The Skinny Of Raw Food

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I’m not sure how I first got to know Si Dawson. It was either after he left a comment here or on Twitter where he has one of the spookiest avatars going. I suppose I could ask him, but then I’d have to change this intro and I’ve typed it now.

I don’t suppose it really matters other than he was very supportive of me (like many here were) when I started my detox a few weeks ago. He sent me some very helpful e-mails and didn’t want to burn my house down when I backed out early. I like those non-fundamental, non-militant types that go with the flow.

Si has got a very similar sense of humor to me and I thought that a guest post by him would fit in really well. The field (pun intended) of raw foodism is not something I know anything about, but it does interest me. Five years ago I would have wanted to rub a filet mignon medium rare in the face of anybody suggesting something so weird and freaky.

After reading and posting here about the brilliant “Five Forces of Wellness” (which by the way isn’t about raw food, but health in general) I started to reconsider my position and admit people that ate raw didn’t necessarily have several large kangaroos loose in their upper paddocks. Maybe an odd Wallaby or two, but there was indeed some method behind their apparent madness.

Before this develops into the world’s most rambling intro to a guest post, I wanted to say this is a long post. In fact, it’s about twice my average, but read it all anyway. It’s funny and informative and considering it’s free, that’s a great combination.

Let us know what you think of the raw food idea in the comments because I’m fascinated to know if reading this has changed your perspective at all. Read on…

Raw food has been in the news a lot lately – on CBS’s The Doctors & Travel Channel’s Bizarre Foods – heck, you may even have heard of it.

So what is this “raw food” diet, and why should you care?

Well, let’s start by confusing the hell out of you. Here are the main types of “raw foodist”:

Raw
May still eat some cooked food, but eats mostly fruit, vegetables, seeds, nuts, sprouts. This typically also excludes or at least minimises alcohol, caffeine, nicotine.

Raw Vegan
Doesn’t eat anything that comes from any animal – either meat (made from killing the animal), and/or by-products (honey, dairy, etc)

Raw Primal
Eats animal products (meat, dairy) but still nothing heated above body temperature. Yes, this means eating raw meat.

100% Raw
Doesn’t eat anything cooked (people who are 100% are usually, but not always raw vegan)

100% Raw, no really
For the really keen – also doesn’t eat any dried herbs, dried fruit, or anything heated over body temperature (roughly 105 deg F, or 38 deg C)

Fruitarian
Only eats fruit (optionally only after it has fallen from the tree)

Liquitarian
Only drinks fruit/vegetable juices, nothing solid

Breatharianist/Sun gazing
No eating at all. Survive by drinking water & gazing at the sun for 45 minutes at dusk & dawn

Yep, that’s right, all those different types of eating (or not!) all fall under the umbrella of “raw food.”

So what does this all mean?

First, what the heck is the deal with not heating anything? Or how on earth can all these different ways of eating all be called raw?

Well, easy one first – the question of what’s (theoretically) wrong with heating food.

105 degrees is roughly the temperature at which DNA denatures – that is, the temperature at which the strands of plant dna start to unwind & get destroyed.

So, that’s a nice convenient scientific explanation, what on earth does it mean in practical terms? Well, there’s a lot of oogey-woogey talk we could get into – many raw foodists describe themselves as eating “living foods” rather than raw foods – but let’s leave that to one side for the moment. The basic gist is this – the less heated the plant is, the less damaged & thus the better it is for you.

Obviously if an apple has been burnt to a crisp there’s not going to be much goodness left. Eating raw is just taking that to the other end of the logical extreme – the closer to just being picked (or fallen!) from the tree, the better it’s going to be for your body.

Now, I’m sure this has raised more questions than it’s answered, but don’t worry about that just yet.

So far we have a bunch of contradictory categories, and a nice little theory about how the less processed food is, the better it is for you.

How can all these categories possibly be in the same overall group?

Well, it’s actually very simple. Raw foodism actually isn’t really about eating raw.

Ok, I’ve let the cat out of the bag. Everybody start fighting Now!

