30 Days Raw (Blog)

[Cat Dancer]

I've been vegan aside from fish oil supplements for a couple years now, and when I first started vegan I was eating a lot of vegetables, but in recent months I've been getting lazier and my diet has been heavy on grain and soy products with a few vegetables and fruit thrown in. After reading Steve's post I thought I'd give eating mostly fruit a try.

I had already eaten my usual morning breakfast of cereal and soy milk when I read Steve's post, so it was mid morning when I switched to eating bananas, apples, and some blackberries and an orange or two when I felt hungry.

The first thing I noticed late morning was a feeling of mild lightheadedness and a small headache.

I usually take a nap midday and I felt sleepy right on schedule but also that my brain was racing a bit. This time I didn't fall asleep, but I did have a vivid vision of flying through space on a magical creature that generated a bubble of oxygen for me to breath. It was like I was catching some REMs without falling asleep first.

By the afternoon I was feeling hyper and I went out for a brisk walk which turned into a run. I felt alert and clearheaded, more energetic than I usually do. By 5pm I started to feel very, very sleepy again, and I got into bed where I felt like "oof, I feel soooo tired I can't even move", but my mind was buzzing and again I didn't actually get to sleep.

I spent some time chatting on IM and doing a little reading, but despite feeling very sleepy I wasn't getting to sleep, so at 11pm I got up again and decided to eat a bit of my old diet to see if that would settle me down. I put a non-dairy veggie pot pie in the oven and rode my bicycle off to Blockbusters to get a movie, but they were closed. I ended up watching online an MIT OpenCourseWare introduction to linear algebra math lecture. Not my usual late night fare but it has been many years since I had taken linear algebra and I found it pleasant refresher, though I did think it would be nice if I could turn a dial and get the lecturer to speak faster!

So in day one of partially being on the diet I noticed high energy levels and higher mental alertness, but also my body definitely has some adjustments to make, especially with getting back into a sleep cycle. I was surprised that changing my diet for only half a day (so far) had such a dramatic impact.

[Chris_1977]

Dear Steve,

I would be very much interested in hearing more details about the new diet. I understand that you do not want to post all the details in your blog. But maybe you could make it a thread here in the forum instead. I am sure many would be interested!

Happy 2008!
Chris

[chilove]

Hello Steve!!!

I'm so excited that you are going raw for 30 days! You will love it. I have been raw for 4 years. Going 100% raw vegan cured me of long standing painful chronic conditions such as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic bladder infections, obesity, depression and anxiety (including panic attacks). Raw has been a HUGE blessing in my life. I have discovered a life full of energy, health, and enthusiasm. I have great clarity, happiness and peace of mind now. It is truly amazing how much eating our natural diet can improve your health and your life. I am a raw food coach and have seen the same thing happen for many people including my previously "meat and potato" Texan dad who is an actual cowboy!!! I was raised on junk food and was a compulsive overeater. If we can do it, ANYONE can!!!!

You are so right to choose the high fruit/low fat approach as the most sustainable and health giving way to do raw. I currently eat this way and love it!!! However when someone first goes raw I do think that the complicated gourmet recipes can be very helpful in transition and any raw vegan diet is certainly a vast improvement over the standard American diet.

I can't wait to read how great you will feel in 30 days!!! Thanks so much for sharing the great news about raw!!! More and more people are discovery raw and for good reason. It just makes sense.

I would love to converse with you. You can contact me via my website listed below.

Blessings,

Audrey
Raw Food Coach, Raw Food Diet, Emotional Eating, Weight Loss

[Roger Haeske]

Hi Steve and all of you other great folks.

I just started reading Steve's blog and this forum today as he linked to my site from the post about his 30 Day Raw Food Diet Trial.

I'm glad to see there's so much interest on your forum about eating raw. This is one field where there is a lot of misinformation.

But I can tell by your writing and your forum posts that you now have a very good handle on the main issues. I think you're going to do just great in this 30 day trial and you'll see it won't be nearly as time consuming as in the past.

For me the only time consuming thing is that I tend to go shopping for food every other day. But eating and making my breakfast for instance doesn't take me more than 15 minutes.

Dinner which is usually two or three large blended salads, doesn't take very long to prepare or eat either. I can make a blended salad in 5 to 7 minutes.

