Hello everyone,

I haven't been eating meet (with the exception of an occasional lamb soup here and there) for a couple of years or so, and now want to try eating raw food only. I wonder how you'd answer the question in the subject line above? How can I get the necessary proteins and all other vital nutrients on a raw diet?

Thank you so much!!!

emb

EMB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hello everyone,
>
> I haven't been eating meet (with the exception of
> an occasional lamb soup here and there) for a
> couple of years or so, and now want to try eating
> raw food only. I wonder how you'd answer the
> question in the subject line above? How can I get
> the necessary proteins and all other vital
> nutrients on a raw diet?
>
> Thank you so much!!!
>
> emb


i prefer to think of it like this:

how do people that eat cooked food get all the necessary proteins and all other vital nutrients?

since it seems that cooking damages nutrients and cooked food concentrates certain things to bad effect...

if you're asking what to eat i would say eat what you like.
eat a wide variety of foods.
eat food that tastes good (therefore is likely to be high quality)
don't eat for nutrients.

to get back to your specific question, i'm not sure the word balance has too much meaning here, although many will differ on that. eating a variety of foods is good. eating enough food but not too much is good. balance is something that you need to find, but from a nutrient standpoint - it is said that vitamins predominate in fruits and minerals predominate in veggies. getting too bogged down in nutrients is not too productive i feel. that's what the pill pushers and goji juice pushers and others want you to do.

you will find what works...
relax and allow your body to adjust and expect some changes...
exercise enough and rest enough too.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/10/2007 02:52PM by fresh.

Fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and their oils primarily.
Some raw fooders include sprouted grains and legumes as well.

Sufficient protein is available from the nuts and seeds and in trace amounts from the vegetables as well.

Fruits and vegetables, as long as they are uncooked, provide ample nutrients, and as "fresh" pointed out...you'll probably be getting MORE solid nutrition from raw than you ever did from cooked simply because cooking destroys the nutrients in food.

If you hang around this excellent site awhile, you'll get a feel for raw and how to "do it". Lots of combined experience here along with good support.

bon voyage,

khale

EMB,

Although this is contrary to what most people believe, if you eat enough raw fruits and vegetables to meet your energy needs, you will also meet your protein needs. This is without having to eat the higher protein raw foods like nuts and seeds.

regarding protein....

i might add that nobody ever thinks about whether too much protein is ingested.

too much protein is virtually guaranteed on a cooked food diet.

too much protein is very bad for the body.

People on a SAD diet dont sit around worrying about getting enough nutrients!

Intuition comes with time, but you can certainly get some good ideas/guides of what people do eat on this board.

End of the day you have to eat what feels right for you.

For me its fruit. Not nuts on any oils. Just simple fruit.


Good Luck with your raw journey

I'm in complete agreement with Khale. And you might look at it this way. If you try one particular type of raw diet, and you try it over and over again without being able to stay raw, then possibly your body is needing you to try a more inclusive, rather than exclusive approach.

In other words, if you find yourself repeatedly attempting a very restrictive approach to a raw diet - no fruit, or no veggies or no nuts or no sprouted grains or no sprouted legumes - and each time you try to do that, you end up craving cooked food and caving into eating cooked food, then it's possible the reason for your "failure" may simply be that you need to widen your horizons a bit and allow a fuller, (and perhaps for you) more satisfying variety of whole raw foods.

With a full array of raw foods, protein is usually not a problem. Some mineral deficiencies can occur, especially in iron and calcium. Read up on what raw vegan foods supply those minerals, and you should be OK. Also (BIG controversy!), you might need a methylcobalamin B12 supplement.

It really comes down to a lot of experimentation for just about everybody.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/10/2007 11:04PM by suncloud.

Too bad I couldn't erase most of my above post. If I could I'd keep the first sentence and the third and fourth paragraphs and erase all the rest. It sounded a bit up tight. Sorry.

Bryan,
It was great seeing that really one only needs fruits and vegetables when eating raw. I had been trying to eat nuts as well and just don't like them. I wanted to ask you if one still needs to follow any food combining rules when eating fruits and vegetables. And also, if one doesn't eat any nuts or seeds, do you have to eat avocado to get some sort of fat?
Thanks!

Thank you all for your input; it is very much appreciated!

As for avocados, I love them! I chop mine in my salad. Avocados are not only a source of good fat but also provide potassium, vitamin C, E, folate, and some other vitamins and minerals.

smiling,
emb

food combining or lack there-of (mono eating) is an absolutly essential concept to raw food eating and conservation of digestion (rest).

A wide variety of foods (at least at first) seems to be a universal suggestion for adequate intake and re-mineralization and figureing out what works. This WOULD probably include nuts and seeds in some small quantities. you probably don't NEED them or even avacado as all fruits contain some ammount and proper balance of fat, but this is just nutritionally, not dietetically speaking.

For cleansing purposes, you certainly want to be eating dense and heavy things at the very least every few days, unless you are doing some deliberate type of cleanse (which isn't all that great to start with anyway)

adding overt fats every day, and especialy at every meal, along with very complicated and poorly combined meals, will slow detox exponentially, which for most, is a GOOD thing, and feathers the meaning of the first statement.

I wouldn't stress about too many food combos other then ones that contain FRESH fruit, especially if they are eaten in close proximinty to dense meals. Things with dried fruits might cause some digestive problems, but don't put you at the risk of fermantation and the like with fresh juicy fruits.

my deffinition of a balanced raw transitional diet is one that includes as much fresh foods as possible, sparing use of dried foods/stimulants and spices and packaged foods. and 'medicinal' simple steamed vegetables and possibly some cooked grain/tubers eaten in seperate meals of course (to the raw fresh fruit meals). prior to the cooked portion would be a big vegetable salad.

A balanced 100% raw diet would be one that could be exclusive by design but not by temperment. In other words A diet that is very simple but by listening to the body and others without making blanket ideas about what is ideal or natural.

people at different stages of health and in living in different enviorments/climates DO require particular diettary plans. not prepackaged natural diets.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/2007 02:07AM by anaken.

If anything at minimum, find a calorie counter and make sure you at least get "enough" calories for your daily activities and weight. To balance things, you may want to think of a carb/protein/fat ratio such as 80/10/10 or I've seen some runners prefer a 70/15/15. It varies and everyone has their own distinct opinions.

So to me - Balanced would be a consistent carb/protein/fat ratio that works for you and make sure you get the calories you need. Do it raw or however works for you and learn as you go. It gets better the more you know and LEARN TO LISTEN to your body.

Don't chance things and think you are getting enough protein or calories or whatever. Very few actually know how to listen to their bodies and needs in the beginning and usually have a lot of old notions or habits that are engrained and usually just wrong.