Hi,

I have been a follower of raw foods for many years and after finding this site 2 years ago , have tried several strategies. All made me feel ill. The last thing I tried was to start at 50% raw fruit(mostly bananas), some dried fruit, a small salad, nuts and the rest would be cooked spinach and broccoli with an occassional snickers bar when I felt weak.(It helped my energy immensely!)

Problems were numerous. I started feeling like I was getting cavities as my teeth started hurting. I googled "raw fruit diet" and found several researchers claim one can lose their teeth from 100% raw fruits. I got scared and cut back. Also, because my doctor suspects I am hypoglycemic, too much fruit always makes me feel spacey and unfocused. I use tons of olive oil to give me plenty of calories to make up for the low blood sugar but it seems only an animal product clears my head and calms me down.. I also find with no animal product in my body, my acute insomnia gets worse, no doubt because I dont feel satiated. I chose fruitarianism as I just want to eat simply. I hate preparation. I also suffer with hypothyroidism, and refuse to take any meds for it and was hoping eating 50% fruit would help my thyroid and insomnia. Both have gotten worse over last 2 years. I want to go 100% raw fruit but I am getting sick with just 50% after 2 years. It wasnt much better when i did 25% fruit and 25% raw veggies and the rest raw nuts. Any ideas?

If you wanna go 100% fruit , why are you still eating all that junk, makes no wonder you feel bad....looks like your just setting yourself up for failure.

Go here for ALL your info on Fruitarianism: www.fruitarian.com

Detox can make you spacey and fruits are very cleansing so be sure to do plenty of research on Fruitarianism and detox so you are really sure about what your getting into!

F1

uh, uhhum. as a dental hygienist, i will tell you now, fruit does not HURT your teeth!!!! BUT, snickers bars DO hurt your teeth.

fruits such as limes and lemons can make your teeth thinner, but only if you suck on limes and lemons for an extended period of time.

so all this business about fruit being bad for your teeth is a complete myth!!!!! unless you love to suck on lemons or limes. sailors in the 1700-1800's used to suck limes to prevent scurvy, lack of vitamin C. this is where this myth originated. the sailors often had teeth sensitivity. but NOT cavities.

however, snickers bars are very bad for your teeth. they are full of unnatural sugar that eat away at your teeth and cause cavities.

the only possible bad side effect of fruit for your teeth is that it could make them slightly more sensitive to cold food and water. but extra cold food and water are not good for you anyway.

please do not take this the wrong way. i am trying to help you, not insult you. but your diet sounds very unorganized and chaotic. i think you might need to educate yourself a little more on nutrition in general.

good luck! i wish you the best.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/18/2007 02:59PM by pihourova.

I agree, going Fruitarian really saved my teeth, when I was on cooked foods my teeth were getting really bad regardless of how many times I brushed them, plus I played Rugby so they were getting knocked about every weekend.

Every time I ate cooked food it just undid all the brushing, as a fruitarian my mouth stays fresh and clean.

F1

yes! fruits such as apples and pears can actually be more effective than brushing!

now, you still need to floss!

but toothpaste and brushing are not so neccessary if you are eatting the right diet!

Regarding the "feeling bad"...your body is probably quite confused about what it is getting and doesn't know what to do. Your blood sugar should stabilize with eating fruits, but then you throw it a Snicker's Bar and it goes into overload...a sugar rush and then a crash. No wonder you feel bad. You can be 50% fruitarian, but the other 50% needs to be healthy...not junk. You will have some detox, but it will subside eventually, depending on how long you take to transition. Yes...I agree with the above posters that what you are experiencing can not be blamed on fruits.

well said, island girl!

I agree with all of the above. Good advice FO. Internal crap deposits make you feel bad.....and fruit helps release those things back into your blood stream. If you are VERY toxic....with lots of internal build-up......or are still taking in lots of crap/medications....then ease very slowly into eating more fruit and fasting. Just my opinions.

