It seems like most people on this board are advocates of 80/10/10. Without having a solid opinion of my own, I was curious as to what people thought about raw fooders who advocate/aspire to very low calorie diets that are nutrient/mineral dense and revolve around the non-sweet fruits like David Wolfe and David Favor. It seems like 80/10/10 also neglects the importance of vegetable juicing and philosophies of the body being a source of energy independent of calorie intake, but thats just from observing the posts here as well.



in particular with regards to pure salt (like Himalayan salt) and fat, it would be helpful to hear people's opinions on the following from David Favor's site:

Fat is essential to life. EFAs,
Essential Fatty Acids, are the major building block for cell
walls. People on low fat diets tend to become dehydrated, as
cells are unable to hold water. Then finally, loose brain function
as the body steals fat from the brain and neurolgy to regenerate
life essential tissue like heart and lungs.


Salt allows water to be held in the body. Adequate salt
is required to allow hydration (body to hold water).
People have massive health increases when they go on high
salt diets, because low salt diets results in massive
dehydration.

Salt allows our bodies to hold water. Many people who
drink plenty of water are still chronically dehydrated
because they eat to little salt to hold water in their
blood, lymph fluid and cellular tissue.

Salt and water have to be at appropriate levels as the
basic foundation of our health.

Salt dehydrates the body. How do I know this? Because when I eat some salt, I become thirsty. Caffeine/alcohol dehydrates the body. How do I know this? Because when I ingest these substances, I become thirsty.

So if salt is good for me, does that mean caffeine and alcohol are also good for me, because they make me want to drink water? Does that mean that any substance that I ingest that makes me thirsty is a good thing to eat?

Salt is used to dehydrate foods so that they preserve well. Why is it that salt will dehydrate raw fish or raw meat or raw vegetables, but somehow it hydrates human beings?

Essential fatty acids are essential, but how much do you need? Are overt fats necessary, or can one live on whole foods and get enough fatty acids? When someone takes the fat out of a food, like an olive or some seeds, and refines and purifies it, is this a health food, or simply just empty calories.

In a recent thread I compared 2000 calories of table sugar verus flaxseed oil versus oranges. Here are the nutrient contents of these foods:

2000 calories of table sugar: 516g carb, 0g protein, 0g fat, 0g fiber, 0.15g water, 4% selenium, 5% B2

2000 calories flaxseed oil: 0g carb, 0g protein, 226g fat, 0g fiber, 0g water, 131% Vit E

2000 calories oranges: 512g carb, 37g protein, 6g fat, 90g fiber, 3500g water, 175% calcium, 79% copper, 29% iron, 112% magnesium, 59% phosphorus, 93% potassium, 1% sodium, 21% zinc, 201% Vit A, 347% folate, 185% B1, 122% B2, 86% B3, 106% B6, 4000% C, 20% E

How does 2000 calories of flaxseed oil compare to 2000 calories of oranges in terms of carbs, fat, protein, fiber, water, vitamins and minerals? Which food is going to better hydrate me, 2000 calories of fat or 2000 calories of oranges? Let's see, 0 grams of water versus 3500 grams of water (3.5 liters).

Since you mentioned David Wolfe, let me add the nutrients found in 2000 calories worth of coconut butter, just in case you thought coconut butter had more nutrients than flaxseed oil:

2000 calories coconut butter: 0g carb, 0g protein, 226g fat, 0g fiber, 0.2g water, 1% iron, 1% Vit K, 195g saturated fat.

>Salt dehydrates the body. How do I know this? Because when I eat some salt, I become thirsty. Caffeine/alcohol dehydrates the body. How do I know this? Because when I ingest these substances, I become thirsty.

that isn't a conclusion at all. you could say eating heating or drying foods like peppers cayenne etc...have a similar affect and clearly do not have the same properties as caffeine or alcohol.

the argument isn't that it makes you drink more water, its that it helps hold water in the system, i'm not saying its right, but what you wrote in no way investigates or disproves this.

also
clearly fruit has more water content then oil, I don't see what this is meant to prove either. not to mention its totaly hyperbolic.

