Your attempt on the raw diet is still much better than mine, I have to rely on the supermarket. If I had the time though, I'd start eating foliage and wild plants (and if I didn't live in the city).
When you say you have trouble digesting, is it mostly fromn eating a meal of steamed broccoli, steamed carrots, boiled corn, boiled/baked potatoes, baked squash, or a vegan soup with vegetables and beans (cooked vegan diet)?
OR..
I'm not assuming that you eat preserved, packaged, or canned foods (I'd guess you mostly eat fresh produce) but would you say that you are having trouble digesting, let's say a fried egg white omelette with spinach and mushrooms, or fried rice with peas, a bagel with cream cheese, commercial granola bars (high fructose corn syrup, preservatives, sushi (w/sashimi) etc.
Maybe if you could give an example of your current diet? I'm thinking maybe I should start cooked vegan for the winter months, and maybe go back to raw. It would help to have an idea of the foods you were experiencing the most trouble with.
Well, yes, I eat fresh as much as possible. I like to eat lettuce with tomato and a little vegan curry sauce on pita bread. This seems to digest well for me. Things I digest well:
-Wheat (fresh local breads, not packaged such as cereals etc). I know some people have difficulty with wheat but I have a middle eastern ancestry and my people have been eating wheat for a VERY long time.
-Steamed vegetables (some such as brussel sprouts can be more difficult)
-Amaranth grain (very good for increasing stomach fire, keeps one regular, contains decent amount of protein)
Things that are very difficult for me:
-all beans, nuts, and seeds
-other grains than amaranth and wheat. Even oatmeal or brown rice is hard on me.
-of course dairy is out of the question
-oils of any kind even fresh flax or olive oil are very difficult on me even in small quantity. Same with coconut oil.
So there isn't a whole lot that I can eat. I am very slowly improving my digestion. So I don't expect to be like this forever. But it is very slow and difficult and I wonder if I have done permanent damage of some kind. One thing is that my body produces almost no stomach acid. I think that this is in response to eating so much raw food which probably requires a lot less acid. Well, the body doesn't like being jerked around I guess. I have talked to a lot of raw foodists and many of them have the same issue with lack of acidity in the stomach. This manifests as a lack of that hungry feeling you get before a meal.
Yes, lots of people that use to eat a strict raw diet have ruined their bodies and have problems with their digestion system. Just like you. Most of them are not on here talking about it, because they had to go to the Doctor to heal themselves and get put on medicine, and they want nothing to do with quack diets, such as the raw food diet, so they don't even hang out on raw food newsgroups.
But you should not eat as much fish as you say you are. There is a fairly new FDA warning that says fish contains mercury and you should limit your fish intake to one day a week. You can get mercury poisoning if you eat too much fish. The FDA does not want to pull Tuna Fish Can's off the grocery store shelf because it is one of the biggest sellers. So they put warning labels on it instead. This goes for all fish in the ocean. http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/admehg.html
To put the acid back in your stomach. You can put raw apple cider vinegar on your salads. No oil with the venegar. I recommend Braggs brand.
Grapefruit is also acidy. You can eat one grapefruit for breakfast. Dont' put any sweetener on it. Eat it plain. And it good for your facial skin. It is a beauty fruit. Dont' eat too many. I eat a half one. I give the other half to my family members or save it for lunch. One grapefruit once or twice a week is good. Don't want to over do it. It isn't healthy.
A spoonful of raw apple cider vinegar helps digestion. Or put the vinegar on your salad as a dressing.
Fresh lemon helps digestion. You can squeeze the lemon in bottled water and mix it then drink it like lemonade. Or put squeeze it on top of your salad. But don't mix sugar with your lemon water. And no sweetener in the lemonade until your digestive system gets better. Just drink plain lemon water.
Peppermint oil can reduce abdominal pain, bloating, and gas.
You can try drinking peppermint tea for digestion.
Ginger root is good for digestion. You can cut small bite size pieces of ginger root on top of your salad or boil pieces in hot water to make a ginger root digestion tea.
Certain people say to eat whole wheat bread for digestion, but others have proved that too much bread will clog digestion. So eat bread moderately. No more than 2 slices a day.
Make sure you are combining your food correctly. Don't eat protein with protein. For instance, don't eat macaroni and cheese with ham. Or chili cheese fries with potatoes. Those dishes are all protein and starch and that is too much protein for the body to handle or digest.
Try eating small amounts at each meal. Do not eat more than the size of your fist of your hand. If you chopped up all your food in a grinder, and it is bigger than the size of one of your fists, then you are eating too much food.
Maybe you are eating too many nuts. Poeple arent suppose to eat more than 2 teaspoons of sunflower seeds a day. And 5 pecans are equal to 1 tablespoon of oil. That isn't healthy at all. Raw foodist's think eating pounds of nuts a day are healthy. But it isn't. it is important to incorporate them into the diet sensibly.
A one-ounce serving of nuts greatly differs.
The following equal one ounce: 24 almonds, 18 medium cashews, 12 hazelnuts or filberts, 8 medium Brazil nuts, 12 macadamia nuts, 35 peanuts, 15 pecan halves and 14 English walnut halves (3). Prepackaging nuts into small, single-serving containers or bags can help keep the servings under control. All it takes is one, one-ounce serving a day or five ounces per week of a variety of nuts to stay healthy. Anything more than that is not healthy. The stomach will have a hard time digesting all those nuts. Nuts are hard on the stomach digest just like meat.
Here is your food pyrmid. You aren't suppose to be eating more than 2 servings of nuts a day. So if you eat a pound a week and only one day a week, then that is toooo many. For instance, if you eat a raw food cake with brazillian nut crust, then you are overdosing your body on nuts. If you eat too many, then you can get nut food poisoning.