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

MY teeth hurt a lot when I have a Lara bar - I eat about 95% raw and try to keep the dense foods to a minimum (dates, nuts, grains, legumes, etc). To my surprise, those dense bars cause lots of tooth pain!

Why are you blaming the raw food??

Fruit diet makes your teeth better and cleaner,
but if you have fake teeth or screws and implants, as part of cleansing, they might be pushed out. Fruit cleanses your body and pushes out bad stuff.

I hear stories of fillings falling out too, but the teeth get healthier.

There have been bulimic fruitarians that have been interviewed, I read that in a fruitarian book, or like Tom Billings was bulimic on it, but I know alot of people who are very healthy fruitarians. a few 20 plus years and they are fine.

Don't believe anything/one outside of yourself, only you know what is right.

Hello pakua42!

I'm not surprised you're feeling rough after eating the way you are!

Using olive oil just to make up calories is an extremely bad idea, IMHO. You could make a green breakfast smoothie using a pineapple, a banana, a tonne of greens (spinach, watercress, rocket, kale), that would make you feel fab, whilst racking up the calories.

Also, maybe you're limiting your diet too much. When you have a salad, have a MEAL of a salad- you want everything in there- lots of different fruits, lots of different greens/sprouts, small amounts of nuts and other fats.

Why don't you find a list of all the different fruit and veg you feel you want to be eating, read up on the nutritional benefits and make sure you try a wide variety. Log your nutritional intake on fitday.com.

Maybe you're trying to run before you can walk. Why don't you try raw veganism with some cooked grains, then gradually wean off the grains, and then start adding more fruit back in gradually and guage what your body is happiest with by how good you feel?

You really don't need animal products to feel satiated. If you went to the beyondveg site, do be wary. Tom Billings' writings are very interesting, but to me, he came across as someone not putting health as the priority behind his diet. So how he can pass judgement on diets- when he came across as someone with an eating disorder- is beyond me.

n articvlhello sir,

I appreciate your straightforward advice. But here is an article by a doctor saying he tried arnold ehrets grape diet and his teeth became loose! He also said he fed mice an all fruit diet and most of them died. This would/should scare anyone. What do you think of this article , folks? I appreciate all your opinions. By the way, I cant believe one snickers bar a day is going to reverse all the good effects of eating fruit. iT STOPS MY HANDS FROM GETTING COLD WHEN MY LOW BLOOD SUGAR KICKS IN. bANANAS DO NOT DO THAT. Here is the article. What do all of you think? [drbass.com]

Ha,ha....if I listened to all the horror stories from people that were doing fruitarian lifestyle the wrong way I would still be confused and on cooked food!!!!

My advice to you is to go back and do more research, look at the people that are successful instead of focusing on the ones that aren't because that will get you nowhere!

If your really serious about this go here for your research:

www.fruitarian.com

F1

For the record...

Animal tests can NEVER be used as evidence for what is or isn't good for a human body. So whenever you read them as so called proof for a claim, discount them completely.

Even primate research is unreliable. Animal research is done for one reason alone: to experiment either unnatural or dangerous substances or suggested situations on a species to pass information (usually for medicine) etc off as 'safe' and as 'fact'.

I personally don't think that snickers bar will kill you, but I can think of a million other healthier products that you could eat in its place.

You're convincing yourself that a snickers is solving your problem. I used to use cola in exactly the same way during a very unhealthy era of my life. It didn't get me anywhere. It made me extremely ill. A snickers bar is not going to stop you being deficient. The sugar rush will convince you that you're feeling good. Just like a line of cocaine might convince you you're having a good time at a party.

If you're really stuck on the chocolate/nut combination- why don't you try making your own 'snickers'- melt some 70% dark chocolate, mix with nuts and a little maple syrup, and chill in the fridge (as an example recipe!). That way, you're having a degree of control over the 'health' content- there will be less sugar, more nuts, and you could even add raisins, trail mix, sesame seeds (calcium!) etc in there to get some extra nutrients. Dark chocolate is way healthier than milk chocolate and you'll find that this is more filling too.

