Question to the raw foodists here

Hi friends

Now that we have some raw foodists here, and bigwii as a former fruitarian, i thought you could share your experiences with us on this subject.

I've tried raw food for about 6 months after reading D. Wolfe, S. Arlin, Wandmaker and Konz.

Maybe i did something wrong, or maybe rawfood is not for me, but anyway, i felt like shit the whole time, from the start to the end, and it got worse. I lost 50lbs and lots of strength. I was weak and wobbly all the time. I got bad teeth and anaemia. I think i had severe protein, calory and Vit. B deficiency, and maybe others, too.

Now i don't say raw food is crap, but what could i have done wrong?

I tried various forms of eating raw in that time, mono, salads, high fruits, low fruits, high nuts, no nuts etc. I bought two glasses for sprouting and did it all the time

At first i thought okay, it's the famous "detoxification", but after two weeks i began to doubt that. I mean, i've never drank alcohol in my life, nor smoked, never used drugs of any kind, VERY seldom medicine, i have been eating clean for years before the raw food period - vegan for 2 years. I think there couldn't be so much to detoxify in my body...

I learned a lot about my body, though, about digestion and what foods are good and what are bad for me.

I'm especially curious about fruitarianism (Bigwii?).

What does a fruitarian eat? Fruits, obviously, but how do you define fruit? Biologically, that would mean, tomatoes, cucumbers etc. are okay. Or just the sweet fruits? Berries? Raw nuts? Mainly tropical fruits, or local? Fruits by the season? What in winter? Dried fruits??

Do you eat ONLY fruits, what about green leaves, i've heard they're very important on a raw diet?

Many questions

Thanks in advance for any input,

love and peace,

Daywalker

yes I am curious to know as well. What exactly do fruitarians eat and al the other questions about raw foods that Alex asked.

thanks!

Hi Daywalker! AND COMPGIRL!!!

FRUITARIANISM

I know for a fact that Fruitarianism needs it's own voice as it is generally not a socially accepted part of the raw vegan community! if you spend any amount of time on raw food forums or tell anyone your a Fruitarian you will soon find this out. I think the main difference between raw vegans and fruitarians is mental attitude and awareness I've tried to be as one with raw vegans but I always end up standing as a lone individual among the crowd, I've also seen this happen to other fruitarians too. It's my observation that there is a difference between a fruitarian motivated by health and an ethical fruitarian, a fruitarian motivated by health seems less emotionally charged than a ethical one, I personaly would like to be more ethical but with less charge! I think that eating raw food is eating rawfood and that's all there is to it but it's us a people that create definitions and complicated ideas into the mix of things! and the funny thing is is that if you was to ask a raw vegan what they ate most they would probably say fruit anyway! it takes all kinds of people, eh! One of the most important lessons to learn about Fruitarianism is that Fruitarianism is simplicity itself and that the problem lies with people adding their own spiritual definitions to it, I really don't believe spirituality has anything to do with eating fruits per se, I personaly believe that once the body cleanses totally there's only one way it wants to go and that's the true fruitarian way of just eating fruits no nuts or seeds! The detoxification process is a totaly separate issue that needs to be dealt with separately! Despite what you might of heard, the Fruitarian Lifestyle is not just for the "Chosen ones" as some people might have you think. Another personal belief I have is that fruit is not the be all and end all of life I believe that cleansiness is/was the key of life! and in ancient times we didn't need fruit to clean us because we were already clean!!!! fruit is a product of ancient times but we are not I believe that as far as eating fruits is concerned our bodies are out of sync, I've even met people that say they cannot tolerate eating fruit period. There's a big misconception that all fruitarians just eat sweet fruits, this is far from the case among the fruitarians I know!! I think the ones that do just eat sweet fruits are the ones that complain about their teeth rotting and get all the wrong attention for getting sick! I personaly do not eat enough fruits let alone sweet fruits to rot my teeth! I think these people are still feeding their addiction to sweetness by using sweet fruits to replace the sweet junk food, etc, that they previously had, I did exactly the same thing when I first started, that's why I failed miserably in the begining! there's so much more to Fruitarianism than a lot of peple care to know and it's a crying shame that people don't take the time to see this. To understand Fruitarianism you must first understand Breatharianisn and Liquidarianism. I personaly think that breatharianism holds the answers to fruitarianism and the more I look into it the more I 'm convinced that fruits were designed to attract us and other animals for the sole purpose of spreading it's seeds and that we lived off of fresh air and the energy of the sun and ate fruits in small amounts not the vast quantities we do today! I also believe that back in the days we were foragers and we ate what ever we could find such as raw nuts in their natural state,etc. I don't believe that we lived off of just fresh air because the animals eat solids and they are more natural than we are. Fruitarianism is not a choice it's a destination, it's a natural progression from a Raw Vegan lifestyle it should never be put on a pedestal. When you embark on a Fruitarian lifestyle you must also get past the mystery, myths and sensationalism that surround it, yes becoming a Fruitarian is sheer bliss, it re-educates you and your body, brings it back to nature, teaches you that we are the students and nature is the teacher, it's beauty is in it's simplicity and honesty but the journey to this point demands commitment, there are many things to keep in mind, one of them is that nothing in this world is pure anymore, there's so many things that's done to fruit before it even gets to us, for instance some oranges are boiled so they last longer in the stores some are even dyed orange so they look.....orange! some bananas are gased to last longer in the stores, some commercial fruit is also bred to be sweeter, in these modern times the reality is that Fruitarianism falls way short of what it should be due to modern day breeding, pesticides, gases and storage, etc, the only up side with all of this is that fruit is what our bodies were naturally designed to eat, the other good thing is that even through all the processes fruit goes through it still is more nutritious than cooked food, so unless you live in an orchard and can grow your own organic fruits you got to get to know where your fruit comes from and how it is stored. The treatment of fruit these days can be nothing short of ing but get used to it! The Fruitarian lifestyle can be as simple as picking up a piece of fruit and eating it! that's the easy bit! the hardest part about all of this is actually how you kick your cooked food addiction and the emotional purge that follows, this is commonly known as the transition/detoxification period, the severity of Your Transition/detoxification depends on the level of abuse you and your parents subjected themselves to while eating cooked food. There's many stages/cycles that you will go through on your detoxification journey you may experiance a period of tooth/back aches that's the toxins leaving the parts where it is stored.

Transitioning.

