literally,, i went off raw for about a week, not by choice! well i immediately started binge eating, which i wasnt doing on raw nemore ( i was 100% for 2 months) i totally relapsed,, it was really horrible,, i got extremely depressed, didnt shower for a couple of days,, stopped doing everything,, i had a brakedown in front of my dad,,,it was bad,, now i was just like this up until around 6 today, when my dad finally bought me a watermelon,, which i gorged into half of it as soon as i could cut it open,, all i had wanted the whole time i relapsed was fruit!! neways almost immediately after i ate it, within an hour i felt normal again,, it was weird,, my mind started functioning again! thank god! so theres what happened thought id just put that out there,, shows that cooked food really isnt good for you, well it really is horrible for me,,
so has this ever happned this extreme 2 neone else?

"i went off raw for about a week, not by choice"



Did your parents insist you eat cooked food.....

Hopefully they saw the difference in you.



And yes, cooked food can really make me feel nuts......or dirty.......or thirsty......or unwholesome..........unattractive......yeah....

yeah... i also have some similar experience...

for a few days i was in suh situation, i could not take care myself of my food intake, so i just had such cravings for raw food!!
and with cooked food i feel so dull and emty inside...





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/01/2007 05:14AM by ananga.

Count me in! All aboard the cooked food crazy train! Not that depression equals crazy -- just a figure of speech.

For most of my life I could never figure out why I was always in a deep funk even when things were going well for me. Self destructive thoughts always plagued me. Tried antidepressants, counseling, self help books out the wazoo, nothing helped. It was the food!

Becoming a raw vegan has been the absolute best thing I ever did for myself. Everyone I interact with is better off as well because I have so much more energy to share.

inspirit - aka coolkarma



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/01/2007 05:24AM by inspirit.

hey guys its good 2 kno other ppl get like this,, yepp i was deffinately feeling like doing some self harm,, it got really out of control

aquadecoco my parents arent really there for me,, my dad has changed tho a little since i broke down on him,, but my mom dosent care at all,, and i just stopped asking for food bc my dad didnt want 2 buy me 10 dollars wrth of groceries 4 me a week,, and my mom refuses 2,, so yah i felt hopeless,, its a cycle,, it was getting much better but once i fell off the bandwagon it was deffinately worse than it was before

i felt exaclty how you all felt,, i guess if you take the life force out of your food you take it out f yourself,, and it sucks

i do have 2 say that im thankful for it tho, haha sortof,, that freak out i had on my dad got 2 him,, he did say some really mean things, and i thought he didnt care but he showed me 2day that he did, he brought me home some fruits! im glad hes helping me,, i just hope this dosent hav 2 happen again for him 2 remember that i need his help

Have you told him very simply that you need his help......if you have a trusting kind of relationship, you could just tell him what you need and that you appreciate him. If you don't have a trusting relationship - which is what I grew up with - no one ever seemed to accept anything another person felt or needed - then you might be limited to how you express yourself. Sounds like there might be a glimmer of hope - too bad it took a tantrum or rage for him to listen, but that's how some ppl are.
I think of all the ppl on this forum, I wonder most how fuzzy is doing, cuz I feel you have a difficult time with your parents and your health concerns.
So I can't really do much, but at least you know other ppl have gone through similar probs.
And it sounds like your parents might worry about their ability to meet all their obligations, that's often why parents get crazy -they have a lot of concerns in the backs oftheir minds and they might feel that you're just on some crazy fad and that they're losing their influence on you, etc. It can be scary to watch your kids grow up - they adapt more easily than parents do. Maybe there is some way you could tell them - or one of them - that you've given this lots of thought and maybe you could show them some Christian-based literature on raw food.

Hope you feel great soon........

fuzzy, i am so sorry you have to go through that. i just can not imagine parents that resent their child eatting fruit and veg. usually its the other way around! stay strong.

what could you do to be able to purchase your own food?
is it possible?
that might do a lot for you so you won't have to depend on the wims, attitudes, opinions of your parents to decide what you are going to get to nourish yourself especially since they disagree with raw foodism and don't understand it

fuzzy, I'm sorry to hear that you had a breakdown but glad that it showed you that your father really does care.

