Hi Guys,

After recently being digosed with High Blood pressure at the young age of 30 and getting to a point in my life where I felt i was always getting sick, feeling tired and just not happy with my overall health, I started thinking of seriously doing something about my lifestyle. I eventually heard a interview with David Wolfe from the Sun food diet system and was convinced that this was something that I wanted to make real in my life....

For the last 3 weeks I have been having a Raw brakfast juice of, Goji Berries, organic apples, Hemp seed oil, cocao powder, spirulina, MSM, rice milk, honey, pumkin and seseame seeds.. all organic where possible.

I now want to transition into 2 raw meals a day, with one cooked and eventually move to 3 raw meals a day with raw snacks in between..

I have been doing some research on the web about raw food, obviously one is confronted with all the warnings about all kinds of deficiencies that you can pick up etc etc, but very little is given about what to do.

Do any of you long term raw foodist's have any programs/books that you could recommend to someone starting out, I need something for beginners who have no idea of nutrition and where to start, I am specifically looking for the right combinations of foods to make sure I get a full healthy lifestyle going.

Please not though that I live in South Africa, so any live programs or recommendations of places to visit will have to be preferably local. I can make phonecalls using skype to international numbers if required.

Thanks in advance for your recommendations,
Robert

I would recommend reading Becoming Vegan; it has lots of info on different fruits and vegetables and the nutrients they provide (it's not specifically raw but you can use the info still).

I'm sorry, but I don't think your breakfast smoothie/juice sounds all that good. But if it tastes great to you and you feel good drinking it, do so. I would limit cacao to two times a week, at most (if you decide to consume it), no rice milk (not raw), no honey if you're going to become vegan (but that's up to you).....less seeds and oils as you move along.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think anything, in and of itself, is terrible in your smoothie, but I think just focusing on whole plant foods, fresh plant foods, as in greens and fruit, would be best.

Hi Utopian Life,

Thanks for the comments,

lol, most people don't like the look of my smoothie, and yet it tastes quite good to me... and that's why I am asking for comments and help, I am very new to this and am not sure at yet of what I am doing.... I basically took everything that I heard in the interview and chucked it into one pot hit the switch and gulped it down.

One thing I have noticed is a patch of sun damaged skin on my nose has visibly reduced in size and seems much more healthy (I had some skin cancer cut out 2 years ago and am very watchful over the skin on my face) since I have been on my smoothie.

Would you recommend not eating certain things, or would you recommend not mixing certain things?

I have added becoming a vegan to my online cart and will be the proud owner in a couple of days, thanks for the recommendation.

Glad to hear you are getting the book!

I, too, have some skin improvements since going raw. I have had keloid scars, 10+ years old, start to disappear, which is just amazing, and to me, a testament to the fact that cooked food causes problems for the body's ability to heal.

I like to keep things fairly simple for my smoothies, like apple juice, water (if needed to blend, I don't like too much apple juice), pears or apples, frozen banana (that is ripened and cut up by myself), collards, and kale, and whirl it together. This works best in a strong blender, though. I sometimes mix it up and add mango or berries or dates.

It is important to eat a protein source with each meal as this will help keep blood sugar stable and so control your hunger. Brewer's yeast is good for one meal per day added to any freshly made vegetable juice.Nuts and seeds also good for blood sugar control. Also on a transition diet 2 soft boiled eggs with a cup of green tea is a satisfying breakfast. Eating too much fruit is fun, but will not keep blood sugar level. You could end up unfocused and with a lack of energy. As always, the first thing to stop using is any white sugar or white flour product.

yours,

Joshua Lane
Agoura Hills, California

I disagree with Joshya Lane, eating too much fruit is not bad. There is no such thing as eating too much fruit! Eat as much fruit as you want whenever you want. If you are hungry you can eat more. You don't need to control your hunger on a raw food diet. Also, salads are great for breakfast AND lunch. A super smoothie suggestion is a banana, strawberries, spinach, an orange, and/or whatever local fruit you have. It might look bright green but it tastes sweet.

I am still transitioning myself, and go from 50%-100% each day raw food. A smoothie for breakfast, a HUGE salad for lunch (mine has mixed baby greens, onions, tomato, mushroom, radish, pepper, cabbage, almonds, raisins, fresh berries, and salad dressing), then a smoothie for a snack and a cooked healthy dinner might be a good next step for you! It works well for me.

Good luck!

I disagreed with his post, too.

As a newbie returnee into this way of life, I'd like to add my 2 cents worth. I started changing my life to vegan about 4 years ago, but it only lasted for a few months because to many things were happening to me and it was way to easy to fall back to the safe mode. Since then I've gained more weight and become less and less healthy. I (re)began my change this past month and have gone almost all raw this past week. And I can say this, I can't even remember the last time that I felt so good. This is the first time in 14 years that I have slept through the night.

I personally only eat Organic Phi Plus (a mixture of dates, rolled oats, nuts and so on) for breakfast and it keeps me going for several hours and then I eat more of it for snacks as needed. In the past I tried the smoothie route but it seemed to make me hungry for sweets, so I'm sticking with the Phi Plus and raw veggies. I'm finding that I have to be willing to experiment a little but some of the trials have turned out to be pretty tasty after all. Be inventive...think outside the box.

[gethealthyeatraw.wholefoodfarmacy.com]
[piffleandprattle.blogspot.com]

i'm new to this, but here is what is really helping me... i read in one of my raw books to find some things that you like, and then just eat that. it sounds so simple and obvious, but it really has helped me. i'm not going to worry about too much of this and too little of that, and whatever. after one week now of about 98% raw, i am noticing that i am feeling so much more energized and healthy, that i am naturally expanding my diet, and wanting more simple fruits and vegatables.

after many tries and slips, and back to cooked over the past 10 years, this approach is really working for me. for me, listening to my body and not being super rigid is really working to keep me on this path.

What worked for me was to incorporate more fruits and vegetables (salads) into my diet, until the point where I was eating only raw foods. I started with lots of fats in my raw diet, but I felt much better and healed faster when I incorporated more fruits and less fat.