I am brand new to "raw eating", other than an occasional salad, 100% of my diet is cooked, high in fat and usually obtained in a drive thru.

Obviously my health is not great, I don't feel unhealthy but I am about 20 pounds overweight and constantly tired.

I would like to start eating raw, I think the best approach is to start out small and replace a few cooked meals with raw meals.

I have alot of questions about starting out and a few concerns.

1. I am allergic to alot of nuts like walnuts, almonds etc. If they are cooked, I don't seem to have any reactions. Alot of recipes I have found require nuts, is there a way around this?

2. I am also deadly allergic to pitted fruits (apples, peaches, pears) alot of recipes include these.

3. I am starting to work out and use protien as a supplement. Would I need to stop using this on a raw diet?

4. I want to keep this as simple and as cheap as possible, is there a place where I can find good recipes that are quick and easy to make without me having to go to culinary school to prepare them?

Even though the allergies and my desire to keep this simple limits what I can eat, I am still very interested in doing this. Any help of advice given will be greatly appreciated.

Your best bet is to include more and more fruit and salads into your diet.

Here are some tips about eating fruit:

Wait until your fruit is ripe. Bananas in the store with pure yellow skins are not ripe. The need to be heavily freckled before they are ripe.

Its better to eat a lot of one kind of fruit rather than a bunch of different fruits in a single meal. This is an experiential thing, and if you tried the multi-fruit meal, at some point you would notice it doesn't digest as well as a meal of lots of pieces of the same fruit.

Its best to the fatty things last in your day, as eating fruit after eating fat does not work because of the interaction of the fat and the fruit. This means if you use a salad dressing with some fat in it, it requires several hours before the fat won't interact with fruit.

As for nuts, you don't need to include them in your raw diet. If you want some whole fats, eat avocados, or some seeds like sunflower or sesame.

All the fancy gourmet raw stuff is expensive to make and usually takes a long time. Eating fruits and salads though are very simple and require little or no effort to prepare.

Great advice Bryan. Listen to Bryan. He knows his stuff. I learned from other posts that all the dehyration and juicing isn't necessary. I have found eating fruit or green smoothies in the day and huge salads at night do the trick. I have lots of weight to lose so that will take time but my other medical issues have disappeared in a matter of a couple of weeks and my energy is great. I take a sublingual Total B for my B12 (important when you stop eating meat) and it gives me nice boost in the afternoon.

I just had my bloodwork done and my CBC numbers are great (no anemia here). A couple of things were a little on the high side but it turns out its a high altitude thing. Living higher than sea level so the body adapts the blood oxygen levels to compensate. My HDLs and Triglycerides are really good. The best my cholesterol has ever been in YEARS!

The moral is, try hard to stay at least vegan (no animal products) and eat as much raw as possible. I jumped in feet first and struggled for a few days but once I found a support group I was able to stay on track. If you can only eat a few fruits, eat them. You will initially feel the detoxing. Just be sure to eat enough. Not one orange but 2 or 5. Don't think of food as entertainment, its there to sustain life. Avocados, bananas, dates, nuts and seeds are good for you but not in huge quantities especially when trying to lose weight. The processed foods and junk don't have any nutrients and they cause malnourishment resulting in huge medical issues the older you get. I'm convinced all of the mental health issues in this country are related to the crap we eat. Now that you know the truth it makes sense to just do it. Like not smoking or wearing a seat belt makes sense.

Sorry, I got carried away there. Don't scare away. Its a wonderful lifestyle, challenging but wonderful. You will be the influence for others around you when they see how great you look and feel. You will glow.

Gina