I don't think that people really understand the true concept or consequences of going raw and how much davastation cooked food abuse has caused to their bodies! people simply don't think it through properly, they read a book written by a self proclaimed rawfood guru that's speaking from a over romantisized/idealistic prospective that's out of touch with reality or a guru that's claiming to be 100% raw but really isn't putting down cooked food and praising rawfood, but as people read and enjoy these books they don't take their own bodies or instincts into account. Fruitarianism is part of an ancient way of living which probably goes back to the dawn of time! back then we didn't need to go through a detoxification process to go raw because we were already raw. I for one count myself lucky to have a body that is still able to function considering the amount of cooked food abuse I've put it through over the years! a lot of people are not so lucky and when it comes for them making the choice to go raw their bodies struggle to make the conversion then they quit and cave in to their addictions and blame their failure on rawfoods! I think this is where a lot of our doubts about raw veganism stems from, that and the fact that there are very few 100% fruit eating longterm Fruitarians willing to stand up and lead the way. I believe that our bodies are getting weaker with each generation because of our consumption of cooked food and bad eating habits, that's why some people can get sick at the drop of a hat and some people are more sucessful at becoming fruitarians we were all built on cooked food because our parents ate cooked food and their parents ate cooked food and so on and so on eating cooked food is the least of our worries because some parents abused themselves further and took other drugs like alcohol and tobacco and hard core stimulants, etc,etc. When you start your transition you are doing two things, on one hand, your purging a generations of toxic waste and social habits and on the other hand your replacing the destructive dead food with live cleansing food and re-educating your body. It's the purging that generally causes the problems, depression, anger, negative emotions, hate, resentment, addiction, headaches to name but a few, are what you are likely to encounter in the early stages of transition, it's really hard to figure out the difference between fact or fiction at this stage due to the toxins raging around inside you, because of this expect to slip up now and again, so it is vitally important that you write down your goals and reason for doing this on a piece of paper as a reference this will help you develope your own airtight belief system before you start, if you slip up, simply go back to what you believe in and start over, you'll learn more from slipping up than you will from giving up all together, although this transition/detox can take years to get through it does get easier as time goes by and as your knowledge of self grows, as your knowledge of self grows so does your knowledge of how to keep your channels of elimination open and what fruits work for you so you can achieve this. Keeping your channels of elimination open means that your toxins will always have an opportunity to be released from the body promptly instead of being trapped and re-absorbed. Fruitarianism is a huge step away from just eating raw food, fruits very light foods and are powerful cleansers so if you are starting from scratch it's important to have a long transition period, Having a long transition period helps a great deal, it's much easier on the mind and body! but don't get caught up in the addiction, back in the days I would get caught up in my addiction and forget about reducing the cooked food and increasing my fruit intake!!! those addictions are lethal it really is like being a crack addict!!! make sure your constantly focused on gradually reducing your cooked food intake and increasing your fruit intake over the course of a year! have a lot of meals with raw items in them to, Grab a pad and pen, write down how you feel on cooked food then write down why you want to be a Fruitarian!!! it 's good to do this because when the detox/cravings get you your going to need some thing to believe in!! I tired a bunch of different cleanses and got some great results from a couple of them but I reached a point where it didn't feel right in my spirit so I stopped, I've since found out that my body can do just as good a job with the right food, it takes experience to be able to listen to your body but in time it will come! do what feels right! right once you start you need as little stress as possible so don't tell anyone what you are doing! wait until you are more experienced and confident at what you are doing because people can sense your uncertainty and will attack your weakest points!!! this is YOUR time to go into your cacoon to emerge as a beautiful butterfly later on! People are going to try to tell you that Fruitarianism doesn't work but don't listen! listen to what feels right inside! listen to your body, it's much closer to nature than your mind or anyone elses mind! Enjoy what your doing!

wieght loss and self esteem.

In the early stages of my Fruitarian journey I went through an awful time mentally and physically trying to make sence of my wieght loss. I had just finished playing pro Rugby, which is like your American football, after six+ years of playing among the top guns and building muscle up so I could hit and take hits it was time for me to quit due to a neck injury, shortly afterwards I discovered Fruitarianism, I thought it was the best thing that happened to me, I took to it 100%, a couple of months later I was noticing that I was losing alot of wieght and strength, I didn't stress about it in the begining then after another couple of months people that knew me when I was playing rugby were telling me that I was looking way too skinny, I ended up losing the few friends I had because was no longer socially accepted I wasn't the athletic hunk that they had percieved me to be! my self esteem went through the floor and I had great trouble dealing with the wieght loss, I was used to being big and athletic and a lot of my self esteem was tied up in looking and feeling good, after a while I got sick of people telling me I was looking like death and I quit the Fruitarian thing a few times because of this, fortunatly for me my body had already made up it's mind that quitting wasn't an option and as time went on my awareness of health issues grew and I decided that I wasn't going to stop the Fruitarian thing and that I will learn to love the new me and maybe some day I could be what I wanted to be! it was at that point that I learnt that the reason why I was losing so much wieght was that my body was getting rid of all my toxins and the more toxins that it got rid of the more wieght I lost, I didn't really lose that much WIEGHT either, what I lost was water and that made me look as though I was losing wieght. THE MORE TOXINS YOU HAVE INSIDE YOU, THE MORE WATER YOU NEED TO NEUTRALIZE THEM so in actual fact I was walking around swollen, I also learnt that when you detox, the body breaks itself down in order to rebuild itself with new tissues, it wasn't until I learnt this that I became really comfortable with my wieght loss, now when people tell me I need to gain wieght I laugh with pride!

Wieght loss occurs when you go through your personal detoxification process, basically as we speak people are walking around SWOLLEN, swollen from the effects of toxic waste due to the vast amounts of acidic cooked food that is consumed, the more toxins you get out of your system the less water your body needs to neutralize the acidic/toxic effects of the cooked food you eat, as you continue to detoxify, your body is also breaking itself down to it's raw essence so it can build itself back up with clean healthy tissue. The whole wieght loss thing can seem very alarming if you are not prepared for it and it's a reason why a lot of people give up their journey to health. The health benefits of a Fruitarian/Raw lifestyle are plentyful and catered to your own personal needs, clear glowing skin, increased energy, greatly improved immune system, are the basic improvements to expect. As you stay dedicated to this lifestyle LIFE DOES GET BETTER!!! IT GETS BETTER THAN BETTER!!!! People say that Fruitarians are on a higher plane of conciousness, well that really depends on how you really want to live your lifestyle the lighter your food the more sensitive you become, if you include nuts, seeds, heavy veggies,etc, you probably won't be as sensitive as someone that eat strictly fruit, also the lighter your food the faster/harder your detoxification process is, having said all that, Fruit is the food we are designed to eat and going raw is one of the most important decisions you can possibly make sticking with it is another story! but it's all on you at the end of the day and how badly you want to live. It's my personal opinion that going Fruitarian/Raw doesn't change who you are, it changes what you are, your true personality will always be there, it just won't be surpressed/blocked. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that this lifestyle will solve all of your problems because it won't, the world/society will still be the same. you will still lose your temper, make bad decisions, not like certain people, etc, the buzz around Fruitarianism is that the few chosen ones will be able to walk on water, unfortunatly that's not entirely true, but your interests will change for sure, wherever it's a more spiritual at one with nature type change or simply a change in philosophy, what ever your true personality is, that's what will come out. Don't hesitate to get the best out of life with your new self, Don't let people put you down for choosing life. Now you have a new body it may feel a little difficult to adjust to your initial strength/flexibility levels, DON'T WORRY your just starting over from scatch it may take a while to get to where you want to get to but it will happen.

The Reality

To many Vegetarians, Vegans, raw vegans Fruitarianism/Breatharianism are attractive concepts, but due to pollution in these modern times the reality is that they fall way short of what they should be due to modern day breeding of fruits, pesticides, gas treatments and storage, pollution in the atmosphere, etc, Fruit was never designed to be taken away and mass produced, it was only meant to be picked and eaten fresh from the tree, being taken, shipped and packed away goes against natures plan. For many people the Fruitarian Lifestyle is extremely hard to attain and very few people can do it without years of serious cleansing. Unfortunatly these days NOTHING is what it used to be, infact due to soil depletion commercial fruit is in a pretty poor state but what's amazed me over the years is that even though the quality of fruit /air is so poor, fruit is still a powerful cleanser and there is still such a powerful connection between the body and the fruit we eat! and air we breath! just imagine if we all could have fruit and air in it's original untouched state!? just imaging the energy we would have! I think it just goes to show how powerful/resilient fruit is to be able to do what it does for us considering what we've done to it! I would love to experience the energy of wild fruit straight from the tree!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the only up side with all of this is that Fresh air and fruit is what we are naturally designed to eat and by eating it we are not distorting or creating blockages in our bodies.

Be careful what you read

Fruitarianism is a natural progression from the rawfood lifestyle, a lot of people make a brave attempt to live the Fruitarian lifestyle but most panic and give up due to their lack of preparation and experiance then proceed to vigorously put down Fruitarianism and anyone attempting it! these people will probably be the ones that will offer the least support if any, then you have the regular people that can't see past their own cooked food addictions adding their ten cents, be very careful what bad stuff you read about fruit! remember your messing with peoples lively hoods when you go against the grain like this! think about it, 1) you don't get sick so your putting docters out of work! 2) You don't eat cooked food so your putting the food industry out of business. the only person profiting off of you is the fruit vender or fruit store! people are quick to tell you that fruit rots your teeth but why does no one question the acidity of coke / softdrinks , pasta , bread , candy or meats,etc!????? so don't worry guys! nature will take care of you! It's my experience that fruit brings out the worst in people when you eat masses of fruit in public, people will automatically feel as if you think your better than them because your doing something that they know that they are supposed to be doing, to see peoples reaction to fruit it's as if your pointing a crucifix at a vampire or something. It's not your fault it's a spiritual/primal thing that causes some kind of conflict from within. Don't be put off, realise this, when people open their mouths they can only speak from where their at, simply for living the Fruitarian lifestyle you may be shunned and isolated by others, don't expect much support, this is where being prepared comes in, to make things worse according to the raw gurus no one can live like this any more, "that was how people used to live millions of years ago and our bodies cannot support this kind of Fruitarian diet any more" is all you are going to read and hear about!!!!modern day guru's complicate raw health matters so much and totally confuse every body just so they can feel important, sell books and stay on the raw food circuit profiting off our addictions by selling processed supplements (ever understood why they write books telling us that processed food is bad and then try and sell us processed supplements?) when really the message is clear once you know it, follow your instincts, throw every thing you know out of the window, listen to the higher power within you, a higher power that some people never get a chance feel or listen to because their bodies are so blocked up by cooked food and all the destructive effects that come with it! a higher power that is alerting you to change. WHICH MAY BE WHY YOUR READING THIS NOW?

