The raw food diet

Oooh!  I loves the spirooli!!

A most favorite thing I like to do with it (not raw :} ) is to shred zucc, mix in some lemon pepper and even some "I can't believe its a Petroleum Product" and then toss a lump onto the George Foreman and cook for 10 minutes until crispidy - its like a hash brown lump!  YumzZ 

There are a LOT of low fat raw food folks.  You are going to find high fruit folks, low starchy carb ones, higher fat ones, lower fat ones.  The rawies also run the gamut of how they eat, its just  all raw.

Spirooli!  As seen on TV (or I got mine at Kmart, they sell them on amazon too).  Mine has lasted.. oh.. 8ish years.

 Wow !!! REAL   spaghetti pasta  !! whoo hoo Spirooli  here I come ...  I GOTTA get one of those .    

Zucchini pancakes  sound SO yummy  .... wow  you could just  throw w little  egg white in there o hold em tohether  and a bit of batter with even  fat free cheese  in it ...  wow  high protein ... totally  low carb     Thanks  Brandilynn ! 

I just cook them in the clump and its like a hash brown clump but YES!  You could egg them up and everything!

You are very welcome! 

Ava, I just gave up those food groups.  If it didn't taste great raw, I didn't eat it.  I don't think I ate any grains for those raw years.   I did go off plan with popcorn a few times because I just missed it so much!

Like Brandi, I made flax crackers instead of breads.

I gave up milk when I was a vegan and never have gone back except for cream in my tea. I started using soymilk, rice dream or almond breeze back in 1989 and never switched to milk.  After being vegan, lactose made my body stank.  I can eat cheese now but it took a long period of adjustment. 

Google the hemp and I bet you'll find the nutritional breakdown.

 I spent three weeks at the Optimum Health Institute near San Diego almost six years ago. Like Lee, I bought a Vitamix (still used daily) and a dehydrator. No juicer, I had been through that before and hated cleaning it.

I found the food too labor intensive for me. I took classes and bought several raw food "cookbooks". They entail lots of things like dehydrated flax crackers and cashew "cheese", which are used in other recipes. The raw zucchini strips were the replacement for pasta.

There are lots of sprouted things. Even nuts had to be soaked and redried. Only cold-pressed oils. Dehydrating took hours, sometimes days, because you cannot go over 115F and keep it raw.

I wonder how I would get enough protein, especially now. I lost 15 pounds in the 3 weeks. I started out a zealot, but real life came crashing in. For me it was another waste of effort and money. I met some nice people. I think it can be great, but too much work for me.

This is what I think of all these diets... raw foods, paleo, vegan, etc.:

Meh.

I think the human body is very adaptable to all sorts of food. Individuals may have certain food intolerances and do better if they cut certain foods out of their diet but in general we evolved to eat a wide variety of food and we need a wide variety to get all our micronutrients -- including ones we haven't discovered yet so they aren't available in supplements.

If you have some kind of religious or ethical reason to cut out an entire group of food, that's one thing. But I don't think any of these diets are healthier than just eating a wide variety of unprocessed food that agrees with you.

 I'm just fascinated bythe way  people  LOOK  on these diets ...  big eyed ,  soft skinned ,  luxurious , shiny swinging haired and super vital ..very very  young .    I mean  put Christie Brinkley next to this chick .... you'd  think she was her daughter  .or niece ...and CB  the overmadeup  ,overinjected drag queen lol ... 

Also  I have yet to meet a long term vegan  who doesnt stand up stick- straight and  have an awesome set of TEETH  lol !  And many have bodies that could double as walking   anatomy charts  ( Gosh Ive ALWAYS wanted that look )

 ... Now  for what its worth  like I  said I ve known this  GRRL  a million years .  Many  beautiful  women  use fear of the competition as  the   real motivation for not eating that extra bite ...  

and my friend was  ALWAYS   borderline anorexic , particularly right after she stopped working the first time.. ( now she STILL  works but mostly acting and infomercials )   She SAYS   she gpt 40 lbs  overweight  (  I bet  her body  looked  like mine does now if she actually DID lol) but I certainly don't remember that  ... I do remember her looking  pretty scary  skinny once and  pretty unkempt maybe  ten years ago ...  but so what . She probably  just didnt know what to do with herself for a minute and that can be  pretty depressing .    

