I am wondering if anyone has any thoughts on the Ayurvedic system of eating and what your opinion is on the cooked food aspect of it. I have had digestion issues for many years and I have found that when I follow the vata-pitta food suggestions (which is a lot of cooked veggies and rice), warm milk and tea, and hardly anything cold or raw, I feel pretty good (digestive wise)
I love the energy and vitality I get from a raw diet, but I have a hard time with the digestion aspect. Too many nuts aggravate me and the Ayurveda system even suggests to lightly cook salad greens to make it easier on the digestion. It's very interesting and I find that a lot of it makes sense. If anyone knows about this or has had experience with it, please let me know what you think.
Thank-you!

Have you checked out Cousen's book: Conscious Eating?

Wishing you vibrant health

i think of it as "did nature make a mistake when she did not create
veggies pre cooked and
cooked rice
and tea
and warm milk?"

if you think Nature made a mistake, then yes, ayurveda makes perfect sense.

strangely, we humans feel the need to slap Nature in the face and say
"no thanks, what you have selflessly created for me, over millions of years of evolutionary beauty is not good enough"

i must change what you have freely given me, my digestive system is delicate !

it takes perseverance and commitment and understanding to eat a natural diet.

too many nuts are not good for most people, especially in the form most people get them in, which is not fresh, hence my moniker.

of course the reason we cooked is that we didn't have access to enough fruits and greens in the environments we found ourselves in. but due to transportation, we can achieve the miracle. i'm not about to refuse the bounty and eat vata-pitta. humans have come up with a lot of theories. i don't think a theory is valid simply because it's old.

but, hey, if it's working for you ! ;-)

Yogatastic,

I agree with fresh about the nuts being not being the most ideal food. You said you loved the energy and vitality from eating a raw diet with lots of nuts. Imagine how great you will feel without all the burden of digesting nuts (and other fats).

Eatings lots of fresh fruits and vegetables is the way to go with raw. These foods have the highest nutrient density per calorie of any food you could eat.

If you like ayurveda and it is working for you, then you probably won't be eating that much raw food. But consider ayurveda comes from India, where its not healthy to eat raw foods, as the foods have been tainted by various manures and unhealthy bacterias for the human digestive system. Its easy to see why they don't recommend eating a lot of raw foods, Here in the US, you won't get sick from eating organic raw foods.

There was a yogi, Sri Yukteswar, the teacher of Yogananda (who wrote Autobiography of a Yogi), who wrote that the natural diet for humans is a fruitarian diet.

Thank-you, how do you find the balance between the veggies and fruit? What about protein?

Yogatastic,

I'm not sure I understand what you mean about how I find balance between veggies and fruit. Do you mean how do I find I like it? Or what is the correct balance between veggies and fruit? Or something else?

As for protein, if you are eating fresh fruits and vegetables, and you are meeting your caloric (energy) needs, you will also be meeting all your protein (amino acid) needs as well as your fat (essential fatty acid) needs (include omega-3).

For me, I get over 90 percent of my calories from fruit. This means a lot of sweet fruit, but I also eat a lot of non-sweet fruits, like cucumbers, tomatoes, tomatillos, zucchini, etc. Since the non-sweet fruit don't have much sugar in them, they don't have very many calories, and even if I eat a lot of them, they don't add up to a large percentage of my caloric intake,

As for vegetables, I mostly eat various lettuces: romaine, iceberg, buttercrunch, etc. And celery. But these, like the non-sweet fruit, don't have much sugar in them, so they don't have many calories. I avoid starchy vegetables. Though I will eat fresh corn, which in its fresh state is a fruit, sweet, and not starchy.

fresh Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> i think of it as "did nature make a mistake when
> she did not create
> veggies pre cooked and
> cooked rice
> and tea
> and warm milk?"
>
> if you think Nature made a mistake, then yes,
> ayurveda makes perfect sense.
>
> strangely, we humans feel the need to slap Nature
> in the face and say
> "no thanks, what you have selflessly created for
> me, over millions of years of evolutionary beauty
> is not good enough"
>
> it takes perseverance and commitment and
> understanding to eat a natural diet.
>




Ditto.

fresh Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> i think of it as "did nature make a mistake when
> she did not create
> veggies pre cooked and
> cooked rice
> and tea
> and warm milk?"