Is it all worth it?

I hear ya! I've quit so many times the only reason I have left for doing this is that it makes me feel good as opposed to how I feel when I eat cooked food! no matter how strong my addiction to cooked food can be I'm always left with how I really feel, I was one of those people that was naturaly pulled in by fruitarianism straight off the bat, my body just demanded it one day! not a lot of people get that kind of calling! One thing that concerns me is that I've been doing this for over ten years and nothing in this so called raw food community has changed! you see the same websites with the same info, their aren't even any new gurus! and yet the world still carries on poisoning itself in every way possible! is it all worth it? only you have that answer! As for me, the way I see it is every thing is already messed up even organic! we plant seeds in aready depleted soil, acid rain falls on the planted seeds in the depleted soil which is the same rain that falls on organic fields, we spray the fruits with all different kinds of chemicals on the fruits which also gets blown onto the organic farmers field too, then we boil,dye,gas and irridate the fruits we pick! so to me nobody wins except the food industry! it's depressing but I have to see it this way inorder to stay grounded and Fruitarian. Being Fruitarian for me has to be a personal choice based on how it makes me feel and not because it's healthy, if I had based it on being healthy I would have quit a long time ago!! people think I'm being negative by bringing this up because it goes against the romance and idealism of the raw food thing but I'm being true to myself, I use to read alot of rawfood books and they would all sing the praises of raw food but not one would mention the amount of pesticides/chemicals or pollution in our fruits/veggies, I believe that this subject is one of the most important issues we face today! I've been thinking about this for years now! we can grow our own food until we are blue in the face but we are still in the same polluted/depleted situation! it's not about being negative, for me it's just realising my reality so I can accept it and move on! for me it's about wieghing up the pros and cons. It's really important to find out how many days have elapsed since the fruit was picked? Fruit that ripens off the tree is not as tasty nor nutritious as fruit that ripens on the tree. Also of concern is how was the fruit tree fertilized and cultivated. Were chemical fertilizers and pesticides employed, or organic ones, or was the tree grown in a natural way, without added fertilizers? Also of concern is what post harvest processing has been applied to the fruit, does it have waxes and dyes on the skin? Is the fruit you are buying local and in season, or are you buying fruit from thousands of miles away? Was the fruit grown in a hothouse?

Addicted

Why is it that when we see food commercials on TV it doesn't occure to us that something is tragically wrong!!! are we so desensitized now that we just see food as "products" that have nothing to do with nutrition at all, does it all about taste now, we don't even take into consideration what goes into these "products" to make them taste so good, it's my opinion that we have become so misguided and desensitized that we think that we actually like these "products" so much because they taste so good and not because we're also addicted to it!

Kicking the habit!

Is anyone having trouble getting rid of their cooked food addiction? is your minds voice telling you that you don't want to do this raw thing anymore, so go ahead and eat cooked food inr the fridge? Do you feel tricked when you listen to that voice and your stomach is bloated and you feel like crap after a bingeing session? Do you repeat this process over and over? well don't worry about it, we all go through this phase! the most important thing is to keep acknowledging every step you take in this phase, acknowledge that every time you eat cooked food it gives your addiction more strength to hurt you with, acknowledge the sound/tone of your minds voice when your being tempted to eat cooked food, acknowledge what to listen for so you can rebuke the temptation/voice with confidence! acknowledge your Fruitarian goals and intentions and pursue them like it was your last day on earth! acknowledge that you are a conquer and you can and will do this! acknowledge that this will take time and determination! getting away from cooked food addiction is extremely tough and confusing but can be done! but the only person that can do it is you! if you really want to do it you got to stay strong and focused in every situation concerning cooked food, write down your goal before you start so you will have a reference point when the voices start talking to you and stand firm. What helped me was to imagine my addiction as a Rugby team (I used to play Rugby) and I am my own team! and I use my competitive nature to fight against this thing! If I ate any cooked food that would be a point to my addictions and every day I went without cooked food was a point to me! I would do this until I was comfortable to go on without it! I have phases where I think about wanting nothing but cooked food! doing this Fruitarian thing it's kinda like being a recovering alcholic/cocaine addict, staying clean and drug free is a lifetime commitment! because the addictions are never gonna go away! I found that out from a long term (20 years) raw vegan years ago! with every thing that goes on in the world it makes me wonder sometimes why I bother but some how I get through! you just got to be real focused/persistant and strong minded!! This phase is like warfare it's no joke and sometimes you can be as strong and persistant as you want to be and still slip up time and time again that's just how hard this is.

Get prepared before you start

It's vital that you prepare yourself before you start your detoxification process because if you don't you will get confused and tormented later on when the cravings start messing with you addicted mind, in my opinion THIS IS THE WORST STAGE OF THE DETOXIFICATION PROCESS the cravings can the extremely relentless and what I've learnt is that there is no solution to this but yourself and how much you want this, it doesn't matter where you try to escape to it all boils down to you!! it's a stage that some how you must get through, this is why I suggest that you get a note pad and write down your goals! so that when you are going through these times you have a solid reference point to go back to when your addicted mind is trying to tell you other wise! also to make time or take time by yourself concerntrate on inspiring fruitarian information that you like so you can marinate your mind on it, the more positive Fruitarian info that you can marinate your mind in the easier it will be to re-educate your addicted mind!!! IT"S ALL ON YOU. I can guarentee you that you will have many stages like this and when they come your mind will try to convince you that it's all a waste of time!!!!!!!!! your gonna feel like crap for a while no matter what but these steps may make things easier depending on your efforts! you need to gather as much positive info as you can, start figuring out what you want and how your going to do it! write down why your making this choice! How you feel when you eat cooked food! how you feel when you don't! How you feel on fruits! etc. This stage is no joke and can be a very confusing time! but you will get through it!

Pain and Confusion

When I first started on my journey I really wasn't prepared for my emotional floodgates to open up the way they did, I tried to research but there wasn't enough information to prepare me, I didn't wean myself off of cooked food gradually, I made the big mistake of thinking I could go cold turkey and after having a great week or two the detoxification symptoms crept up on me and took me by surprise and before I could get a grip on myself I was foul, aggressive mentally and physically, resentful towards things that I normally would not bother with! I also had a lot of anxiety too, my thoughts were very negative, I was lashing out at people that meant alot to me and I was even worse to the one's that didn't mean anything to me at all! and a couple of relationships were fractured in the process, on top of this I was usually mentally and physicaly exhausted 24-7, every body thought I was crazy, nobody supported me at all, I was totally overwhelmed I didn't have the chance or the skills to detach myself from what was going on inside me like I had planned, I believed every bad thing that was going on in my head to be true, it was impossible for me to tell the difference between fact or fiction at this time, I went from a happy go lucky guy that every body wanted to be around to the exact opposite! but it really wasn't anyones fault. What was really going on was that I was detoxing! my body was using every thing it had to clean itself! my detox was very uncomfortable because I was eating to many heavy fruits and not enough juicy fruits and my body wasn't flushing out the toxins, so my toxins were just being re-absorbed, it was also the first time I had done anything like this ever! so I didn't know what was going on or how to deal with this, my liver/gallbladder was being cleaned and I was releasing my anger/resentment from the past/present and I had a lot of that!! pretty soon I built up a healthy resentment towards this Fruitarian diet, it was the cause of so much pain and confusion for me! I decided that I wasn't happy doing it!!!!!!! I didn't like the change that went on in me, it stopped me from being social and pleasent, it made me lose so much wieght and besides I wanted to eat pizza and fried chicken and fries,ice cream, etc, sooooo bad, so I would quit! I'd be happy for a week or two then I'd start feeling blocked up and bloated again then I would go back to getting sick and feeling like an old man, this would go on for years but the more I cleansed the worse I felt when I went back to cooked food and the more of an opportunity I had to look at how my emotions were controling my progress.