I'm an adult and my adult step-sister and friends think that I'm nuts b/c I won't eat cooked food including flesh protein. I tell them that they wouldn't want to eat it either if they had had to go through the suffering that I have. (I had 6 growths released over 2.5 years via my period. Each one felt like I was having a miscarriage (I'm not sure if I was ever pregnant but I have been told that my symptoms matched those friends who did have one -- intense pain and extreme bleeding and weakness & anemia afterwards.) Also, I have severe Candida due to cooked foods/sugar. The Candida is going away slowly.)

Anyhow, be strong, know that you are loved, and we are with you. Therese

I can soooo relate. I am a wreck, a binge eater, depressed, anxious, a smoker, everyting horrible when I am eating cooked food. Although I have only been raw three times for a month each time, I turned into a lovely, joyful, peaceful soul. It is so hard to get back on the wagon once you get off. My understanding is that through years of overeating junkfood I have depleted my serotonin. Each time it starts to dip, I reach for junk to temporarily raise it. And then of course it crashes again. I think this has a lot to do with why people become wack when they start eating junk. Not to mention the role of food allergies.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/03/2007 01:57AM by dancerinthenight.

That is fascinating, I had no idea that sugary junk actually DEPLETED serotonin. I know that it temporarily raised the levels in the brain, however, I did not know that it adversely affected its production. That explains so much for me - thank you. Do you have a link to more information on this subject?

Inner Beauty

When we eat a lot of sugar, the body transfers the amino acid tryptophan from the blood stream into the central nervous system where it is converted into serotonin. Continued high daily use of sugar can result in a chronic state of sertonin excess with a dopamine deficiency, resulting in irritability.
[www.vaccinetruth.org]

An improved diet will significantly improve mood. Poor dietary habits including low calorie dieting, low protein diets and too much sugar are the primary reasons why people suffer from low serotonin. Many studies confirm that eating sweet and starchy carbohydrates can temporarily increase serotonin levels, but then that ‘‘high” dissipates quickly and leaves us craving even more sugar. This process sets us up for a cycle of sugar addiction that’s hard to break. Julia Ross, author of ‘‘The Mood Cure,” says that ‘‘carbohydrate addiction, like alcohol and drug addiction is primarily a brain chemistry problem: the neurotransmitters that produce normal appetites and moods are too depleted to do their jobs.” And our diets are filled with temptations. ‘‘We can’t go around eating the American diet and remain unscathed,” Ross says.
[www.gazette.net]

Did you know that following sugar intake, there is an increase in the urinary excretion of calcium? No wonder those people on a high sugar diet are affected by more arthritis, sore joints, kidney stones and muscle cramps. Sugar also increases dental plaque and suppresses your immune system by inhibiting white cell function. Sugar also competes with vitamin C. So, if you are ingesting sugar with every meal and snack, you are consistently compromising your immune system.
In addition to throwing off the body's homeostasis, excess sugar may result in a number of other significant consequences. The following is a listing of some of sugar's metabolic consequences from a variety of medical journals and other scientific publications.