There are no mistakes, including fire and heating food and cooking. It's part of nature just as much as we are. We are all one.

> if you think Nature made a mistake, then yes,
> ayurveda makes perfect sense.

I don't think nature made a mistake because I think nature is God and I think we are God and so is raw food and so is fire and so is the stove that people use to cook on.
The question is, how do people feel when they eat their food? If food is made and received with lots of love, no matter what it is, it will nourish the soul.
In general, when asking myself rather I should do something, for me it's not about being right or wrong. The question is, "is this life affirming or not? will this hurt anyone? what is the consequence" I have been 100% raw before and like I said, it felt good but what turns me off from it is this "cooked food is going against nature" viewpoint. I understand the passion, I understand how great you feel, but like anything, if it feels good and it's working for someone else, than that is their experience and that's OK and that's nature. It might not be good or "life affirming" for you to eat cooked food but I'm not going to tell you that fire was invented so everyone should eat cooked food and if they don't, it's going against nature. Everyone is here to experience different things and we are all different and that's what makes it so beautiful.

> strangely, we humans feel the need to slap Nature
> in the face and say
> "no thanks, what you have selflessly created for
> me, over millions of years of evolutionary beauty
> is not good enough"
>
Slapping nature is slapping yourself. Plus, I really don't think that was the intention. It's not about something not being good enough, the fact is humans are creative beings!
We are all manifestations of the divine, raw foodist or not, and it is all working in a beautiful divine order...really, all is well


> it takes perseverance and commitment and
> understanding to eat a natural diet.

it also takes perseverance and commitment and understanding to be an accepting person of all.

Yogatastic, I understand you soooo well.
Since I found out about raw food, I have been reading the wonderful effects it had on people, but to my big disappointment, in my case, it made me feel much much worse. And I don't think its just detoxing. I feel bad after I eat fruits, (I get lot of gas and lose energy) and when I eat salad, no matter how small the pieces and no matter how much I chew them, I still can see them (the pieces) when I go to bathroom. Plus, I start losing weight really quick (one kilo per day) and feeling pain in all my bones. Also, I get very depressed. But the most important of all, I FEEL its not working.
Clearly, Im not digesting well and it may be just for a short time, but well, I would be happier if I could have a motivation to continue with this way of eating.
On the other hand, I live in Japan, where almost the only raw food they eat is fish, and all the doctors I saw, agreed on that a person whith my body type cannot do well with raw food, as its very difficult to diggest.
This idea didn't make sense to me, so I didnt listen to them and continued trying to add raw food to my diet until my body collapses and again I have to go back to mostly cooked food. As Im not happy with that and dont feel fine either, I try to go back to raw again and then back to cooked when I cannot stand anymore, and the cycle has repeated a hundred times so far.
On the best "raw days" Im just close to 50% raw and still, painful and weak and feeling miserable.
The Japanese doctors tell me that Japanese has the highest rate of longevity in the world, so they cannot be so wrong and actually, the next country in the list is (or was, I think it changed) Spain, where Im from, which at least support a 50% of raw food. But in a totally differente climate, nothing to do with the humid Japan.
Many of you on the raw food are so happy about how much weight you lost and how young you look but unfortunately thats not appealing for me at all. Im veeeery underweight already and have looked younger all my life. Im 31 now and nobody in Western countries would guess it, while in Japan in just natural and they tell me I look my age or even older! Now, the "feeling more energy" and being healthier is very very interesting for me. VERY.

Also I read about Ayurveda and I look like an almost 100% Vata type and actually I feel much better since I start eating more fats and decreasing fruits, so in the "not raw days" I come back to that. I know maybe I shouldnt write all this in the forum, so please, forgive me and try to understand that Im fighting to have a life again, so I just stick to whatever can give quality of life even in the short term.
I just ordered Gabriel Cousens's "Conscious eating" and we will see, because I have to continue fighting somehow, as the most important thing I learned in this battle is that nobody can help me as much as myself.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/08/2007 09:32AM by iris.

