Does anyone have experience healing major digestive illness on a raw foods diet? Despite a mostly raw foods diet for the last 4 years, I have been ill for several months with digestive problems that are very deep-rooted. In addition to very low immunity, food allergies and chemical sensitivities, my digestive organs are very weak- pancreas, stomach, liver, intestines. I have been seeing a doctor of Oriental Medicine- in this medical system, raw foods are not encouraged and for the first time in many years I have been eating mostly cooked foods. I miss raw foods, but have trouble digesting them (nuts and seeds, even butters, are hard, as are raw greens).

Has anyone else had a deep-rooted digestive illness and maintained a raw foods diet or used raw foods to heal? If so, what foods/recipes would you recommend for someone with compromised digestion? I know raw foods are supposed to be easier to digest and assimilate than cooked foods but I haven't felt its the case for me. I am underweight as I don't tolerate food well, so fasting is not an option right now.

Even for long term raw fooders, nuts and seeds and dark leafy greens are very difficult to digest.

What works for me is to get a lot of my calories from fresh fruits. As for digestion, what is necessary is to have very ripe fruit, and to eat very simple meals, typically with only one ingredient.

The simpler your meals, the better digestion you will have, especially with compromised digestion.

I have been through hell and then some and back and did it with 100% raw and had the same concerns you did. You can do it and as Bryan suggests keep it simple.

The key in my opinion is to find the foods that work for you. If your problems are bad, forget recipes as well as what everyone else says and forge your own path. Digestive issues are unique to each individual and what they can or can't tolerate, even in the smallest amounts. If greens bother you, don't eat them, if "whatever" bothers you, again just don't eat it. The foods will be tolerated at some point, but patience and consistency is best.

ask yourself...:

---do I feel true hunger..., or do I eat because I "must"...?

---do my digestive system call for more foods..., or does it cry out loud for a break, in order to heal...?

...
...anyway, have you tried a juice-diet?

...IME, no foods will heal you..., organism heal itself if you allow it...
(breathing of fresh clean air, calm sunlight exposure, and total rest - will serve and support your organism's own healing and recovery best...)

even a shorter fast can help to improve imbalanced state..., and when true hunger returns, your body weight will stabilize to normal soon..., fasting do not induce deficiency, ("deficiency" is actually an imbalance, and the purpose with a fast is to restore the balance)

I agree with all of the above. You have to find the raw menu that's right for you. I could be 100% raw and eat nothing but pineapple and grapefruit, but that combination would not make for a happy digestive system.
I've also found that adjusting more than my diet is necessary. When I'm successful, here are a few things that I do beyond diet:

-stay on a schedule
-get plenty of sleep
-rise with the sun
-at the very least, walk or do yoga every day
-get fresh air and breathe
-spend A LOT less time on the internet or with any media source that dwells on bad news
-do whatever I can to avoid unnecessary stress

I recently went through a period where I really fell off my raw path, and I'm paying for it, big time. Right now, I'm on my way back. I just have to remember that consistency and discipline are crucial in staying healthy. I also need to remember to focus on the positives of raw while I'm still feeling discomfort, knowing that if I stay on the path and have patience, I'll eventually be okay. Good luck.

THANK YOU SO MUCH to all for your advice and encouragement. It's so easy to second guess yourself during hard times, or when there are no immediate results. I don't even know what my intuition is right now- I've been so scrambled by this experience (and reading way too many books on health and diet- all of which have contrasting information that sounds so convincing!)

I was really moved by the responses to my post, and they all spoke to me very clearly- many many thanks.

I agree that these responses are so very abundant and giving. Everyone has such great insight and contributions. Approximately one month ago, I decided to go completeliy raw, and have gone through some changes and brains struggles trying to stay on a 100% raw path, My problem is that it seems no matter how many times I soak/sprout beans/legumes, i.e., (azuki, lentils, garbanzos, etc.) and no matter how much I try to break down the cellulose in the bean, and then put in a food processor and dehydrator and/or make sauces out of them with lots of herbs and spices and other raw veggies, etc., I cannot seem to shake the gag reflex I keep getting when I eat any raw bean!!! So, I decided, (as far as I can tell), I cannot stomach raw beans. I remedied this by first soaking the beans, possibly 3 or for cycles of overnight, and then I blanch them, and/or put them in boiled water for approx. 2 or 3 minutes (this was a real head trip because I wanted them not be be heated at all), but this is much better for me individually. When I was having trouble getting the raw beans to be palatable, my digestion was so screwed up, and if I continued eating them, I was going to be very ill, so I got into making some awesome nut yogurts. Natural raw yogurt made with nuts is so, so wonderful for the digestion. I love beans so much, yet they do not agree with me raw, and killed my digestion!! Blancing and/or cooking just a few minutes helped so much. If you or anyone knows how to conquer raw beans besides cooking and/or jettising them, please do let me know. All the best to everyone!

"The key in my opinion is to find the foods that work for you. If your problems are bad, forget recipes as well as what everyone else says and forge your own path. Digestive issues are unique to each individual and what they can or can't tolerate, even in the smallest amounts."

This is very well put tanawana. I have IBD and have tried 811, high greens, etc. NOthing works cause it changes day to day. Just find what food work for you. But its more than food, it's the mentality. You have to believe in what you are doing, and continually have positive thoughts, and YES it works!!! YAY!

salmap,

Why do you feel you must eat beans? Just curious.

salmap,

I would avoid beans if I were you, you don't need to have them in your diet. I've always had issues digesting them, even when I ate cooked. The only sprouted bean I can tolerate is mung..so that's what I eat. I hope you can figure out what works best for you.

my wife healed her (unhealable) digestive illness with raw food (she tried also homeopathy at the same time)

First she used normal western medicine to get the illness to "calm" down (again) eg. the bleeding to stop. And then she started the raw food diet, and left the medicenes out little by little. Untill she hasn't used any medicine for over a year now.

She had already used the medicine for the past 10-11 years, and the prognosis was that the illness will get worse and worse, and no hope of ever healing. The medicines were just for the symptoms as no real cure "exists"..

Now that she is feeling fine, she wont dear to ever stop eating raw..

oh AND I forgot to mention that the results were almost immediate!!

Usually (before raw food) whenever she tried to reduce the amount of medicine she used, she suffered because of the reduction, (But she had to try to get the medicine back to the normal 6 pills a day, so that when the illness would again go worse she could increase the amount again...)

but with raw foods she didn't notice any effects when reducing the amount of medicine. Not even when finally stopping taking any...

It's really boring to just say a book to recommend but I do it anyway: Self Healing Colitis & Chrons by David Klein. It's a super-quick-healing-the-digestion-method in my eyes. Really challenging, but it really does work!

Love!

Before I found out about food combining I used to clear out lines at the check stands. Never had a clerk desert their post though - their tuff. Food combining changed all that by improving my digestion. Take a look at lesson # 22 [www.rawfoodexplained.com]