I'm going through a strong cooked/fried food craving period and am fighting it tooth and nail. I find myself thinking about cheating and eating these kinds of food. I've even envisioned it thinking about how good it would taste. I've been a raw fooder for almost 6 years and I've given into these cravings in the past with consequences that I don't want to experience again.


I know this, too, shall pass and I'll be the stronger and healthier if I get through it without giving in. Right now, I'm doing my best to keep away from certain restaurants. When I go by one that has is surrounded by strong cooking odors, I try to get by it as fast as possible and look the other way. My husband cooks for himself and I stay out of the kitchen when he's in there. I think about the consequences of eating cooked/fried food and right now I'm reaching out for help to get through these cravings.

I would love support and help with this to get me through it. What are your experiences with this? What do you do when you get these cravings? What has been your experience when you pass these cravings without giving into them? Any hopeful stories would be helpful.

Many thanks.

Mona
padremickey.blogspot.com


Don't go in your head alone. It's a dangerous neighborhood.

It's never to late to be what you might have been. -George Eliot

I'm new to raw food and went through serious cravings for cooked food a couple of weeks ago. I use a method of self healing called EFT which I found really helped me with the cravings. If you don't know anything about EFT, you can find out about it at www.emofree.com and there is an article on the tapping I did with the cravings at [www.eftfree.net]

This is the only experience I've had with cravings so far, as after using the EFT the cravings vanished and nothing cooked appeals to me at all! Hope this is of some use to you.

Best wishes,

Jo

eat the foods.
enough slips will get you so disgusted with yourself you will find the way out



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/30/2010 10:25PM by eaglefly.

I agree with Eaglefly. This was the only way I overcame my fried food cravings. When you have enough bad reactions, even if you smell it, you cannot fathom eating it. The other thing is that the memory of how that food tasted is much better than reality when you're done. That's when you know you are free b/c your taste buds have changed so much, the fried food tastes like greasy crap and it is not replenishing the water in your body/causing good bm's as with raw food due to the hydrophilic nature of raw/dehydrated raw food.

So eat away until you are physically, spiritually, and psychologically done with that food. Doesn't matter how long you've been raw if your mind/body/spirit hasn't fully made the transition. It took me over 4 years to get 98-99% raw vegan. Take your time. The cravings won't go away unless you work through them.

If you face why you are craving the food, this will assist in releasing it from being craved. Sometimes, it's memory association (which EFT) will help with. Sometimes, it a nutritional need. (Here, EFT won't help.) Ensure you are supplementing. Sometimes, people just feel rebellious and need more evidence of the truth, e.g. physical effects on their body. Sometimes, people aren't ready to let go with the familiar. Find what is holding you back and test yourself to see if you have overcome the craving by trying out the food, anyhow.

Another aspect is that maybe, you haven't found a raw substitution for the food in question. I loved pizza and since I found a raw substitution, I feel much happier. Good luck! Therese

Hi:
This may childish but, when I do not want to eat something from a certain restaurant I picture the food being prepared under the most disgusting surroundings. I have tasted fried chicken that was prepared in old, recycled oil and the chicken was undercooked, I have seen staff members not washing their hands after returning to the kitchen from the restroom, and I have also found hair and bugs in my food. Plus, I used to clean restaurants for a living and when I saw the kitchen and the staff, I never ate there again. It puts a new meaning to the phrase 'staph (staff) infections.'

Jo: Thanks for mentioning EFT. I'd used it years ago and haven't in a long time. I'll give it a try again. Good suggestion.

Eaglefly and Theresa: I thought of giving in to the cravings very seriously. I've done that before and the last couple of times I did, I got so sick I didn't want to experience the illnesses again. The thought of the detox from giving in are stopping me, but the cravings are still there and sometimes I think "screw the consequences." I'm just not sure anymore if that is the best solution since I've done it several times before. I do like your suggestions and will take them into consideration, especially looking into the psychological reasons for them.

jkyse1: Thanks for the great idea. I like that. I've heard some real horror stories about restaurant kitchens and just imagining the worst sounds great to me. I was a waitress for about 4 years at various places, but they had nice kitchens and were fine. On the other hand, I live in Central America and have been to real dives before becoming raw. I didn't want to think about the kitchen when we ate there.

Thank you, all, for your suggestions. I really appreciate your input.

Much love,

Mona
padremickey.blogspot.com

Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.

If faith without works is dead; then willingness without action is fantasy.

It might sound harsh to suggest you keep eating a food till you cant live with yourself,but change happens at that point.
I did that with beer.
Was so tired of feeling crappy that any change was welcome,almost a high in itself.

Vinny

Hi Vinny,

I understand what you're saying. So far, I have been able to avoid eating what I've been craving and because I've given in in the past, I see me heading for a slippery slope back to eating lots of cooked food. For me, one falafel is too many and 100 are not enough. I'm sure your suggestion will be helpful to others who may find themselves in similar positions. Right now the cravings are lessening. I know I'll get through this without relapsing.

Thank you for your input.

Love,

Mona
padremickey.blogspot.com

Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.

If faith without works is dead; then willingness without action is fantasy.

Eating lots of sweet fruit and green juices will help to at least deal with the cravings that have a physiological basis.