I had lots of trouble with raw the last time I followed an all raw diet.

It really depends what you're eating, not only whether or not it's raw.

I want to mention a couple of things because I'm vata too. I have a friend who is vata and when I told him I was following a raw diet he assured me he could never do that due to his body type and how much better he feels eating natural cooked food.

Well I used to feel exactly like that too - everyone does! I was cold and needed warmth. I've had poor digestion, since I was about 12, so I would often eat very little and only what I could "digest".

I went raw again, but with different foods, last December and only struggled for a few weeks with the warm food cravings. In fact, I was iron deficient, despite expensive supplements and/or eating red meat, for many years.... but within a short time of lots of raw greens, sprouts, etc, I saw so many health benefits: my skin tone and colour improved dramatically, I lost that horrible chilly feeling, and I was living proof that vata body type and raw vegan are completely compatible.

If you read about the symptoms of transitioning, you'll see that nearly everyone has a great deal of difficulty with it.

If you just read the counsel of the people who have been raw for several years, you'll think they don't understand you, that you're different. But ask them, or read their bios and you'll find out that they persevered through difficulties too.

Raw vegan diet is one of the most favourable paths to spirituality.

All other diets are versions of coping with unnatural eating habits, ways of trying to cheat the truth. To me, spirituality is truth, which we gradually open our eyes to.

Of course you can take the view that "whatever gets you through the night,,, is all right, is all right," but truth is still truth, whether we do it wrong or do it right.


I feel a lot of sympathy for you - I felt similar to you for many years and I know the feeling of minute by minute misery.

You really must consider a different approach to your diet. I'm about 95% raw with only a few days exception in the past 8 months. I go at my own pace, and though I resisted at first, have realized that the longtime raw people here give excellent advice.

For example, I believed I needed lots of complete protein and lots of high quality fats and greens, so I ate lots of those things for the first few months, but found my cravings were strong for cooked food. I followed Bryan's advice to cut way back on nuts and eliminated refined oils, and felt better right away. It seems the extra fat was causing me to crave more heavy foods.


I still can't tolerate sweet fruits, but I was very ill when I started this diet.
It seems people have to rebuild their bodues, in addition to detoxifying. I can feel this happening and still have a long way to go.

Switching to raw can be bewildering. Go at your own pace and adapt your diet daily to your needs. Don't set up an ideal to conform to, just listen to your body and get feedback from the people here.

I was never a SAD diet eater, I always preferred high quality natural food, but I still held lots of mistaken ideas about my body's needs.

To me raw vegan diet is not idealist, it's realist.

Yogatastic,

I can see you've experienced what you've experienced, and got what you got with the raw diet. I question whether what you got was all there was to get. I have no idea how long you've played with an all raw diet, or even if you ever were all raw for more than a single day.

Embarking on a raw diet is a learning process, much like learning how to walk. When you were a child, you didn't just learn it walk in one day, and as you learned, you certainly had your share of falls. Similarly, going raw is such a process.

To expect the raw diet and its benefits to come to you in a short amount of time is an unrealistic expectation. And while there are certain food choices and practices that are not all that hard to understand, putting this all into practice takes some time, especially because there is the adaptation our bodies made to cooked foods that don't want to undo themselves overnight. However, with enough practice and relentless determination, the body will heal itself from the ravages of cooked foods and will come to prefer the raw foods over cooked foods.

I've been through this process of undoing the adaptation to cooked foods and having my body let go of its preferences for cooked foods. Part of this was having a mind that was flexible enough to hold open a space for the possibility that raw foods might be healthier for me than the cooked foods my body desired. Part of creating the intention for seeing if raw foods could heal my body was that I had been eating cooked foods for over 40 years, and each year I could see my body moving further and further away from excellent health. As I played with raw foods, I could see that this diet and lifestyle was more powerful in terms of the intensity of healing that was going on for me than anything I had ever experienced before.