1. Sugar can suppress the immune system.
2. Sugar can upset the body's mineral balance.
3. Sugar can cause hyperactivity, anxiety, concentration difficulties, and crankiness in children.
4. Sugar can cause drowsiness and decreased activity in children.
5. Sugar can adversely affect children's school grades.
6. Sugar can produce a significant rise in triglycerides.
7. Sugar contributes to a weakened defense against bacterial infection.
8. Sugar can cause kidney damage.
9. Sugar can reduce helpful high-density cholesterol.
10. Sugar can promote an elevation of harmful cholesterol.
11. Sugar may lead to chromium deficiency.
12. Sugar can cause copper deficiency.
13. Sugar interferes with absorption of calcium and magnesium.
14. Sugar may lead to cancer of the breast, ovaries, prostate, and rectum.
15. Sugar can cause colon cancer, with an increased risk in women.
16. Sugar can be a risk factor in gall bladder cancer.
17. Sugar can increase fasting levels of blood glucose.
18. Sugar can weaken eyesight.
19. Sugar raises the level of a neurotransmitter called serotonin, which can narrow blood vessels.
20. Sugar can cause hypoglycemia.
21. Sugar can produce an acidic stomach.
22. Sugar can raise adrenaline levels in children.
23. Sugar can increase the risk of coronary heart disease.
24. Sugar can speed the aging process, causing wrinkles and gray hair.
25. Sugar can lead to alcoholism.
26. Sugar can promote tooth decay.
27. Sugar can contribute to weight gain and obesity.
28. High intake of sugar increases the risk of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.
29. Sugar can cause a raw, inflamed intestinal tract in persons with gastric or duodenal ulcers.
30. Sugar can cause arthritis.
31. Sugar can cause asthma.
32. Sugar can cause candidiasis (yeast infection).
33. Sugar can lead to the formation of gallstones.
34. Sugar can lead to the formation of kidney stones.
35. Sugar can cause ischemic heart disease.
36. Sugar can cause appendicitis.
37. Sugar can exacerbate the symptoms of multiple sclerosis.
38. Sugar can indirectly cause hemorrhoids.
39. Sugar can cause varicose veins.
40. Sugar can elevate glucose and insulin responses in oral contraception users.
41. Sugar can lead to periodontal disease.
42. Sugar can contribute to osteoporosis.
43. Sugar contributes to saliva acidity.
44. Sugar can cause a decrease in insulin sensitivity.
45. Sugar leads to decreased glucose tolerance.
46. Sugar can decrease growth hormone.
47. Sugar can increase total cholesterol.
48. Sugar can increase systolic blood pressure.
49. Sugar can change the structure of protein causing interference with protein absorption.
50. Sugar causes food allergies.
51. Sugar can contribute to diabetes.
52. Sugar can cause toxemia during pregnancy.
53. Sugar can contribute to eczema in children.
54. Sugar can cause cardiovascular disease.
55. Sugar can impair the structure of DNA.
56. Sugar can cause cataracts.
57. Sugar can cause emphysema.
58. Sugar can cause arteriosclerosis.
59. Sugar can cause free radical formation in the bloodstream.
60. Sugar lowers the enzymes' ability to function.
61. Sugar can cause loss of tissue elasticity and function.
62. Sugar can cause liver cells to divide, increasing the size of the liver.
63. Sugar can increase the amount of fat in the liver.
64. Sugar can increase kidney size and produce pathological changes in the kidney.
65. Sugar can overstress the pancreas, causing damage.
66. Sugar can increase the body's fluid retention.
67. Sugar can cause constipation.
68. Sugar can cause myopia (nearsightedness).
69. Sugar can compromise the lining of the capillaries.
70. Sugar can cause hypertension.
71. Sugar can cause headaches, including migraines.
72. Sugar can cause an increase in delta, alpha and theta brain waves, which can alter the minds ability to think clearly.
73. Sugar can cause depression.
74. Sugar can increase insulin responses in those consuming high-sugar diets compared to low sugar diets.
75. Sugar increases bacterial fermentation in the colon.
76. Sugar can cause hormonal imbalance.
77. Sugar can increase blood platelet adhesiveness which increases risk of blood clots.
78. Sugar can increase the risk of Alzheimer Disease.
[www.naturalhealthtechniques.com]

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

who says there is no superfoods? dam that does alot of stuff.

it is no wonder that non raw "vegan" diets fail
because people think that white food products are "okay"
but those things just get degraded into

SUGAR!!


pita bread,bread, chips, white rice, crackers,
all those things just spell

sugar..
and its no wonder why non raw veganism comes under attack

Thank you so much Jodi. Anaken, I would have to agree that sugar is a super food - one that is super dangerous for my emotional and physical wellbeing. I have noticed that my depressive and anxious moments are few and far between when I am off the white stuff. It really is amazing how our bodies are always seeking homeostasis and balance. I believe that it is true that HEALTH is the true state of the human body and we just need to stop getting in its way. I just wish it was as simple in practice for me as it is in principle.