80/10/10 seems to assume the body functions in the same way the FDA does. that it needs 2000 calories to survive. and that not getting those calories from fruit one is going to get them from fat, which is probably true, but it discounts those who get their nutrients via vegetable jucing and keep both fat and calorie intake to a minimum. I was more interested in having a discussion around that then some information how fruit has more fiber than oil.

heated or dried foods would probably dehydrate you, too.... no?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/27/2007 07:23AM by ThomasLantern.

anaken,

What benefit is there of holding more water than is necessary? Yes, consuming salt will cause my body to hold extra water, to be bloated. This condition is called edema, and it not considered a state of health. Do you consider eating salt and having water bloating a state of health? For me, if I eat a meal with some salt in it, I notice my face becomes puffy.

Getting to a deeper level, why is it necessary to use a chemical substance to alter our water content? Why not just drink water if you are thirsty, and trust that your body is wise enough to figure out whether or not to retain that water, or to transpire it? Why is it that you think David Wolfe or David Favor know whats better for your body than your own body does?

The thing about 80/10/10 I like is that it shows us some of the common mistakes people are making in the raw world when it comes to diet. Things like eating 60% fat. Or that eating refined foods (in the form of superfoods) are superior to eating whole foods. In my example about the various meals, I was trying to demonstrate how a food that is considered by many a "health food", is actually just empty calories, calories devoid of nutrients. For most of us, we have no problem with this as applied to table sugar. But applied to coconut butter or flaxseed oil, many people don't have the mental flexibility to see this.

Let me share my experience of my level of hydration, as a person who eats low fat and according to David Favor is dehydrated. When I am in the tropics, in the hot sun on the beach, I am the only person on the beach not holding a container of water and not wearing sunscreen. I see a bunch of people around me who I am pretty sure are eating 40% fat, and me, with my under 10% fat level, is comfortable in the hot sun, and not thirsty. On the other hand, the other tourists who are eating more than 4 times the fat I am eating are sweating like crazy and are very uncomfortable and drinking water like crazy. According to David Favor, giving my low fat diet, I am the one who should be thirsty, not the people eating an adequate amount of essential fatty acids.

With my low fat diet, I am getting somewhere between a half gallon and a gallon of water from my whole foods alone, without drinking water. I don't experience thirst. And yet, if I don't eat any foods at all, lets say I fast on only water, all the water I desire is only about a half cup of water a day. If I were severely dehydrated because of my low fat diet, wouldn't you think that if deprived of all food, that I might want more water, say like the half gallon of water to which I am accustomed?

The other thing about diets that are recommend by folk like David Wolfe, and I am assuming David Favor thinks in this same way, is that if you eat the foods that they recommend, which in their minds are the best possible foods in the world, that you don't feel good unless you add something extra. This extra oomph that is necessary to feel good are superfoods and super expensive supplements.

From what I've read about maca for example, it is a stimulant. I certainly understand how stimulants can make a person feel better. But with my diet of only whole foods, I feel good enough and have enough energy that I don't need a stimulant.

Also, because these diets are low in fruits and thus low in various vitamins and minerals, supplementation is absolutely necessary. If most of a person's fuel is coming from coconut butter, then there isn't going to be a lot of minerals and vitamins coming from that food source. Thus it is necessary to buy all kinds of supplementation and eat superfoods to make sure you get enough nutrients.

Of course, these folk love to tell us about how depleted the earth's soil is, and how soil mismanagement has caused their foods to be mineral deficient. They are correct that in their diet, the foods are mineral deficient because eating refined fat like coconut butter is mineral deficient. Its deficient because the minerals were taken out via the refinement process, not because of any soil mismanagement.

Bryan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> anaken,
>
> What benefit is there of holding more water than
> is necessary? Yes, consuming salt will cause my
> body to hold extra water, to be bloated. This
> condition is called edema, and it not considered a
> state of health. Do you consider eating salt and
> having water bloating a state of health? For me,
> if I eat a meal with some salt in it, I notice my
> face becomes puffy.

That's a complete contradiction. You just said salt dehydrates you, now you say that it makes you hold extra water. That is the complete opposite effect of making you lose too much water (dehydrated). Sounds like you don't know what it does to you.


> Getting to a deeper level, why is it necessary to
> use a chemical substance to alter our water
> content? Why not just drink water if you are
> thirsty,

Water is a chemical substance. It is certainly not a food anymore then salt. How is drinking H20 anymore "natural" or non-manipulative to the bodies water/salt balance then consuming salt is?

