Hello, I'm new to the wonderful world of raw food. 3 weeks without meat and day-by-day reduction in my reliance of cooked foods is leaving me feeling unbelievable! In an effort to educate myself I've been reading everything I can get my hands on. However a book about Macrobiotic diets frowns on some foods which I thought would be excellent; things such as avocados and citrus fruit. I am curious what other people's thoughts are about such exclusions?

I have not read the Macrobiotic books. Why exclude them? Do YOU feel they are bad?

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

macrobiotics focusses on eating locally so if oranges and avos grown near you, go ahead. if not, eat something that does. i agree in part, we lighten our foot print avoiding consumption of things that have to burn a lot of gas to get to us.

Macrobiotics is more about eating a traditional japanese cooked diet based on steamed rice and cooked vegetables. A healthy raw diet (and watch out for high fat junk food raw diets) is going to be way healthier than macrobiotics.

I agree with Bryan. A balanced raw diet will be much more potent in cancer-fighting and anti-aging. Cooked vegetables provide some protection but raw ones even more.

Thank you for explaining things, in a nutshell. Very direct, which I appreciate. Can you give me an example of a 'junk-food raw diet' so I can avoid these pitfalls? I've noticed lately more acne than usual, & I'm wondering if I'm over-compensating the lack of meat in my diet with poor choices. Thanks! love, gimpy

as you clean up your diet your body will let go of toxins and old junk. a great outlet for them is your skin so breakouts could be a sign of good internal cleansing. google 'oil cleansing method' and maybe try that out for a while, it can be very helpful.

a junky raw diet could mean a few things depending on what foods work for you. for some too much sweet fruit is terrific and for others it's not. certainly too many nuts and seeds, complicated meals, poor food combining, over-eating, are all less than optimal.

I'm not a fan of the gourmet stuff or the "superfood" stuff or too much fat (nuts, avocado, coconut, durian oils).

I think if you include 1-2 lbs of greens daily and a wide variety of fruits including many nonsweet fruits with a handful of nuts and seeds that will be ok, provided that you have reliable and adequate sources for B12 and D. You can juice and blend a part of it. You can keep this up indefinitely as long as you don't have allergies or other intolerances to your choices amd get enough calories. That means A LOT of food if you are limiting your fats.

Daily I have

romaine, about a head
tomato, 1-2
bell pepper, 1/3-1
onion 1 sm
carrot or sweet potato 1
some other green (spinach, kale, collards, broccoli, cabbages, etc.) 2-4 cups
apple 1-3
orange 1-2
banana 1-2
grapes a cup
strawberries a cup
blackberries a cup
flax-1-2 T
walnuts 1-2 T
olive oil 1/3-1/2 T
parsley a handful
spinach a few handfuls
cucumber, 1/2
celery, a stalk

Those are my staples. I eat other things too when available, in season, and on sale.

"I think if you include 1-2 lbs of greens daily and a wide variety of fruits including many nonsweet fruits with a handful of nuts and seeds that will be ok, provided that you have reliable and adequate sources for B12 and D."

Arugula - what do you use to get your vitamins B12 and D?

Your daily foods look great!

Sunrise

mmmmm, i'm going to arugula's for lunch! ; )

The biggest reason for people leaving the raw diet is because they get sick, and for most people, its because they are eating too much fat. The Standard American Diet is a very high fat diet at 40% fat. Most beginning raw foodists are eating in excess of 60% fat, some more that 80% fat. Most people can't go very long eating 80% fat and not have health problems.

Durian Oil? That's hilarious! How is it?

I missed a comma.

s/b durian, oils

Sunrise, I take a 1/4 of a 1000 mcg pill for methylcobalamin once a week and a 1000 IU pill for D2 most days. I think the combined cost is somewhere around $1-2/month.

Bryan and Arugula, Thank you for the guidelines. I'm going to start a log today; not to try to measure calories like I'd done previously for weight-loss but to keep myself from grabbing yet another handful of nuts every time I pass through the kitchen! love, gimpy