Detach yourself.

I've learnt that I had to detach myself completely from the get go and also research and learn exactly what my body was going through in the detox process, and I began to see what was really going on and help my body instead of make things worse, My main problem was getting over my cooked food addiction, I found that condiments and salt were the hardest of all to give up, for example I used to eat 6-9 avocados a day with some type of condiment, then after a while I started to notice that I'd get mad if we had run out of dressing so I began to question if it really was the avocado I was wanting? so I stopped using the condiments and now I found that naturally I can barely eat one avocado a day. what I found really helped me was writing down my goals and how I felt when I was on cooked food and it also helped to stay from stressful situations/people, I always say that if you have an issue, going fruitarian will bring it to the the surface wherever you like it or not! so be prepared for a fight, a fight that may last years but it's a fight that WILL get easier!!!!! but please let me tell you this, YOUR NOT GOING TO BE A NICE PERSON OR HAVE A NICE TIME in the begining, you may have cut down on on your social activities for a while, stick fast to your goals/dreams and don't let this society tell you any different!!! When I first started every body including the guru's told me that I couldn't survive on just fruit and that I was "doing it all wrong" but it was the way my body wanted it and to be honest with you I feel like I'm not of this world, I often feel as though I can blend in with the air I breath. Breaking away from societies addictions was the best choice I ever made and I will never go back, my skin from head to toe has transformed from rough and tough to soft and silky, I don't get colds or flu's anymore, I don't feel the aches and pains I used to have, my body has gone to it's natural shape and I'm no longer bloated and constipated, I'm more at one with my body and my biggest victory of all is that I'm no longer a slave to my /societies addictions and my thoughts are clearer and more positive, don't get me wrong it's not all paradise, the world is still what it is, but at times it can get pretty close!

The Zone

It's my opinion that going raw is a life time committment to stay clean just like it would be for a recovering alcoholic! My experience is that my cravings just got further apart and less intense, but it's also my experience that just a mouthful of cooked food will set you back on the path to ruin! yeah sure, maybe you can survive a mouthful of cooked food here and there but when the addictition catches up with you'll be taken to a dark place! I call that place "the zone" I think the best way I can explain it is that's it's like getting stuck in quick sand, no matter how hard you try to get out, the more you move, the more you end up sinking deeper and deeper! the thoughts that go through your head are negative you don't think your going to make! then you see an outstretched hand! Well for me that hand is vitality my vitality is what gets me out of "the zone" of addiction my vitality means too much to me to throw away! When I'm in the zone I feel like a hard core alcoholic! I feel great when I'm eating cooked food but as soon as I stop I feel like I've smashed into a brick wall! my body feels pain and discomfort I'm acidic from head to toe and I swell up like a balloon! how do you get out of the zone?... by any means necessery! cold turkey work does not for me, when the addiction gets control of my mind my will power is non-existant! in order for me to get out of the zone I have to be sick of being sick to get out and back on raw! it's a tug of war for a while but that's what works for me!

Getting away with it!

Why do we eat cooked, processed, man made and refined food, Smoke and drink toxic products that are slowly killing us? Why.....because we think we can get away with it!!! People are always searching 05.jpgfor answers as to why or how we started cooking our food, my personal view on this is that we do things in desperation and if it serves the purpose and we don't instantly drop down dead then we'll carry on doing it especially if it's brings great comfort and pleasure! we'll never really know the real reason for cooking our food but whatever it was we carried it on because we got away with it, or so we think! In these modern times there is so much conflicting information out there regarding proper nutrition, it's hard to take any of it seriously when you seem to be getting by just fine, you hear so much about how bad fast foods are for you but what's your motivation to stop if you are getting by just fine!? just because we don't instantly get sick when we eat cooked food and we digest it doesn't mean that it's ok to eat!

My story.

I've been doing this Fruitarian thing for just over ten years now and it's been one of the best things to happen to me! but hold on it would be easy for for me to just say I've been doing it for ten years and leave it at that but that would not be fair to you, it would give you a false impression of my development, so I'll tell you like it is, that within that ten years I first started out going cold turkey 2-3 days at a time on 100% fruit because the addictions would cause me to quit, then that would go on to maybe a week then I would quit because of the addictions for 3-6 months at a time but then my body would pull me back to 100% fruits for the other 3-6months, so the ten years has been me yoyoing up and down, back and forth, stopping and starting! but there is hope, for five of those years I was able to concerntrate on myself consistantly, so I would internet surf and seek support, I went to pretty much every raw vegan forum to see if I could get some kind of support but as a fruitarian I was a sitting duck for doubters and trashers and I ended up going solo, but it gave me the chance to really get an idea of what I was getting into and to pick up some useful info that would allow me to experiment with different methods of cleansing, such as supplements, flushes and herbs. The last two years have been the most productive as I have been able to be consistantly on 100% fruits, I feel as though I have done all my experimentation and have honed in on what works and what is natural to me, I learnt that I'm a purist and I really don't like compromising the Fruitarian lifestyle for anybody or anything, so I stay 100% fruits as if I was stranded on a tropical island! I believe that I'm as clean as I am through time and consistancy but I acknowledge that I still have a long way to go! you know how clean you are when your body allows you to progress onwards coupled with a "knowing". Even though I'm making great progress I still have a long way to go and still have many revelations and experiences to go through, sometimes I look back in regret that I spent so much time quitting but I think that it gave me a better insight as to what is really involved in all of this the kinda stuff the guru's don't tell you! Over the years I've learnt that you have to be your own pioneer and explore you own thoughts and theories. It's been a long and hard journey one of the biggest fights has been against overeating. Overeating is like a silent predator, half the time you don't even know your doing it, it's usually a life long habit which is carried on for various reasons, my reasons were ignorance and comfort! Overeating even on fruits stops your digestive system from digesting your food leaving you feeling bloated.

Recovering from old cooked food habits-overeating.

I love eating when hungry although it can be frustrating in the begining because old habits die hard and I was a big comfort eater when I was on cooked foods. Eating when hungry allows you to clear out the build up of food that stop you from cleansing fully, below you will see photo's of my stool samples these are direct results of the cleansing power of modern day fruits and eating when hungry. Since I started this practise it's as if I can feel my organs come alive, I don't feel boated anymore. Yesterday I had 2 cups of OJ, 6 bananas and a cantolope for the day. I'm also feeling all my long term injuries gradually going away which is amazing to me! I can't explain the consistant sense of well being I feel now! the struggle with comfort eating is getting much easier. I'm eating fruit more mindfully for instance I know eat one grape at a time and chew it for longer(this wasn't by choice it just started happening)

My Tropical Island.