No, raw foodism is actually about being conscious about what you’re eating. Just paying attention. You want to eat pizza every Friday? Go right ahead. Nobody’s going to beat you up. In fact, this is one of the great things about raw foodists. While there are definitely *cough* occasionally over-enthusiastic members of the community *cough* there’s little to no militancy at all. Nobody cares if you wear a leather belt and continue to eat steak. You want to eat a salad a day & call yourself a raw foodist? People will encourage you every step of the way.

Eating raw is really about finding out what works best for your body. People can offer suggestions, but really it’s up to you to find out for yourself. This is why there are such diverse eating patterns that are all considered raw. There’s no one type of raw that is right for everyone (although there’s definitely some of those enthusiasts who will disagree with me on that point).

A common reaction to hearing this is “Oh, but I couldn’t possibly live without bread!” (or cheese, coffee…)

The key thing is to pay attention. Sure, eat your pizza, your cheese, your coffee – but then notice how you feel half an hour later. Just pay attention.

Even better, try NOT having, say, dairy for a couple of weeks, and see how you feel. Then, introduce it back into your diet, and notice again. I did this a couple of years back, and suddenly noticed that my sinuses cleared up & my digestive system performed much better. I’d never even noticed that every single morning of my life I’d been waking up with a gummed up nose. Let me tell you, I’m super glad that’s gone!

Of course, now we know why raw food is theoretically good for you – why, in practical terms should you care? After all, you’ve been eating food your entire life, and you’re not dead (I hope), so who cares?

Well, many people are drawn to raw because of debilitating diseases. MS, cancer, you name it. A lot of the time, yes they are cured.

Taken a breath? Yes, I did just claim that raw can help with the big C. Check out the inspirational Kris Carr at Crazy Sexy Cancer. Tons of stunning people on there who have beaten (or who are beating) cancer. Doctors call this “spontaneous remission”. I call this “If you’re in serious trouble like that, what have you got to lose? Research the heck out of it, and if you like what you see, give it a shot” – as well as, not instead of, what doctors are recommending.

Now, where was I? Oh yes. Another common motivation is weight loss. Here’s an inspirational friend of mine, Philip McCluskey. He used to weigh 400 lbs (that’s 260kg for you metric lovers) & is now around 200 lbs (90 kg). He lost a big chunk of that with no exercise at all, just eating raw. Obviously he exercises now, but when he started his body simply couldn’t handle it. This kind of extreme weight loss is not uncommon.

If you’re not in one of the above categories (either seriously ill or overweight), first do a dancing lap of your living room, I’ll wait. Ok, now you’re back, realise these are just the extreme cases. Even without these sort of motivators, just eating more raw food will make you feel better. More energy is a common observation, clearer mind, having to sleep less, fewer negative emotions, greater creativity, spontaneous healing of long-term injuries. The list goes on.

But STOP! Here’s the important point. Remember how it’s really a journey, it’s actually about your being conscious, paying attention, and figuring out what works for you?

Well, don’t listen to me.

In fact, don’t believe anything I’ve just told you. Please, don’t. Be cynical about all of this. Keep your rational mind fully engaged. Do your own experiments, your own research. Get your own data points.

Maybe I’m talking complete bollocks. Well, that’s always a possibility. I definitely don’t know everything there is to know about food.

Where to start

So, saying perhaps you’re a little curious. Or at least, you want to check I’m not completely fabricating everything here. Or maybe you just want to feel a little better.

Well, the simplest & safest way to get started is just by cutting back on the common evils. Remove preservatives, colouring, artificial sweeteners (including HFCS), white sugar, white flour. Even just doing that is pretty much guaranteed to make you feel at least a little better. Cut back or eliminate alcohol (which, remember, is a depressant, so while it may cheer you up at the time, the overall effect is to depress seretonin levels in your brain), & caffeine (which can drain your adrenals over time, since it puts your body into a fight-or-flight reaction, plus stresses you out, and who needs that?).

It’s totally ok to swap in other foods. You want something sweet, use honey, or dates. Try brown flour or rice instead of white.

Do a few weeks of that and see how you feel. If it feels good, keep doing it. If it doesn’t, try changing a few things.

Eating raw is about an ongoing experiment. Continuing to find what tastes great & makes you feel great too.

