Hi, all. I've been eating mostly raw for a few weeks now (except wherein someone else cooked/prepared food for me for a few days) and I find that throughout the month, I have had INTENSE chocolate cravings. No problem, I can find raw chocolate/carob desserts or make my own, but, as you know, these are higher in calories. If I succumb to the cravings and eat more fat than I'm used to.....well, I'm wondering if there's a reason why I would crave something 75% more than usual and if there are risks to eating more fat, albeit raw.

(As an aside, one day I ate 3 cups of walnuts in the form of rawcos and also a raw carrot cake and I was truly hungry for it!)

Also, how do you figure the percentage that you eat raw? Do you count drinks in the total (tea, soylattes, etc.)?

(Another "addition" to my post, I've been a vegan for over 5 years, mostly whole foods, high vegetable diet, so if I'm detoxing, it's not as much as an omnivore or lacto-ovo veg would.)

Congratulations on your healthier eating! Opinion: I think in the beginning, it is important to set YOUR goals on what YOU have researched to be the healthiest foods. I think you should set VERY SMALL goals...with timetables....to reach your goals in at least 6-12 months. In the beginning, I feel it is wise to stay full of healthier alternatives, eat before you leave the house, bring snacks, and eat a very WIDE variety of the fruits & vegetables that you love. The fresher the better. Go ahead and determine what YOU think an appropriate amount of fat is...and go ahead and eat this. I think 10-20% fat per day is a nice round number. Heh..heh.

-You might crave all kinds of things. Just stick to YOUR plan.

-A quick way to give a rough estimate to your overall raw percentage is to assign 100% to a day, then just assign a percentage to each meal....in the form of how much raw you are eating on a lifetime basis (which should be the goal - don't you think?) Example: If you eat 3 meals, then each meal would be 33% of your calories. Thus, if you ate one raw meal per day...consistently...you would be 33% all-raw! If you at 1/3 of a meal all-raw.....every day...you would be about 11% all-raw. You can assign your own percentages of consistent raw.

A more realistic scenario might be:

Breakfast = 20%
Snack = 5%
Lunch = 30%
Snack = 5%
Dinner = 25%
Drinks = 10%
Misc. Snack = 5%

-What do you think?

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

Thank you. Makes sense on the percentages and amount of fat I eat. I don't have any goals per se except that I wanted to eat at least two meals raw, but it ended up that I stopped wanting cooked food altogether for a few weeks and craved raw everything! I'm thinking now that I'll do all raw except 10% drinks one day, so 90%, then alternate so the next day may have a cooked dinner if that's what I decide that I want, so 65% the next, then back to 90%. We'll see how it works out. I may do a partial raw/partial cooked dinner as well, like make veggie burgers and serve them on collard rolls with extra raw veggies or something.

As far as fat, I just don't think it's sustainable to eat that many nuts per day....or coconut or cacao.

To update, I haven't had any cooked meals in a week because I don't desire them. I do still drink tea and sometimes a decaf soylatte.

I have read more about fat and percentage of calories and I know I'm at about 30-35% every day, so I decided to shoot for 20% or lower. I don't think 10% or lower is enough for me, and obviously the 30% is quite an increase from my long-term low-fat vegan diet.....we'll see how I feel at 20% and down.

[utopiankitchen.wordpress.com]

Awesome! I can feel the power.

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

Just made an Italian no-fat dressing that is pretty good, with apple, lemon juice, and apple cider vinegar (i'm NOT a vinegar lover at all either).

[utopiankitchen.wordpress.com]

I have a few thoughts about cravings, esp. early on when one goes raw and by early on that could mean the whole first year or more.

I think if you look at what is in the foods you crave to see what minerals your body is getting from them, you may be able to better determine some different healthier choices that supply those same minerals. It could be our bodies are acclimated to getting certain minerals from what foods its been supplied with before going raw and is just used to those quick fixes as are we in our mindset.

It took me 5+ years to uncrave chocolate and honestly, if I couldn't have the real deal I didn't want a sub that's for sure..so I tried different ways to get rid of that particular craving, but then I'd find I was really feeling deprived and depressed sometimes if I didn't allow myself to have chocolate. Then this year I did a few new things in trying some different protocols, which I think helped to balance the minerals my body needed and when I ate some little chocolate over Christmas I became really sick from it. So, I don't have a craving anymore for it and I've tested it out to see if it would kick start up by eating a piece but I totally dislike chocolate and now I if I want I can be around it, smell it, but I don't crave or even want it. It could be that the large amount of supplementing with magnesium helped me to overcome the chocolate craving.

This makes sense to me, because if one is craving raw tomatoes, we would say that it's what our bodies need, probably for the certain minerals and nutrients in tomatoes. It's just that we supply those things thru a raw food choice which is much healthier.

I really believe it's a learning curve to get to know our body intimatley and to become intuitive to the healthy choices we can make to supply it with the essential nutrients and minerals it craves and needs. It's the getting our mindset to be one with our body and work as a whole...hmmm....Whole Foods!

Love,
Prism