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Low fat raw food

Anybody trying to go low fat raw? I used to be high fat raw but when I switched over to low fat raw I felt way better.

Comments

  • low fat raw? what are you eating that has fat in it? and also do you know about essential oils ?

  • JoescJoesc Raw Master

    What are some recipes that you consume that are low fat?

  • humanimalhumanimal Raw Newbie

    My diet is pretty low fat and I do agree that I feel much better. When I was eating more nuts and fatty fruits I felt heavy and bloated.. But now I feel very light and energetic.

  • rawgirl1976rawgirl1976 Raw Newbie

    This may be my inexperience talking but why would anybody want to go low fat on the raw diet? You would miss out on the best and healthiest fats in the world. All of the different nuts and seeds and avocados, yummy!!! If you are 100 % raw you never have to worry about being overweight. I absolutely love the pecan carrot burger, the walnut burger and the carrot cake with cashew icing. That’s what I like about being raw you can eat pies, cakes, cookies, pizza and ice cream and every bite makes you stronger and healthier. I hope I don’t offend anybody by what I said but I love this way of eating. I was 165 lbs this time last year and now I am 108. My boyfriend was 220 and he is now 175. He eats about 150 grams of fat a day. All from nuts and seeds.I eat any where from 50 – 80 grams a day of fat.

  • Personally, I think that different things work better for different people… some people function better on more fruit or more fats, etc. Also, how active you are can make a big difference. However, your body does require a good bit of fat to keep the metabolism functioning smoothly. And as rawgirl writes, a raw foods diet points you straight to the healthiest fats (avacados, olive oil, nuts). Incidently, these are also great “brain foods”... if you’re into that sort of thing. I’ve found that what works best is eating a large amount of fruits and vegetables and then treating things like nuts with a little more moderation. For instance, don’t eat a cup of almonds, and then decide that you don’t feel like your salad. Eat the salad…and then nibble on nuts later if you’re still hungry. Hope this helps!

  • humanimalhumanimal Raw Newbie

    Nicely put :)

  • There are people who ate 100% raw diet for years and years and have got heart attacks, strokes, cancer, and the like. Raw fats are not healthy as you all were led to believe. A small amount is okay but if you get more than 10-15% of your calories from fat (which most on this diet get) you are asking for trouble. There are obese people who eat 100% raw foods. If you check just 1 days foods on a site like nutridiary dot com you will see that you are probably getting a lot more fat than you think. I was thinking the same way as you guys, raw fats are good – but I did more research and found out that fat is fat and too much is bad. My old fat consumption was over 35% – and I was not eating a lot of prepared raw food. Now I stick within the 10% range. I lost some weight at first but I got used to eating more low fat food and now I gained it back.

  • JoescJoesc Raw Master

    I have been trying to deplete nuts from my diet due to my research that shows that most nuts even labeled raw are not. I also found some more information that I didn’t know on rawguru.com. It is article 7 close to the bottom

  • PamPam

    I watch my fat intake. I just got back on raw in January so it’s a little higher just to get over the initial psychological hunger issues. But just this week, I am starting to be more careful. I am easing back on fats by taking out most of the dehydrated foods, eliminating all but a tiny handful of nuts and easing out the oil on my salads. But I’m still having my one avocado a day. My main problem is that once I cut an avo and it’s a good one, I’m going to eat it all! (I’ve had a lot of problems with bad avos lately.) My goal is to get to 10% to see how it feels.

    I agree that too much fat is not good for you even if it is the “good” fat. However, I’m not convinced that 10% is the right number either, particularly when my daily calorie consumption is around 1,600.

    SocaL, do you have any articles on people who have had heart attacks and gotten cancer on a raw diet? I’m be interested in reading more about it. I really want to be at the right percentage for fat consumption… but I haven’t seen any very compelling reasons to be at 10%, other than the fact that our foraging ancestors probably didn’t eat so much fat!

    Pam

  • I highly recommend the 80/10/10 Diet book written by Doug Graham. It was a real eye opener for me. I attended many raw fooders speeches and read a lot of their information all telling us that raw fat doesn’t cause health problems. These guys should be silenced! Just look at the percentages of human milk and you will see that the right ratios are much much lower than most raw dieters are eating. I heard from people like Paul Nisan that some of the people who he interviewed for his first book have since died. The book is only a few years old. I also have seen obese raw fooders in some of the meetings that I attended in the past. One of the speakers I went to see said he knew someone who needed heart bypass surgery from eating too much fat on a raw food diet. If you like avocado, then just eat one every 3 or 4 days, that way you can eat the whole thing but not go over on your fat intake.