And it could take even less time if I didn't do any food preparation and just ate the foods as mono meals.

One person mentioned being hungry all of the time when eating a high fruit diet. I used to have the same problem but no more. It's likely you still weren't consuming enough calories. Bananas really helps in that regard. I usually eat around 20 a day.

If any of you are interested I've made a quick survey of people who are interested in the raw food diet. If you fill it out I'll give you access to a free teleseminar I'm doing about your biggest raw food diet problems. It's this Thursday evening.

Please visit this blog post if you want to learn more. I'm really curious to see the opinions of people who may not be as familiar with the raw food diet as my regular readers are.

Can You Help Me With This? | Raw Food Diet, Bodyweight Fitness & Self-Help

I'm going to keep an eye on Steve's progress. Ideally you'd have a place to post every single day as it will help you to stay raw. Maybe you can just add to one post each day and anyone interested can come back and read your updates for the day.

Cheers, Roger

[impaul99]

My response to this article is that I haven't done enough research yet on the difference between a vegan diet compared to an all fruit diet to comment, so I am interested to hear what changes you experience.

However, one thing that I did want to mention is that after numerous 30 day trials, two of which I posted about on my old blog, I no longer believe that 30 Day Trials work.

I wrote an article about Why 30 Day Trials Don't Work http://www.inspiredmoneymaker.com/in...als_dont_work/ for anyone interested.

Just my take on it.

[impaul99]

Originally Posted by Derek Pankaew

No, most fruits and vegetables contain EFAs. For example:

8 ounces of strawberries contains 0.15 grams of Omega 3, and 0.20 grams of Omega 6.

Pineapple, 0.04, 0.05, respectively. Avacado, 0.04, 0.47.

A google search for the nutritional breakdown of a banana:

WHFoods: Banana

(Search for "Omega.")

The amounts are small in individual fruits, but a primarily fruit-based diet will provide sufficient EFAs for the human body.

Cool, I'll check that out.

Hmm, a school of thought that I agree with is "If it's not appealing in it's natural state, it wasn't meant for human consumption." That isn't to say it's unhealthy to eat steamed broccoli, it's just not optimal.

Since we weren't born with a steamer and a stove attached to our bodies, do our bodies really need to eat something that must be steamed before consumption? Can the lack of this 'something' result in a deficiency, when it was only available to us in the last few thousand years?

I don't know if I'd apply that general belief like that though. Meaning, sure you can eat cauliflower without steaming it, but steaming it just helps to soften the fibers a bit so that it isn't as irritating to our intestines.

Did our ancestors eat cauliflower without steaming it? Sure. Did it irritate their bowels? If it was the same cauliflower as we have today, and their bowels were the same as ours are, then probably it did.

Our ancestors only really needed to live for about 20 years in order to reproduce in large enough quantities to survive and keep the human race going, so when I look at health and nutrition, I look for what's optimal for the body right now, with today's food, under todays conditions, using today's technology.

Don't forget that our soil, our climate, our vegetables and such have all changed over time so we need to adjust as well.

I prefer to just look for what's healthiest, not what's most closest to resemble what our ancestors ate. Who's to say that our ancestors all didn't die prematurely due to malnutrition? Like I said, caveman Joe only really needed to be alive long enough to spread the seed to keep the human race going. If we have the technology and intellect now to analyze foods and determine that one type of food, prepared a certain way is better than a different type of food, then why not use it?

We can use history to teach us what a lot of us have forgotten in the modern world, but we can also learn from the modern world as well.

That's my take on it.

One thing that I will tell you from my nutritional studies is that there definitely is no sure fire formula that works for everyone, and things are definitely much more complicated due to the mind/spirit/body link. The body is a whole system of energy/mind/spirit/body, not just some machine that you feed a certain amount of milligrams of something each day to guarantee results.

You can be the healthiest eating person alive, but if you hate your life, are stressed out and have no purpose, your body will self destruct anyways, regardless how well you eat.

[maggieairstream]

I hope you will report what you eat and the progress you make every day on your blog, Steve.

