I shoot for a 80% raw diet. Currently I am in the midst of a 30 day juice fast. While whole, raw foods do provide an essential part of the fiber, when doing a 3+ day fast that is not what the body is focusing on.

Aside from consuming a great deal of water with squeeze of lime (my preference to lemon), I also have a couple cups of green tea with a 1/2 pack of Stevia Plus. Aside from adding a bit of sweetness, it also has fiber. There is fiber for roughage and fiber to be assimilated into the blood stream.

For the juicing, I am currently having orange & blueberry blended with bananas and also carrot, celery & 1 clove of garlic. When I crave different fruits/vegs, I will have those.

Provided I can make the full 30 days (the longest I've gone is 7), the first thing I plan to consume would be a lettuce. After that amount of time, the roughage should slough away a decent amount of any mucus build up still left in the colon.

~raine~

Phase II enzymes induction blocks the enhanced IgE production in B cells by diesel exhaust particles.
[www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]

^^i could find more papers but this abstract says basically what i was saying in my pollution example.


another thing to consider is that many of the plant chemicals have anti-viral/anti-microbial properties. there are viruses out there that can overcome even the healthiest of immune systems, like HIV or the bird flu. one of the few supplements i take is olive leaf extract for it's anti-viral properites. I havent caught a cold in about 5 years, which was both when i started transitioning to raw and also when i began introducing plant extracts such as OLE.
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Anti-HIV activity of olive leaf extract (OLE) and modulation of host cell gene expression by HIV-1 infection and OLE treatment.
[www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov]

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I totally agree with Bryan!

Bryan said exactly what I was going to say, it's such a simple and logical explanation - of course, if you're in need of lots of calories (i.e. athlete), nature doesn't want to overload you with excess minerals - hence, you eat more fruit. Whereas if food is scarce or you're sedentary, then you eat greens - a nutrient-dense powerhouse in few calories.

Fruit = higher calories, lower minerals
Greens = high nutrients, low calories

Pick whichever one suits whatever situation you're in.