And along the way, my mind was the biggest obstacle to forward movement. Mostly because it was mired in its habits and preferences, as well as fears of the new and unknown. But I couldn't deny how I felt on raw, and I choose to listen to my body over listening to my mind or listening to external authorities like Ayurveda or modern medicine or mainstream nutrition.

What you're saying I've heard many people say. And to that I respond: eat what you want to eat. If you like cooked foods, then enjoy and love it. And when you develop the diseases that are associated with the consumption of cooked foods, enjoy and love those diseases also. Because you are a cause in your life, and the choices you make have consequences. And if you've studied raw foods even a little, you understand the consequences of eating cooked foods. So when the diseases come, love and be grateful for the cancer, the heart attack, the diabetes, etc, for they too are part of God as you are and your experience is and as are your choices of how to live your life.

Bryan, So you eat fresh corn? Your body digests it well, or do you chop/grind it first? Do you dehydrate any fruit/veg? I continue to learn what can/should be eaten raw, besides the basic obvious foods. Simple prep or whole natural foods seem best imho. Janice

I understand that in order for you to feel good about your food choices, you have to believe that eating any other way will bring disease and cancer, but look at the Japanese girl's thread above, she can't eat cooked food without feeling dis-ease. When I get gas and my food doesn't digest, that is dis-ease.
It's really all about what you believe. I really don't think that if I eat a natural cooked organic vegetable diet mixed with plenty of fresh fruits, I'm going to get cancer and heart disease!!! That doesn't encourage me to eat raw.
Fear doesn't have that kind of power over me. If I chose to eat raw, it would be for several reasons and not b/c I was fearful of getting cancer...
I was raw in the past for about 3 months total. I fluctuated from about 90% to 100% during that time. I did the whole thing, threw out my grill and my toaster oven, bought a dehydrator and a Champion juicer. Prepared food for days and had raw parties and met people on here and tried to spread the word. The problem for me then was I was in the last trimester pregnant! The transition was much too hard for me. I would drive to a restaurant and sneak and eat french fries and not tell my husband! It was bad! I was always hungry. When I was in the hospital to have my baby, my husband brought the dehydrator up for me and everything and at one point, the nurse had brought me some cooked vegetables and my husband walked out for a moment and I opened the tray and scarfed down green beans as fast as I could and then put the top back on so he couldn't see! I know this may seem silly and my husband knows all this now and we laugh about it but the point I'm trying to make is that the raw diet at that time made me feel like I wasn't getting enough and that I did need more. And I was listening to my body, not my mind!
After having my baby, my husbands mother came to visit from NY and we went out to a Thai restaurant and had some cooked food and since then, we haven't been back raw. This was in 2001. I decided to go about 80% raw in order to lose weight and have more energy in the summer of 2006 but I was still having poor digestion and that's when I started reading and studying Ayurveda.
As you can see, I'm still very drawn to a Raw Diet, or why else would I be on here? For me, I think a balance of a raw diet and Vata food choices will probably work the best. Non-sweet fruits and lots of greens are recommended for me. I've realized that food combination is the main thing to pay attention to.
And I think as long as I get my food broken down as much as possible before eating it, I will be able to digest it easier. Nuts in moderation are also recommended for a Vata type. My main rule will be to listen to my body...

What kind of cleanse do you recommend doing first if you're wanting to have a rapid detox in preparation for trying an all raw diet?
Thanks for your thoughts.

Your experience with raw is very little.

You do sound confused, like most of us were at the beginning.

I think you ignored my answer to you, but you're responding to Bryan exactly the way I said: as if he doesn't "get" you.

I'm not a tactful person, but I don't mean this harshly at all.

Btw, Bryan isn't fear-based, he's realistic about the result of eating unnatural food.

Are you?

From your last post, it doesn't seem you understood what Bryan said or you didn't listen. You respond as if you didn't absorb it at all.


