My Current Diet

20 01 2010

This will be the last “about me” post for a while, as I’d like to start tackling common raw-food problems and addressing their possible solutions. In the meantime, here’s a rundown of the diet I’ve been eating for the past five years or so. With this eating style, I find that I feel and look my best—great energy, clear and glowing complexion, excellent digestion, emotional stability, good muscle tone, improved dental health, and lightning-fast healing speed. In the future I’ll tell you about the time I got hit by a car (the shattered bone in my arm healed twice as fast as the doctors expected, and the physician’s assistant asked if I was taking mega-doses of calcium because she’d never seen an adult bone repair so fast. I told her no, but I was eating a pound of spinach a day in green smoothies!).

However, I also refuse to get too “set in my ways,” preferring to remain flexible and honest with myself in case I ever need to make dietary changes in the future. So far, this system works beautifully for my body. But if it ever stops working for me, I won’t be afraid to roll up my sleeves and start tweaking things again. Attachment to a single diet paradigm can be the very thing that ruins your health. If I’ve learned anything in life, it’s that the universe likes to throw you a monkeywrench whenever you start thinking you’ve got it all figured out. So I figure, why not recognize from the get-go that we’re all just eternal students? :)

The gist of my eating plan: Read the rest of this entry »


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Raw Journey: Part 3

16 01 2010

My reflections on raw dairy.

After a year of experimenting with varying amounts and types of raw dairy—including goat, sheep, cow, and buffalo—I finally accepted the fact that it was doing me more harm than good. I did feel physically stronger and my hair stopped shedding, but my face looked like an oil slick, I was breaking out nonstop, my digestion was crummy, I felt constantly bloated, and the congestion—oh, the congestion. I had to tote around wads of kleenex wherever I went.

I trimmed dairy out of my diet again; my complexion improved within days and any sign of congestion disappeared. Out of curiosity, I tested dairy one more time a few months later—a small amount of raw cheddar shredded on a salad—and wham, the congestion was back. I no longer buy any milk products, raw or otherwise.

I’ve spoken to a growing number of former raw vegans who now supplement their diets with dairy. And recently, it seems a few leaders in the raw community are doing the same—emerging from the woodwork amid the the boos and hisses of the crowd, asserting that raw dairy has bolstered their health. Read the rest of this entry »


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Raw Journey: Part 2

12 01 2010

Epic Failure #2: high-fat, raw-dairy-crazed, low-glycemic madness.

I think the bitter warring has died down in recent years, but back in time (2003-ish), fruit versus fat was the most vicious raw debate around. You were either in the fruit camp or the fat camp (sometimes called the “green camp”), never in any sort of grey zone between. For the sugar-avoiders, fruit was a hybrid, unnatural dietary monster; for the fat-avoiders, oils and other raw lipids were the culprits behind candida, deficiency, and every other health woe imaginable.

I jumped the fruit ship and landed in a sea of coconut butter.

Read the rest of this entry »


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Raw Journey: Part 1

9 01 2010

So there I was: 16, far from vibrantly healthy, and about to embark on the dietary quest of a lifetime.

In the beginning, I gleaned the bulk of my raw information from Doug Graham’s message board on Vegsource.com. I am a “lazy in the kitchen” type person, so the simplicity of the “811″ eating style—lots of fruit, minimal fat, and no gourmet recipes or superfoods—seemed enormously appealing. I read briefly about other raw dietary approaches, but they all seem too complicated and supplement-heavy.

So, still living under my parents’ roof, I loaded up on fruit and started on my merry raw way. I was already accustomed to eating a large salad most nights for dinner and snacking on loads of fruit, so the transition was fairly painless—the toughest part was giving up salty, crunchy items like chips. Prior to going deliberately raw, I was probably averaging 60% raw per day, simply because I was allergic to nearly everything else.

About a week after eating 100% raw, I ate some rye bread with roasted almond butter for breakfast instead of my usual fruit. It sat in my stomach like a brick. The drop in energy was immediate and horrible. It was almost a full year before I touched any cooked food again.

Epic Failure #1: high-fruit undereating. Read the rest of this entry »


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My Background and History: Part 2

6 01 2010

The Teenage Years

I spent my middle and high school years in mediocre health. The wheat allergy drama was over, but I was still getting sick at least once a month—especially with sinus problems and chronic congestion. At some point during my freshman year of high school, my parents pointed out that I’d start clearing my throat constantly (and probably annoyingly) every time I ate yogurt. After lamenting over my much-loved milk products, I snipped dairy out of my diet. Boom! No more sniffles. Read the rest of this entry »


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My Background and History: Part 1

4 01 2010

I jumped head-first into the raw food world in January of 2003—seven years ago at this point. Although this site isn’t intended as a personal blog, I do want to share some of my own history and experiences with raw foods and health in general.

Read, peruse, or skip over this at your leisure. Read the rest of this entry »


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The Purpose of This Site

1 01 2010

In recent years, the raw food movement has burgeoned from “little-known crazy hippy fringe diet” to something slowly gaining legitimate mainstream attention. Raw food restaurants, recipe books, forums, blogs, DVDs, and other resources are cropping up en masse. And with the launch of 2010, a host of raw-foodists-to-be will start the new decade by boycotting the stove.

Unfortunately, a good portion of the raw food movement still suffers from “HISS”—or Head in Sand Syndrome. The raw community seems eager to embrace success stories, but those who vocalize skepticism and struggles are often ostracized, silenced, or even banned from forums and message boards online. It’s true that some people just want to stir the pot—in which case, they probably deserve the boot—but it’s a sorry situation when sincere concerns are swept under the rug instead of receiving honest answers.

Raw foodism can pave a phenomenal path to health—but right now, the movement is in dire need of openness and transparency, especially amongst its leaders. 

This site is not aiming to dissuade anyone from eating raw or to spread fears about the “dangers” of the diet. Quite the opposite: Raw Food SOS is intended as a place for raw foodists—current or aspiring—to have access to information and solutions not readily available elsewhere. This is a dogma-free, judgment-free zone, with no topic off limits and no agenda to enforce. 

Yours in health,

Denise


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