I subscribe to Roger Haske's Superbeing forum and his blog directed me to your blog. I was contemplating having a bowl of oatmeal tonight (another failure to stay 100% raw) when I read your blog and have now decided to have a salad -- with some avocado -- instead. I've been all raw today (fruit only). I've had many long-term successes on all raw (except for 1 cup of coffee every day - which I want to end on January 1, 2008).

I want to stay raw starting today and your blog would be greatly helpful.

Kathy

[Savage]

@Kathy: You might find this article helpful on giving up coffee:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...ive-up-coffee/

I found it easy to switch to Teeccino and/or herbal tea. Once those switch is made, it's easier to quit those hot drinks because they aren't addictive. You could even switch to hot water with lemon as a further step if needed.

[saule]

I would love to follow your 30-day trial with raw foods. I hope you will update often and won't leave anything out. The raw food topic is especially interesting to me since I have tried it numerous times over the years with interesting results. However I have to follow the low sugar version of this diet because I have insulin problems. The best results I felt during this diet was when I spent 2 weeks at the Hippocrates Institute in FL. I drank 4oz of wheat grass and no fruit at all and I felt the results instantly. All my health problems improved after first week. Anyway, I am curious to see how you will do on the high sugar version. (may cause dental problems?) good luck! I'll be reading. emma

[orangeyouglad]

Steve's most recent entry made me giggle because I have, in fact, eaten (cooked) goat testicle. I thought it tasted like kidney.

I'm very interested in this experiment and am looking forward to reading Steve's progress reports. I find the idea of what people 'should' eat fascinating, particularly because modern ideas of what 'food' is include so much artificial garbage.

[Aranya]

Hi Steve,

Good luck with your experiment. I too am back on raw after a few attempts in the past (the first over ten years ago when I lived in a raw food house here in the UK). I recently did a detox retreat & that has launched me back on a re-discovery of raw. I'm very excited about it again.

I know exactly what you mean about the raw gourmet route - it does take a lot of time, but seems to suit parents already spending a lot of time preparing food for their children. I'm a busy guy too, so tend towards a fairly high fruit diet, which is indeed easy to prep.

I have recently been reading books by Victoria Boutenko (Green for Life) & Mike Nash (Aggressive Health) & they both point towards the key missing ingredient in most raw diets being chlorophyll. This makes sense as it is almost identical to the basis of haemoglobin & easy for the body to make blood with. Victoria identified that while wild primates have a high fruit diet, they also eat a significant proportion of leaves & blossoms (25-50%, depending upon the season). So she started making green smoothies - blending fresh greens with fruit & now thinks that it has made all the difference in making the diet a success with her family. I've only just started doing this (about a week), but I so far feel really good including at least one every day & it certainly takes away my hunger for a long time afterwards.

Another area you might like to check out is a friend of mine, Tony Wright, a long term raw fooder, who has also been doing some revolutionary thinking & experiential research this last decade around the raw diet in relation to human evolution, sleep & consciousness. In order to get some more attention for his work he even did an 11-day monitored experiment this summer & broke the world sleep-deprivation record. It's mind-blowing stuff, so you might like to check out his work at Left in the Dark.

Enjoy! and good luck!

Aranya

[Hyperchiller]

Steve if you're going on a raw food diet you might be interested in looking at David Wolfe's work. He is a very passionate man teaching about raw foods, superfoods and how to have the best day ever!

DavidWolfe.com > Home

[Emjay]

I really enjoyed the Dec. 31 entry on Steve's blog. Very thorough and interesting.

A point I've noticed through my years as a vegetarian, vegan, and now, raw vegan, is how funny it is that people scrutinize, analyze, criticize, and cross-examine the possible downfalls of a healthy diet, often using the standard questions we all hear as background noise but don't really research (how do you get your protein, what about B12, what about calcium...) BUT many of the same people eat the standard junk/chemical/additive-filled processed food diet and don't bat an eyelash at that. As if to do something good for oneself requires years of advance research and a team of experts, but to continue in the same unhealthy, tiring habits is beyond scrutiny. Does the person on the SAD (Standard American Diet) pose the same questions about their own intake? I think not. And what puts a person more at risk? I really think we get this backwards.

I'm at a point where I don't mind the standard questions at all (I had them all myself once), but it would be interesting to have the SAD person turn their nutritional questions onto their own diet and see what they come up with.

And, as always, use your own health, weight, level of vitality, and lab results as the measure of your success.

