mostly raw vegan lifestyle a "diet". It's not something temporary that I'm using to lose 30-40 lbs. and then go back to eating ovo-lacto vegetarian junk food which would make me put the weight back on. I'm in this for the long haul, for the rest of my life. Secondly, while the clothes that I have been wearing are fitting looser, the jeans I wore 10 years ago are still considerably too small for me.

Then you have to consider that I'm at an age where people start having heart attacks. My first cousin just died of a heart attack earlier this year. He was 52. My aunt also had heart bypass surgery this year at the age of 65. That was a path I was likely going down too before I made this "radical" super healthy change in the way I eat.

I think the problem with my in-laws, and with a lot of people, is that they have come to accept that as people get older, it is normal for them to weigh 30 lbs. more than they did in high school or college and still not be considered overweight. Well, I don't want to be part of that crowd. I don't just want to look good for my age. I want to look good for any age.

[Mitch]

My grandparents are really the best! :) Grandfather keeps telling me I will get sick if I don't eat butter, pepperoni and white bread after he has got heart attack and has very high cholesterol levels (he has got to take medicines) and arthritis. Last time he looked at me after I lost weight and looked the best in my whole life and told me very seriously: You look so bad that I am afraid you will die right now! :)

Also my grandmother told me that I will get sick if I won't eat that pepperoni. I asked her if her doctor told that she will get sick if she doesn't eat pepperoni.

The bad thing is I eat this junk food just for they leave me alone. And feel bad after that of course.

[lafsalot]

Who cares what other people think?!! If you spend your whole life worrying about what other people think of you, or what they want from you, you'll never get very far - you'll most likely fall (as Mitch did) into someone else's plan. It's just wasted energy anyway, because the truth is, the only opinion that really matters is the one you have about yourself!

[Revvell]

First of all, this is a diet. What you eat IS your diet. For some reason, people have come to hear the word and think it means to lose weight. That's a misnomer. Your diet is what you eat.

Secondly, may "older" people expect to be sick. Unconsciously they are not surprised when they have a heart attack, stroke, high blood pressure and they also still don't make the connection with food and health. Trying to change that is like spitting in the wind and/or herding cats. They'll tell you that at their age, they'll do what makes them happy ~ even if it kills 'em. *shrugs* Is what it is.

We just have to do what we have to do for us. I was lucky. Even though my mother ate meat, she began looking at her health way before many of her generation. He 3 brothers all died fairly young (50's and 60's, I think), one of cancer, the other of cirrhosis of the liver. (Yes, a drinker) She lived to 94 and if she had chosen to live with me, she may have been alive today ~ yet, she didn't.

Life is too short to concern myself with what others are doing or saying. My life ~ reread that ~ MY life! It's mine to do with as "I" wish and, theirs is theirs to do with as they wish. I choose to leave others to their otherness and take care of myself ~ unless they pay me, of course. ;)

[Mitch]

Who cares what other people think?!! If you spend your whole life worrying about what other people think of you, or what they want from you, you'll never get very far - you'll most likely fall (as Mitch did) into someone else's plan. It's just wasted energy anyway, because the truth is, the only opinion that really matters is the one you have about yourself!

I guess it is time to tell them to leave me alone and stop treat me like a child. I really don't know why they have to do this to me... If I ever say anything opposite to them they just think I don't respect them... Old people...

[Gianni]

Maybe you should get them to watch some videos like Forks Over Knives or one of Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn's presentations.