I am a seeker of truth as I believe that the truth shall set you free. In the interest of a discussion that is not limited by any one person's limited views I would like to get a variety of opinions about eating simple raw vs eating complicated raw. Which do you think is better ? Why ?

Better for what would be a good question ;O)

I find mono meals are easier for my digestion and overall well being based on my many years of eating raw and it's various formats. This is me though. Depending on where one is at in their transition or whatever, you will find different answers I'm sure.

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Posted by: tanawana (IP Logged)
Date: May 14, 2008 08:24AM

Better for what

Better for health and wellness ?

I guess I am asking: Is it better to eat complicated recipes or simple raw foods ?

I figured as much, I was kidding to a degree :O)

Anyhow, mono meals is better for physical health, it is simply easier on digestion.
If you do not mentally take to mono meals and force it, well being suffers somewhat.
Find the in-between and progress to where it works best.

Actually I posted this question because a thread on another forum got me to thinking about it. Here's a link to the forum question that I am referring to: [www.rawfoodtalk.com]

I would say simple meals

I tend to eat simple.. ie mono at in the week and complicated at weekends ie. salads or gourmet meals

in the week its easy to just eat 1 thing at a time, and keeps my digestion fast, mind clear and feeling light.

At the weekend I am in no hurry and can enjoy gourmet bits

I hear you EZ. The term 'better' doesn't really apply. It's just a tool. It can be the RIGHT tool for certain goals. Can't judge a man on his secret, internal, passionate goals. If their goals REQUIRE it......and they follow what they believe...then many will choose raw. If a persons goals REQUIRE it....many will be lead to simpler eating....or mono-eating....and take pleasure in it's practice. Certainly the information is out there.....and folks standing by that have been doing it for many years....like myself....to share their experiences.

-Personally, I experience a wide variety of benefits from this form of eating - including better digestion and sleeping.

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

I think both. When I first heard about eating raw (1983ish), there were few raw foodists, little literature and no recipe books to my knowledge. I tried really hard to be a raw foodie but I didn't get very far. Fast forward twenty years: It's hard to find anyone into healthy foods who hasn't heard of it. It's great to be able to pull out a recipe book and make something delicious and creative or to go to a raw food restaurant and have pizza. I'm not a big pizza person to begin with, but I was curious about raw pizza for some reason -- not enough, however, to attempt it myself. I didn't want to waste a bunch of food messing up a recipe. So I tried it at a restaurant (drove three hours to do so), and man, what a treat!!! Now I want to make raw pizza! And I can because I have Alissa's book and Dr. Cousens' book and Ani's book. But even more often I want to go into my garden and pick my lunch. So I think we live in a really blessed age where we have great choices like these!

I'm five months into the journey, and I find that days I mono-eat I feel really good. I have no bloating, my energy is in the sky, I feel like I'm on a flying carpet.

But now and again I have days where I just NEED the density, and fruit won't cut it. I feel like my head is a hot air balloon and I'm going to fly away if I keep eating too simply. Then, I want a giant salad full of sprouts, seeds, and avocado. When my body geniunely ASKS me for these things and I'm not just stuffing my face, I can eat these kinds of salads until I am full and feel just as awesome as the mono-meals.

I've also found my digestion feels "happy" after one raw gourmet meal... but if I fall into the trap of entertainment eating and go past the fullness signal, I'm very bloated the next day and I just feel the excess lurking inside me. (Interesting note, once I started visiting raw restaurants in TO for the occasional gourmet, I should note that I have NEVER fallen into a cooked snack attack again, so hats off to gourmet for that!)

So, for me, right now, my body prefers simple eating for the majority of the time. I seem to be gravitating toward it more, we'll see what the future holds.

Part of simple eating, I'm discovering, isn't always WHAT you eat, but how much and when you eat it. I can't ever stop eating before 7-9 PM, but I've discovered I have no trouble postponing breakfast until 12-2... which works wonders for my vitality, as well.

Today was a restful day, including light naps, and light snacks of strawberry, mango, papaya, and peaches. <3

Well I can live on banannas! Actually i do, with the exception here and there of avocados and oranges I pretty much just eat banannas and I am very much ALIVE!
Im also finding out as far as my athletic side that i dont need all the food i have been eating, Ive been cutting way back and I have more energy. I have been working on not eating after 3 pm (quantem eating) I think thats what its called and Monday morning I doubled my run from 20 minutes 2.5 miles to 40 minutes 4.5 miles. The body uses a lot of energy to digest and so I feel we only need small amounts at a time this way we have more energy to do other things and not use so much energy digesting.

I forgot to mention that this morning I felt like crap and only ran 2.5 miles because tuesday night I benged and ate about 7 pm basically gorges on avocado and tomato. After about 4 days of not eating after 3 pm so this goes to show that overeating makes me tired and apparently I was still digesting what i overate tuesday night this morning and so I was tired way tired. And tonight i just did the same thing, I ate at 630 pm avocado and tomato but I dont run on thursdays. I am still working on this 3 pm thing but its hard to do i am used to eating when I get home. So what Ive been doing is eating enough at 245 so I am not hungry the rest of the day and evening, my problem is also i love to eat! I just do so it makes it hard to not overeat.All I eat is fruit but I still should not overeat,

Mono is easier on my digestive system.

YMMV.

Roadrunner, you seem to be repeating a very common pattern. Eat light for 3-4 days, then overeat. Try upping the volume of food a bit the 3-4 days and over time the 4-5th day overeating starts to sudside. Just a thought, sorry if it doesn't apply to you, but reading what you wrote it seems you are falling into that trap :O)

tanawana, I think I do that too. I wouldn't have thunk it w/o seeing what you wrote. Thanks for commenting here.

tanawana,
what pattern?
Ive noticed especially at work when Im very active that the less I eat or if i dont eat much at all I feel great and energetic, but If I eat like usual (overeating) it runs me down and i get not tired but "bleh" Im sure yall know what bleh means its just slower than normal. I have the same problem with eating less as I did when i was quitting smoking, the more I think about eating less the more i eat, the smoking was the more I thought about quitting or cutting back the more I smoked. But guess what i overcame the ciggerettes and i will do the same with my being a pig, lol! For so many years i just ate whenever and whatever so now that ive switched to healthy i feel I can eat and eat and eat which needs to stop. food is energy not a passtime like it used to be for me. heres one for ya, i deliver freight and i delivered the concession stand product for the local drive-in the entire pallet was candy,snickers,charleston chews,milkey way,skittles,3 muskateers ,twix all of which I ate daily when I was living the SAD diet and let me tell ya i had a major crisis yesterday delivering that!! I LOVE snickers and charleston chews, milkey way twix and so that was tough!! But I overcame it and moved on with the day. If theres one thing i miss from my unhealthy diet it is CANDY BARS!!

You asked what pattern -
You ate light or quit eating by 3pm, then the next day you overate, hence the pattern :O)

usually the after 3pm method is more for someone that has been eating raw for a while and not a beginner. If you are not a beginner I'm sorry for assuming.

Recognizing true hunger and relating hunger to energy levels and what you eat is very tricky to understand. I'd suggest trying to better understand hunger and realize energy levels are based on food, sleep, mental state, environment, etc. also. Alot of variables other than food.

> "now that ive switched to healthy i feel I can eat and eat and eat which needs to stop. food is energy not a passtime like it used to be for me."

I can completely relate to that. It's a tough process. I think a lot of society TRAINS us to eat for entertainment. So, even when I started raw, I still had that training, and there are certain situations that I still have to struggle with to not overeat.

But it's awesome when you can look back on where you were a few months ago and see how much you've improved, even if it's only by taking small steps. =)