~~Melissa
RAWintuition: my transition into the raw diet

[Cat Dancer]

Yesterday, day two, was my first day completely on the diet. I ate fruit during the day and then in the evening I had a salad of vegetables. I noticed a couple of interesting things: I grabbed a piece of fruit and ate it whenever I felt hungry, so I had no "meals" during the entire day. It was like I was snacking all day long. And also interestingly, it didn't seem to me that I've been eating a lot of food. A few bananas, a few apples, a few oranges, and I'm happy.

I adapted to the diet quickly, by this second day I was experiencing a more steady, sustained energy level, without the strange hyperness / sleepiness combination I was feeling on the first day.

And what did I do with this higher energy level? Er... watched two seasons of Battlestar Galactica... !

[Roger Haeske]

Originally Posted by Emjay

I really enjoyed the Dec. 31 entry on Steve's blog. Very thorough and interesting.

A point I've noticed through my years as a vegetarian, vegan, and now, raw vegan, is how funny it is that people scrutinize, analyze, criticize, and cross-examine the possible downfalls of a healthy diet, often using the standard questions we all hear as background noise but don't really research (how do you get your protein, what about B12, what about calcium...) BUT many of the same people eat the standard junk/chemical/additive-filled processed food diet and don't bat an eyelash at that. As if to do something good for oneself requires years of advance research and a team of experts, but to continue in the same unhealthy, tiring habits is beyond scrutiny. Does the person on the SAD (Standard American Diet) pose the same questions about their own intake? I think not. And what puts a person more at risk? I really think we get this backwards.

I'm at a point where I don't mind the standard questions at all (I had them all myself once), but it would be interesting to have the SAD person turn their nutritional questions onto their own diet and see what they come up with.

And, as always, use your own health, weight, level of vitality, and lab results as the measure of your success.

~~Melissa
RAWintuition: my transition into the raw diet

That is a right on quote Melissa. It's exactly what I've been thinking. I believe that the people who want the studies are really saying is that they can't really imagine giving up their favorite cooked foods.

It likely has little to do with a search for truth and more to do with insulating them from the truth that they are doing great harm to themselves with their current diets.

Any kind of logic could dictate that eating grapes is healthier than Doritos, pastries, high salt soups, caffeine, hot dogs, chocolate cakes, hamburgers, etc. Anyone who denies this is in my opinion, just not thinking straight.

Sure they may make some kind of (false) blood sugar issue argument. But all of those foods are cooked, highly processed and have all sorts of chemical additives.

If we ran a test of 100 people and 50 of those had to eat only Big Macs and the other 50 could only eat grapes every day for 2 weeks. Who do you think would have the better health results?

Or what if you took 100 people and had 50 eat only brown rice and the other 50 only eat bananas for 2 weeks. Which group do you think would get the better results.

If it was an unbiased test, I'd put all of money on the raw fruit group in each and every instance. Not to say we don't need other foods, but in comparison to Big Macs and brown rice, fruit is much better for us.

Roger

[Dan.Linehan]

Originally Posted by tekomino

Talk about extreme and middle path

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
- Jiddu Krishnamurti

[GODISHERE4YOU]

That is a lot of fruit! How much sugar do you think one body can take each day (I do understand that the fiber offsets the sugar some)? Also, why are you excluding grains and garlic and onions? I understand eating minimal beans, but why are you completely cutting out beans?

I tried a vegan raw foods diet a number of months ago (I was and am already a vegan) but I attend a boarding school, so it's hard to find a afford food that is not already given to you (processed and cooked) from the cafeteria. I have also been recently diagnosed with celiacs disease, which limits how much grain I can eat (which I believe is a great source of calories and protein, being told that a lot of protein is important until now).

[tekomino]

Originally Posted by Dan.Linehan

“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
- Jiddu Krishnamurti

Thats the good one.

But, it is extremes that defines us. Nobody would care if Steve said he is going to try French cooking for 30 days to see how it goes. People are just not interested in that. But if you take it to the extreme like eating raw meat or raw fruit people start to pay attention. Steve is shrewd businessman so he takes advantage of that... Law of attraction, no need to have job, beg instead of work and all that...

Nothing wrong with that, we naturally flock to extremes.