  • humanimalhumanimal Raw Newbie

    I do agree with you on the fact that a lot of raw foodies are eating way too much fat. You see raw pizzas made with flaxseed crust and topped with a nut cheese of some sort. Thats a lot of fat!

  • PamPam

    Thanks, I’ll take a look at the book.

  • ZoeZoe Raw Newbie

    SocaL I hear what you are saying, but there may be other factors involved with people dying of cancer, heart disease etc when on raw food. For instance, Did they smoke? Drink coffee or tea? Did they take drugs, prescription or otherwise? We’re they only 70 or 80% raw? Did they believe they were 80% when actually they were only 50% because of not researching their ingredients? How do we know for sure they were 100% raw when many raw foodists believe and eat many ingredients which are not in fact raw. Including most nuts, frozen veggies, dried fruit, maple syrup, cacao, etc They may have said they were raw, and had problems and ‘cheated’ with goodness knows what, and not wanted to admit to it, we just don’t know. If you have seen obese raw fooders at meetings did you talk to them about what they eat, and how long they have been raw? They may have been in the process of losing weight on raw food. If they have been obese then it takes a long time to lose the weight and to someone who doesn’t know their history they may well look overweight, when in truth they are in the process going from morbid obesity to normal weight. I don’t think we need to watch our food intake if we are 100% raw, because I believe that our bodies will guide us to what is good for us. When I need fat I crave avocado, when I need greens I crave kale. I just let my body be the boss. It knows best. A person’s mind set is also a contributing factor in their health. Anyone who has experimented with positive thinking and affirmations will know that as well as ‘you are what you eat’, also, ‘you are what you think.’. Someone who thinks they are healthy and has thoughts about growing youthful, healthier and living forever will be a healthier person than someone who believes that deteriorating with age and dying is not optional. In fact I have heard it said that maybe the only reason we die is because we believe in it so strongly. And if you truly believe that you will die, then you will die of something, whether they are raw or SAD…

  • Hello!

    I eat a high fruit/very low fat diet. I just gravitated toward eating this way over the years that I’ve been raw because I noticed that my body and mind and spirit felt the best when I ate lighter. I have way more energy, sleep better and have more enthusiasm and better moods when I eat very little fat. I only eat about half of an avocado per week, and sometimes not even that. Otherwise I eat all fruit and greens. I think at the beginning it is important to not limit yourself too much because it is hard enough for many people to just stay raw, but I think that getting to a very simple, mostly fruit, low fat diet is the ideal.

    All the best,

    Audrey

  • PamPam

    I just wonder what’s the right amount of fat. Many raw vegans are up in the 60% range or higher. But there’s a difference between eating 4 avocados a week, say, and 3 or 4 a day. And there are some raw vegans who do this… plus olive oil, plus nuts, plus seeds. From my own experience, I think it’s more than 10% but definitely less than 30%.

    I’m headed to the bookstore right now to see if I can find Doug Graham’s book since I can’t wait for mail order. I agree with Audrey that it’s important not to limit yourself too much in the beginning. I am “in the beginning.” However, I was raw for an entire year before, so I’m not cutting myself too much slack. Staying raw is pretty easy for me. I have so many allergies, eating a SAD diet wasn’t really feasible, anyway. High fat doesn’t feel very good… and it’s a bit seductive. However, too low and I’m standing in the kitchen every half hour trying to figure out what to eat! When I eat too much fruit, I feel spacy and find myself reaching for something, anything to get rid of the blood sugar rush. Green smoothies have been great for me because they help me crave raw foods and they provide an alternative to endless chewing (salads) and fruit highs.

  • Pam, I’m glad you mentioned calories up a bit in the conversation. I know, for me, if I go over 1400 calories a day I will gain weight regardless of its SAD or raw vegan food. I love raw vegan food, because its more nutrient dense and enzymes help my body to function better, but I have to watch my calorie intake.I wish more raw recipe books would include calorie, fat, protein, etc counts. OR are they pandering to the SAD people? Of course food will be great if you drown it in oil and fatty nuts. Back in my SAD days I used to say, “a chair would be good if you’d fry it and put cheese on it.” Usually when I run upon nuts in a recipe book, I try to half them and bulk up the veggies. Like the mock taco meat on this website. I just use 1/4 cup of walnuts and use marinated mushrooms to fill up my lettuce wrapper. Marinated mushrooms are way lower in calories.

