Calculating What % Raw (WAS: OT: promoting meat....was Vores)

[Guest guest]

Sure, Roger, and thanks for asking. Although there are several ways to make

such a calculation, the most common, and to my knowledge the most widely

accepted for some years now, is by percent of total calories consumed. So,

for example, if I consume 2500 calories in a day, of which 1750 calories

come from raw foods and 750 from cooked foods, then I am 70% raw (1750 /

2500) that day.

 

The challenge, for most people, is that we have never been taught about the

energy content (caloric value) of foods. So we tend to guesstimate based

upon the volume of the foods we eat ... literally, the physical size of the

foods. But this approach fails completely, as the example below illustrates.

 

 

Please note that all of the data I use here comes directly from Laurie

Masters' new publication, The 80/10/10 Success Guide, about which I wrote a

few days ago. The data can be extracted from the USDA database, if you are

patient, but Laurie's charts really do serve me as a wonderful resource.

 

Dinner Example: Steamed broccoli, quinoa, and salad

 

Est. Calories Type Food

120 Raw Lettuce, 2 LARGE heads of romaine,

leaf, or the like

80 Raw Tomatoes, 4 medium (approx. 480

grams, just over 1 pound)

30 Raw Zucchini, 1 medium (about 200

grams, or about 7 ounces)

70 Raw Cucumber, one LARGE (about a

pound ... this is a big cucumber!)

50 Raw Strawberries, one cup chopped or

sliced, about 170 grams, 5-6 ounces)

 

So here we have a nice, quite large (for most people) salad, garnished with

strawberries in lieu of using a dressing. Calories: 350. Now let's add,

say, 1/2 avocado ...

 

170 Raw Avocado, 1/2 large (100 grams)

 

Now our salad comes to 520 calories. Let's add an entree.

 

635 Cooked Quinoa, 1 cup, or about 170 grams

60 Cooked Broccoli, 2 cups, chopped and

steamed, about 175 grams (6-ish ounces),

or about 6 five-inch

long spears)

 

So here we have a very simple dinner, steamed broccoli with cooked quinoa

and a large raw salad.

 

Calories raw: 520

Calories cooked: 695

 

Total calories: 1,215

Percent raw: 43

Percent cooked: 57

 

If we use the whole avocado, instead of 1/2, our salad becomes 690, and our

dinner becomes about 50% raw.

 

Here's the challenge for most people: if we simply LOOK at the food on the

table, the salad dwarfs the cooked dishes, so that it our meal appears to be

about 90% raw, perhaps more.

 

And honestly, I consider my example to be very tame. The salad is quite

large, whereas the cooked portions are rather small. Further, the cooked

foods people actually eat tend to be far more calorie dense than broccoli.

In addition, if we add any oils in our cooked food preparations, then our

cooked calories skyrocket (120 calories per 1 tablespoon of oil, regardless

of type).

 

Does this help a bit? Please feel free to write back with questions!!!

 

Best,

Elchanan

 

_____

 

rawfood [rawfood ] On Behalf Of

Roger Rowan

Sunday, September 23, 2007 8:34 AM

rawfood

[Raw Food] Re:Calculating What % Raw (WAS: OT: promoting

meat....was Re: Vores)

 

 

Hi Elchanan, Can you tell us how the calculation should be done, please?

 

Regards, Roger

 

Elchanan wrote : Joe, I would love to know how you calculate that 15%

number, if you would be willing to elaborate. In my experience, most people

who claim to be X% raw are, at best, no more than half that amount, once

they learn how to do the calculations. For example, people who claim to be

eating 80% raw are actually eating 25-40% raw in most cases.

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

HI everyone,

 

I'm really sorry, the example below started out rather nicely formatted.

" helped " out, unfortunately. If it's too hard to read, I'm happy to

put it up somewhere on the Web so people can look at it ... just ask, okay?

 

Best,

Elchanan

_____

 

rawfood [rawfood ] On Behalf Of

Elchanan

Monday, September 24, 2007 8:01 AM

rawfood

[Raw Food] Calculating What % Raw (WAS: OT: promoting meat....was

Re: Vores)

 

 

Dinner Example: Steamed broccoli, quinoa, and salad

 

Est. Calories Type Food

120 Raw Lettuce, 2 LARGE heads of romaine,

leaf, or the like

80 Raw Tomatoes, 4 medium (approx. 480

grams, just over 1 pound)

30 Raw Zucchini, 1 medium (about 200

grams, or about 7 ounces)

70 Raw Cucumber, one LARGE (about a

pound ... this is a big cucumber!)

50 Raw Strawberries, one cup chopped or

sliced, about 170 grams, 5-6 ounces)

 

So here we have a nice, quite large (for most people) salad, garnished with

strawberries in lieu of using a dressing. Calories: 350. Now let's add,

say, 1/2 avocado ...

 

170 Raw Avocado, 1/2 large (100 grams)

 

Now our salad comes to 520 calories. Let's add an entree.

 

635 Cooked Quinoa, 1 cup, or about 170 grams

60 Cooked Broccoli, 2 cups, chopped and

steamed, about 175 grams (6-ish ounces),

or about 6 five-inch

long spears)

 

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