Extremes define us.

Ron Paul understands that as well

[Natsu]

Originally Posted by danaseilhan

The other reason I don't eat vegan is the environmental arguments do not convince me. You kill more animals plowing and planting an agricultural field than you do slaughtering one cow.

And how many agricultural fields do you think are needed to feed all those cows? Most of the deforestation in the Amazon rainforest is done to raise cows or crops to feed cows.

However, I'll grant you that reducing the inmense amount of foods we eat would have just as a high benefit in the environment than people going vegan. I mean, if you don't do much sports, you are supposed to eat no more than 50 grams of meat or animal protein a day. I guess the problem is we eat a lot of bad quality animal products. Maybe if we ate little and good the problem would be solved at its highest. In the previous generation of my family, people only ate meat on special days, generally Sundays and holidays, the rest of the times it was legumes, rice and veggies. I guess going back to that would improve people's healths and the environment greatly without need of going vegan. It makes more sense to eat chicken once a week, it being a chicken that ate grains and was raised in a farm instead of a cage, than eating one or two pounds of hormonated, antibiotic-filled meat daily.


Going back to the topic... Raw food being easier to digest and leaving more energy sounds extremely reasonable to me. I find it easier to stay awake after a meal if I've eaten vegetables.

The temperature data may also be correct. I told my husband about feeling more energetic when eating only salads, and he agreed, but added: "The problem is I feel very cold, even when unloading the truck carriers". The cold is a problem for him, he works at a supermarket which is kept at a very low temperature, and his body not being able to heat enough is a nuisance for him. Maybe it's all a question of trying for 30 days, maybe with time the body will adjust the temperature. Whatever the case, it's true that veggie food doesn't heat your body as a fried chicken with chips would. I wonder if it has to do with the amount of calories included in the foods... A pound of tomatoes and lettuce can't have the same calories as the same quantity of fried potatoes and chicken.

However... I am very interested in seeing how Steve fares. I have a problem with lack of proper sleep and energy, and besides got a few pounds this Christmas. So if you can lose seven pounds in a week, I'm seriously considering giving it a try. Only I wish I had a better hand with salt and vinegar. I can never make a tasty salad, no matter how hard I've tried: I make them healthy, varied and elaborate, but they never get good enough as for them to be as desirable as a good Spanish omelette. I guess good cooking skills are a must when going vegan or raw, right? Cucumbers alone aren't very appetizing.

[bwb]

I'd been considering giving a raw/living foods diet a fair trial for some time now, but kept putting it off (I have all the cooked food I need to eat; my friends are going to think I'm even more weird; how am I going to eat out?). I think it's time to break the "someday, when it's the right time" pattern and adopt a new motto: The only perfect time for anything is right now.

I eliminated all animal foods from my diet last January 1, thanks in no small part to one of Steve's posts kicking me out of my old "nobody can thrive on a vegan diet" belief. I developed a curiosity about raw foods, buying a few (gourmet) cookbooks and making a few things, but mostly scratching my head trying to figure out where to source exotic ingredients like Irish Moss and raw cocoa butter. I also discovered that raw foodism is fringe-of-the-fringe. Even many vegans think you're crazy if you talk about going all raw. The other thing that concerned me was that while scientific evidence for the health benefits of a plant-based, whole-foods diet is very well established, there has been very little study of raw food diets, quite probably because there just aren't many people to study, and in constrast to vegetarian and vegan diets, there aren't any known ethnic communities of raw foodists.

Inspired by the stories of several people who went all-raw and realized major benefits, I've decided to take the plunge. I had my last cooked meal last night. Being New Year's, I stayed up way too late and slept in even later. I felt pretty crummy, and my digestive system wasn't too happy about the late meal of quinoa stir-fry I left sitting in it all night. I ate a bowl of blood oranges and a basket of blueberries for breakfast (err, lunch), and about 30 minutes later I felt fantastic! I've stocked my kitchen with lots of fresh fruits and veggies, and now I'm going to enjoy a big salad, more fruit, and celery with cashew hummus.

I plan to keep this up for at least 60 days unless I discover a health-related reason to stop. I don't have a blog, but I will be journaling what I eat and how I feel over the next few months. If this exercise turns up something insightful to add to the raw foods discussion, I'll post a summary.

