Hello all I have just joined this forum and would like to go at least 70-80% raw

does this sound like i'm getting the right percentage

breakfast - almond milk and kiwi

lunch - chickpeas (not raw) vegan cheese (not raw) croutons not raw, lettuce, dressing (not raw)
and eiter coconut water or water

snack will usually be veggies and hummus or fruit usualy once a day

dinner same as lunch - chickpeas (not raw) vegan cheese (not raw) croutons not raw, lettuce, dressing (not raw) and water


do you think I'm getting at least 70 raw fruits and veggies or do i need to edit it further

i do plan to switch the salad to greek veggie salad and hummus but right now have to stick with this for a week or so.. does that sound ok?

Hello and welcome!

Quote

do you think I'm getting at least 70 raw fruits and veggies or do i need to edit it further

I have no idea what you are shooting for: 70 servings? 70%? In the former case, that's not possible, and in the latter case, you don't specify how much raw lettuce and other veggies you are eating. However, if it's a couple of cups of lettuce twice or three times daily, and if fruit is limited to one piece a day, the majority of your foods, and calorie intake, are cooked. But you are just starting out, so the key is to start increasing the volumes of raw vegetables, fruits, and start including some seeds, nuts, and fatty fruits, and to keep increasing these until your cooked food ratio decreases. So, maybe start eating a quart of lettuce without croutons and only a simple vinaigrette dressing. Also, maybe start eating a large serving of kiwi fruit first thing in the morning, or a fruit-rich green smoothie in the morning, instead of the almond milk and kiwi. Later, maybe add a few more servings of fruit(on an empty stomach) before lunch. Make the dinner salad gradually larger by adding more greens and other raw soft veggies, and decreasing the beans, or adding sprouted raw chickpeas or salad sprouts, and so on. Please do look at the other threads on this main Forum; you'll see lots of people asking the same questions and getting more specific advice than I'm giving. Good luck!

As a percentage of calories, it could very well be that your daily menu is 70% cooked and 30% raw. You need to give the quantities of each food to know for sure. You might try a nutritional calculator like fitday.com to see what the percentage of raw and cooked food is in your daily menu.

thanks i was aiming for 70& raw, 30% cooked i need to add more veggies and fruits i don't think this is enough, will come back with edited diet

welcome to the forum

here is a list of wraps that Trive put together that might give you some great ideas [www.rawfoodsupport.com]

and a list of dressings [www.rawfoodsupport.com]

most importantly have fun with it, i found making smoothies were an easy way to incorperate ALOT of fruits and greens quickly and easily and some can be quite filling

hope this helps

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

thank you so much!

what do you guys do for desert? sweets? i am insulin resistant so no bananas

Chia seed pudding seems to be a favorite for desert for many. Not sure of the recipe myself but should be found easily from a search. My raw friend says its delicious. Plus rich in omega-3, protein, calcium and antioxidants.

thanks!

waterfountain you might want to check the recipe section here as well as at goneraw [www.goneraw.com] there is huge amount of things there to make/try

do you have any equipment at your disposal? blender/juicer/dehydrator/food processor etc? none are essential to adding more fruits and greens to your diet of course but helpfull in making the more difficult recipes

what happens when you eat bananas ? are you diabetic? sorry if you could explain more i dont understand what you meant

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

I would guess that you probably arn't reaching the 70% raw goal. Obviously your food intake will vary day by day but I am just basing my opinion on the menu you have posted. One of the best ways to incorporate more raw into your diet is when you make salads (as you seem to have a taste for). There are TONS of recipes for raw dressings that taste amazing and can eliminate alot of the processed fats and oils that are found in conventional dressings. Gena over at www.choosingraw.com has some great dressings recipes that I use all the time.

Another way to incorporate more raw greens into your diet if you don't want to be chowing down on enormous salads EVERY day is through green drinks. You can find a great recipe for them at www.livelifealive.com/superbreakfast.html. I make it every morning for breakfast.

Good luck in your raw food transition!

thanks i'm still working my way through editing my diet


today was

almond milk
kiwi
strawberries

bean burrito
lettuce bowl
sour cream
coconut water

grapes
celery
hummus

sunflower seeds

croutons
beans
cheese
lettuce


i will eat a banana too so hopefully i made the percentage it's hard for some reason i feel less happy on raw..

waterfountain Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> thanks i'm still working my way through editing my
> diet
>
>
> today was
>
> almond milk
> kiwi
> strawberries
>
> bean burrito
> lettuce bowl
> sour cream
> coconut water
>
> grapes
> celery
> hummus
>
> sunflower seeds
>
> croutons
> beans
> cheese
> lettuce
>
>
> i will eat a banana too so hopefully i made the
> percentage it's hard for some reason i feel less
> happy on raw..


--
what do you mean you feel less happy on raw? I'd give it time and actually go raw first, before you decide, because it seems to have the opposite effect (perhaps after an "emotional detox" for many people.

Honestly, I don't think you're at even 50% yet. And I think you need to eat darker greens instead of the lettuce. If you eat non-raw, can you just make it beans and no milks or cheese or breads? That would probably raise your percentage more. It looks like a lot of fat as well, combined with the grapes in the afternoon would probably give me bloating and not feel well. How did you feel? The bean burrito, depending on what's in it, is high in fat; as is the sour cream; as is the hummus (it has tahini and olive oil); as are the sunflower seeds; as are the croutons and cheese for dinner.

Not trying to pick your menu apart, but I think you wanted help with some people's opinions. Are you eating these burritos and cheeses and croutons out at a restaurant? Or what is inspiring the burrito and cheese w/ lettuce meals? Just curious. If you are at a restaurant, you can usually get a plain spinach salad and some fruit. Or if you're at a burrito joint, you can get lettuce and top it with salsa instead of cheese and sour cream. The salsa isn't all raw, but that's better than fatty & salty processed foods.