I was trying to demonstrate how a food that
> is considered by many a "health food", is actually
> just empty calories, calories devoid of nutrients.

Not all fats are empty. I wouldn't consider all the EFA's and certain vitamins in some oils, "empty". Not everything has to have the widest range of everything in low amounts to be beneficial.

Look at the Vitamin E and Vitamin A content of Red Palm Oil in comparison to Oranges, Bananas, Tomatoes, and Carrots. [www.tropicaltraditions.com]

It has 300 times more carotenoids then tomatoes. Hardly "empty".

Bryan, how do you get enough sodium in your diet?

nik,

Not a contradiction. When we eat salt, this causes water to move out of the cells and into the interstitial fluids. The body does this to dilute the salt, as the salt is poisonous to the body. The lack of water in the cell and tissues give the body the message to drink more water. So there is water in the body, unfortunately it is not in the cells where it is needed, but outside of the cells diluting the poisonous salt. Again, do you see this as heathful?

If you want to eat salt, by all means, enjoy your salt. I ate and enjoyed salt for most of my life, and when I go to a raw restaurant and there is some salt in the food, I get some stimulation of my taste buds from the salt. But it also makes me thirsty, and that doesn't feel good to me. It kind of reminds me of eating chinese foods in the past. The MSG made the food taste really good. But it left me with a headache. At some point, I quit eating MSG because the pain of the headache wasn't worth the taste stimulation I was getting from the MSG. That is how I view salt nowadays. The pain of the thirst is not worth the taste stimulation I get from the salt.

Hey, if you want to eat refined fats, but all means, do so. I did that for the majority of my life, including most of my first year of transition to raw and the early part of my all raw diet. If you like the nutrients you are getting from the oil, then you are getting a great deal. I certainly have no problems with you eating refined oils. I have had my experience with oils, and I find I like the way my body feels without them. But if they feel good to you, enjoy them. I certainly did.

rrraw,

I get sodium from tomatoes, celery, spinach. A lot of fruits and vegetable have some sodium in them.

I never said that I eat or enjoy oils or salt Bryan. You're changing the subject from the facts, to personal enjoyment. I wasn't asking for or need your approval of what I or anyone else eats. I just want the facts to be straight that are being presented here.

You said that all oils are completely devoid of nutrients, and they are not. Has nothing to do with what people like or how they feel to anyone. It's just not an accurate statement that they are completely devoid of nutrients.

As far as your theory about the salt being a poison and what happens in the body, do you have a source for this information? Is there reputable scientific data that shows this is exactly what salt does in the body? Not an explination from one of your NH teachers, but from a scientic source?

And as far as water, why do you think it's more natural to consume then salt? Is water a food? "Chemically, water is a compound of hydrogen and oxygen, having the formula H2O. It is chemically active, reacting with certain metals and metal oxides to form bases, and with certain oxides of nonmetals to form acids. It reacts with certain organic compounds to form a variety of products, e.g., alcohols from alkenes. Because water is a polar compound, it is a good solvent." It can be dangerous as well. [www.msnbc.msn.com]

nik,

It was sounding like you were feeling judged about consuming salt and oil. I just wanted to make it clear that I was not judging your food consumption.

If you compare the nutrients in oranges versus coconut oil, I see vast differences of nutrients. I think I might be able so sustain myself for months, perhap years, on a diet of only oranges. However, I doubt I could last a week on a diet of oil. Do you think you would fare better on a diet of pure your tropicaltraditions oil verus a diet of only oranges?

As for the salt stuff, read about how cells maintain the potassium sodium balance with water and osmosis. Read about what happens with sodium gets out of balance. I don't have a text in front of me, but this is basic physiology. Do you have proof of the contrary?

As for is water a nutrient, yes, I believe it is. In fact, I believe given a diet of only water versus a diet of only salt, I personally would last much longer on only water than on only salt. I've done a 12 day water fast. I have supervised people who have fasted on water for over 30 days. But I don't think one would last very long on a salt fast. Do you?

a few things

thomaslantern:
heating or drying isn't the same as heated or dried

bryan:I'm not much a believer in superfoods that are stipped from exotic locales as being necessary to health any more than humans consumeing 2000 calories of oranges or melon daily as being a healthy or sustainable way for individuals or the planet.

