Raw foodists.

cards

Just curious as to whether any raw foodists post on here. I started just after christmas and am still going which surprises me a little. Definately not as hard as I thought it would be and seems to be working for me.

Tar.Aldarion

There are one or two that I know of, jsut ahve to wait for them to come online

maameeo

wow, id never heard of this before!
im presuming your a vegetarian raw foodist?
how do u find it on a day to day basis? is it easy to find food to eat when out?
god i hope im not asking stupid questions!

sounds amazing, with my non cooking skills it really sounds tempting!

cards

I changed to vegan from vegetarian shortly after starting it. On a day to day basis, I find it fairly easy. I buy a huge box of organic food once a week. Apples,oranges,bannanas,salad,carrots,avocados etc.. and just basically munch my way through it for the week. I'm not sure what you mean by out as I'm not really a restaurant type person but when I'm going to be away from home for several hours or a day , I just eat lots before I go and bring a bag with fruit or salad.or both!

paperorplastic

How are you finding your energy levels & immune system? And have you added any supplements to your diet? Thanks

cards

Its hard for me to evaluate my 'progress' in a sense because I do a lot of spiritual healing/releases on myself which can make me feel gunky for days at a time. But I definately noticed a big increase in energy.I went from 20 minutes on the traeadmill and being finished to doing an hour easily! Also after a days work I could find myself off doing something else wheras before, I would be sat at home watching telly! Immune system has been perfect.Not one cold or flu and my brother had one months! My skin also improved and my body toned up a lot and lost a few pounds. In relation to supplements theres so many arguments out there for and against that I haven't bothered! I know people that have lived for many,many years on beer and curry so I'm at least prepared to do this for a year or so and maybe get a blood test done then.The problem with bloodtests from what I'm let to believe is that they are based on people that have been eating 'cooked' food for a long time.

maameeo

cards wrote: »

.The problem with bloodtests from what I'm let to believe is that they are based on people that have been eating 'cooked' food for a long time.

thats really interesting! so the results could come up completely different for you and they wouldnt understand?!

you say u dont go out to restaurants? ever? even for family things? i find id get stuck out somewer and have to find food, sometimes its difficult to find something decent, thats why i asked

cards

This was an email that I recieved from a parent in a raw food family that tried to explain why some bloodtests may not be accurate.I've no idea is this an accurate accessment but do know of a few people that have been doing this 8 or 9 years without supplements and they are doing fine.There are many schools of thought out there and everyone is different. I just look around me at the gunk people put into their bodies and I am happy to explore this for now.I may get my blood tested at some stage or I may not. In relation to restaurants , just ring ahead and order salad or fruit or take a chance that you'll find something. I was in holidays in castlegregory lately and ran out of lettuce on a sunday and drove to Dingle and found a huge organic section open in the lidl supermarket there. It makes it somewhat more of an adventure!


"My raw vegan friends just had their blood-work done and the naturopath was alarmed at the results - yet my friends feel great and look amazing! They did some research and found some information that may be helpful to others in this situation....

- It should be remembered among raw fooders that deficiencies are always gauged against standards that are established as "normal". This is done by examining the blood of apparently "healthy" individuals, and arriving at averages. Since 98% of our populace dies prematurely of degenerative disease, however, this data cannot be regarded as reliable. We cannot know what optimal nutrient levels are by assaying the blood of individuals who are slowly dying of degenerative disease! Even if we examine the blood of people who are living very healthfully and enjoying an exceedingly high level of health, we are faced with the other obstacle I mentioned: among the millions of different chemicals present in our blood at any given time, how can we tell the difference between what is vital to the functioning of our bodies and what is waste that is being eliminated? We can't possibly know what optimal nutrient levels are. We haven't even identified all of the nutrients i n foods. It is estimated, in fact, that we only know about 10% of them!

Here's another point to consider. If you put all the various diets that everyone in our culture eats on a scale from 0-100, with "0" being the worst junk imaginable and "100" being optimal, you'd find that even the most health-conscious naturopaths, herbalists and nutritionists might come in somewhere around 35, at best. These are typically the people who warn us about nutrient deficiencies. Now we raw fooders aren't anywhere near optimal on that 0-100 scale because of the sub-standard food we're forced to eat, but at least we're eating according to our biological design. Why on earth are we allowing 35's to tell US that WE need to worry about nutrient deficiency?

