anyone doing a version of raw diet?

elisa123gal

My visit to a local vegan/raw restaurant with a friend ended in more than lunch. It sparked an interest in the concept of eating a raw breakfast and lunch as a way to get high nutrition, better health, and fitness.
On the first visit..my food was healthy tasting and not really all that great. But, i was impressed by the crowd; these people looked at food in a different way than the rest of us..it is purely fuel for their bodies. on the wall it had 'food is medicine' written on a chalk board about 50 times.

So.. two days later i went back and had a raw pasta dish and piece of raw pumpkin pie that blew me away. I was amazed it wasn't cooked and amazed at how much nutrition i got in that single meal.

Anyway.. i'm a few days into eating raw breakfast and lunch..and wondering if any of you do it and how it is working for you.

toxikon

Here's an interesting article on raw vs. cooked nutrition: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/raw-veggies-are-healthier/

I personally enjoy having a varied diet of cooked and raw components. I like salads and fresh fruit and veggies just fine, but I don't think I could do 2 meals a day raw. And I don't think there's anything inherently unhealthy about cooked foods, as long as you're not eating deep-fried junk at every meal! To each his own.

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lemurcat12

I try to eat a variety of raw and cooked vegetables (I think both are important), and tend to eat more raw in the summer and more cooked in the winter. I've never understood the appeal of raw, and the claim that you get more nutrition by not cooking is false. I do think any way of eating that makes sure you eat lots of vegetables is probably good, although it might be hard to get enough protein on raw (and some may cut very low on fat).

(I was going to say that, coincidentally, I ate a raw breakfast and lunch today, but remembered I had some roasted pumpkin in my smoothie.) ;-)

elisa123gal

i agree with your input...after doing some more reading today, some vegetables actually have more benefits when cooked. i do like the idea of eating more raw foods in general, it natuarally loweres caloric intake.

Lean59man

It's nonsense.

janejellyroll

I eat a lot of raw fruits and vegetables, but I've never been successful on a raw/high raw diet for a variety of reasons (satiety, sufficient protein intake without going over my calorie goal, the higher cost).

While it's easy to design a lower calorie raw diet, I wouldn't say that it naturally lowers caloric intake -- there are plenty of raw styles of eating that rely on things like dried fruits, nuts, and seeds, and these can be very calorie dense.

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VintageFeline

Is dry fruit counted as raw?

But yeah, I could go to town on nuts, avocados, high sugar content fruits, oily salad dressings (if oils are counted as raw) etc. Raw isn't naturally low calorie unless you specifically restrict it to raw veg.

janejellyroll

VintageFeline wrote: »

Is dry fruit counted as raw?

But yeah, I could go to town on nuts, avocados, high sugar content fruits, oily salad dressings (if oils are counted as raw) etc. Raw isn't naturally low calorie unless you specifically restrict it to raw veg.

Yep, dried fruit is considered raw. A lot of raw desserts rely on things like dates which are delicious . . . but very calorie dense. Cold pressed oils are also considered raw.

MegaMooseEsq

I don’t eat strictly raw, but I rarely eat hot meals other than dinner, and even dinner I go with uncooked 2-3 times a week on average. I doubt it counts as raw because I do include light to medium processed foods (roasted salted nuts, cheese, cured meats). Of course, I ate this way when I was gaining weight, too - all that stuff has calories!

lemurcat12

suzannesimmons3 wrote: »

elisa123gal wrote: »

i agree with your input...after doing some more reading today, some vegetables actually have more benefits when cooked. i do like the idea of eating more raw foods in general, it natuarally loweres caloric intake.

Nope....I'll disagree I can eat an awful lot of calories in RAW fruit.

Me too, plus I imagine I'd eat lots of avocado, nuts and seeds.

I don't find cooked veg less filling than raw, and one major effect of doing raw for me would be more fruit and fewer veg (I'd still eat lots of veg, but many veg (for example, zucchini) I prefer cooked, especially in the winter, and I like to add some cooked veg to my salads even). Another issue is that to have a really diverse diet I think you have to learn to prepare some things raw -- I've done delicious raw meals at restaurants, but I wouldn't be cooking like that at home and I'm sure it wasn't low cal. One example is all the winter squash I currently have -- I like it roasted in a lot of applications, wouldn't know what to do with it raw, I'm not just digging into a raw pumpkin or acorn squash.