I have been on a raw diet for about 2 years now. I started out being 100% raw but have now settled to about 50-60%. When I was 100% (for several months), I really did not feel that different and to be honest I do not feel any different now. I guess it is very personal. Anyway, there is no doubt that it is not easy being 100% especially in family situations where only one person is raw, etc. Besides that I have also struggled with the importance of maintaining 100%. I have found that it can alienate people if one maintains a very die hard zeal be it family or friends. Anyway, I believe there are still benefits in being < 100%, what is your experience? Has being 100% been that drastic for you?

Thanks.

For me it has been drastic, but I had serious acid reflux (GERD), was on prescription medication and was told I would need surgery (fundoplication, where the upper part of the stomach is wrapped around the esophagus - yuck).

I went all raw and after a few months got to the point where I was no longer in pain and stopped taking meds. It was iffy for a while there, but I am doing great now. It has been nothing short of a miracle to go from thinking I was dying to feeling fantastic. Then there are all the other reasons I love raw food, but that is another thread!

My bottom line is that I won't give up raw food to make other people feel comfortable; however, I will join them and bring my own food. Hopefully they love (or at least like) me enough to accept me for who I am.


My favorite raw vegan

Hmmm...I DO think...in general that being 100% is better...but that is just my personal experience/opinion. An even better thing is for each person to be adhering 100% to the diet (or dream) that THEY think is most important. So: it's the individual path that's important. But this is all common sense - yes?

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

Perhaps it is common sense, but sometimes situations are such that the INDIVIDUAL path is a collective path. To maintain some degree of harmony in situations it may take being less individual. Look I am not suggesting one dilutes oneself, but believe me I have been there. Sometimes it might take some building up of goodwill for folks to side with you and I believe this as a general message. My experience has been that if you want folks to see your ways then you need to see theirs too by being in their camp.

-

if its important to you then its important , if its not then it doesnt really matter what anybody else thinks do i think its important? yes .. if you feel good and it resonates with you and you are acheiving all you can achieve then im behind you 100%

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

If you can manage it, & it is comfortable for you, I believe 100% is the way to go. I am pretty much there. I don't eat any cooked food per se, but will have sandwiches on baked bread, which is obviously not raw...I need to do something about that.

It is not a forced thing with me, I enjoy the 100%, and at this point it is actually like a badge of honor for me, lol. I have found that you have to be in your comfort zone; if it is not comfortable for you, it will end up being a fight against your will & you will not be happy in the process.

During my transition period, I went back & forth, but after being vegan & a juicer for so many years, it hasn't been the struggle for me as it is for some folks. Some seem to crave that warm/hot "comfort food" & can't let go of it.

There was a point where 90% made my life all the more satisfying... no sense on getting hung up over the little things, mental fatigue is just as toxic...

And now I am in a space where I really feel like anything less than 100% will leave me feeling tired and empty.

Times change. People change. Follow your heart, listen to your body, see how it feels. =D It's a process.

I don't desire anything not raw so I don't eat it.
But if you are still wanting cooked food I say go for it because otherwise you are by definition depriving yourself which doesn't lead to a joyful existence.
Also it matters what cooked food you are eating that makes you not be 100% raw...
I hate it when ppl. act like all "cooked food" is the same and is the devil.
If the % you are not raw is cooked pizza is alot different healthwise than if it is seamed collard greens!
I have been raw several years now so I find any cooked food (ie. even yam, squash) makes me feel sick and flu-like the next day so it is important for me that if I want to feel my best I have to be 100% raw.
Sometimes I feel like I've caught myself in a trap with this raw food thing and I can't get out of it!!

Hi Green smoothie

your topic question was " Is it important to be 100% raw? "

I think that if it is important to yourself to be 100% raw, then the answer is :

YES

I think that if it is not important to you to be 100% raw then the answer is:


NO

It's important to ME to be 100% raw. I look and feel my best when I'm that way.

Unfortunately, even after three years of eating raw I still can't seem to keep it up for long periods.

I always fall back to some cooked food after a few weeks. Sigh (:

I wish I could stay all raw. I keep plugging away though. I'm not giving up.

Being 100% works the best for me because I find that a little cooked opens the door to more cooked and I find myself going down the slippery slope toward the cliff where the "used to be raw" peeps fall off. Being a "used to be raw" person might be OK for some but I would rather feel good and be healthy. I think a little raw is good and more raw is better and all raw is best.

Some thoughts from Mark Izdik on this topic.