What can we do to assure ourselves that we won't become nutrient deficient? Well, we raw fooders are already doing the #1 thing -- eating biologically appropriate, raw food. In addition, we can strive to eat fresh, ripe, tasty food because these are indicators that the nutrients are there.

Raw fooders have much more pressing issues to concern themselves with than nutrient deficiency, like learning about the real causes of disease. Disease is a result of excess, and this fact is ignored by doctors, naturopaths and nutritionists. If in every case where deficiency was blamed for disease, the excesses that are being indulged by the patient were stopped, the disease would stop as well. The most important thing to remember is that if we follow health-building habits (which raw fooders do, more than anybody else), our bodies will become very efficient at extracting and using the nutrients that we consume in food.

PS: This was copied and pasted from
http://www.rawschool.com/nutrientdeficiency.htm
Note: we don't fully endorse everything they say on their site. They lean towards fruitarianism, and we believe that a large variety of raw foods should be consumed, including greens, vegetables, sprouts, seeds, nuts, and nut-milks.

Thank you Jed and Jill!! - Look for Jill's new Raw Skincare website soon at:

In Joy!
Jinjee
http://www.TheGardenDiet.com

Tar.Aldarion

In my opintion that article is a bit 'crazy' but hey I might be wrong.

-lala-

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

In my opintion that article is a bit 'crazy' but hey I might be wrong.

I agree! But again could be wrong.

rantyface

How do you keep your weight up? I think it would be very low calorie unless you ate massive volumes of food. I wouldn't have time to do that!

cards

I was about 10 1/2 stone and went as low as 9 when I was training very hard and not eating enough. Now I'm eating too much and not training enough,lol and am back at about 10. I'm moving house soon so my routine is up in a heap but am confident I can get into a training routine and keep my weight at about 9 3/4 which is probably my ideal. I eat a fair amount but I'm not like a battery hen or something! I don't have to just sit there all day and eat but probably eat 150 euros of organic food a week. I find you can get a little lazy with eating though as your body doesn't crash with hunger pangs like on cooked food.So when your hungry you might just have an apple and bannana to keep hunger at bay and it does that.However in that moment I could also do a smoothie with umpteen pieces of fruit and would obviouisly get a lot more 'into' me.
I have also noticed that my body gets very muscular and hard after a few days training. It might take many months to get that kind of body toughness with a cooked food diet but it seems to happen very quickly on this diet.

I hope this whole thread didn't seem like me wanting to 'sell' raw foodism. That wasn't my intent. I was just looking to connect with people interested in similiar. Is there not any kind of 'festivals' in Ireland where alternative minded people come together, like a mini burning-man thing or something?

biZrb

cards wrote: »

I hope this whole thread didn't seem like me wanting to 'sell' raw foodism. That wasn't my intent. I was just looking to connect with people interested in similiar. Is there not any kind of 'festivals' in Ireland where alternative minded people come together, like a mini burning-man thing or something?

I don't think you're selling it, just informing people about it. I am interested in the raw foodist diet, but I don't think I could do it, although I said the same about veganism so you never know!

Tar.Aldarion

cards wrote: »

I was about 10 1/2 stone and went as low as 9 when I was training very hard and not eating enough. Now I'm eating too much and not training enough,lol and am back at about 10. I'm moving house soon so my routine is up in a heap but am confident I can get into a training routine and keep my weight at about 9 3/4 which is probably my ideal. I eat a fair amount but I'm not like a battery hen or something! I don't have to just sit there all day and eat but probably eat 150 euros of organic food a week. I find you can get a little lazy with eating though as your body doesn't crash with hunger pangs like on cooked food.So when your hungry you might just have an apple and bannana to keep hunger at bay and it does that.However in that moment I could also do a smoothie with umpteen pieces of fruit and would obviouisly get a lot more 'into' me.
I have also noticed that my body gets very muscular and hard after a few days training. It might take many months to get that kind of body toughness with a cooked food diet but it seems to happen very quickly on this diet.

I hope this whole thread didn't seem like me wanting to 'sell' raw foodism. That wasn't my intent. I was just looking to connect with people interested in similiar. Is there not any kind of 'festivals' in Ireland where alternative minded people come together, like a mini burning-man thing or something?