Mona
I've been on this journey for 10 years now and still flip flop but I want to encourage your that every year gets better and every year I get healthier and healthier. I did just try a great product that got rid of my parasites and candida and within one day my sugar cravings disappeared. I actually can't believe it because sugar is the one thing my body seemed to always want and I've been fighting all my life. So just keep tweaking and trying new things

If a person has been eating raw food in the proper way for over a few years, they should NOT be craving unnatural types of food. The body does not need foreign substances, such as processed ice cream and packaged goods like cookies. However, plain cooked brown rice, quinoa, and plain old fashioned whole grain oatmeal could be a natural physiological craving, processed cooked food IS NOT natural and a person who HAS NOT eaten any artificial foods for years SHOULD NOT get cravings.

Personally, I think that a lot of people who try to eat a raw diet do not get adequate nutrition. I believe that some people eat too much fruit and vegetables, and virtually no fats or other substances, that their bodies are DESPERATELY crying out for more. Having only fruit and vegetables with too little fats long term, in my opinion, is not healthy and will lead to weird cravings, due to the body being malnourished.

In summary, if a person only eats natural and unprocessed foods it makes sense that their taste buds and body will not think about anything that is heavily processed, such as refined sugar, and processed packaged goods, and artificial colors, additives, preservatives, and chemicals.

When I was anorexic in the past, I remember having strange cravings, because my body was so desperately crying out for so many things that I was not giving it. In the same way, I feel that restricting the body to ONLY fruit and raw vegetables will have a similar affect.

greathealth Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I did just try a great
> product that got rid of my parasites and candida
> and within one day my sugar cravings disappeared.
>

Are you willing to share which product you used?

Thank you,
Sue

I have 2 suggestions:

1. Go to the doctor and find out if you have some mineral or vitamin deficiency. When your body craves, it sometimes means it is in need of a nutrient. Then you can take supplements or foods that contain these vitamins or minerals.

2. Eat the non-raw stuff you crave, but only ONE SMALL meal, and prefereably in the morning / at lunch. When I stick to these 2 rules, I can minimize the negative effects. However, once you stark eating bad foods, you often canno stop ... I think THIS is the real problem. Small amounts are not the problem.

Helen

For me denial doesn't really work. This is the main reason I still occasionally eat at raw food restaurants, when the rest of my diet is high fruit low fat. What I do after I indulge in the gourmet raw foods is to feel the pain of my indulgence. And that pain keeps me from needing to eat the gourmet stuff for a while. I make sure I love the uncomfortable feeling of the detox of the raw restaurant food as much as I love eating the stuff.

Knowing that I allow myself to eat the stuff whenever I would like, often I choose not to because of my memory of the detox. And in that place, I don't feel like I've denied myself anything.

I have been battling with this same question! Thanks for asking it and thanks to the rest of you that answered it. I am working through my third week of 80% raw now. I had a craving on Monday and gave into it, eating only 1/3 of the portion I ordered, plus a green salad. I have to tell I was SOOOOO sick all night long I will probably never eat mac and cheese again. Also I found when I actually did eat the mac and cheese, it didn't taste as good as I thought it would!!!! This is happening with more and more foods I used to "crave". I haven't craved chocolate at all since bumping up to 80%, I used to eat a tiny piece a day. Now if only the same thing would happen with coffee.....still working on this one.
Peace

Staph (staff) infections! *snort*
after nearly 17 years working in the food industry I can NOT agree more!

leigh87 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If a person has been eating raw food in the proper
> way for over a few years, they should NOT be
> craving unnatural types of food.

This might be true if eating was strictly about food which, of course, it is not. There are many aspects to diet, emotional, financial, social, religious, etc. I think we can afford to be a little gentle and forgiving with ourselves when we stray from the path we wish to be on instead of berating ourselves with guilt and negativity. Be kind to you, it begets more kindness.

Here's my secret. Chew it up and ... spit it out. satisfies the taste craving and often that's enough. With chocolate the aftertaste is actually very nasty and a total turn off, at least it was for me. I couldn't work hard enough to wash it out of my mouth. Totally did the trick.

I haven't been online for a while and was surprised to see this thread still alive and well. Thank you, everyone for your replies and input.

I managed to keep myself from giving into those cravings by doing several things. One was to delay eating the craved food. Delay, delay, delay. I just kept telling myself I could eat it later but will eat this fruit or salad right now.

I also started reading "Prof. Arnold Ehret's Mucusless-Diet Healing System," which I had bought back in the 1970's. I don't have a lot of Raw Food books, so I decided to study what I have. Since I've always had allergies and all the symptoms that go along with them, this book was perfect to help me to turn off those cravings. Just remembering going back to how I was before, I was able to change my attitude toward "cheating" on the fried food I craved; it's not worth the suffering of detox and will slow me down toward my goal.

Ehret's transitional diet isn't raw, but the goal is eating fruit mono meals. So the other thing that helped me ignore the cravings was setting my goal toward mono meals and clearing out all mucus from my system then taking action to achieve my goal. This makes eating fried food out of the question and easier to let go of.

I realize we all have our own way of passing through these periods, but this is what worked for me. I love reading how others deal with this problem and I have incorporated some of the ideas given.

Thanks, again, everyone for your terrific posts and support.

Love,

Mona
padremickey.blogspot.com

Together we can do what we could never do alone.

Left to my own devices I become delusionally defiant.

Sue
Yes, please try Vitaklenz (www.NaturesApproved.com). Seriously, I have been telling all my friends about it. It completely zapped my parasite/candida.