We are all striving one way or another to make the Raw Foods lifestyle our way of living. We are all at various stages of Raw- different percentages, differing nutrition requirements and beliefs... but we all have the same end goal:
RADIANT HEALTH and a HAPPY, LONG LIFE!

I wanted to open up a dialogue about Trigger Foods, so we might be able to support and learn from the experiences of one another.

I find that my BIGGEST Trigger Foods are
1) Coffee
2) Cheese

I am fine eating raw in my daily life, but if the littlest bit of either one of these foods makes their way into my food intake on any given day, I really struggle with cravings and withdrawals for 2-3 days afterwards.

What are your Trigger Foods? How does your body react to them?

Thanks for opening the dialogue with me, guys.

-Nyaz

"With life as short as a half taken breath, don't plant anything but love."- Rumi

Coffee is not a food! It's a stimulant drug that strips your body of nutrients. For a lot of people, especially as you eat more raw, coffee has a really powerful effect, an can "trigger" you into feeling out of control.

Dates are a trigger food for me. Too much sugar, unless I keep them in strict moderation, which I have trouble doing. I just donated the last of my dates to the local survival center... keep my "impulse food" out of reach. Maybe I'll order more when date season hits full swing next month and they're super fresh. But I do much better with papayas and mangoes and jackfruit as my staple tropical fruits (and I much prefer tropical fruits to your apples and oranges). Even fresh dates feel to me a lot like dried fruits- overly speedy consciousness. Papayas, though... I'm about to go to the store to pick up some more.

Good topic as I definitely struggle with going 100% raw.
My triggers are definitely any kind of bread and cheese in all the myriad of combinations.
Its like the final frontier giving them up.
At least for the bread I only have the sprouted ones.

Vinny

Coffee not a food?!?!?! (Well, I agree) But try telling a coffee enthusiast that! LOL!
If I had a penny for every person who told me that I'm not eating anything as a Raw foodist... LOL!They are basically telling me that my food is not a food!!! But I digress!

Maybe I should have said "Trigger Food/Drinks"

As far as the raw foods go, there is nothing (so far) that I really have a problem with...
Occasionally I will get a little too overzealous with nuts, but then I don't want to even smell them or hear their name for weeks... so that takes care of that...

I noticed that my issues mostly revolve around fat content... like my body has a little eat-everything-in-sight-freak-out when it thinks it can get some extra fat... which I know will also diminish with time.

Oh, and hormones don't help! LOL!

"With life as short as a half taken breath, don't plant anything but love."- Rumi

Anything with nutritional value can be considered food so i guess coffee could be lumped in there. Although i see what omega-3 is saying.

Anything with wheat and gluten for me.

[www.vegankingdom.co.uk]

omega-3 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Coffee is not a food! It's a stimulant drug that
> strips your body of nutrients. For a lot of
> people, especially as you eat more raw, coffee has
> a really powerful effect, an can "trigger" you
> into feeling out of control.
>



This is absolutely what is happening to me and what has been happening for a long time now. I know I have a problem... it's an addiction and it sucks. I was off coffee during my entire two week juice fast and feeling great and as soon as I was eating again I dove right back into a cup... I lost all the benefits of my fast and am once again, not feeling good. It makes me so mad at myself.

So yeah coffee is absolutely my trigger.

Corathegreen Wrote:
"... I dove right back into a cup... I
> lost all the benefits of my fast and am once
> again, not feeling good. It makes me so mad at
> myself.
>
> So yeah coffee is absolutely my trigger."


DON'T BE MAD AT YOURSELF!!!! This is totally a learning process, and as with EVERY life change, whether it be addiction or simply changing a habit, knowing WHAT your Triggers are is really the best way to start to eliminate them! it's the first step. I mean, I'm sure there are people who might read this and think "oh damn... light bulb! I have that problem too!"

In addition to the coffee thing, I was thinking about my process from drinking coffee to craving everything under the sun, and came up with a further consequence:

When I drink coffee, I then start to crave complex carbohydrates and starches, specifically bread and potatoes. When I don't drink coffee, i don't have these cravings.
I think it has something to do with caffeine and blood sugar, because even if I have a little "something something" *slaps hand* sweet, I STILL don't crave subsequent off-limit items as much as I do when I have coffee.


Anyway, this is exactly the reason why I wanted to start this thread!!!


I think it is important to see the common triggers because sometimes this info can really help us all reinforce what we are doing... not feel so isolated, you know?!?!! Because, not all of us are prefect as far as our raw foods go, even if it is what we strive for, so it's better to get it out so we can all help each other with our goals!
And even with a *slip up* here and there, it should not be a punishment to yourself later... I mean, one food item does not negate everything you have already done... and it does not mean "falling off the wagon" like you can never go back and have to start eating like crap again.