I'm not sure about meetups for raw foodists but you are welcome to come to our meetups, not sure what raw food any place in dublin offers though. We are planning a picnic type thing though where you could bring your own food.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055613338

there are also bigger meetups by the vegetarian society, so you might ahve more luck there.

cards

Its easier than you think biZrb, but just two tips if you ever give it a go.....
1).be determined. And focus on the positives of eating raw and the benefits you are recieving and expect to recieve from eating raw and visa versa with cooked on a daily basis.
2). I ate salted pistachio nuts when I started as I did'nt know much about organic nuts at the time. I think they helped me over any cravings for cooked food for the first few months as they have that salty,cooked taste.

Tar.Aldarion, thanks for the invite but am currently undertaking the monstrous task of moving house so will give it a miss.Thanks for the offer though.I appreciate it.

sweet-rasmus

I hope you've heard of Natasha's Living Foods? Her company is a raw food company and the products are sold at the Meeting-House Square Market in Temple bar on a Saturday and in Dun Laoghaire's market on a Sunday. Delicious! I remember she ran courses on rawfoodism before too. http://www.natashaslivingfood.ie/

Mentalmiss

I have been a Raw Foodist for 4 years now and thriving on it.
Regarding your comments on blood tests I agree that you have to rewrite the rule books.
If there is anything that I can help you with then make contact.
I would suggest that you visit www.rawfoodtalk.com if you have not done so already

Sapsorrow

Just to highlight an alternative viewpoint on this topic, I'm a big follower of the principles of traditional chinese medicine with regards to nutrition and the main idea behind it is that there is no one generic diet suitable for everyone, idieally every individual has a highly personalised diet that can change at different times in their lives depending on all sorts of factors that perfectly suits their needs and lifestlye.

Another principle of TCM is that of balance and the idea that ill-health is a result of imbalance caused by extremes in lifestyle or environmental stress. The idea is that our bodies are healthy when they are able to respond on a moment to moment basis to any external stress or influence we expose them to and the best way to equipp ourselves to do this is to make an effort to live a balanced lifestyle free of harmfull extremes in any form . For this reason I personally feel that raw foodism as an absolute may not be a great idea and although it may be benificial for some people at certain stages in their lives when their bodies need the highly cleansing and energising effects for others it can be progressively debillitating especially if they are of a weak, frail or deficient constitution or have lifestyles that are not supported by this type of food.

I used to be a raw foodist myself and was really unwell at the time even though I thought I was doing everything right for myself nutritionally, I loved the buzz of energy I got from eating raw food and in a sense became addicted to this effect, I ened up going to see an acupuncturist for the first time in my life for different health reasons and he got me looking at TCM and the effects of different types of food preparation on the body and metabolism. Straight away after a 1 and a 1/2 hr long chat about my life and lifestyle he told me he didn't think the raw food suited me and asked me to consider trying to go on a diet based on foods which are cooked for a long time on a low heat like bakes and stews and soups for a while.

I was very apprehensive at first and felt like I was robbing myself of the nutritional value of the food I was eating but after a few weeks the improvement in my health was dramatic. I went from having really really bad IBS symptoms every day to maybe once a week or less if I was really stressed in college and my headache that I had most of the time for nearly 2 years went away. My blood sugar levels also panned out and I stopped needing naps in the afternoon after college. Even now because my recovery is not yet complete and I am still in a slightly weakened state I usually get fairly unwell after a raw meal especially with stomachy things.

I'm not trying to start a debate on whether raw foodism is good or bad, it can be either in my opinion depending on the person, but it is a very powerfull way of eating that can be overwhelming for the body and can eventually weaken it dramatically despite the buzz you can feel off it.

I just thought I'd mention this as there seems to be a lot of people here who haven't come across raw foodism before and should maybe be aware of other perspectives on the topic if considering taking it up because for a long time I was making myself ill because I was unaware of any possible downsides to it.

Thoushaltnot

sweet-rasmus wrote: »

I hope you've heard of Natasha's Living Foods? Her company is a raw food company and the products are sold at the Meeting-House Square Market in Temple bar on a Saturday and in Dun Laoghaire's market on a Sunday. Delicious! I remember she ran courses on rawfoodism before too. http://www.natashaslivingfood.ie/

She also has a stall at the Food Co-Op, in Newmarket, D.8, on Saturdays.

Her black olive hummous is pure sex.