Over the years I have developed a standard of living that I go to when I have difficulties, I call it the, If I was stranded on a "Tropical Island" scenrio, so if I was stranded on an Island and I knew nothing about nothing and had no watch, I probably wouldn't be so pre-occupied with time because my ego would not be able to figure out a schedule to eat, because I wouldn't be able to figure out what time it was! it seems like the only way I can be true to myself is to to not wear a watch!!! right now I'm letting my mind get in the way of me listening to my body! I need to let go of every thing I think I know, this eating when hungry thing is really tough because in my head I'm always hungry!!!!!!! so I try to compensate by trying to eat less! holding out until 12.00pm when really I should of had an apple or cup of OJ at 10.00am when I was hungry, it's not the amount I'm eating because I've mastered that, it's this time thing! I think I'm trying to cut down the times I eat instead of truly listening to my body!!!! Having said all that I'm doing and feeling so much better and I have a new appreciation for the taste of fruits and one of the most noticable things this week has been that when I'm real hungry I actually crave fruits instead of cooked food! that blows my mind! I've been thinking a lot recently about this "tropical Island" recently and how it would be! actually being able to pick fruits off the tree maybe bunches at a time so you can satisfy your hunger, tearing into the fruits flesh with your bare hands because you don't have a knife. I've been reading alot about only eating at noon because it's the bodies peak time but then I always think to myself well if I was on my Island with no watch how would I know about peak times unless I listened to my body! I think that listening to the body and allowing yourself to evolve is the key! How it works for me is that for example today I experimented and held out til 12.00pm (usually I have a cup of oj at around 9-10am ) but at 12.00pm I had 5 bananas (between 12-1.00pm is when I eat the most) then I was full, then at 3.30pm I had a cantolope, I was full, then at 9.45pm I had a peach that filled me up and I felt good! so as you can see early in the morning and later in the day the less I can physically eat, I really don't think it's natural to hold out because science or your ego says so! I think in my case it's mostly ego! I'd rather be dumb and listen to my body instead.

Letting go of the importance of food and your ego.

I have a competitive ego so if something resonates with me I have to do it to the best of my ability and reach the higest level possible, this is a good and a bad trait but I've learnt that with eating when hungry you really have to surrender to your body! So many times I've let my scientific mind get in the way of actually listening to my body I've wasted so much time just complicating things when the simple answers have been right in front of me wherever this process is necesery or not I don't know but what I do know is that once I let go of my ego I can let go of the importance of food. I believe that overeating is a direct result of the SAD lifestyle / eating cooked food, I also believe that if it wasn't for cooked food we wouldn't have the emotional turmoil that we have today! it's not a problem for Fruitarians it's a problem for us transitioning to be Fruitarians!

We must take care of detoxification issues first.

As I progress I'm figuring out that it makes more sense to make my biggest meal at Break-fast then your body digests it at it's peak time (10-2.00pm) but I'm also learning that it's nice to know the scientific side of things but at the end of the day it all boils down to EATING WHEN HUNGRY!!! and STOPPING WHEN SATISFIED as long as you aer at the stage where you can follow these SIMPLE rules you can't go wrong, this is so interesting to me, but with this overeating thing you must remember that we need to take care of our detoxification issues first before we can even think about success!!! as that is a completely seperate issue altogether! We cannot move forward until we let our bodies cleanse the mor we cleanse the more we can ahcieve, I think a lot of make the mistake of taking this for granted and just try to jump straight into Raw Veganism/Fruitarianism.

The Simplicity of it all.

My words of wisdom are: IT DOESN"T MATTER! I have really been researching this eating when hungry thing to the point where I was really missing the point!!! which is that it doesn't matter how complicated I want to make this it all boils down to just eating when hungry and stopping when full and the body will handle the rest! IT DOESN"T MATTER! about peak digestion times or when you eat! or how many meals you eat in a day! Maybe I had to go through this process to realize that this really is so simple! now I feel free to ignore my watch and my ego! I believe that cooked food has led us away from how simple life and the ways of our bodies really are! it's brought so much emotional distortion/disorders to our lifes.

Reasons to overeat.

There's many reasons why people over eat but in my opinion one of the biggest reasons for over eating is the use of salt and Condiments for sure, they are one of the most dangerous food items out there! they are highly addictive! but have you ever tried eating a piece of meat or any meal without them? They stop you from hearing your bodies voice telling you to stop eating. I remember about a year ago I thought it would be fun to put condiments on my avocados to give them some pep I figured I'd been raw for a while and it would be ok, I actually told myself that I deserved a little fun/break from being so structured, so I went a head and my wife was going raw vegan at the time so we it was something we could do together, so we ened up discovering something called Sass they sell it at whole foods market it's a dressing, we also got some so called natural dressings called Annie's Naturals, I was never a big avocado eater I normaly have one a day maybe now with the dressings I was having 6-9 if not more avocados a day no problem! this went on for a while then I started to get mad if there was no dressing or if anything stopped me from getting my avocados, I also noticed that I was increasing the amount of dressing I would use until it wasn't even about having an avocado at all, then one day I figured it all out and asked myself "how many avocados would I have if I couldn't put dressing or garlic seasoning salt on them?" so I stopped on the spot!!! and let me tell you it was two weeks of H.E double hockey sticks! now I'm lucky if I have one avocado a fortnight! Overeating stops your body from digesting your food completely, contrary to popular belief you can still overeat on fruit especially on extra sweet hybrid fruits. A lot of Raw Vegans and Fruitarians think that eating a lot of fruit will clean them out but the problem is that the body cannot detox completely when it's full of food waiting to be digested That's why fasting is so effective, well eating when hungry works in the same way, it allows you to completely digest each meal have a little break then start again.

A work in progress?

I was sat down watching a show on tv eating some grapes when I suddenly realized that I was eating each grape one at a time and chewing each one till it was just juice! this is unheard of for me because I usually pop those things in my mouth like M+M's could it be my body is changing? I tried to put more than one in my mouth but I got a horrible feeling inside, like I was forcing my body to do something it didn't want to do every time I tried, my mouth would lock shut tight ! it's a treasure to behold to see the changes happening right there in front of your eyes! Since then I've noticed that I'm eating much less but eating more mindfully with an emphasis on chewing. Since eating this way my stomach has strunk considerably, my breathing has become even clearer, my detox has been increased, I have a greater sence of well being and I have a greater appreciation of the tastes of fruits now. My view on life has changed also, it's now shocking for me to see people randomly eating and drinking whatever they want whenever they want and eating in such vast quantities. I'm having a blast experienceing the way my body tells me to stop eating, the taste of what ever I'm eating just goes away! it's great to have this kind of built in alarm system. Since This eating when hungry thing I've noticed that my stools are much like my dogs, his food consists of raw meat and bones, except my poop doesn't have the bones in it! This leads me to believe that before I started eating when hungry my food was going undigested which just goes to show you that even on fruits you can create difficulties for yourself (see above photo's). As for meal times I find that my needs are constantly changing but the main thing for me is to keep up my liquids. I've learnt to not be so pre-occupied with eating less or planning my meals and to just eat/drink when I feel hungry and more importantly to stop when satisfied!

The Importance of eating when hungry.

A while ago I lost the taste for fruit, I would feel acidic and slightly bloated, I've now realised that it was because I wasn't listening to my body and eating when it needed me to, instead I was still eating for comfort! I've now successfuly overcome my 'comfort eating' I saw it as my last bit of addiction and cut back on my intake, for me that's an awesome achievement! I've known for a long time that I was eating too much but it didn't bother me until now! now I see and feel the benefits of eating according to my bodies needs, it makes so much more sense too! infact I feel a little stupid for not taking it seriously enough back then! better late than never, eh! I've also realised that I wasn't digesting and getting rid of my food completely which was increasing my bowel transit time! I have reached the point where my body is telling me to stop and eat when hungry! I'm amazed at how it know how to take the taste away!? I spent a day just eating when I was hungry and I found out that I'm only hungry once/twice a day, I have become so sensitive that I can get by with much less food and too much food will send me completly out of whack! I listened to my body and cut back on my eating only to eat when starving, now I feel like I'm digesting food better, breathing has improved, I can take deeper breaths easier, I'm no longer light headed, I have increased energy, I no longer feel like I have that last piece of mucus in my nose that I couldn't get rid of! My detoxification has gone to a whole new level, my body is still changing and adjusting and I'm excited to the outcome! I never really realized that eating when hungry was so important and I didn't realize how destructive our old cooked food habits can be even on raw food! I feel like I have finally made a break through, I've been getting caught up with obsessing about times and amounts when really it's very simple! EAT WHEN HUNGRY!!!!!!! My mind has been pre-occupied with convincing my body that I needed to eat less but it's not about eating less!!!! you just got to EAT WHEN HUNGRY STOP WHEN YOUR SATISFIED AND YOUR BODY WILL TAKE CARE OF EVERY THING ELSE !!!!! The more I look into breatharianism and the more I eat when hungry the more I believe that fruit wasn't meant for us per se! it's there for every body humans and animals...... it's like those flowers that attract bees/insects so their pollen can be transported else where....it just is, it's just there for everyone, it's just there for every thing! eating when hungry is so interesting because your hunger feeling gradually changes some days I feel like I can go totally with out food, the only thing that stops me is anxiety and fear of missing out but recently fruit has not been tasting good! and when it doesn't taste good I get bloated real easy! is this a sign telling me that I don't really need to eat at this time!? am I being prepared for evolution? just thoughts! When I look at my intentions for eating I sometimes feel as though I'm trying to satify a mental need rather than a physical one!

