Raw Food Diet - Day 8 (Blog)

[Steve Pavlina]

Use this thread to discuss the following entry from Steve Pavlina's blog:

Raw Food Diet - Day 8

[axis]

Steve, first wanted to say thank you for doing all this. I was so intrigued that I convinced my girlfriend to do this with me. My cats get a home made, species appropriate diet every meal, and I always wanted to try it for myself. I even had a discussion with a friend about a week before your first post about this, I figured it was too coincidental, so thank you again.

My question is why did you avoid such foods as garlic, peppers and onions? I have read great things about garlic, but that is beside the point, I am using it more for an additional flavor for certain things. The same goes for the peppers and onions. I would add them to the avocado, in a blender. It makes guacamole paste basically, but it is dynamite on veggies.

Also, the smoothies are simply fantastic, that is such an easy way to eat leafy foods and they don't even taste like it's in there.

[elai]

I wonder if you'll track your costs like your tracking your calories? This diet sound mucho expensive ($400/month/person!), especially for student types.

[nickynoodles]

I found a very well written and balanced take on raw diets on the Vegan society website, written by a PhD. Most other things I've read seem to be very polarized.

Raw Food

Enjoying reading the blog updates Steve!

[SteveR]

Hey Everybody.

I was wondering if anyone has an opinion on putting a scoop of whole-food supplement into a smoothie as a simple, tasty way to get a nice blast of nutrition, instead of doing a "green smoothie." I believe that most of these ingredients (listed below) are freeze-dried, and I don't think that they're all raw. FYI - I'm not mentioning the brand name, to keep this non-commercial - if someone wants to know, please PM me.

Thanks,
SteveR

Nutrient Dense Superfoods
Barley Grass Juice Powder, Certified Organic Beet Juice Powder, Organic Carrot Juice Powder, Chlorella - Cracked Cell, Parsley Juice Powder, Spirulina Powder, Watercress Juice Powder
Antioxidant Blend
(ORAC value=3,083)
Acerola Berry Juice Powder, Bioflavinoids (Citrus), Blueberry Powder, Grape Seed Extract – 92%, Green Tea Catechins - 60%, Orange Juice Powder, Pineapple Juice Powder, Red Raspberry Powder,Turmeric Powder, Vitamin C - Natural Rose Hips, Vitamin E (d-alpha tocopherol), Dandelion,Aloe Vera - Freeze Dried, Spearmint
Pow R Fiber
Apple Fiber, Apple Pectin, Flax Seed Meal - Certified Organic,Rice Bran Powder
Energizing Cellular Support
Bamboo, Cinnamon,Gingko Biloba - 24%, Horsetail, Lecithin Powder - 99% oil free,Siberian Ginseng – Eleutherococcus, Suma, Stevia
Immune Support
Non-Dairy Probiotic Culture - 8.5 Billion
Proprietary blend
Astragalus Membranaceous, Damiana, Ginger Powder, Silymarin SilibumMarianum - 80%, Nova Scotia Dulse, Royal Jelly 5% 10-HAD, Plant Enzymes: Lipase, Protease, Amylase & Cellulase

[SmellyOrc]

I did a typical weight workout at the gym this morning, making gains in 4 out of 5 exercises.

I hope you didn't do leg presses and... whatever sissy exercises again? If you did... we really need to talk.

[Jaben]

Steve,

Thank you for all of your hard work documenting this trial so well!

I've been eating raw for 15 months, 13 of those I was purely raw but I had some break downs in June and December of last year. You're trial has made me realize I was eating too many nuts and fats and also doing some bad food combining which resulted in some indigestion and loose stool more frequent than I'd prefer. Those problems have been resolved on the all you can eat banana diet

Increasing fruit consumption really makes this diet much more convenient as well and I expect it to completely eliminate any strong cravings. Thanks!

You asked about salad in a blender recipes...

In her book "Green for Life" Botenko also has several savory smoothies, or what you were calling salad in a blender. I've been drinking them daily and really enjoy these savory recipes. Sometimes I want my greens without the fruit and with out having to chew a bushel of salad. These are really satisfying and delicious.

The chlorophyll in greens such as kale should help with the bad breath if you increase your intake of greens in your green smoothies. Increasing your intake of greens should help you meet the %10 goal for protein with out exceeding the desired percentage of fat intake.

Below are some great green smoothie recipes from Victoria Boutenko's newsletter which I found here.

Mango-parsley
2 large mangos
1 bunch parsley
Water

Peach-spinach
6 peaches
2 handfuls of spinach leaves
Water

Mango-weeds
2 mangos
1 handful of lambs quarters, stinging nettles, purslane, etc
Water

Strawberry-banana-romaine
1-cup strawberries
2 bananas
½ bunch romaine
Water

Apple-kale-lemon
4 apples
½ lemon juice
4-5 leaves of kale
Water

Kiwi-banana-celery
4 very ripe kiwis
1 ripe banana
3 stalks of celery
Water

Pear-kale-mint
4 ripe pears
4-5 leaves of kale
½ bunch of mint
Water

Finger banana-spinach
10 finger-bananas
2 handfuls of spinach leaves
Water

Bosc pear-raspberry-kale
3 bosc pears
1 handful of raspberries
4-5 leaves of kale
Water

[gettingskinny]

Steve, you are doing great! Thank you for taking the time to document everything. Know it's appreciated! Are you drinking all of the smoothie pictured? Wow, I too would be curious about your costs.

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by SmellyOrc

I hope you didn't do leg presses and... whatever sissy exercises again? If you did... we really need to talk.

I basically use the exercises from the book Power Factor Training, which include a mixture of compound and isolation exercises, although I don't currently use their overall training approach. I typically do a split routine with alternating lower body and upper body workouts. The leg press in particular has worked well for me, and I often do toe presses on the same machine. I find this more effective than squats, and many say the leg press is less injury-prone too, especially on the lower back.