Can you make green smoothies at home?

we need healthy fats such as olive oil etc for brain health, hormones etc.. I'm not on a diet to loose weight.. I am just begining to switch fully to raw I calculated it myself I am around 50 -60% raw


for some reason foods like cake, pizza etc are feel good for me while eating healthy i dont feel as happy.. it must be the endorphins i'm guessing those foods release

I'm having a hard time devising a diet balancing it all

oh and milk is raw - just made from almonds

i need to have some protien

waterfountain Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> we need healthy fats such as olive oil etc for
> brain health, hormones etc.. I'm not on a diet to
> loose weight.. I am just begining to switch fully
> to raw I calculated it myself I am around 50 -60%
> raw
>

--
i didn't suggest that you don't eat fats. There is fat in everything, even in greens and fruit. I suggested that you had a LOT of fat in your diet. Some raw foodists get 65% of their calories from fat. It has nothing to do with losing weight. I don't need to lose weight by any stretch. However, low-fat diets have been proven time and again to be the healthiest for longterm health, energy, heart health, etc.

It's up to you, and your experience may evolve over time.

All foods also have protein. I get enough protein from fruits and vegetables; I don't even eat nuts or sprouted beans. It all depends on what you want, how many vegetables and fruits you eat, if you want to eat nuts instead of fruits/veggies or in addition, if you get enough calories, or if you want excessive protein, which causes problems as well.

waterfountain,

Based on your statements about protein(all raw foods have protein, as they have assimilable amino acids from which your body makes protein) and fats(leafy greens, raw nuts, and fatty fruits like coconut and avocados have the healthy, and most easily assimilated fats you need), I'd recommend you do some more reading up on what, exactly, raw vegetarianism entails--the dietary principles about "healthy" fats and maintaining protein ratios do not necessarily apply because they refer to cooked food nutrition!

Here's a thread that may be useful to you:
[www.rawfoodsupport.com]

Lastly, I agree with Utopian Life that, given that you are just starting and that you are eating a mostly cooked diet, still, it is really too soon to be feeling any effects from the diet. You have much more wonderful experiences on the way if you stick with it

do they? oh i had no idea thanks!

I plan to switch fully to about 90% raw in a two days! so hope i can stick to it thanks for your help

Alot of fats what the cheese, almond milk and sunflower seeds depending that there not munching massive amounts of each id say it wasnt alot of fat.

It seems many here are of the opinion that a portion of nuts is too much fat, not everyone is 80/10/10.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/29/2010 06:44PM by powerlifer.

Utopian I didn't say you did, you brought up the amount of fat in the diet so I just stated why i was eating those foods

thanks power aside from the cheese and croutons i think everything else is full of healthy fats/nutrients that are needed and actually on the subject there are more recent studies stating healthy fat diets are actually better so maybe something to look into..

I just am a carb addict so it's a hard adjustment for me! hopefully i can stay on it

waterfountain,

Two things:

Most nutrition research is based on cooked foods and is inapplicable to raw foods(as I have already stated).

Fruits are also carbs.

Yeah, well, there's a such thing as eating the right amount of fat, not too little, not too much (I thnk your lack of dark greens is more disconcerting, and I mentioned it). Just because I say I think sour cream, cheese, croutons, nuts, then seeds, then hummus is too much fat doesn't mean I think a portion of nuts is too much fat.

tamukha - the research comment was directed at utopian's comment regarding low fat diet studies.. and yes i am well aware fruits are carbs, but not the good kind! .. i have to watch insulin/glucose so can't have many. it's just hard for me not to eat pasta, pizza etc I didn't grow up eating healthy so it's something I struggle with

Utopian yes I will add more leafy greens to my diet such as kale, mustard etc put them in my salads this is just begining as for the fat content for me given the portion sizes it's not too much though i will be taking burrito croutons & sour cream out



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/29/2010 11:10PM by waterfountain.

Good for you! I love leafy greens. They make me feel so good.

Fruit are good carbs; grains (even "whole" are bad carbs, in my opinion.

waterfountain Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> we need healthy fats such as olive oil etc for
> brain health, hormones etc.. I'm not on a diet to
> loose weight.. I am just begining to switch fully
> to raw I calculated it myself I am around 50 -60%
> raw
>
>
> for some reason foods like cake, pizza etc are
> feel good for me while eating healthy i dont feel
> as happy.. it must be the endorphins i'm guessing
> those foods release
>
> I'm having a hard time devising a diet balancing
> it all


Like 99% of raw newbies, they eat more fat than they did when they ate a SAD diet. Up your sweet fruit intake so your getting over 3000cals a day for a few days and then youll start to feel 'sweet' again.

Here is a video I did about it.

[www.youtube.com]

lol i just struggle without my bread and cookies

edited



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/01/2010 06:48PM by waterfountain.

After you have been raw for awhile you will understand that raw is kind of like a skill - driving a car, playing an instrument or reading - and it takes a lot of practice and failure before you discover the perfect diet for YOU :-)

I think you're doing awesome, if that's comfortable for you then keep it up until you learn more and want to add new foods. Your diet will probably be tottaly different six months from now after you learn new foods and recipes.

I change my diet often and I'll reach a new plateau a couple times a year where I'll change up my diet and cut some foods and replace them with better foods.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/01/2010 07:23PM by tropical.

thanks i re-edited it! will post

I second tropical's post: if you're new, the best thing to do is focus on adding as much raw food as possible. Worry about phasing out the other stuff later on. It will happen, just give you body time to adjust