If fruitarianism doesn't work for you, revert to raw veganism, and then try returning to fruitarianism step by step.

And get those green smoothies down you!

Why don't you post an example menu of what you eat in one day?


In that article you linked to:

"Usually, if I slept less than 5 hours any night, the next day I would feel fatigued after a few hours."

What the hell? Nearly everyone I ever met looks like a zombie if they haven't had 8 hours sleep and they're sure as hell aint fruitarians!

if you truly have hypoglycemia, you should NEVER be eating a candy bar! I was diagnosed with hg in 1997 but symptomatic all my life. The first thing the dr. and dietician told me was absolutely no processed sugar and flour. Before raw I would eat a slice of cheese or some nuts. Now I eat nuts or a spoonful of raw almond butter. Sugar is the last thing you should choose. It raises your blood sugar but then the blood sugar drops way too rapidly, creating another hypoglycemic episode. You should keep some nuts and raisins in a little container with you at all times. if you can keep some nut butter with you, do that too. I woke up one night with my blood sugar in the upper 40's, I was extremely sick and husband got me some mashed banana and almond butter so I wouldn't have to chew as I was getting to the passing out point. That combination got my blood sugar into the low 70's and then I felt like eating more solid food like nuts and apple slices. Never NEVER eat candy bars or sodas, things like that. More damage is done and there is never a reason to eat those over healthier choices. If you must, drink orange juice but follow it up with some peanut butter or something like that.
Hope this helps. Like I said, I've been diagnosed for 10 years but symptomatic all my life, I've been there thru all sorts of bg crashes.

Ann

rawnoggin Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------


>
> If you're really stuck on the chocolate/nut
> combination- why don't you try making your own
> 'snickers'- melt some 70% dark chocolate, mix with
> nuts and a little maple syrup, and chill in the
> fridge (as an example recipe!). That way, you're
> having a degree of control over the 'health'
> content-

not to mention that a typical 2-ounce chocolate bar could have as many as 36 insect fragments and about half a rodent hair and still be sold.

mm mmm mmm

...Jodi, the banana eating buddhist

The Fruitarian One Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Ha,ha....if I listened to all the horror stories
> from people that were doing fruitarian lifestyle
> the wrong way I would still be confused and on
> cooked food!!!!
>
> My advice to you is to go back and do more
> research, look at the people that are successful
> instead of focusing on the ones that aren't
> because that will get you nowhere!





That's the best advice here, F1.....look to where you're going, not at all the places you DON'T want to go!

I know there's some debate about Lara & other raw bars on the market, but if you're feeling like you NEED that snickers and don't want to make your own, they might be a good, healthier, raw alternative.

I eat them occasionally when on the go, and the coco mole variety is pretty candybar-esque.

Jgunn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> not to mention that a typical 2-ounce chocolate
> bar could have as many as 36 insect fragments and
> about half a rodent hair and still be sold.
>
> mm mmm mmm

Euwwwwwwwww! Yucky!

pakua42 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> n articvlhello sir,
>
> I appreciate your straightforward advice. But here
> is an article by a doctor saying he tried arnold
> ehrets grape diet and his teeth became loose! He
> also said he fed mice an all fruit diet and most
> of them died. This would/should scare anyone. What
> do you think of this article , folks? I appreciate
> all your opinions. By the way, I cant believe one
> snickers bar a day is going to reverse all the
> good effects of eating fruit. iT STOPS MY HANDS
> FROM GETTING COLD WHEN MY LOW BLOOD SUGAR KICKS
> IN. bANANAS DO NOT DO THAT. Here is the article.
> What do all of you think?
> [drbass.com]


If you had read more about the successful fruitarians here, you'd know that they transitioned to all fruit because it was right for them, not because they were out to prove it was a good diet. They KNEW what they were doing, but this poor dangly-toothed doctor clearly didn't have a clue.


Your diet sounds so unhealthy, despite containing raw food. Are the nuts raw organic? Are you careful about the quality of your food? Why are you in a rush to go fruitarian? Most of the successful ones took years to transition and only did so because it felt perfect for them.