If that seems to be working for you, another good way to get started is to start the day with a green smoothie. A green smoothie is just a bunch of fruit chucked in a blender, along with green leafy vegetables. A good ratio is usually about 60% fruit, 40% greens. That way it still tastes like delicious fruit, but you get all the goodness of the greens. Sneaky, but totally encouraged. Total time required in the morning? About 5 minutes.

A lot of people find that green smoothies give them enough energy to keep them amped until mid afternoon at least.

It’s generally recommended that you start with what’s called a transition diet – basically that outlined above. Just decrease toxins, increase the amount of raw food but otherwise continue to eat what you normally eat. Have a salad for lunch or green smoothie for breakfast. Over weeks or months slowly increase the amount of raw, only if & when you feel like it.

The most important thing in all this, and it sounds ridiculous to have to say it, but I will – go easy on yourself. There’s no prize for eating 100% from day one. There’s no punishments if you slip up & eat a cupcake or a slice of pizza now and then. This isn’t about beating yourself up, or being ultra strict. It’s just about trying to do a little better each day – however you define ‘better’. If you’re already vegan, then eating only one cooked meal a week might be possible. If, like a friend of mine, you never ate a piece of fruit until you were 18, then even just eating a single piece of fruit a day would be a great step forward.

Whatever you do, and whatever you choose to eat, go easy on yourself. Take it slow, and allow yourself to make mistakes. Where’s the point in eating healthily if your moods are in the toilet because you slipped up last Tuesday?

The evil fine print

If you’re an alert reader, you’ll smell a rat somewhere here. What’s with all these warnings about going easy? And how can you possibly get all those benefits without any downside?

Well, here’s the fine print.

Yes, I am going to be brutally honest here. No, I probably shouldn’t tell you this if I’m not going to put you off completely. But let’s press on regardless!

Over your lifetime, your body will have absorbed many, many toxins, injuries & assorted damage. As you reduce the number of toxins going into your body (by eating less rubbish), and increase the amount of nutritional value (by eating more unprocessed food), your system will naturally start to heal itself.

The first stage of this process involves flushing many of these toxins out of your body – detoxing, if you will. The extent of this detox will depend on how healthy your diet & lifestyle were before, and how hardcore you get into raw. If you go 100% raw, but have been living on burgers your entire life, you’re going to end up feeling pretty crappy. Typically this detox takes a few weeks to fully process through, with the main ‘yechness’ being a few days or so.

What can you expect? Mood swings, spots or small boils that appear and then disappear, gassiness, weird bowel movements, all sorts of unusual but very temporary body oddness. Some or all of the above. Nothing too horrendous, but definitely unusual, and definitely noticeable. This is your body flushing toxins out through any means possible.

Well, that doesn’t sound like much fun at all. I mean, who would voluntarily make themselves feel crappy? Well, exactly. Good question. The reason you feel bad is because your body is healing itself. So, the process itself is positive, even if it may not feel like it at the time.

So, if this is an unavoidable part of the healing process – a stage you have to go through to gain any of the benefits – how can you minimise all this ugliness?

This is where the transition diet comes in. Rather than just going cold turkey on processed/cooked food, start slowly. Just help your body out by removing as many toxins from your diet as you like. Trust your instincts, and go as slow or as quick as you want. The less raw food you’re eating, the slower & less extreme the detoxing process will be.

It’s ok for this transitioning to take months, or even years – and even at the end of it, you may decide that 100% raw just isn’t for you. This is perfectly ok! Only you can decide what works best for you.

So where to from here?

As I said, the important thing is not that you believe me, or even listen to anything I’ve said.

Try, just for a while, paying attention to how what you eat makes you feel. That’s all that really matters.

If you want to try eating more raw food, great! Best of luck, and check out Give It To Me Raw – it has tons of supportive people who will help you out with any questions you might have. If you’re happy with what you’re currently eating, your health, wellbeing & how you feel? Well, that’s even more excellent.

Food is something which everybody believes they know about – and yet it’s so easily overlooked. We eat what we habitually eat, and rarely if ever stop to ask why.

Yet every cell in your body was built from the food you’ve ingested. You are, as they say, what you eat. Even stopping to pay attention for a few minutes really can yield a lifetime of benefits.

Read more from Si here