As for your anecdote about the tropics, I can't say that from your example that being a 80/10/10 puts you in that category anymore than other raw foodists. many people make similar claims about their method of raw and go on fasts without water.

both David Wolfe and David Favor to put it mildy seem 'overstimulated' to me also. but I think Favor's theories on salt are still up for discussion here. What he's speaking of is a condition of deydration on a cellular level. I think the figure is 75% of americans are suspected to be chronically dehydrated, and ask most and they won't say they are chronically thirsty. so stateing whther or not you feel thirsty after this or that doesn't answer things really.

salt for Favor I think is whats important for adequate hydration, I think fat is really a seperate issue and personaly I agree that most raw foodists eat too much fat. but I think its clear that most animals in their natural enviorment make a point to ingest salt in its various forms (crystal and soluable?)

we arn't talking about table salt here, and I'm still not saying Favor is right, I just don't see an argument that salt is poisonous

bryan alot of your answers do seem to see-saw between extremes, oil extracted from something is clearly less natural then salt that can be found in nature. and \if the point of the argument is that salt helps hydrate the body then you couldn't very well consume salt without water.

I'd still be interested in hearing why consumeing inhuman ammounts of fruit is prefreable to people that have stable weights on very low calorie diets ( this is one thing favor claims to have going for him) but perhaps thats for another thread.

What is the point of your comparison? There are different nutrients in oranges compared to coconut oil. Sustaining yourself purely on one food alone and that food being completely devoid of nutrition is two complete extremes. Does it have everything the body needs, no of course not. But not having everything the body needs as opposed to having nothing the body needs is completely different. I don't think I could sustain myself on oranges either without getting a wide range of deficiencies.

I have read about water and salt balance, and nothing I have ever read said that the salt is poison. The same balance happens with sodium derived from food directly. A deficiency of either will create imbalance. Does that make any sodium a poison because of that balance that happens? Celery is a poison? If you consume a bunch of celery juice or sea vegetables, the same reactions will happen in the cells. Just like the water in food will cause the same reactions as the isolated and refined non-food water you drink.

I don't want to get into a heated discussion. I would just like to interject one fine detail that some might have overlooked.

Most of us probably agree that it is better to get one's overt fats from nuts, seeds, fatty fruit rather than a refined oil.

But what some might not know is that when we limit ourselves to nuts rather than nut butters or milks or dehydrated 'cheezes' we will not be assimilating the full nutritional value of the overt fat source because our teeth are not that efficient. Little pieces of nut will sail through the GI tract undigested, even more so when the diet is high in fiber.

So I see no reason to set one's self up for torture by eliminating them (unless there are intolerances or something like that or you really dislike them). If you are getting 25% of your kcals from overt fats that are mostly freshly shelled nuts and your diet is high in fiber and has a background fat level of 5%, then your net will probably be no more than 25% and possibly lower.

I aim for 25% or so total fat. I think I net around 20%. I am not convinced that this poses an appreciable health hazard (e.g. for cancer risks or longevity or whatever). But I hope for some clarification one day before I die, if only because I am curious and I want to know the answer.

ananken,

Favor has this hypothesis that salt helps hydrate cells on a cellular level. From my understanding of how osmosis works in a cell, if there is excess salt outside of the cells, water will move via osmosis from inside the cell to the outside of the cells because of the difference of concentration of salt from outside of the cell from the inside of the cell.

Moving water outside of the cell dehydrates the cell, as the cell has given up water.

Whether or not you believe this explanation of how salt operates on the cell will color your view of salt being healthy or salt being detrimental. What I am saying are just words, and if these words are outside of your experience, I might as well be speaking Greek to you.

So perhaps I can give examples of my personal of experience of what salt does to my body. When I eat salt, I get thirsty. And I look puffy. To me, this doesn't feel like a state of health. Also, it doesn't feel good to me to be thirsty because I ate something. On other days where I don't consume salt, I feel great, and I don't feel the desire to drink water. Perhaps you experience this too.

