I feel torn. I've been seeing a Traditional Chinese Medicine specialist and he keeps insisting that I need to be eating cooked food because I have a lot of deficiencies. I believe in TCM and in Ayurvedic Medicine (Indian Medicine) and they are both thousands and thousands of years old medical systems. They both say that eating raw food is very hard on digestion and should not be eaten exclusively.
I love the idea of eating raw with fruit at the basis and low fat. Something about cracking open a watermelon and sitting out in the sunshine! It just feels so right. I havent really been able to stick with this lifestyle for longer than a couple of weeks so I dont know how it makes me feel in the long run. The first few days I feel amazing and then I start getting diarrhea and feeling light headed and out of balance. The Chinese Medicine specialist told me that it is because the my body is unable to extract the nutrients from the raw food. So this morning I couldnt figure out what to eat! I really wanted watermelon but the words of this alternative medicine doctor kept ringing in my ear. He was very adamant that I eat cooked food and even suggests strongly that I eat meat. What gives? I dont know who to listen to.
What are your opinions on this? Is there anyone here that is also interested in alternative medical systems like TCM and Ayurveda that would like to comment? I just want to hear other opinions on these matters from people that have been doing the raw lifestyle for a while. One of the reasons why I feel I keep flip flopping between raw and cooked is because I really want to eat raw but then when I eat raw I wonder if I am harming myself by not listening to these thousand year old medical systems.
Permalink Reply by The Humane Hominid on If eating raw isn't helping you, don't do it. Eat cooked vegan food until you get your deficiencies under control, then transition to raw if you still want to. There's no reason you have to do everything all at once. Give yourself goals along the path, and meet them one at a time.
Permalink Reply by Viktoriya on Thanks for the advice. Its very reassuring. I know I dont have to do all or nothing. I just really want to succeed on this lifestyle!
Permalink Reply by Prana on In healing oneself, one needs to have courage, commitment, and patience. Patience is the hardest of these 3 attributes. You may be trying to transition too quickly. When I first tried going 811, I forced myself to eat 10% for three months, but then I realized that my body wasn't ready to eat that way quite yet. So I backed off to 20% fat, and then over a period of 2 years, my fat intake naturally dropped down to 10%.
If you are eating along the 811 guidelines and your body is not absorbing the necessary nutrients, I would say that you are moving too quickly and need to back off a bit to give your body some time to adjust. It may take years to get to a point where your body is able to absorb all of its necessary nutrients from just eating mostly fruits and salads with some nuts and seeds.
Permalink Reply by Viktoriya on This is very encouraging Prana, thank you so much! I have committed myself to doing this as high carb low fat raw vegan as possible but if i cant get to fruit then I'll have cooked veggies, rice or potatoes. That really makes sense to me. :)
Permalink Reply by Peter Csere on I agree with you, The Humane Hominid; eating cooked food would help get her deficiencies "under control." This is because cooked food has more nutrients and they are easier to digest and absorb.
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Nevermind, everything I just said was completely false.
Permalink Reply by William Williams on i see Ayruveda as a way of living healthyish on a cooked food diet, Me and my dad were sort of getting into this before I found fruity living.
When people say raw food isn't adsorbed or digested properly it's because they usually mean things like roots, cabage, grains which aren't digested easy. Fruit is the easiest digested food for people! Think of first solids for a baby. Fruit is number one source of food! Cooked starch however can sustain us when we can't get enough fruit, but not as healthily, that is probably why in Ayruveda and TCM they have all the medicines to later heal you when you get ill, while on fruit you don't need medicinal herbs. Also cooked foods are mega addictive so it's a slippery slope if you dabble in them. Fruit and some soft veg have soluble fibre which is soft on the system and clean us gently, grains can irritate our system.
Best Wishes, enjoy fruit Xx
Permalink Reply by Viktoriya on Thats actually a really good point. Ayurveda and Chinese medicine recommend a lot of grains which is purely carbohydrates. Fruit definitely feels much easier on my system then the gourmet raw. Thanks for the great response. This is very helpful. Why do you say that all cooked food is addictive? I understand if its got lots of spices and oils and stuff but what if it were just plain cooked rice?
Permalink Reply by Peter Csere on Viktoriya, the taste of cooked food, whether it's plain rice or potatoes with sour cream, overstimulates the reward circuitry. Sure, the oil and spices are more addictive, but just plain cooked starch is still addictive. Flavors can be just as addictive as cigarettes or heroin. It's neurological.
Says Barton Hoebbel, the famous reward circuitry researcher, "The only things that approach the addictive capability of heroin are junk food and porn" (paraphrased.) "Junk food" in our case means all cooked food, because it all over-stimulates the taste buds and provides that dopamine surge. The dopamine surge not only returns to below-baseline, but it also kills off dopamine receptors, which means that not only do fruit and greens not taste as exciting tomorrow, but everything else that could give you joy will give you a little less joy if it is not a superstimulus. When you see the flowers in the meadow and feel the breeze in your hair, your dopamine receptors will not be able to receive as much dopamine from that as they would if you had not burned them out with the taste of the cooked starch. Sure, sweet potatoes are not as addictive as twinkies, but fruit and greens aren't addictive at all (they do not over-stimulate the reward circuitry causing a crash and burn-out of receptors.)
Permalink Reply by Stephanie Rene on this may be a naive question Peter, but can you heal those receptors? Will the receptors get restrengthened as detox happens?? I want that joy back......
Permalink Reply by Wendy Harvey on lol steph i didnt see you asked the same question:P he scared me 2!!!
Permalink Reply by Nathan on The receptors will return to their normal sensitivity if you do not keep overstimulating them. So yes, they will "heal" as you detox because they are no longer being overloaded.
The receptors die off as a response to excess stimulation. It's the body's way of normalizing things.. less receptors + more stimulation = same result. If you reduce the stimulation, more receptors will grow.
Permalink Reply by Wendy Harvey on phewwww 10x Nathan
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