[www.rawfoodhowto.com]

I don't think it's that important, if you don't feel much of a difference of being 50-60% or 100%, then I don't see any reason to try being 100%.

I feel that the more raw my food is, the better I feel. Sometimes my stomach can be quite empty, and I don't want to eat too much bananas (it becomes quite expensive). So I shew on some bread from time to time, it's not a biggie.

I have a book by John H. Tobes called 'Health Giving Life Saving "No-Cook" Book'. In the back there is a passage with the heading "The Influence of Food Cooking on the Blood Formula of Man: Proceedings: First International Congress of Microbiology, Paris, 1930" by Paul Kouchakoff, M.D. of the Institute of Clinical Chemistry, Lausanne, Switzerland.

The passage describes something called 'digestive leukocytosis', which is the observable phenomenon of a change in the body's white corpuscle balance after ingesting food.

It then goes on to state that it has been discovered that ingesting a food raw creates NO digestive leukocytosis in the body. It also asserts that eating even a small dose of cooked food will produce a reaction.

Further in the passage it is stated that the body's reaction to a food can be neutralized in certain circumstances if an equal or greater amount of the same food *uncooked* is ingested simultaneously.

So is it important to be 100% raw?

My answer to that is that while 'important' is a relative term, and only you can decide what is and isnt important to you, there is research that suggests that eating even a very small dose of a food cooked past it's critical temperature will cause a reaction in your bloodstream.

I say this, but I still eat canned olives on my salads every now and then, because they're so tasty to me, and I still eat tons of "raw" almonds that have been pasteurized, because the american government gives me no other alternative. I do realize when I am eating these things that I am producing a reaction of digestive leukocytosis in my body. I consequently try to keep my cooked foods to a minimum and eat them all in the same 2- or 3- hour period, and spend the rest of the day 100% raw.

-KingPenguin

I was 100% raw for a chunk of time and while I did feel different some of that different wasn't actually so terrific. I was very sensitive not only to what I ate but also to my environment, uncomfortably so. Now I am high raw in the summer time when it's nearly effortless to do so and between 40%-75% in the colder months. I don't obsess about it, I don't worry or feel guilty about that whole grain bread my sandwich is on or feel like I have to do something about it . I try to eat what I am craving within reason and to decifer cravings for non-optimal foods. I mostly choose healthy, whole foods whether raw or not and don't worry about the occasion indulgence.
It's about being healthy and feeling good, not perfection. It doesn't matter if a bowl of soup creates leukocytosis in the body, if we get so nit-picky about things like that we'll all end up avoiding tomatoes and bell peppers and garlic and onions and herbs and hybridized fruits and on and on and on. There are lots of benefits to those foods, that sandwich or bowl of soup too. There is a balance in life and creating an environment of good health, not perfect health but GOOD health, combats much negative impact of diet, environment, etc.

Besides, have you seen the diets of some 100%ers? Full of "super foods" and cacao and things that I don't even consider Food! Raw doesn't always = healthy in my opinion. I'll take something cooked over that junk any day.

Green Smoothie:

Great question! I had bought and read some raw food book and thought that being anything less than 100% raw would be a failure and not healthy. Now I have loosened from that self-created pressure because I thought about the people advocating this and what they all had in common were numerous, chronic health issues. I don't have these and so perhaps being 100% raw isn't necessary, especially given my location in the Chicago area on a day like this! All I know is that it's easy to eat mostly fruit and other light items when it's hot out and the sun is beating down on me. If I lived in Southern CA and could get avocados right off the trees when they are really good, as well as other fresh produce in abundance year round, I would have a leg up on 100% raw. Using your intuition is the best advice I can give...

A balanced diet is more important than 100% raw, IMHO. Combining the two would be a nice goal, but if being 100% raw is stressful, expensive and disruptive, then it's going to be hard to maintain.

For me, it's baby steps

I too was wondering about this. I have been working towards more and more raw eating. I started out with replacing my normal cooked lunch with a huge colorful salad, based on organic greens. Also any snacking is on raw fruit. My next step is replacing my cook and/or heavily processed breakfast with a green smoothie.So far I love the green smoothies. While my dinner is cooked or at least partly so as I try to eat a large portion of salad here too I'm starting to feel in a zone of comfort with the raw. I will probably branch out into challenging myself to one whole day a week on raw and so on util I find my balance point. I do feel better and I am guessing I am at 70-80% minimum. I'm still struggling to eat enough calories (I never thought I'd say that) on the raw. For me right now it is really about breaking my mental dependence on conveniently prepackage junk filed food and over hauling the sewer inside of me. So far A+.