[Natsu]

Just a question, in case any of the already-raw foodist know it? Where do pistachios go into the raw food general scheme?

And, can you drink tea? I mean read, white, red and rooibos, not dark black tea. Or would drinking tea spoil the whole diet?

[Ecstasy]

Talk about intention-manifestation... I was pondering the raw diet for a few days now. I log on and poof! Steve's doing a raw food trial.

For any of the raw foodists out there, would you recommend being a vegan for a time before going raw? I'm currently a lacto-ovo vegetarian (though I rarely eat diary products/eggs). I don't know if going to raw would be too extreme. Maybe I should transition into vegan first?

[GODISHERE4YOU]

I would most certainly attempt the vegan diet first. Before I tried the raw diet I had already been vegan for a few years. I don't think I would have done well if I wasn't a vegan first.

To another person: Tea isn't considered raw (because the hot water would bring the herbs above 160 degrees), however, I know many people who failed to see the downfall in drinking hot tea on a raw diet. I did, and I think it was nice to have something warm once in a while, especially when living in a very cold climate.

[Natsu]

Thanks for the answer about tea. I know some raw foodist put the tea in the jar and then the jar somewhere where it gets sunlight, but I like my tea pretty warm. Maybe the tea loses some of its benefits, but what I wanted to know if it would spoil the diet. I guess a hot cup of green tea cannot spoil the effect of a raw diet as much as eating a pound steak. I had thenotion that a steak or bowl of rice may need more effort to digest, but Thanks for answering Godisthere4you. I had the notion that if you "skip" on raw by having a cup of tea, it can't spoil the benefits of the diet much, because your body doesn't probably need a lot of effort to digest tea (it's not like digesting ice cream, bet).

[masmilele]

Go for it Steve we are behind you a 100%

[Dbarker]

Originally Posted by GODISHERE4YOU

I would most certainly attempt the vegan diet first. Before I tried the raw diet I had already been vegan for a few years. I don't think I would have done well if I wasn't a vegan first.

I would agree. When I went vegan last April, it was a mostly raw diet and I didn't do as well as when I went vegan first. Still not raw, but contemplating it. I got a raw recipe book from my sister at Christmas because she thought I was raw. A sign maybe?

[GODISHERE4YOU]

Originally Posted by Dbarker

I would agree. When I went vegan last April, it was a mostly raw diet

That's the other thing that makes going raw easier once you're vegan, if you're into still being healthy while you're a vegan (and it is hard) you end up eating a lot of raw food. For me, I started when I was in fourth grade, my mother told me that she wasn't going to cook for me, so I made my meals everyday and frankly I got sick of it. I also had to make do with what we had in the house, so I got my fruits and veges raw. When you're a vegan in a meat atmosphere you eat lots of salads with lots of beans, seeds, and nuts. Most of this is raw.

[Cat Dancer]

Day Three I ate fruit during the day and then in the evening I had a salad (half a bag of pre-washed veggies from the supermarket and a tomato I cut up).

My energy level seemed a little down from the day before, but still higher than what it was before the diet change. I found myself taking a rest during the day, but didn't fall asleep. (On my old diet heavy on grains and tofu products I'd take a nap and fall asleep after lunch every day).

At this point I'm taking almost no time in food preparation: I feel hungry, I grab a piece of fruit and eat it... for my salad I spent all of twenty seconds to cut up the tomato.

I'll be interested to see if I either gain or lose weight on this diet, especially since I'm not doing any kind of portion planning or even having "meals"... I just eat something whenever I feel hungry.

[sketchygirl]

I'm looking forward to this, mostly just for some healthy tips to revise my diet. This particular diet appeals to me because I like the idea of eating A LOT of something.

[DRK]

I'm interested to see how Steve does with his 30 days of low fat raw vegan. I've been vegetarian/vegan for over 20 years, and have tried out 80-10-10 quite a bit in the last year. I definitely feel better following 811 than any other way of eating, but emotional & social issues get in the way sometimes.
Anyhow, as for the question of Vitamin B12, the best article I've read on it is a fairly recent one, from Dr. John McDougall, who's well-respected in the low fat vegan community: The McDougall Newsletter - Vitamin B12 Deficiency, The Meat Eaters' Last Stand