I love eating raw foods. Nothing makes me happier than eating fresh salads, nuts, and fruits. I was eating mostly raw for a while, just adding some oats, hemp bread, and the occasional roasted but or two, and I ended up getting really bloated and gaining weight!! And when I say bloated... I mean I looked about 6 months pregnate! So I went to the doctor and it turns out I had a lot of air in my intestines that simply wasn't coming out. So I switched my diet around. Started adding eggs and fish, and I must say it's helped... however... I want to keep eating raw! What should I do? I don't want to experience the bloat and weight gain anymore.

Opinion:

-All you can do is what you can do - decide on what the healthiest food is for YOU...and try to incorporate more of that. If you think eating eggs and fish is good for you in the long run...then you should eat more of them!

-On the practical side: You may find that fruit does not bloat you as much as fibrous vegetables.

-Try different varieties of fruits and vegetables, eat slower & simpler, and don't drink any water with your meals (but plenty 30 minutes before...and 1 hour after).

-David Mason

You might just need to do some food combining. Don't eat melons with anything else and don't eat fats with fruit. That might be enough to solve your problem. :-)

Take care,

Audrey
www.rawhealing.com

also make sure you soak your nuts for easier digestion... this could exacurbate the problem but I like to eat flax cereal sometimes.. it pretty much drags everything out of my colon!

What is flax cereal? It sounds like flax with nut milk, rasins and agave nectar.

I agree with most of this, except the fruit and fats. These can be combined, depending on the person (as long as the fruit is not melon). It is also important to know that a lot of the foods we consider veggies, are actually fruits (ie tomoatos, cucumbers, bell peppers, squash). General rule of thumb is if it's got seeds, it's a fruit!

Hi Imaginary Colours,

In addition to all the great advice above, it may be possible that if your diet was very high raw, then the oats, hemp bread, and the occasional roasted nuts could have been the culprits that caused the bloating. Your body may have been throwing off lots of toxins stirred up by the high raw diet at the same time that it was trying to digest the cooked starch. That could be a bomb in the making.

If you try to go raw again, but can't quite do 100%, my advice would be to stay away from the cooked starches and the roasted nuts. Instead, try lightly steaming some veggies, even some of the starchier ones, like yams, sweet potatoes (NOT regular potatoes), and peas.

And you can always add raw wheat germ (always PREPACKAGED, not from the bin) to your salads as a raw option that I personally think is superior to cooked oats or cooked breads.

As far as the nuts and seeds, I'm like butterfly imagines. I eat UNsoaked nuts and seeds almost everyday, and I always eat them with fruit and have no problem, as long as I don't eat veggies too. I eat sprouted seeds with veggies.

Best wishes, Ally

I do soak my nuts and seeds. However, they are only a small portiion of my diet and I really belive that it's too much nuts, seeds, and grain that caused your problem. You really want to focus on wet foods such as fruits and veggies. Green leafy veggies should be the predominant food (I'm having trouble with that, though. I love my fruit!).