Sometimes people post here seeming to be genuinely seeking help, but when they get responses, which take time and energy and caring to write, they ignore them and argue with them, minds made up!

cleanjan,

I eat the fresh corn straight off the cob. When it is really fresh, it is sweet. If I don't eat the corn for a few days, it loses its sweetness and becomes starchy. At this point, its probably not a good idea to eat the starchy tasting corn.

I mostly eating fresh produce. I will have a dehydrated treat from time to time (say at a raw restaurant). But dehdyrated foods will dehydrate me, and I don't like the way that feels.

No, that's not what it is. You didn't understand what I was saying. I read "Natures First Law." I ordered TONS of cases of olives and dates... 3 months of Raw is a long time and I was heavily into it! What I was trying to say is that dis-ease comes in many forms and from many different sources. If someone is eating an all raw diet, but it FEELS to them like a prison diet, they will experience emotional distress, which can also cause "dis-ease" SO it really boils down to "how do I feel about this?" If you believe it will nourish you, it will. If you believe it will cause you disease and discomfort, it will.
And I didn't say he was fear-based, I was stating a claim that I am not going to believe I will get cancer and heart disease from a cooked vegetarian diet.
I respect everything he said and I understand where he's coming from, I just don't believe it's got to be one way or the other for everyone. We are all different and have different constitutions. One man's medicine can be another man's poison.

Anyway, I'm wanting to do a cleanse and try raw again so I'll be happy to keep everyone updated on my digestion and how it goes. Any thoughts on a rapid flush cleanse??

Yogatastic,

I have my own experience with disease and healing from that disease. I don't have a belief system about cooked foods and disease, but I have my own personal experience. I have also heard and met others who have had similar experiences with cooked foods, and when eating raw these diseases disappeared. Again, not based on belief but real people's experience.

You had problems with the raw diet. If I were eating the way you did when you did your 3 months of raw, I would probably have the same problems. The food choices you made are common for the transitional raw fooder, and these food choices will lead to health problems unless the raw foodist moves away from those raw food choices to ones that work for the long term raw foodists.

Also, when I was transitioning to raw, I had no expectation to go 100% raw. That happened naturally, without control and without me forcing it. And if I ate cooked food when the desire came up, I felt no compunction to hide this from myself or anyone else. I have to wonder if the excessive control you used to eat your raw food diet wasn't part of the problem of your approach. For me, that kind of control doesn't work and it usually backfires on me.

Poor digestion is a big indication that your food choices weren't working for you. The problem with the transitional raw diet is that it is very high in fats (oils, butters, nuts, seeds, avos, etc), and this is hard to digest, and often results in gas or digestive related problems. And, a lot of people develop sugar related issues that ends up with either candida or yeast or diabetes.

If you decide to try raw again, you might take a look at the 80/10/10 diet. You can buy the book at Dr Graham's website [www.foodnsport.com]. This diet has a heathier approach to eating raw foods than the traditional dehydrator/juicer approach to raw.

Again, going raw is a process, not an event. Being that you are relatively new to raw (in terms of personal experience), I am not surprised that you are having problems. There are many people here on this forum who have had the exact same problems you had, but they were able to find support at places like this forum and to find a way to eat raw foods that worked for them. I invite you to ask question here to the forum so that you might discover a way to eat raw that works for you.

Thank-you. I bought the 80/10/10 book so I'll let you know how it goes!

Dr. Cousens suggests an ayurvedic approach to raw, with lists of which raw foods work best for each constitution. The info is in Rainbow Green Live Food Cuisine (& maybe Conscious Eating as well, havent read that one)... so, it doesn't have to be a choice between raw or ayurveda, you can do ayurvedic raw.

Thank-you, that's what I was looking for!

It seems that I ended my digestive problems doing 2 things:

1) Blending and learning what-to-how-to blend (almost) everything I eat,

2) Eating raw fruits (with their seeds), vegetables and all kind of herbs/plants (and their seeds).


It worked for me.

Pls. excuse my English - foreigner.