I know that a cause of accidental poisoning of children comes from the ingestion of salt. Most parents don't think of salt as a poisonous or toxic material so they don't bother to protect against it, yet children get into the salt, start eating it, and become dangerously dehydrated and sometimes they die.

As for animal in nature liking salt, I can see the truth in this. I know bears in Yosemite prefer eating human foods over their natural foods. Things like Snickers bars, potato chips, etc. When their bodies are exposed to something like a Snickers bar, with it high concentrations of sugars, salts, and fats, their bodies probably say "yes, this is awesome food". So yes, animals can become addicted to things that are not healthy for them, including the ingestion of pure salt.

I don't see anything wrong with being on a low calorie diet, if that serves the person on the diet. Nowadays, it seems like I am eating closer to 1500 calories, rather than the 1800-2000 I was eating in the summer. Before going raw, I was eating more like 3500 calories. When I read in the nutrition journals about low calorie diets, I think I might qualify at 1500 calories a day. This winter, 1500 has felt good to me. But during the spring or summer, when my activity level rises, I might find myself at 2000 calories again.

After 5 years of being all raw, I am experiencing my body as being pretty saturated with a lot of nutrients. And as such, it feels to me like I am only needing to eat for fuel rather than nutrients. It is said that after 7 years of being all raw, that every cell in the body has rebuilt itself on the building blocks of raw foods. If this is true, then as my cells in my body die, my body is able to reclaim the amino acids, the fatty acids, the minerals, and other building blocks from the dying cells, and those materials all came from raw foods. So perhaps this is why my desire for food is slowly diminishing over time.

As for inhuman amounts of fruit, eating 1400 calories worth of fruit and a 100 calories of greens to me seems normal, because this is what I like to eat. In the past, I could have eaten way more fruit than this. I used to take a 21 pound watermelon, eat 7 pounds for breakfast, 7 pounds for lunch, and 7 pounds for dinner (I wouldn't eat the rind, and that was a substantial amount of the 21 pounds). I don't think I could do this nowadays, except perhaps on a super hot day where I was doing hard physical labor all day.

Anaken, as I have taken time to answer your question, perhaps you can answer mine. Why is it important for you to know the answer to this question about the nature of salt? If you experience salt as a healthful food, and it feels like it is hydrating your body, then why ask this question, why not just eat the salt? For me, my personal experience gets a higher input in my decision process over input I get externally, either from raw proponents or other people. If I find that things aren't working for me, then I seek external input, as I am trying to rectify whatever isn't working for me. If people offer me input on a question I asked, I don't sit there and argue with them. I thank them for their input, and I decide what to do with it.

Nik,

I still can't shake the feeling that you are feeling judged by me. So let me ask you directly. Are you feeling that I am judging your food choices or your belief systems? If so feel this, then you have to know that I need to judge myself for the first 40 years of my life, because what I was doing back then is nothing like what I am doing today, in terms of my diet or my experience of life.

anaken, thanks for asking. To me, foods such as salt, oils, juices are fractured foods. "Super"foods that David Favor recommends are fractured foods, some of them very toxic. Therefore, I have no interest in studying David's approach, unless it was for the purpose other than benefiting my lifestyle.

Gosia


RawGosia channel
RawGosia streams

thanks for your reply Anaken

I see this wisdom in Brian's posts.

>>If you experience salt as a healthful food, and it feels like it is hydrating your body, then why ask this question, why not just eat the salt? For me, my personal experience gets a higher input in my decision process over input I get externally, either from raw proponents or other people. If I find that things aren't working for me, then I seek external input, as I am trying to rectify whatever isn't working for me. If people offer me input on a question I asked, I don't sit there and argue with them. I thank them for their input, and I decide what to do with it.
>>

I don't think my approach was any different. I think the first thing I said was 'without having an opinion of my own' I was looking for a few peoples viewpoints sicne to me it is a counter-intuitve yet interesting hypothesis. I found your first response to be not at helpful, thats why I persisted, not argued. I found the last thing you wrote to be helpful, so I appreciate your time in answering the question more thoughouhly.