I guarantee you she remembers me  as  a fat cow with a lifelong  hand-to -mouth self discipline issue lol .  One thing U learn in Manhattan is NOT  to speculate about   often photographed  people  based on  how they look on the way   to the deli ..lest U be judged harshly and unfairly  Urself lol . 

I wasn't BORN with a model's body .   I always had to starve for it  ( I suspect everyone does thats why  girl models  get paid  five times more than the guys  on the same shoots ... but most grrls careeers are super -fleeting )  .  My brain cells  and  common sense  ( and desire to eat !)  intervening  every  five minutes usually  made that  necessary self-discipline into  a daily  tug-of war .  

In my case the food  won more often than it didn't  which is why Ive  rarely  worked  in front of the camera for more than a few months at a time ... 

Now  I feel that I COULD but I ironically  life  and its million stressors are  geting in the way every day   . The question is why do I ALLOW  that  to hold me back ?Probably  time for therapy  as  well as  new recipes !     I need  a BRAIN CHANGE  .... 

Would you guys consider posting   some ofthe  raw foodrecipes U still make  (  the less fattening ones ?)  dehydrated  zcchini 4 pasta   and cauliflower  as a base for  things seem like clever  ideas that  low carbers could use too ...  

Ava, while I may have an entire shelf of beautiful raw food books, I rarely made the recipes.  After my 9 years as a vegan, I've been a very simple and healthy eater for the most part.  I'd rather look at pics in the recipe books and then eat a salad and a piece of fruit.  So I'm not much help with the recipes.  I did love to dehydrate eggplant and put the slices on top of my salads.  So incredibly yummy but today I'd just do it on a low heat oven if I wanted it.  The dehydrator is a pain in the tushie.  I don't use my juicer anymore because I don't drink my calories, regardless of how healthy they are.  I don't get full from them and then I just have to eat again anyways.  I used to dehydrate flax seed crackers and those were pretty good, if you weren't having anything that wasn't raw which tasted better.   We have a restaurant here that I used to frequent a lot called Cafe Gratitude.  They made the best best things like Key Lime Pie using all raw ingredients.  Let me just say that their recipies may taste delish but everything is nut based and not low fat or low cal or low anything.  My son always got sick after eating there with me because he doesn't digest raw nuts easily.

As always, I think keeping it simple is easiest and for me, the best.

There's lot of great raw recipes online.

I know what you mean about how these folks look - something just glows from within them!

I'm not a vegetarian but I really have an aversion to meat so I might as well be.  I couldn't be Vegan though because I love yogurt, butter, and cheese too much to give that up.

I do, however, eat a lot of raw foods including most of my veggies (which are admittedly few and far between), honey, fish, and fruits.   I grow my own sprouts and love them!  I use hemp oil with balsamic vinegar for salad dressing.

I've never followed "The Raw Diet" though because I'm not that good at sticking to any particular way of eating.  Also, I know that there are some nutrients in veggies that are only released when you steam them slightly so I don't know if all raw is the way to go.

Over the past year I've been in a overall detox mode and I've tried very hard to go all natural, raw, and organic whenever possible.  My food, cosmetics, sun screen, shampoo, and even hair coloring is all natural. 

I don't drink cows milk at all (unless it's in cheese or yogurt).  I eat red meat about once every 6 months.  Pork about once a month (as sausage in spaghetti sauce).   If I eat chicken it's about an ounce and I've had enough.  I'll eat ground turkey in spaghetti sauce.

My protein comes from my free-range chicken eggs, greek yogurt, and protein shakes.

I think when my Ferritin comes up and I don't look so pale I might notice the change in going all natural.  Right now though I still just feel washed out.  Good thing I'm taking care of myself in all the other areas or Id be in a heap of hurt!!!

Good luck Ava - let us know if you try going raw!