=============================================================
Medicine, Food Industry and Commerce are businesses.
Is their goal to make/keep me healthy or to make more profit?
=============================================================

yogatastic,

my comments are about goals and ideals.

if we compromise on our ideals, there is no chance of high achievement.

i'm not talking about being wrong, or bad, or whatever.

no criticism or fear, or unrealistic goals.

i would rather be honest and acknowledge the truth of proper diet,
and then either succeed by reaching it, or not. that i can do, with joy, and positive feelings.

but by fooling myself and making rationalizations because of difficulties in understanding how to proceed, i only fool myself, and sabotage myself.

you said,

"If food is made and received with lots of love, no matter what it is, it will nourish the soul.

it's not the soul i'm concerned about.
many people near me eat with love flowing all around and are all extremely sick.

it's not all good, spiritual ideals do not apply here.

i cannot be healthy in mind or body eating pizza and drinking soda.
not going to happen.

i wish you only the best on your journey, and hope you enjoy the book.

>>>>I was raw in the past for about 3 months total. I fluctuated from about 90% to 100% during that time. I did the whole thing, threw out my grill and my toaster oven, bought a dehydrator and a Champion juicer. Prepared food for days and had raw parties and met people on here and tried to spread the word. The problem for me then was I was in the last trimester pregnant! The transition was much too hard for me. I would drive to a restaurant and sneak and eat french fries and not tell my husband! It was bad! I was always hungry. When I was in the hospital to have my baby, my husband brought the dehydrator up for me and everything and at one point, the nurse had brought me some cooked vegetables and my husband walked out for a moment and I opened the tray and scarfed down green beans as fast as I could and then put the top back on so he couldn't see! I know this may seem silly and my husband knows all this now and we laugh about it but the point I'm trying to make is that the raw diet at that time made me feel like I wasn't getting enough and that I did need more. And I was listening to my body, not my mind!<<<<<


I have been transitioning to raw for a year. I have been between 85% to 99% this entire year and I feel like a complete beginner. Transition is hard for me, and most others i think. From what you wrote it sounds like you barely gave raw a chance. You were still in the major transition foods. The fact that you even thought about wanting your dehydrator in the hospital tells me that you were still in the first phase which for me was passed at about three months. After that I started mono-eating and juicing. I only dehydrate on rare occasions (once or twice a month). Green smoothies became a staple food. I crave sweet fruits like I used to crave fries and chips. I feel you didn't give your mind and body a chance to settle into this as a lifestyle rather than something you were making yourself do. Those cravings get so much better. Be patient with yourself and your diet. You will find what works as your mind and body ease into it.

I think I might know where Bryan was coming from when he wrote about cancer and heart disease. I discovered raw because I was sick with candida. It is only a matter of time before our bodies get "something". Raw is what nature gave us to help our bodies run at it's peak. When we need to fight off "whatever", it will be there. I am not in fear of my candida because I am telling it to take a hike I am just sticking to my goal of riding my horse on long rides and hiking mountains at 70 years old. It isn't fear of the these dis-eases that attract me it is motivation to conquer them and that requires knowing the plan and sticking to it.

Good luck and, if you persevere, I am sure you will find a raw diet that works for you. There are many people on this forum whose bodies can not tolerate foods that some eat everyday. My transition is slow and it sounds like yours may need to be too.

Bryan,

Could you comment further about the unhealthy bacterias present in foods from other countries, such as India? I don't quite understand. Raw food is unhealthy to eat in India because its too contaminated from certain agricultural practices. At the same time I have heard people on this board and other raw food boards state that raw vegan foods in the U.S. Lack b12 because its TOO SANITARY.

So, raw vegan foods are either TOO SANITARY or TOO dirty to be healthy is that correct?

Is one possible solution is to innoculate soils with more health promoting bacterias that produce b12? At present, as far as I know soils are only innoculated with microbes as to maximize crops. Hopefully these two goals are not mutally exclusive, but I haven't heard of anyone trying to up the b12 levels in soils.