Inner Beauty

i eat alot of raw honey. do you guys know if honey has the same horrible effect?

i would certainly choose honey over white sugar but dont use either at the moment or for the last while

these were two good writeups about honey from [www.rawfoodexplained.com]
4.5 Honey—How Healthy Is It?
What could be more natural than honey? Health seekers have sung its praises for years, and it is promoted as a beneficial, healing food. Is honey a perfect food, easily digested, and toxin-free as so many writers would have us believe?

Actually, honey is little better than most of the other refined sweeteners and sugars. True, it can be had with little processing and no heating, but does that make it a natural food for man? The truth is that honey contributes to tooth decay, obesity, diabetes, and other diseases that white sugar use has been linked with.

Honey is defended as a wholesome food because it has been used for a long period, much like milk and dairy products. Like milk, honey is a food that is produced by an animal to feed its own species. It is not a natural food for man—it is a natural food for bees.

Honey is produced by the bees modifying the nectar of flowers with formic acid produced within their bodies. The bees regurgitate the honey after mixing. Water is evaporated from the honey by air currents generated by the wings of worker bees. The nectar is usually vomited up several times before it is mixed enough with the bees' own preservative secretions.

The honey is also produced with various enzymes to meet the special needs of the bees themselves; consequently, the changes that occur in the production of honey are not amicable to man's metabolism.

Bees are often robbed of their food product and forced to live on sugared water by their keepers. Often, poison sprays such as carbolic acid and benzaldehyde are sprayed into the hives (and onto the honey) to chase the bees away so that they may be robbed.

Most commercial honey is heated, filtered and processed. Even bees cannot live on heated honey for long. If fed such honey, the bees sicken and die. Honey may also be adulterated with white sugar syrup, corn syrup and other additives, so honey is rarely the "pure" product it's advertised to be.

Honey is almost pure sugar and water. There is a minute amount of mineral material in honey, and it is this mineral content that health enthusiasts point to as a justification for using honey instead of white sugar. This argument is faulty because the mineral content is so low that you would need to eat 200 tablespoons of honey a day to meet your calcium requirements, 91 tablespoons for your potassium needs, and 267 tablespoons to satisfy your phosphorous needs. Obviously honey has minimal nutritional value for humans.

Honey has also been shown to destroy teeth even faster than white sugar. A study at Oregon State University demonstrated that some honeys may contain cancer-causing substances that the bees have extracted from certain flowers. Other honeys have been associated with botulism, an often fatal form of food poisoning.

Honey is not for the health-seeker; indeed, it is not for any human being. Honey is not for the birds either—it's for the bees. They made it, let them eat it.


and ...[www.rawfoodexplained.com]

Article #2: More About Honey By T.C. Fry
Ida Honorof publishes a newsletter entitled "Report to the Consumer." She usually goes into a subject in-depth and certainly she is one of the most outspoken persons in America on environmental concerns.

Anyway, in March she published an extensive article about honey. She recommends it in place of sugar. But, to her credit, she gives us a very frank appraisal of honey as a food and points out that better sugars are to be found in organically grown fruits.

First, she points out that, though pesticides are toxic to bees, not all bees succumb to toxic substances and that today's honeys cannot be called organic in any sense—most honey has pesticide residues in it. Bees gather this from flowers along with the nectar and pollen.

Then there's the matter of the nutritiousness of honey. It has only minute quantities of nutrients though it has "nutritional merit." Ms. Honorof says, "Many people converted to using honey, often excessively, despite the fact that to the human body, honey is hardly different than refined sugar—remember honey was meant for the bee." Which is to say that honey is not our natural food but natural food for the bee.

She quotes a famed bee specialist, Colonel Clair of Hawaii. Some of the data she quotes turns out to be very revealing, a lot more than honey promoters would appreciate.