I realize there are many different training methodologies out there, but what I'm currently doing has been effective at increasing my strength, at least when I train consistently. As I mentioned in the blog, I took several months off of weight training and how only been back into it since mid-December. I still have a little ways to go to return to my previous peak levels on each exercise, but I expect I'll be there within another 2-4 weeks at the current rate of improvement.

I'm always open to new ideas in this area, so feel free to post suggestions or PM me if you'd like. I often experiment with different types of workouts for 30-90 days to see if I notice any difference.

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by gettingskinny

Steve, you are doing great! Thank you for taking the time to document everything. Know it's appreciated! Are you drinking all of the smoothie pictured? Wow, I too would be curious about your costs.

Thanks for the encouragement.

If it's in the photo, it means I ate/drank all of it. I often drink the first glass of smoothie with the solid food and then take the second glass to my office.

I mentioned the cost estimates in the Day 5 update. I'm guessing I eat about $15 of food per day, but I could get that below $5 if I really wanted to. In fact, I think it's getting cheaper as I go along, since I'm eating more bananas, which are only $0.59 per pound at Albertson's. The main reason it's higher than $5 per day is that I enjoy some of the more expensive foods like raw tahini (around $10-15 per jar for the truly raw kind), fresh berries, and organic foods.

[gettingskinny]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

Thanks for the encouragement.

If it's in the photo, it means I ate/drank all of it. I often drink the first glass of smoothie with the solid food and then take the second glass to my office.

I mentioned the cost estimates in the Day 5 update. I'm guessing I eat about $15 of food per day, but I could get that below $5 if I really wanted to. In fact, I think it's getting cheaper as I go along, since I'm eating more bananas, which are only $0.59 per pound at Albertson's. The main reason it's higher than $5 per day is that I enjoy some of the more expensive foods like raw tahini (around $10-15 per jar for the truly raw kind), fresh berries, and organic foods.

Sorry, I must have missed that post. That's not too bad. $5-$15 dollars per day per person is a good range. People can do what works best for them/their family. If someone has a family of four and everyone will eat the cheaper things, then they could get away with $20/day or $140 per week. I don't know how realistic that is. The high end would be about $60/day or $420/week. Wow that adds up. So in your example it would be anywhere from $140-$420/week for a family of 4 all eating all raw. I'm thinking it would be closer to the higher end. I notice for us it is about $250-$300 per week eating this way. In the past when we were eating high raw, all organic, raw dairy, etc. we were spending $1200/month! It gets kind of crazy! Thank you for sharing your example so people can have something to go off of!

January

[maserin]

Hi Steve! This is my first time posting, but I've been following your blog and reading your articles for over a year now. Among other things that I need to get around to thanking you for, I especially want to echo some other people on this forum and thank you for the time and effort you are putting into the documentation aspect of your 30 day raw food trial. I went Vegan back in October '07, partially because of your blog, and I have thought about trying a raw food diet someday. Your documentation has done two wonderful things for me:

1) I am an extremely visual learner and, for me, seeing the photographs of your meals has been fantastic. It might seem like a small thing, but for people like me, seeing it is as important as reading about it, so the effort you're making to show us what a raw food diet looks like is totally worth it!

2) Opened my eyes even wider to the abundance of the vegan diet. For the first thirty days I felt somewhat limited, but the next thirty rid me of those thoughts almost completely, and now they are totally gone. You talked about this in an earlier post. I think we both had the same thought at the same time; you posted it right after I realized it!

I know of noone else who has done something similar to what you are doing. I predict that it will become a standard resource for years to come for anyone thinking of trying out a raw foods diet.

So thanks again and I hope you remember this post the next time you're frustrated with how long its taking to upload those pictures or weigh those bananas!

--Erin

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by gettingskinny

Sorry, I must have missed that post. That's not too bad. $5-$15 dollars per day per person is a good range. People can do what works best for them/their family. If someone has a family of four and everyone will eat the cheaper things, then they could get away with $20/day or $140 per week. I don't know how realistic that is. The high end would be about $60/day or $420/week. Wow that adds up. So in your example it would be anywhere from $140-$420/week for a family of 4 all eating all raw. I'm thinking it would be closer to the higher end. I notice for us it is about $250-$300 per week eating this way. In the past when we were eating high raw, all organic, raw dairy, etc. we were spending $1200/month! It gets kind of crazy! Thank you for sharing your example so people can have something to go off of!

I doubt young kids will be eating 2500 calories per day on this diet, so depending on the age of your kids, it could be cheaper.

[Steve Pavlina]

@maserin: Thanks for the feedback.

[Fortune]

I have read somewhere that SAD eaters need 2500 calories (or whatever) because they spent most of their energy actually digesting food.

A raw foodie who eats simpler foods and therefore requires less energy to digest should be able to cope with much fewer calories. (Obviously after being fully transitioned to a raw diet.)

What do you think of that theory?

[Fullcrum]

Steve...I don't know how old gettingskinny's children are, but if you think that kids can't consume 2500 calories a day...you got another thing coming! Especially for teenagers. We can eat alot.

[Bender.PUA]

Hey I just found out about a great new-old diet. Tapeworm Diet

[Wildside]

My 100% raw trial is over. I learned a lot by trying it for the 7 or 8 days I did. But I am much happier with eating around 75% raw. That let's me eat whatever I like, and that just feels great! Good luck to you Steve, it looks like you will have no problem finishing the 30 days and maybe even beyond, and good luck to everyone else who is also doing a 30 day raw trial.

I found this site really informative Idealism vs. Realism in Raw Food Diets