My mother is someone with low HCL acid. She was on a 100% raw food diet including green smoothies and doing fine for about a month. Then she started getting mouth sores that would not go away. She was aware of the detoxing that goes with this kind of diet. Another symptom was her tongue would curl and press onto the roof of her mouth nearly choking her. As soon as she went off the green smoothies it would begin to go away. She would also get extreme gas in her stomach that insisted on leaving her body going up rather than down. She had a profuse amount of gas and she wasn't even able to breath as it wanted to come up and out all at once. This condition lingered on even after she quit her smoothies. She since learned that the spinach and kale are harder greens to digest which were a few of the greens she used in her smoothies. Having said this when she would lightly steam her veggies, thinking she may be able to digest them better, didn't make her feel well either. Seriously she is at a loss because she cannot digest well the steamed/cooked or the raw. It is interesting that she did fine for 3-4 weeks with lots of energy and then bam, she hasn't been able to get her energy up and she just about dies! We don't think it is a detoxing issue? She decided to drink a cup of coffee(Fair Trade Coffee brand) which she doesn't normally take, because she had heard that it can increase stomach acid. After drinking the coffee she became bloated with a great amount of gas but luckily it went out the bottom end which is where it should. It seems this is a low HCL acid issue, which she knows she has. Do you have any suggestions how she could improve her stomach acid level and go about going on a raw diet? She also gets extreme leg cramps when she eats fruits. Is this also a low stomach acid problem? Lots of info here but this is a very real problem that we are looking for answers for! Thank you for any help you can give! I myself have been on a 95% raw food diet including green smoothies since November 2012 and am doing fabulous!!!!!

Sounds like GERD to me. I have similar issues as your mother, though hers sounds much worse. Mine use to be so severe I couldn't breathe after meals from all that stomach gas rising up, but now it's just extremely annoying. Some suggest taking Betain HCL for low stomach acid, but I've taken that on and off for years without any noticeable benefit. I've improved through the years by eating whole foods, sometimes doing raw for stretches of time, but now I've been stuck at the same level for a long time, maybe because I'm constantly experimenting with new diets. I also do well on raw foods for a few weeks and then the improvement stops and I feel as if I've made no progress at all.

I think I might back off on raw foods for now, as per this article by Dr. John Mcdougall (http://www.nealhendrickson.com/McDougall.htm). See the top article on putting out the stomach fire.

I'm surprised she can't handle steamed veggies, that doesn't make much sense. Maybe it depends on the type of veggies, or maybe it depends on what else she is eating. Anyway, I'm just a fellow sufferer so probably not much help, but I've not found anyone who can help with these kinds of issues anyway. We're on our own to figure it out.