Yeah transitioning to a Fruitarian diet is nothing to be messed with, unless your ready to take on your detox and the emotional purging that goes with it head on, which I would not wish on my worst enemy, I did it but that's just me!!!

Master going raw vegan first, then master going 100% raw and somewhere in between all of that figure out if going fruitarian or even 100% raw is still for you and if it is spend a few years concentrating on cleansing first, this is the time where you learn your trade!

Many people fall in love with fruitarianism on paper but actually letting go of their cooked treats and living it is another story.

So be sure it's what you want!

Be good

F1

If you're "scared of" fruitarianism and just try to prove yourself wrong...AND have had bad personal experience with it, why do you still want to pursue it? Not that there is anything wrong with fruitarianism as such.
Maybe you want to try a more greens based diet with nut butters to satisfy at first, and then move up to the more fruity stuff...

I love fruit, Maybe you have some thing not right as in your philosophy. If there is any kind of pain, it usually means something is not right in the way you are thinking.

Do you depend on others or yourself? DO you need things outside yourself to make you happy?

Failure or frustration means something is not right.

But if you are happy so be it. I don't recommend fruitarianism to anybody. 2 years and I still am working on it. Very light journey and some people cannot hack it

I say frutarianism is not really the best idea...veggies are where its at. You dont want to be jacked up on sugar all the time! Bryan clement from Hipocrates Health Institute reccomends that your diet should not consist of more than 15% fruit. he is a man that really knows what he's talking about! I have been feeling freakin awesome eating tons of sprouts and kale lately. a little bit of fruit, but mostly cucumber and tomato for the fruit category. Sprouts are where its at. They are really easy to grow too! and fun. and cute too. i've heard too many bad things about fruitarianism, and it sounds too risky! I have also found that when I eat too much fruit when eating raw that I feel pretty loopy and wierd, sort of wired up and foggy minded. You NEED the greens!
Good luck

Basil

(ps: sorry f1)

I, personally, feel better with greens in my diet. I tried fruitarian and I have to admit I felt good, but am feeling REALLY good with the added greens. I love my green smoothies (60% fruit, 40% greens). I also absolutely love my green salads.

I guess we all have different dietary needs so we each have to decide which makes us feel and look the best. I just feel like I am getting more iron with greens in my diet. Some females require more iron than others.

basil Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I say frutarianism is not really the best
> idea...veggies are where its at. You dont want to
> be jacked up on sugar all the time! Bryan clement
> from Hipocrates Health Institute reccomends that
> your diet should not consist of more than 15%
> fruit. he is a man that really knows what he's
> talking about! I have been feeling freakin
> awesome eating tons of sprouts and kale lately. a
> little bit of fruit, but mostly cucumber and
> tomato for the fruit category. Sprouts are where
> its at. They are really easy to grow too! and
> fun. and cute too. i've heard too many bad things
> about fruitarianism, and it sounds too risky! I
> have also found that when I eat too much fruit
> when eating raw that I feel pretty loopy and
> wierd, sort of wired up and foggy minded. You NEED
> the greens!
> Good luck
>
> Basil
>
> (ps: sorry f1)


No need to say sorry at all I just found it interesting that since you didn't feel right doing Fruitarianism you think that it's not good for anybody, who's to say what you experienced was just a phase you had to go through?

Too many people are making snap judements based on their own mindset but what may not work for you may be great for someone else depending on where their mindset is at, like I always say, you will not be successful at the lifestyle by being regular, you gotta be exceptional, you gotta have faith in what your doing and have patients.

For me the bottom line is that things definatly gets worse before they get better on the raw lifestyle and if you can't bare being uncomfortable or out of it at times then your gonna always be searching for quick fixes, you can plug yourself up with whatever you like but eventually your going to have to cleanse fully.

Just my ten cents

Bye folks!

F1

Agreed, just because something didn't work for you or you don't feel it is right doesn't it won't work for someone else or feel right for them.

