Hi, I'm new to eating raw. I've been about 100% raw for about 2 weeks now. My problem is I feel ill if I eat too many veggies especially onion or garlic. I made a guacamole and it gave me a stomachache for two days. I've been eating a lot of dates, green smoothies and salads with lettuce and spinach. I don't know how to get more veggies in, many of the recipes I've tried I've ended up throwing out. Please help because I need to get more calories in without eating too much fat! thanks

hi veggieluv!

certain fruits have a lot of calories- melons, pineapple, banana etc that you can use for bumping up your calorie intake. What veggies is it that you are trying to get in that are giving you problems? Some veg tastes better on its own (carrots, cucumber, peppers etc) cut into strips and served with a raw dip rather than mixed with a tonne of other stuff.

I've gone off onions a bit. I only use spring onion these days (scallions). I've really gone off dressy raw foods too. Eating simply never seems to upset my belly, whereas recipes that have 10 ingredients etc sometimes do!

veggieluv Wrote:
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> Hi, I'm new to eating raw. I've been about 100%
> raw for about 2 weeks now. My problem is I feel
> ill if I eat too many veggies especially onion or
> garlic.

good suggestions from rawnoggin, plus onions and garlic are extremely irritating so the fact that you had a problem is perfect. listen to the body.

don't force the veggies. just eat what you can of them.

veggieluv,
It's not true that a certain number of calories need to be forced into the body even if a person doesn't feel like eating. There is nothing that says you can't even eat below your expenditure level temporarily. When your reserves are gone, you will feel real hunger and it will be as obvious as knowing to get out of the way from an oncoming train. Chances are, however, if you eat less than is being recommended according to the calorie charts, you WON'T be eating less than you're burning. It simply doesn't take as much food to fuel a human body as is widely thought, even by raw gurus. During transition all bets are off regarding consumption levels anyway: some people feel the need to eat constantly, and others feel nauseous much of the time initially and have a hard time eating much at all. (Btw, there is no clearer signal from the body that food is not needed than nausea, and the above posts are correct regarding onions and garlic. They contain toxins that are indigestible and harmful to the body.)

You correctly note that vegetables don't have many calories and that's one reason why they are substandard as human foods. We need sugar, it is our #1 nutrient need after water. It's a mistake for a person to force him/herself to eat vegetables because of the idea that they are nutritious. They don't have anything that you can't get adequately from foods that are naturally sweet and appealing.

It should be noted that there is ARE legitimate reasons that new raw fooders are encouraged to overeat if they want to, but those all have to do with emotional factors, not physiological ones. Sometimes when people try to keep their consumption low they can manage it for awhile but it commonly results in binges or at least backsliding. I had to eat almost constantly for years before my false hunger became manageable and I was able to go long periods between meals.

You may be interested to read my "raw evolution" article on my website, in addition to my essay on "emotional eating" (on the "Philosophy and Other Articles" page).

Best wishes,
Nora
www.RawSchool.com

I agree with rawnora completely. The only thing I would add is to just eat what you want within the limits of raw. Your body knows what's right for it. Don't force yourself to eat something just because you think you should.

avacados make me feel queezy too. i don't really eat them. but i LOVE tomatos, they have never given me a problem. and you can blend them to make soup or chili, throw a stick of celery in there with some seasonings.

thanks so much for all the advice. it's funny how your body can really direct you towards foods that are right. guess I'll stick to my green smoothies for a while

Even when I am not feeling ill, onions really make me nautious. Garlic, not so much... I thought I was allergic to onions, especially. I made a green smoothie from Juliano's book, and he uses heaps of onions... Well, anyway, after drinking it, within seconds I became so violently ill that I started crying...

Not a very nice experience :s
and the onion was organic as well, so I must be more sensitive to them than I thought...

~I've tasted of the fruit,
it's opened up my eyes...~
-Infected Mushroom

Maybe not nice, Peisinoe, but definitely good. A body that offers such immediate vital resistance is healthier than one that puts up with poisons. The ultimate in tolerance is death. A dead person won't react at all to poisons entering the bloodstream, and, most often, neither will an unhealthy person. People think that being "sensitive" to unhealthful foods or substances is a weakness, but it is really a strength. A vital body puts up a fight.

This should not be confused with hyper-sensitivity to appropriate foods (like certain fruits), or natural environmental substances like pollen, grass and animal dander. These are called allergies but they are toxemia. It's caused by the mucus membranes being in a perpetually irritated and inflamed state due to constant contact with toxins in the bloodstream. A person can't be "allergic" to onions or garlic, for example, because these don't belong in the human body in the first place, because of the toxic chemicals they contain.

Best wishes,
Nora
www.RawSchool.com

Rawnora, your site and articles are really great, very refreshing approach!