I just want to share my experience with you all:

I've been basically 100% raw for nearly a year. I have eaten a few cooked things in that time but it was always been in really small amounts. In the past few months I have tried to eat a high fruit, low fat diet and in general it has been good for me, although I sometimes felt I wasn't getting enough calories. Last night, my friend had his birthday dinner at this wonderful Thai restaurant which also used to be my favorite. I had been thinking that at some point I would have to go back there to have my favorite meal one last time. So I went and ordered the yellow pumpkin curry and since I was 'off the wagon' anyway I also had some homemade vegan chocolate cake - and now I really regret it. I thought that I did okay, because everyone else was complaining about how full they felt and I felt fine and I didn't go to bed on a full stomach. But this morning I feel awful. I have a stomachache and headache. My muscles are achy, I feel nauseated and I have a weird metallic taste in my mouth. I now also crave other cooked foods more than I really ever have - especially vegan pizza. I feel like that guy in Super Size Me who at first pukes when he eats too much McDonalds, but then starts craving it. And since everything I ate was vegan I know that it isn't simply a reaction to the hormones or other junk that is in meat and dairy. Or that I am actually getting sick or anything like that.

So I guess I am realizing that (at least for me) one has to be committed to being raw. I don't have any health "problems" as such, but it does seem like eating non-raw hurts my body and I hate feeling like that. And I also don't like feeling like I am never going to eat vegan pizza ever again. I am not exactly sure why I am having this difficulty.... I went vegan nearly 14 years ago and have never craved any animal products since then...ever. And 14 years ago things like vegan chocolate, pizza, "cheese", "ice cream" weren't readily available. I gave up all those things... as well as going to restaurants. Heck, I even ate my cereal with orange juice just because soy milk was so hard to come by. And I never looked back and in some ways I had a more 'restrictive' diet in those early days than I do as a raw foodist. I don't know what is up with me now. I think it is easier for me to give up things when it benefits someone else (I went vegan purely for animal rights reasons), but much harder when it is only me that seems to benefit.... but I guess that's another discussion all together.

Point being, I know that today will be the hardest to stick with raw and I will have to keep busy with distractions and not make cooked food available to myself. I really am beginning to see it as kicking an addiction, because that is the only thing that makes sense when you are in pain yet crave more of the thing that put you in that pain in the first place. It is strange, but this experience has been an eye-opener.

Yep.

Just goes to show, "you can't ever get enough of what you don't really want"

my husband sees vegans who get ill when eating "regular" ie sad food as proof that something is wrong with a vegan diet. how can i counteract this? any thoughts? he`s not being rude or mean it`s just something he observes. why do we react in these ways to food?
still learning
patty

For some reason I expected a saucy tale of infidelity. Shame on me!

As for the real topic, I don't know the answer to why raw vegans feel sick after eating sad. I do have a theory though. Maybe we expect to feel good after eating, whereas sad eaters expect to have heartburn, indigestion, feel sluggish etc.

inspirit - aka coolkarma

i agree with inspirit ..if heartburn, indigestion, sluggishness, obseity, vomity, exhaustion, poor skin, the list goes on an on .. if that what he seem is normal ..then HOW do you convince him ?

maybe we react to this bad food because its simply not good for most of us to consume and the closer we get to a more natural diet the more our bodies reject all this garbage that is all around us called *normal* food

if you eat soemthing long enough repeatedly you will likely build up a tolerance too it sooner or later .. tolerence doesnt mean its ok for you to it .. it just means your body has figured a way to deal with .. like store it in your FAT tissue or give you diareah .. or worse .. manifest diseases in your body to try and rid yourself of it .. like cancer

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

these are good for me thanks guys
patty

I know exactly what you mean, it's a real spiral, you eat one thing cooked and it is so addictive in comparison to your raw diet that you start justifying why you should eat all these other cooked things, since you already had one thing cooked.

Sounds like your body started detoxing it agressively though. Hope you feel better now.

On the bad food tolerance issue, I believe the body stops detoxing properly and starts storing the abundence of toxins, I've noticed that when I eat a lot of cooked stuff I get these little bumps on my arms and shoulders, they go away when I eat raw for a week.
Then you get colds all the time when eating cooked, I believe colds are simply a form of detox, that is why there is no cure, the cold is cure.

I think Arnold Ehret really got it right. His books make a lot of sense.

Phil.

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"Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it" (Chinese Proverb)

i went off the bandwagon this weekend at a BBQ. i first thought to myself...i'll just have some of this soup. then that one thing turned into some bread, into some potato chips, into some soda, into some vegan ribs, into some desserts, etc. it's like i couldn't stop myself! i feel nauseous, have a headache, and this weird coating on my tongue. i felt so horrible this morning that i decided to start the Master Cleanser.
it seems like the hard thing about the raw lifestyle for me is the social factor.

I think it relates to being cleaned out, which in turns brings more awareness to it. Kinda like: If you spot a soiled rag you don't really see it. If you spot a white clean rag it sticks out like a sore thumb :O)