Out in the wild.

This experience reminds me of my dog Luke, he's raw also, I don't feed him every day because if I feed him every day he won't always eat! so I feed him every other day sometimes I won't feed him for two days, then I feed him one/two days worth of food because by that time he's worked up a good appetite, this mimics how it would be in the wild, going days between catches, we can learn so much from our animals, it's making me think that this is how we were back in the wild! going days between fruit! working up an appetite looking for food, let's face it not every fruit tree will have ripe fruit on it! then eating to satisfaction when you do find something, cooked food has so much to answer for, so many destructive habits and addiction/eating disorders have evolved from it! I can't help but think how easy life would really be without these habits. It's interesting to me to see the possiblity as to how far we have strayed from nature. It's so hard to feel what real hunger feels like! sometimes when we feel food going through our intestines we think that feeling is hunger! I've read that when you eat food your stomach stops digesting what what you ate before to start on the new food, this makes a lot of sense to me and would explain why I would be slightly bloated.

Eating with the sun.

I never thought eating when hungry could be so hard! is it in our nature to complicate things? I keep catching myself planning what and when to eat instead of letting my body adjust/do what it's got to do! the ego/addicted mind plays such a big role in butting into the bodies business, being one of the biggest comfort eaters of all time, I find that if I keep myself occupied and out of stressfull situations I don't get anxious about not eating. I've noticed that my digestion follows the pattern of the Sun, when the Sun is at it's peak so is my digestive system when when the sun goes down, the weaker my digestive system seems to be! Eating when hungry is making so much sense in so many tiny different ways, my stomach is much leaner and my digestion is much improved.

The pit falls of eating when hungry

I love eating when hungry although it can be frustrating in the begining because old habits die hard and I was a big comfort eater when I was on cooked foods. Eating when hungry allows you to clear out the build up of food that stop you from cleansing fully, below you will see photo's of my stool samples these are direct results of eating when hungry. Since I started this practise it's as if I can feel my organs come alive, I don't feel boated anymore. Yesterday I had 2 cups of OJ, 6 bananas and a cantolope for the day. I'm also feeling all my long term injuries gradually going away which is amazing to me! I can't explain the consistant sense of well being I feel now! the struggle with comfort eating is getting much easier. The sky is the limit!!!!!!!! Over the years I have developed a standard of living that I go to when I have difficulties, I call it the, If I was stranded on a "Tropical Island" scenrio, so if I was stranded on an Island and I knew nothing about nothing and had no watch, I probably wouldn't be so pre-occupied with time because my ego would not be able to figure out a schedule to eat, because I wouldn't be able to figure out what time it was! it seems like the only way I can be true to myself is to to not wear a watch!!! right now I'm letting my mind get in the way of me listening to my body! I need to let go of every thing I think I know, this eating when hungry thing is really tough because in my head I'm always hungry!!!!!!! so I try to compensate by trying to eat less! holding out until 12.00pm when really I should of had an apple or cup of OJ at 10.00am when I was hungry, it's not the amount I'm eating because I've mastered that, it's this time thing! I think I'm trying to cut down the times I eat instead of truly listening to my body!!!! Having said all that I'm doing and feeling so much better and I have a new appreciation for the taste of fruits and one of the most noticable things this week has been that when I'm real hungry I actually crave fruits instead of cooked food! that blows my mind! I've been thinking a lot recently about this "tropical Island" recently and how it would be! actually being able to pick fruits off the tree maybe bunches at a time so you can satisfy your hunger, tearing into the fruits flesh with your bare hands because you don't have a knife. I've been reading alot about only eating at noon because it's the bodies peak time but then I always think to myself well if I was on my Island with no watch how would I know about peak times unless I listened to my body! How it works for me is that for example today I experimented and held out til 12.00pm (usually I have a cup of oj at around 9-10am ) but at 12.00pm I had 5 bananas (between 12-1.00pm is when I eat the most) then I was full, then at 3.30pm I had a cantolope, I was full, then at 9.45pm I had a peach that filled me up and I felt good! so as you can see early in the morning and later in the day the less I can physically eat, I really don't think it's natural to hold out because science or your ego says so! I think in my case it's mostly ego! I'd rather be dumb and listen to my body instead.

Wow, thanks for posting that Big!!

Okay, I have a few wuestions - please excuse my ignorance on the fruitarian issue, but I want to learn. So here are some of my questions:

1) What are "high" or I think maybe you called them, "heavy" fruits. Can you give some examples and why are they not as good for you as "lighhter or low"fruits?

2) I read somewhere that fruitarians also do not drink water or any other liquid. Is that true?

3) Why are fruits better for you than veggies? If all are eaten raw, then why do fruitarians believe that fruits are what we were naturally meant to eat and not raw veggies?

4) Finally, of course I know that refined processed foods are posion. But I dont get why steamed/cooked organic veggies are so bad for you? If you take a non-GMO, organic veggie, and say steam it lightly (so in other words cook it), why is this bad for you? What is the science behind this? I know that raw is better than cooked, but I dont understand why cooked can actually be very bad for your body, as you seem to suggest in your diary. is it because when you cook food you make it more acidic going into yuor body? is it because of oxidation? What is the chemical/scientific reason for cooked organic veggies being BAD for you?

5) What is a "breatharian" and what is a "liquidarian"?

Many thanks to anybody that can answer some of my questions!!

Hi Compgirl, Heavy fruits are things like bananas and fatty fruits like avacado and light fruits are fruits like melons,etc.

I never drank water because I had reach a level where I was clean enough for the water from the fruits I was eating to be enough, water from fruits is the purest you can get!

Most veggies you can't eat raw and need to be made soft by cooking it! have you tried eating a raw turnip or whole onion Fruits are more readily available to eat and are highly cleansing!

A lot of Fruitarians/raw vegans do eat steamed veggies but true fruitarians will not eat anything cooked or even slightly cooked just out of principle!

A breatharian is someone that only lives off of the air but modern day pollution has a big effect on how succesful you are!

A liquidarian is some that lives off of fruit/veg juice!

I'm trying to find an artical I had regarding scientific effects of cooked food on the body! Hope this helped This ain't it but it pretty much says the same thing.

WHY ALL SHOULD EAT ONLY RAW FOODS ALWAYS

By Dr. Bernarr, D.C., D.D.

When food is cooked above 118 degrees F for three minutes or longer, its protein has become coagulated, its sugar has become caramelized, its natural fibers have been broken down, which means it will take longer to move through the intestinal tract, 30% to 50% of its vitamins and minerals have been destroyed and 100% of its enzymes have been destroyed. Cooked food depletes our body's enzyme potential and drains the energy we need to maintain and repair our tissues and organ systems and shortens our lifespan.

Dr. Virginia Vetrano writes about an authority who contends that irritation from putting extremely hot foods into the stomach, can cause cancer. Dr. Vetrano also writes that "Heating any food, destroys much of its vitamin, mineral, and protein content and poisonous inorganic acids are formed. The all uncooked diet is most healthful."

Marilyn Willison, of Hippocrates Health Institute, writes, "We should not cook our food. During this apparently harmless process, vital enzymes are destroyed, proteins are coagulated (making them difficult to assimilate), vitamins are mostly destroyed with the remainder changing into forms that are difficult for the body to utilize, pesticides are restructured into even more toxic compounds, valuable oxygen is lost, and free radicals are produced. According to Viktoras Kulvinskas, nutrient losses can be as high as 80% or more. Other studies suggest that cooked proteins (coagulated) are up to 50% less likely to be utilized by the body."