I stopped eating nuts about 2 years ago. I was fully aware of the disadvantages of nuts as a raw foodist. And I tried to not eat many, but my body was always crying so hard for protein that I sometimes ended up eating too many.
animals eat greens ALL DAY LONG.
we need a LOT of greens.
green smoothies are not only delicious, but
they are an easy way to get those greens.
try it.
apples, pears, ginger + a variety of greens.
it's an easy way to get a lot of amino acids.
love, patricia
She said he has been eating raw for years. So I'm sure she knows how to drink green smoothies and the health benefits. She is asking how to improve her digestion because her years of a raw food diet has ruined her digestion system and she felt better when she was eating cooked food. A strict raw diet ruins alot of poeples digestion system.
You can try eating stewed tomatoes without the skins.
bodies are resilient. there is nothing that can't be healed. i am concerned that raw foods are being blamed for something that is really due to human error. do you think it may be possible that it is not raw food that is the problem with modern digestion, but perhaps how we humans who are so far from natural, approach the food?
when you put many different kinds of foods in the stomach at one time, or when you combine things that really don't digest together well, or when you eat too much... when you combine sweet ingredients with proteins or starches... when you eat protein with every meal, when you eat fruit after eating protein... and so on... you will have digestive problems. there is a need for orderly eating. one author jokingly said we treat our bodies like garbage cans... we put anything and everything in there... and then we expect them to work correctly?
to improve digestion, i would eat very simply. very very simply. i would let my body rest. that is why some people fast. some fast every sunday. some fast a month a year. americans usually don't miss a meal. and they eat between meal snacks. :) i used to laugh at how americans became vegetarians. they just
i would drink plenty of water, i would choose a food that pleases me and enjoy it. a single food. the body knows what is good for it. i would eat it slowly. i would enjoy every bite. i wouldn't eat again until i am hungry. i would really let my body rest. i would honor my body's natural hunger. i have heard of people eating only cucumbers for weeks, only apples for weeks, etc.
and once i felt better, i would be a very simple raw foodist. fruit for breakfast, maybe for lunch -- as much fruit as i wanted, but only one kind at a time, no mixing of fruits. then i would eat either fruit for lunch or a nice big salad. and i would have a salad for dinner.
animals are so simple. humans are so complicated. :)
I agree, the body is very amazing. It heals itself very well. And amazingly sometimes without doctors. Who needs doctors when we have good food. An apple a day...:-)
P.S.
Eating right doesn't necessarily mean 'raw food'. To me, eating right means eating healthy. No saturated fat, no cholesterol. Pay attention to food labels. I eat some coooked food. As long as it is healthy. Nothing fried.
This isn't a "raw food" forum. This is a vegan, vegetarian food forum. Read the top of the forum. It says nothing about raw food. And what are you doing here? If you have to ask me such a stupid question like "what am I doing here", then I don't want to talk to you you. Then you should take a friendly class on learning how to read. This is a vegetarian/vegan forum. Not only raw food. EVERYBODY IS WELCOME. EVEN PEOPLE WHO DO NOT EAT VEGETARIAN OR RAW FOOD. YOU SHOULD LEARN HOW TO BE MORE POLITE TO POEPLE. YOU WILL HAVE MORE FRIENDS IN LIFE IF YOU CHANGE YOUR ATTITUDE.
Raw Food: The Vegetarian/Vegan
and
Raw Food Forum: The Vegetarian/Vegan - Raw Diet, Juices, Salads, Nuts ...
why did you read anything into my question other than what i wrote?
if you read it in another tone, a friendly tone, you might realize that
i meant no harm. it's all in the inflection. and we usually read things
in the way we feel/think.
i do feel it is inappropriate for anyone to assume that it is the fault of
the food that we are ill. i think there are many other factors involved.
many other factors.
"all healing is essentially the release from fear."
"healing is always certain."
thoughts matter. if you try to do raw foods and bring the same mindset
to it that you were given by the society, you will be afraid -- 'not enough
protein!' or 'what will people think when i go to a social event and i don't
eat the food?' or ... many, many fears. but when you live where the deer
roam, you see that it is possible to be very strong and healthy eating
very simple foods. and the gentleperson who began this thread gave us
(and himself) much good information about how eaating raw works.
greens. keeping it simple. it works. it works wonderfully.
i'd also add -- chew, chew, chew. i see deer laying on the ground,
chewing the same little leaf for a very long time. :)
:)
love, patricia
lol no need to have a freak-out #67558. It DOES say at the top of this forum: Raw Food Forum: The Vegetarian/Vegan - Raw Diet, Juices, Salads, Nuts ...
Thus, it IS a raw food forum. You're confusing this one (the raw food forum) with the Vegetarian forum, which is in another area. That being said, many people here include some cooked foods in their diet. I think 70-80% raw is what most people aim for, from what I've read (unless you're seriously cleansing).
So read the description before you start telling someone else to change THEIR attitude :P
Animals have more complex digestive systems that are designed to eat greens and gain nutrition from them.
Humans do better if they eat at least one cooked meal a day.
Considering his symptoms he shouldn't be eating raw food - especially not in the autumn/winter.
It is obvious from what you've written that the energy of your stomach and spleen need boosting
Acupunture is good for this - I admit being biased because I'm studying chinese medicine
I do sympathise with you because i'm on a wheat free vegan diet.
As to whether you need more protein, meat helps if you are willing to eat it.
If you aren't eating enough protein then you will likely be experiencing symptoms such as blurred vision, floaters in the eyes, scanty periods (if you are female), dizziness, dull complexion, poor memory, insomnia and depression.
I haven't had these problems but I make sure I eat plenty of blood forming foods
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Anyone have advice for regaining digestion after raw vegan diet? 
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