As for me personaly. I've never used salt much as a condiment, but have noticed when I add the himilayan salt liberally on cerain things that are water rich like apples that I seem to get an electric charge that he and others have described. So yes, I guess I could say it is working for me, but that isn't to say that since It is such a counter-intutive idea, that I don't want to seek out other peoples opinions to see if this is in fact a 'healthy' practice. from that I could decide whether to add more so , less salt or no salt.


so yeah I'd still like to hear others ideas. but yours is deffinetly now more clear and seemingly accurate except your response about animals, which I'm pretty sure is a pre-modern/pre processed salt/pre-national park type phenomena in the animal kingdom.

rawgosia: I guess juice, since mechanicaly extracted from a vegetable, could be seen as 'fractured'. most people however regard it as the most integral component to their sucess on a rawfoods diet. to me, given the state that our bodies are in, caling juice a 'fractured' food actually suggests the possibility of salt as being possibly integral to our health as well.

The important issue here is electrolyte balancing.

Cells require a sodium to potassium ratio of approximately 1 to 3. The average recommendated intake ratio is actually 1 to 5. Most people on a standard diet sustain a ratio of 2 to 1. The kidneys respond to this imbalance by flushing excess sodium out through the urine. This is why dehydration can occur. High blood pressure can also be a result.

However, it is equally imbalanced to have a high potassium ratio. This usually isn't even in the realm of possibility for people on a standard diet. However, it is actually quite possible on a high fruit diet. I have entered some sample diets into a nutrition calculator and found that it is quite easy to eat a diet with up to a 1 to 20 ratio. The body will respond to a potassium imbalance in the same way that it responds to a sodium imbalance. Hence, dehydration can occur. Low blood pressure can also be a result.

If you sustain a reasonable ratio and you are not dehydrated with blood pressure problems then keep doing what you're doing. If you can balance your ratio by eating organic sodium and potassium in the form of fresh fruits and vegetables then do that. Otherwise, the current scientific evidence suggests that it would be better to consume a healthy salt then it would be to sustain a continued electrolyte imbalance.

Jim Sloman of [www.mayyoubehappy.com] has a good explanation of the dietary ratios of potassium to sodium. Also note that the body is extremely efficient at removing excess potassium, since it expects to get a lot of dietary potassium. On the other hand, it it quite miserly about removing sodium, because in nature, sodium doesn't exist in high quantities in our natural foods. Thus when we over consume sodium, the body isn't as efficient at removing the sodium out of the body.

Check out Jim's article here.

Also worth checking out is Jim's "Topics on Mind, Body, and Spirit".

I met Jim Sloman at last years "Fig Party", which was a picnic in Sebastopol, one hour north of San Francisco. The Fig Party was a gathering of folk who would normally have gone to the Raw Passion or Rawstock event that was held in Sebastopol in previous years. I was sharing with Jim that I was still trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life, as I had recently quit my software engineering profession. What he shared with me struck me as profound, "Well Bryan, there's really nothing you can do which will speed up your exploration. But on the other hand, there is nothing you can to that will slow it down".

We shared some time together, and as we departed, Jim gave me a copy of his four volume book "Songs of Existence", about his exploration of spirit, truth, and health. Many of those articles found in his "Topics" page are in this wonderful book.

Here's a quote from Jim's site that I love:

Quote

In the 1930's, the citrus industry wanted to find out how long it would take for someone eating a diet of only oranges to get sick. Six years later, when the experiment was discontinued, the man was still in perfect health and said that he had never felt better in his life.

Its funny, just earlier in this thread I was talking about a daily menu of only oranges.

thanks No5 I found this very helpful

Bryan, I will check out Jim's site, thanks.

[www.mayyoubehappy.com]

I found this article very interesting.

<<Quote:
In the 1930's, the citrus industry wanted to find out how long it would take for someone eating a diet of only oranges to get sick. Six years later, when the experiment was discontinued, the man was still in perfect health and said that he had never felt better in his life.>>

Any references to the primary source?

Cheers,
J

Jose,

In that article, there was no primary reference. However, the article that Ariannah referred to about people not wanting to give up their fruitarian diet after participating in a nutrition research experiment did have a primary reference.

Great reading about the fruit experiment.
But the question still remain, how long these great fruitarians lived?
Cornelius de Villiers-Dreyer, T Fry?
Why does the diet fail in the long run? Or is 70, 80 years the maximum we can reach on a fruitarian diet?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2007 07:37AM by djatchi.