Dr. Francis M. PottengerJr., wrote about his experiments with 900 cats over a period of ten years. Pottenger fed some of the test cats raw meat and other test cats, he fed cooked meats. Pottenger wrote, "Cooked meat fed cats were irritable. The females were dangerous to handle, occasionally biting the keeper..." The cooked meat fed cats suffered with "pneumonia, empyema, diarrhea, osteomyelitis, cardiac lesions, hyperopia and myopia (eye diseases), thyroid diseases, nephritis, orchitis, oophoritis (ovarian inflammation), arthritis and many other degenerative diseases."

No cooked food is benign. Cooked foods act malignantly by exhausting your bodily energies, inhibiting your healing, and decreasing your alertness, efficiency and productivity.

Cooked foods suppress the immune system. the heat of cooking destroys vitamins, enzymes, minerals, nucleic acids, chlorophyll, and damages fats, making them indigestible. The fatty matter becomes a local irritant.

The heat disorganizes the protein structure, leading to deficiency of some of the essential amino acids. The fibrous or woody element of food (cellulose) is changed completely from its natural condition by cooking. When this fibrous element is cooked, it loses its broomlike quality to sweep the alimentary canal clean. The fibrous matter is changed from its natural state to a poison. Raw food has the best balance of water, nutrients and fiber to meet your body's needs.

Cooking causes the inorganic elements to enter the blood, circulate through the system, settle in the arteries and veins and deaden the nerves. After cooking, the body loses its flexibility, arteries lose their pliability, nerves lose the power of conveying impressions, the spinal cord becomes hardened, the tissues throughout the body contract, and the human being becomes prematurely old. In many cases this matter is deposited in the various joints of the body, causing enlargement of the joints. In other cases, it accumulates as concretions in one or more of the internal organs, finally accumulating around the heart valves.

Raw foods are easily digested, requiring only 24-36 hours for transit time through the digestive tract, as compared to 40-100 hours for cooked foods. This increases the threat of putrefaction and disease. When you eat cooked carbohydrates, proteins and fats, you are eating numerous mutagenic (carcinogenic) products causes by cooking.

Dr. Karl Elmer experimented with top athletes in Germany, producing improvement in their performance by changing to a purely raw food diet. Raw food provides you with more strength, energy and stamina.

On raw foods, the mind (memory and power of concentration) will be clear. You will be more alert, think sharper and more logically.

Raw foods will not leave you with a tired feeling after the meal. There is a tendency toward sleepiness after a cooked meal. Raw foods require less total sleep and achieve a more restful sleep.

When we treat foods with thermal fire, we lose up to 97% of the water soluble vitamins (Vitamins B and C) and up to 40% of the lipid soluble vitamins (Vitamins A, D, E and K). We need only one-half the amount of protein in the diet if raw protein foods are eaten rather than protein foods which are cooked. Heating also changes the lipids. These changed fats are incorporated into the cell wall and interfere with the respiration of the cell, causing an increase in cancer and heart disease.

When grasses are separately covered with fertilizers that are both raw and cooked, the grass grown with the raw fertilizer grows 400% more tonnage over that grown with the same amount per acre of cooked food fertilizer.

After eating cooked foods, the blood immediately shows an enormous increase of leukocytes of white blood cells-corpuscles. The white blood cells are a first line of defense and are, collectively, popularly called "the immune system". This spontaneous multiplication of white corpuscles always takes place in normal blood immediately after the introduction of any virulent infection or poison into the body since the white corpuscles are the fighting organisms of the blood. There is no multiplication of white corpuscles when uncooked food is eaten. The constant daily fight against the toxic effects of cooked food unnecessarily exhausts the body's strength and vitality, thus causing disease and the modern shortness of life.

Cooked foods quickly ferment and putrefy in the intestinal tract. On a raw food diet you will experience the elimination of body odor and halitosis. Cooked food causes allergies.

If you consult the ancient scriptures and sacred writings, you will read that in Eden, people did not eat cooked food with "burning fire". In fact, Chinese, Egyptian, Indian and Hebrew accounts, indicate that people were expelled from Paradise for using fire to cook food.

Methuselah, it is contended, because he ate only raw foods, lived to an old age.

The Bhagavad Gita says, "Pious men eat what the brilliant forces of nature leave over them after the offering. But those ungodly, cooking good food, sin as they eat it." They're speaking of the ill health to the individual, our race and the world caused by fire-cooked food.

In the Essene Gospel of Peace, a third century Aramaic Essene manuscript, Jesus is described as saying, "Cook not your food with the fire of death, which is the fire that blazed outside you that is hotter than your blood. Cook only with the fire of life," that is, the natural heat of the day.

Raw foods are delectable and have more flavor than cooked foods. There is no need to jazz up its flatness with unhealthful additives. These flavor-enhancing additives can irritate your digestive system or over-stimulate other organs. Avoid these harmful additives: sugar, salt, pepper, spices, condiments, ketchup, mayonnaise, dressing and toppings.

Hannah Allen wrote, "Raw foods contain live enzymes, which influence digestive efficiency-cooking destroys all enzymes. Moreover, the consumption of raw foods stimulates gastric enzyme secretion, necessary to initiate good digestion. Besides, the more raw foods you eat as your first course, the less cooked foods you will be able to eat. Ideally, we should never cook any foods."

Arthur M. Baker in "Awakening Our Self Healing Body", writes, "Overly cooked foods literally wreck our body. They deny needed nutrients to the system since heat alters foodstuffs such that they are partially, mostly, or wholly destroyed. Nutrients are coagulated, deaminized, caramelized and rendered inorganic and become toxic and pathogenic in the body."

Baker adds, "Virulent bacteria find soil in dead food substances only and cannot exist on living cells. Cooked food spoils rapidly, both inside and outside our body, whereas living foods are slow to lose their vital qualities and do not as readily become soil for bacterial decay."

Professor Edmund Szekeley wrote concerning the Essene scrolls, "Eat nothing, therefore, which a stronger fire than the fire of life has killed...

Cook not, neigher mis all things one with another, lest your bowels become as steaming bogs."

I have been a 100% raw food eater, for over 50 years.

Wow Big thanks for posting that. It REALLY was very informative into the benefits of raw versus cooked food.

I am seriously thinking going raw. BUt I like what you said in your diary - how the desire or lust for COOKED food is an addiction too, just like eating meat is (in my opinion).

Thanks for the info. I was raw-vegan for a time and I should try to be more raw than I am now. I would like to drink soy milk or take calcium tablets. Are those things that unhealthy? If so, where can I get my 100% RDA of calcium without either of those? I hear that nuts have some calcium

yes, that is a good point and also where would you get your essential fatty acids. omegas, B3 B12s, etc.

DO fruitarians consume flax seed oil? I know that is a dumbass question but like I said I really dont know how literal fruitarianism is. you LITERALLY eat nothing but certain fruits? So then what about the stuff I listed above?

ANd I really dont understand how breathariamism is possible. ALl this time most people have accepted, as "Truth", that you need calories to stay alive (i.e. food). HOw can you survive on just air? Better yet, how LONG can breatharians survive on a diet that consist solely of "air". I dont get it.

compash read this:

"Both current scientific theories about nutrition and generally accepted common sense indicate that a person who followed this practice in the long term would die of starvation (if abstaining from food) or dehydration (if abstaining from food and water). As breatharians have seldom submitted themselves to medical testing, there is currently little evidence to support their claims."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breatharian

another interesting link:

http://www.chat11.com/Breatharians

Richard , Nuts are cooked but soaking them rehydrates them, so is soy milk and most tablets! having said that I read years ago that from the time fruit is picked from the tree to the time it reaches the super markets it is totally void of it's natural energy/nutrients! you see it's swings and roundabouts!

Compgirl, try this site for raw decent info! www.living-foods.com

Guys, Just be careful you don't get caught up in the whole raw attitude because a lot of raw people talk the talk but don't walk the walk!

also bare in mind that going raw is great for endurance exercise but terrible for mass building!!! if you guys want to go raw let me know coz I know some good truthful sites! but I would seriously give it good thought before I would commit yourself to doing it! also do plenty of serious research into harvesting practises you'd be surprised what these copanies do to our fruits and veg:wink: hope it helps!!!!