First, most beekeepers rob their bees of practically all the honey and substitute for it water and sugar or wastes from candy factories. Anything sweet and cheap is substituted for the honey taken from the bees. The result is diseased bees. Further, the chemical industry has begun furnishing "medicines" or drugs for beekeepers just as they have furnished "medicines" for humans.

We Life Scientists have great concern for bees. They are our symbiotic partners in Nature. And the despoliation of bees must lead to our own—we are very much despoiled and depraved already.

It seems the worst enemies of bees these days are uninformed beekeepers who try to exploit bees to the maximum. They are paid for their hives by orchardists. Then they rob the bees of honey too. That doesn't mean the apiarists are making it rich but it does mean the poor bees are being meanly used, not only to their detriment but to ours! Of course this applies only to most beekeepers who supply in huge quantities the refined honey on supermarket shelves.

Ms. Honorof's article is in many ways revealing. One of the closing highlights is that honey, itself, is practically non-nutritious. It is the pollen grains in the honey that bear most of the nutrient complement.

Colonel Clair, her source of information, cautions against using heated honey altogether. He praises honey for its "antibiotic qualities."

That praise must be, to thinking people, damnation! For antibiotic means "against life." While they mean antibacterial, the word is correct, for an antibiotic is truly against all life.

But the clincher is the final admonition: "Honey must be eaten sparingly, in very small amounts." Our own admonition is: If anything must be eaten in moderation or sparingly, it should not be eaten at all.

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

thanks so much for that. i consume at least 4 tablespoons throughout the day. i use it in my green tea. any suggestions for an alternative to sweeten my tea?

Does fruit fit into this category we call sugar? Aren't all things converted into sugar in the body?

i think the problem is high glycemic sugars unnatural sources like processed foods,, but i still try and eat a limited amount of high glycemic fruits cuz i always get that sugar high and then drop effect,,

thanks youguys for all of yor comments :] it makes me feel soo much better 2 kno that you guys care, im getting through this, and soon ill b out of my house so maybe that will solve some problems

life101 that is so sad, im so sorry for all your pain, i feel sometimes, made fun of shunned, but i dont really care about wat other ppl think,, im so glad ur making it through all this how long hav you been raw?

aquadecco my mom is in a mind frame where she "has nothing 2 live for" thats what she says, so she buys junk foods and dosent really care that her kids are suffering from it ,,, my brother is overweight and hes only 12 they let him eat pizza and crap everyday,, and i feel so bad bc my little sister who is 9 says she wishes she could eat fruits and veggies, but that we never have any,, one time i caught her crying bc there was nothing 2 eat but pizza and cheese in our fridge and she wanted some cucumbers,, so i snuck out in my dads old van and drove her down 2 this veggie stand 2 get her something,, anyways my point is that there isnt a trusting relationship at all between me and my parents, theyve let me down so much bc they dont care about whats important 2 me so they dont help me, they arent there for me, not as much as i need, but its made me more independant

pihourova it is sortof like that, they dont really think its important so they dont care

laV i used 2 hav a job a couple months ago, it was at my dads pizza place, its the only place i could work bc i cant count on them 2 take me anywhere,, i got depressed bc i was spending all the money i had on groceries,, i had nothing left over for anything fun, or saving for a car or clothes,, my parents wouldnt help me buy food,, so i just quit bc i was see sawing from raw 2 cooked and i kept eating he pizza all the time and i couldnt control myself, and i just didnt care anymore,, im about 2 start woking there again so that will probably help alot :]

dancer im exactly like that i just want it 2 be over with so i can move on
thanks for the info jgunn! thats really amazing i forgot about all that stuff,, prolly bc the sugar lol :p

Fuzzy - Maybe at work you could dine on the fresh pizza topping ingredients, like peppers and tomatoes...........

No wonder your mom is depressed - bet she would feel better if she changed her diet, but it's hard to convince ppl of that.

No kidding, I am in awe of your strength and superior attitude.




I think of Goethe's words:

"Then indecision brings its own delays,
          And days are lost lamenting over lost days.
          Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute;
          What you can do, or dream you can do, begin it;
          Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."