Always looking forward!

"With life as short as a half taken breath, don't plant anything but love."- Rumi

Hiya, Nyaz!

For me, tea. Used to be cheese and bread(highly intoxicating to the brain!), but I've gone off them. Cannot give up my Earl Grey tea, however. Though it doesn't seem to lead to a cascade of other cravings . . .

omega, I get what you are saying, but coffee is a natural nutrient containing substance which is edible, so it is a food

What about other teas, tamukha there are loads of great herbal teas such as rooibos, nettle, jiaogulan, dandelion etc.

Rooibos is nice as a generic close to tea substitute but with no caffeine and low tannins.

[www.vegankingdom.co.uk]

powerlifer,

I do drink herbal teas as well, but unless you have tasted a mug of Meijer brand organic Earl Grey tea on a cold winter day, you don't know what you're asking me to give up!

Coffee strips nutrients from your body, and you drink eat, not eat it. It starves you; it does not feed you.

But anyhow, coffee addiction- which I struggled with for years- is a very serious drug addiction! Just because society normalizes it does not make it any less extreme of a reality. Society feeds us very, very warped perceptions of drugs, to put it mildly.

I had to look at coffee addiction as the root of my health/life problems and deal with it head-on before I was able to make headway in other areas and find a mostly-raw healing path.

There are a lot of ways to quit coffee, but you have to *prioritize* it. Like any drug addiction- try to understand why it lingers. Is it primarily physical? Is it social? What alternatives are there? I think that's they key- create an alternative. Every time I think about coffee I'm going to_______ take ginseng. Go on a walk. Drink a lightly caffeinated or non-caffeinated herbal tea. Something like that.

Is there really anything wrong with having a nice cup of earl grey now and then if we are generally in good health? i would say its only a problem if we are drinking too much of it.

I find avocados and a handful of almonds fill the cheese void for me.

coffee doesn't make me want to eat,
but maybe a little (teeny) chocolate something would help.
(raw cocoa is so good! i just ran out, what a pain!)

It's so true about coffee triggering other bad choices... it seemed like every day I had coffee I'd end up binging on something unhealthy later..

But I'm proud to say this is day 3 without coffee and also day 3 ALL vegan! I used to be high raw mostly vegan but I was still eating a small serving of animal foods per day.

For breakfast this morning I had a green smoothie, two bananas and a cup of tea.

I feel way better, I just hope I can keep it up!

It's coffee, cheese and sweets for me. I have to avoid cheese totally, I've learned from past experience, and the cravings go away. I'm happy to eat a date once a day or so. It now fills the sweet craving. I've not tried any of the raw dessert recipes as I'm afraid they'll bring them back.

I've not found any substitute for coffee. I still miss my morning 'wake up & warm up cup'. I was hoping that wheatgrass juice would do it, but it's just too much trouble to keep up. I make a smoothie after I've been up for a bit.

Corathegreen,

Congratulations on Day 3! Good for you! Yay!!!!

Congratulations to you too rawalice on your avocado and almond choice. Avocados are so good.

I think Omega-3 has it right about finding alternatives. I think the alternative has to fill both the emotional need and the nutritional need (if the trigger food happens to also provide nutrition).

My biggest trigger foods used to be any kind of cooked grain, but especially pasta. It seemed to me that once I started eating it, I just could not stop. I tried to think of the consequences of eating it, but that didn't seem to help. What did help was learning to replace thoughts of enjoying the trigger food with thoughts about the food being unenjoyable.

For instance, when I think now about eating any kind of cooked grain, I think of "dry". I think about the feeling of it being dry and mushy in my mouth, and then I don't want to eat it.

Dairy stuff is a little more graphic. The gooey lasagne and pizza cheese brings up images of snot. Or I guess it could be pus, but I usually think of snot.

I don't know what I could say about coffee. Battery acid maybe?

Meat of course, I'm just stopped cold, when I think of some animal actually suffering and losing their life just because I wanted to chew on their dead body. (How's that for horrible....but that's the actual reality of it, from my perspective anyway.)

Nyaz, I forgot to say, "You are so right"! Please don't anyone be mad at yourself. Sometimes it seems like it may take forever to learn whatever it is we're supposed to learn. That's just what makes the lesson all the more valuable. If we're patient, and if we're open to the truth from whatever humble place we may perceive it, then I believe the lesson will always come (and it might be totally different from what we expected!).



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 08/17/2011 03:52AM by suncloud.