  • I am not certain that Doug’s book is in the bookstores yet. It is a pretty new book. Let me know if you found it. I think every raw dieter needs to at least pick up that book before they dive deeply into this lifestyle. You might not agree with everything said in the book but at least you will see that side of the debate. My background is in science and everything mentioned in Doug’s book is backed by science. In a nutshell the most important thing to remember is the body processes fats very differently than carbs (sugars). Fats can take from several hours to several days to be digested. During this time these fats coat every cell in our body. This coating of fat makes it difficult for the sugars (simple digested sugars like from fruits) to enter the cells of our body where they are needed. What happens then is the sugars remain in the blood and that causes havoc – candida will grow out of control to clear this sugar which causes many problems to our health. This is a simple fact of life that affects all human beings. If you think you can be healthy with this yeast growing in your blood and high blood sugar then you are probably fooling yourself.

  • JoescJoesc Raw Master

    I couldn’t find the book in the bookstores or amazon but I found it on the website Raw Food World. Have you read his high energy diet recipe, I was thinking about grabbing that.

  • Hi Pam,

    Unfortunatley, if you are getting uncomfortable feelings from eating fruit, you need to reduce your fat intake. Too much fat in the system interferes with the utilization of glucose and can cause those feelings. While you are waiting to get Dr.Graham’s book you can read the FAQ section on his website www.foodnsport.com, it does a good job of explaining this concept.

    All the best,

    Audrey 

  • Yes, chilove is right, you prolly need to watch the calories from fat and also need to increase the greens (lots of lettuce, celery and some spinach). As far as the recipes, there are some in the 80/10/10 Diet book. Most of them are very simple – this is so because our body can only digest a couple of different foods at once. The complicated recipes with 20 or 30 different ingredients will just clog up our digestive tract. In my opinion people who eat raw food in this way might as well stay on cooked foods. Even Doug says that it is better to eat a cooked low fat diet than to eat a raw high fat diet.

  • ZoeZoe Raw Newbie

    On Rhio’s website there is a very interesting and well balanced artice about Doug Graham’s 80-10-10 diet. Documenting the adverse effects people have experienced on it, as well as the positive ones. Some people appear to have become very ill on this mainly frutatian diet. It seems that as Rhio says, “One size does not fit all.”

    It is in two parts, be sure to click on part two Click here and scroll down to read it

  • I read most of the letters you referred to. In the ones that I read the problem seems to be a deficiency of B12. This is not unique to the 80/10/10 diet but common to any vegan diet raw or cooked. This is one topic that is still controversial. Some people suggest to use B12 supplements, some don’t. Having yourself checked for MMA is a good way to see if this can be a problem. Personally I take some B12 supplements on occasion as this nutrient is stored in our body for quite a while and there is no need to consume a lot of it. There are probably just as many or more letters like this from people on the hi fat raw diet. The ones who died from eating too much fat can’t write letters, so possibly not as many.

  • JoescJoesc Raw Master

    Even though eating by blood type hasn’t been conducted on a group of people to see if it is accurate. I saw that based on my blood type I should eat a vegetarian diet. High in fruits, vegetable, and carbohydrates, low in proteins, and fat, so the 80-10-10 might actually work for me. I will try the book out. I have been wanting to cut down on the fat and protein in my diet because it makes me lethargic.

    There is the book the Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine by Gabriel Cousens which promotes high protein, high fat, low sugar diet which if the 80-10-10 doesn’t work for them then maybe this book may work.

  • ZoeZoe Raw Newbie

    I read all the letters in Rhio’s articles, and I found that according to the experiences of the people who wrote to her, (which included Valya Boutenko!) the problems with the Doug Graham diet further than simply being a B12 issue. I found her whole two sections on it very interesting.

    Another thought I have had on this subject is this: I assume that when people switch to a low fat raw diet, they are mainly cutting out/reducing their nuts and oils- which they may not have known are cooked-as many people are unaware of the cooked nuts and oils they believe they are eating all raw food. This could well contribute to their feeling of well being. I know I felt much better when I cut out cooked nuts and oil. I had more energy, and felt happier and healthier in every way.

  • I really enjoyed Rev. David Wolfe’s advice to eat high fat one morning and see how you feel the rest of the day. The next day eat a high sugar breakfast and see how you feel. And the next day eat high protein and see how that works. Witch ever one works the best focus your diet in that direction. And always eat whatever you want, whenever you want.

  • ZoeZoe Raw Newbie

    Yes, that’s a really good idea.

  • JoescJoesc Raw Master

    That is a good idea.

    I had the most energy one day when I drank a beet drink, a green smoothies with kale and ate a kale salad for breakfast and lunch. I didn’t eat any nuts that day . The bad thing is I think I had too much kale because my body couldn’t eat any more kale salad at lunch and then I couldn’t eat at all. I felt sick when I looked at food but was fine doing my work and I had energy when I exercised. I lost my appetite for a day and a half roughly 36 or so hours. I also used the bathroom more even on the day I ate nothing.

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