Raw Food Diet

????

Cooking food is what separates human beings from the rest of the animals on this planet. It's a marker of civilization.

Only an idiot (or an animal) would eat a raw food diet.

ive never tried it but i know people who have. they say it makes their body feel healthier.

I haven't tried the diet, yet, but I have looked into it. I'm going to give two links to sites that I found helpful when I was looking - they will have even more links.

http://www.giveittomeraw.com/ - A community for people on a raw diet (and those interested).
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/02/raw-food-diet/ - Where I first heard about the raw diet. His posts give some idea what you might be in for (good and bad).

I think proponents of raw food diets have little understanding of digestion and chemistry, but whatever. It's a lot healthier than McDonalds, if you want to inconvenience yourself unnecessarily in the name of health.

It's the idea that cooking food, kills nutrients and natural enzymes, cuz you're essentially burning it. It helps revert your digestive system and your whole body back to it's natural flow, supposedly. By eating foods at their peak healthiest. I'm sure it works, but it's extremely difficult to live on that.

@Barry : Thanks for showing the eworld of how ignorant people are.

@Duane : You go girl/or guy... I did it that way to. In fact Pavlina put me on to it.

@Julie: Whats YOUR understanding of digestion and chemical interactions in the body? Let me see your Phd.

@Gina: Your right but its only difficult for the first 3 days of initiation. After that the organs adapt and change to suit and it may become routine part of your lifestyle.

Overall, it helps you lose weight, you have to be detailed in meal planning and excercise, and you have to spend A LOT of money on equipment/foods. I did it for almost a year and I was at my prime, but doing it alone will be like sad , lonely torture . You gotta ask yourself; Is outcasting yourself from a society which lives like Barry something you really want to do?

While an entirely raw diet might be extremely difficult, there are certainly benefits of trying to incorporate as many raw foods into your diet as possible. It will help make sure you are eating mostly natural, whole foods - always better than chips and cookies.

Diet is simple... i lost 15 kg
just keep away from
ketchup
mayo
mustard
soft drinks - eg coke
bread

if you can do that, with an additional 15-30 min jog every other day, you will see results within a week..

i'm currently eating a raw diet and losing weight with it. it's actually pretty simple, and i find it less expensive than when i ate cooked foods. it really doesn't have to be complicated or time-consuming to prepare!

i just graze on fresh fruits all day, whenever i feel hungry. i've been bringing 4 oranges and a grapefruit to work each day and it tides me over til i get home in the evening. then for dinner i make myself a large salad of spinach, seeds, (c)raisins, an apple, and a whole avocado. it's delicious! especially with my homemade dressing of olive oil, white balsamic vinegar, mustard vinegar, regular mustard, and a touch of stevia, salt, pepper, and other spices like basil. for dessert, i have a banana and an ounce or 2 of raw almonds.

note that i also exercise at least 3x a week of cardio intervals and light weights.

a raw diet is definitely doable and simple!

Wow. All this negativity over raw food? Really? Look first, stop calling raw food a diet. Diet has such negative connotations. Its raw food LIVING. When approached properly, you can lose weight AND be healthy. I went totally raw not to lose weight. Not for health. But because it makes sense. Do our bodies make enzymes? Yes. But by adding raw food into our daily lives, the body does not need to spend time making extra enzymes to break down all the crap the Average American Diet has in it.

Dead food, i.e. cooked food, not only has less nutrition but you have to eat more of it and the cooking process adds toxins that our bodies do not need or want. Live foods, that is raw living foods, have all the vitamins and minerals your body needs without adding other crap into it. A balance between fruits and green leafy vegetables will give your body everything it needs. For example did you know that 1 cup of many green leafy veggies have more calcium than whole milk and more vitamin than an orange? Go ahead, look it up. Plus, the protein is there and the amino acids necessary for good nutrition.

People really should spend more time researching about raw foods than just blasting it because they do not understand the concept. There are many people out there that proclaim themselves "gurus" but lets face it, they are pushing product. REAL raw food eating is not healthy but you will also have more energy.

With regards to the person who has a raw foodie stick friend, that is NOT a typical raw foodist. There is a balance, an easy one at that, that will allow you to lose weight, but also BUILD muscle. I know several athletes and bodybuilders that are true raw foodist.

Please, before you just bash something you don't understand just to see your name on the Internet, do some research and see for yourself.