Afterall each of us here can only speak from our own personal experience and I think that is the way topics like this are best approched. Give your personal account and perhaps make a suggestion.

Stating that fruiarianism is bad doesn't stack up considering the number of fruitarians doing it successfully, you only have to look at F1's pictures to see that it can and does work.
In reality it is no different than saying veganism doesn't work, when it clearly does.

I think that we are all clear on one thing though, the less processed and fresher your food is the better it is.
Although it is difficult to go raw and stay raw, I think we can agree that we must each make our own path to our goals and that having supportive people around sharing what worked for them is a good thing, but negativity towards other peoples diets/beliefs isn't.

Not trying to criticize just based on my observation.

Phil.

--------------------------------------------------

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



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2007 02:46PM by jadedshade.

I agree with FO's post, and wanted to add my comments as well.

The subject line on this thread reveals a bit of confusion and misunderstanding. There are no "side effects" of eating the proper foods. The term "side effects" is defined as the unintended harmful effects of a substance that otherwise is perceived to cause only positive effects. In the case of drugs and herbs, all effects are side effects; it's just that some effects of drugs and herbs are perceived to be beneficial, as they cause the original bodily expression (symptom) to stop. However, the term could not apply to eating fruit because whatever symptoms a person experiences after embarking on a regimen of healthy eating are actually just the opposite of side effects -- they are signs of cleansing and healing. Drugs and herbs contribute to the formation of disease, and healthy eating contributes to its reversal. The real "side effect" of dietary change is when people don't realize this, because typically their next step is to go back to whatever unhealthful habits they previously indulged and which, btw, caused the accumulation of waste which created the cleansing symptoms after dietary improvements.

The other part of the subject line that reveals misunderstanding is the use of the word "fruitarian". Fruitarianism isn't a natural phenomenon, it's a mental or moral ideology. There are no fruitarian animals. I've called myself fruitarian before, because this seems to be the closest way to describe how I eat nowadays. However, I wouldn't set out to eat like a fruitarian and be guided by that goal. If I was just starting to transition to a healthy diet, I'd eat the foods that I like, as long as they're raw and biologically appropriate (fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds).

People just starting out needn't restrict themselves to only fruit and doing so can make transition very hard to get through. Eating fruit frees up so much energy that the body is able to direct a great deal of the surplus to the cleansing of stored wastes. When these old residues re-enter the bloodstream, they can cause all manner of unpleasant symptoms. There will be not only wastes from junk foods but drugs, herbs and other chemicals ingested long ago, interacting with each other in the bloodstream, coming into contact with various tissues and nerve endings. Most of the time this means a re-experiencing of previous symptomology during transition, but often the body expresses itself in a completely new way as a result of the new combination of wastes in the bloodstream. It may sound scary, but it's quite manageable if a person continues to eat foods that require a bit more work to break down, like vegetables and nuts/seeds. Cleansing happens much more quickly on an all-fruit diet, but most people find it intolerable. And there's no reason to tolerate it, when all a person needs to do is find a reasonable balance of foods that please the palate and keep the body busy.

None of the symptoms of transition are signs of deficiency, that's certain. The deficiency paranoia comes from the cooked world, and that's where it belongs. People who destroy their food with fire and cause their bodies to build up so much protection that nutrients coming in can't be properly utilized have a legitimate reason to fear deficiency. Raw fooders not only get their nutrients in great abundance from their uncooked food, but their digestive membranes return to their original permeability and efficiency, allowing nutrients to be absorbed and used by the body. In new raw fooders, all symptoms are the result of past excesses, not current deficiencies. In long term raw fooders, symptoms are the result of *current* excesses. That's a topic for another day, however.

Nora
www.RawSchool.com

There's a little animal that comes from South Africa that just eat fruits, I forget the name of it but they have a few in the zoo here in Dallas, I'm sure there's many more examples of fruit eating animals too.

F1

That's a great quote Nora:

"...all symtoms are the result of past excesses, not current deficiencies."

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com