Compgirl try these sites! they say b12 is made by the body the rest I got from avacados! I'm a strong believer in breatharianism but I think that in these modern days it's not that practical!!!

Yes I just ate fruits! nothing else and I did just fine!

Don't take any notice of what you read, experience it for yourself!

www.fruitarian.com

www.breatharian.com

also checkout sites on sungazing!

I can get raw nuts here, that say 'raw' on them, they're not roasted or cooked. I realise that the soy milk and tablets are cooked and or processed, but what I'm saying is, if they are unhealthy to consume, what is another way to get calcium without them? And as I can get raw nuts, are they a good source for calcium?

I was raw for about 3-4 months a couple years ago, started out good, then started getting sick. Similar experience to Daywalker. I started feeling really sick and developed huge sores in my mouth. I lost weight but it was all muscle. And apparently I was starving myself and screwed up my metabolism. When i went back to eating cooked I went from 174 to 214 in like two weeks, and i wasn't eating like a crazy person. It was insane. I'm still trying to lose weight i put on from the experience. BUT, I did learn alot about my body and i do try to incorporate alot of raw fruit vegetables and nuts into my diet. And when I'm sick I fast and eat raw.

Richard check out this site for your questions! www.fruitarian.com I never bothered with singling out certain nutrients, I learnt that my body would take what it needed from what I was eating, I also learnt that my body would also let me know if it needed something that I wasn't eating by giving me a hunger for a particular fruit! I learnt that you have to let go of what you want (your mind) and let your body take control of what it wants and needs doing this is really a powerful experience, when you learn how to do this you soon see how the animals in the wild can sense certain changes of season/enviroment! I also learnt that I had to throw away every thing I thought I knew about health out of the window because it really had no relevance with raw veganism! About the nuts! I know they say raw but are they fresh!!! because "real fresh nuts" are soft and don't stay fresh for long! I've seen jars of Almond butter that say "Raw" but they are processed to get in the jar! companies are allowed to call things "RAW" or "FRESH" as long as they follow certain rules so be careful Richard. the true meaning of fresh is something that is picked right off the tree! it's like coconuts, for years I thought coconuts were brown until I found out that the brown coconuts you see in the stores are the old coconuts it was a big shock for me to learn that coconuts are really supposed to be green with jelly inside!

Chesty, I went through similar experiences and hated every minute I quit so many times because of it until I learnt that it was a phase I had to go through , if you manage to get through it things do get much better, getting through it is like driving through a really bad storm and coming out the other end to see the sun and blue sky but your very first time is a living hell but the more times you go through it, the easier it gets, it took me years to begin to feel anywhere near normal, it's so much better to go through a gradual transition through out the course of a year than to just quit cooked food cold turkey, I found that going raw is very much unexplored territory and many people don't really know what to expect and as lot of people don't like feeling bad a lot of people stop! a lot of information on raw veganism is generalised idealism and conflicts with what a lot of people feel!

I found that going raw is a steep learning curve and I learnt by trial and a lot of error also I think all this depends on the individuals definition of feeling bad, I know of a lot of people that got through some real bad times, I hope I'm helping!

Wow, thanks for sharing your experiences and thoughts with us, big boy!

I'm only halway through your first post yet But so far i very much agree!

Thanks again,

Daywalker

Thanks DW, I told you it was long I hope it helps and I don't mean to sound preachy or put anybody off I can only share my personal opinion and experience with you and I have no right to speak for others, I'm sure the other raw vegans/ex-raw vegans will probably dissagree but hey! that's cool all in al I belive that raw veganism/fruitarianism/breatharianism is totally possible but first you got to unwrong all the wrongs then be willing to start a new life doing new things or do the old things in different ways! DW check out this site It's a raw vegan bodybuilding site the guy is a really nice guy and he's 48 and has a bunch of photo's of himself on his site, I think you will find it interesting! my opinion is that he looks the same size as an average person without muscles he's just ripped and it's really not hard at all to be ripped on a raw diet, but then that's just me! I like to see more meat if your going to mix it with cooked fooders! and I now from experience that it taskes no work at all to look in shape on a raw diet just look at my photo of me when I was a fruitarian and I hardly worked out!!! I feel that he should be much bigger for all the training he's doing! but again that's just my opinion! he's a great guy and is willing to share advice and info! hope you check it out!

www.charliesgym.info

By the way I love your hulk avatar that's how I feel the day before a workout!

Yeah, the raw nuts I get are soft, not crunchy. I didn't know that about coconuts though! Thanks for the link I will read up

Great!!! were they expensive??? yeah those coconuts broke my heart coz it showed how shady stores are! why on earth would you sell old produce to an unsuspecting public? it was like when I found out that they use chemicals to stop raw meat from smelly off! boy don't get me started then I found out that most fruits especially imported fruits are irradiated,boiled,steamed of hot water treated to kill bugs,etc and so they have a longer shelf life in the stores and that some oranges are dyed...orange so they look more appealing and then most stores will store fruits in freezers/fridges which destroys more vitality/nutrients! and now they are trying to do the same to organic produce! OOOhh boy!!!

which destroys more vitality/nutrients! and now they are trying to do the same to organic produce! OOOhh boy!!!

Wow Fruitarian for 10 years, It’s no surprise that you have plenty to say about the process. I am starting on my second year at 100% raw-vegan, and like you explained my endurance is up yet my strength has decreased some. Nevertheless, I would say my overall sense of well being and the charged effect I get from eating food while my body is in an alkaline state keeps me going with it. Do you have any recommendations as to viable alternatives for protein source? I can only endure so many sprouted legumes, and I find the constant ingestion of nuts to be counterintuitive, especially considering the premise that we ought to be easy on our digestive systems.

Hey RVT, It's good to hear that your 2nd year 100% that's great , I never bothered about protien,calories and that kind of stuff when I was Fruitarian because I found it impossible to look at a fruit and be able to tell what it's nutritional content was I know it sounds depressing but there are so many things that contribute to the deteriation of the fruits/veg we eat! I never ate nuts or seeds because it just didn't feel right! I know what you mean about the sense of well being and I do miss that feeling but hey if you really want some protien try bananas,brockley see how you go! but when I tried it I really didn't tell any difference infact I found that the less I ate the more vitality I had! as you probably know the longer you stay raw the less you eat! this worked great for exercises like hiking etc. Anyway keep on keeping on!

Thanks for the info. I was raw-vegan for a time and I should try to be more raw than I am now. I would like to drink soy milk or take calcium tablets. Are those things that unhealthy? If so, where can I get my 100% RDA of calcium without either of those? I hear that nuts have some calcium

Richard,

I am always worried about this question. When people start to try a new diet they are always wondering how they can get their RDA of vitamins, calcium... The question should be do we get get our 100% RDA with our 'normal' cooked diet? My opinion is that you get as much as you need if you eat as natural (what ever that is) as possible and I do believe that the 100% RDA is bullshit. Where is the RDA based on? On a smoking, meat eating, non-sporting alcoholic? Well, in that case my need of vitamins and other stuff is much lower, because I am living healthy anyway.

I agree Nobbi, you'd be surprised at how little nutrients we really do need even when eating substandard fruits also in my opinion "natural" does not exist anymore! pollution has touched every thing!

Richard,

 

I am always worried about this question. When people start to try a new diet they are always wondering how they can get their RDA of vitamins, calcium... The question should be do we get get our 100% RDA with our 'normal' cooked diet? My opinion is that you get as much as you need if you eat as natural (what ever that is) as possible and I do believe that the 100% RDA is bullshit. Where is the RDA based on? On a smoking, meat eating, non-sporting alcoholic? Well, in that case my need of vitamins and other stuff is much lower, because I am living healthy anyway.

Well yeah, you can forget about the standard RDAs. That's irrelevent. What I mean is, where does one get calcium from on a raw diet, what are the sources without soy milk and without calcium tablets and vitamin tablets? Regardless of how much you think you need, it must be accepted that you need a certain amount, whatever that may be, so where can I get it from?