Zsuzsa/Transitioning to raw vegan--for khriperz

[Guest guest]

Zsuzsa,

 

Thanks for all this great information, I can use it as well. I've been

vegan for about 4-5 months now. Although I eat very little grain or

legume, I would still like to eliminate these from my diet all together.

My diet is about 60% raw on average, although in the past week it been

about 80%. It is so nice to have a wealth of information to learn from.

My husband is supportive and is trying to go vegan. He does well for a

couple weeks, then slips. But then again, he is learning late. As he is

20 years older than I, he feels that his " damage has been done " and that

nothing is going to reverse it. I feel is it never too late to pursue

optimal health and told him he would feel so much better in his latter

years if he were to get his diet under control for good. Sometimes I

feel, at 37, that my own damage has been done as well (I smoked heavily

for 20 years). But each morning I wake up, I feel better than I have in

a long time. I pray the next 37 years are much better than the first,

healthwise.

 

Thanks again for all the great info and links.

Autumn

 

On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 05:04:53 -0000 " southladogs " <southladogs

writes:

Hi,

 

There are various ways to transition to raw vegan, and also to the

type of raw vegan dietary that one chooses. Not all raw vegans eat

the same thing, and my diet is very simple, so I may not be the best

person to speak to you about transitioning, but then again I may be

after all

 

I had been a vegetarian for 22 years at the time I became vegan, and

I became raw a few months after that. I began with a regimen of two

fruit meals, plus one salad meal, per day. Now, 13-1/2 years later,

my diet is pretty much the same. It's simple to prepare, and I feel

it is optimally healthy. I try to make sure these meals are full and

satisfying, and try to eat them between noon and 8 pm, and I eat

nothing else, no snacking. I eat only raw fruits, nuts, and leafy

greens. I eat the fruits in whatever combination or form (whole,

chopped, or blended) appeals to me. I usually eat the nuts with my

salad, either as nut butter, or else I simply eat a meal of nuts.

The only thing I generally drink are my all-fruit smoothies, or

freshly squeezed orange juice. Sometimes I blend up watermelon,

which liquefies to the consistency of juice. My diet is one that is

called a fruitarian diet.

 

You may not want a diet like the above, or else you may not be ready

for it, you will have to evaluate and decide for yourself what you

would like to do. You may want to go to a fruitarian diet right off

the bat, or you may want a transitional time to take it more

gradually. There is no right or wrong way, and I believe you will

intuit what feels right for you. You seem to be coming from a SAD

diet, and normally people feel that the " learning curve is too

steep " to go right to a fruitarian diet. However, you indicate that

you ate nothing but strawberries, banana's, mango's, pistachio nuts

and bread for a week, and felt great, so you may in fact be very

ready to go right to a fruitarian diet. If you can eat a fruitarian

diet as per Natural Hygiene (more on that later), as I described

above, you may fall off from time to time--that's okay, you just

pick up again when you're ready, eventually you will stop

backsliding. If you do a whole transition in one step, such as I

describe above, you may experience dramatic detox. Many people fear

such a thing, but if you understand it, you will realize there is no

danger in it, despite the possibly intense symptoms which accompany

the body rushing out the toxins.

 

Another option is to transition gradually, by going vegan first,

which it sounds like you are definitely very ready to do. If you

don't want to bite off more than you can chew (inadvertent pun) all

at once, then you can simply get yourself used to not eating animals

or animal products as a first, and most important, step. If you feel

more comfortable with the format of traditional meals, use an

analogue made of tofu, or nut, or TVP, there are so many meat

substitutes on the market these days. And then use the sides of

potatoes and other veggie. And eat lots of salads, trying to keep

all ingredients raw. You can substitute a traditional breakfast with

just fruit, then make another meal a salad meal, while having a

vegan version of a traditional meal. When ready, you can substitute

a gourmet raw version of a traditional meal. There are many choices

available.

 

Probably others on this list will be better able to give you 7 day

meal plans involving more elaborate meals than I can. Actually, I

wouldn't make a meal plan--eat what your body desires, when it

desires it. We don't know a week ahead of time what we will desire

each moment of each day, so just go with your body's desires. A good

site for ideas is Victoria Boutenko's http://www.rawfamily.com. Her

books also have recipes, and although I have not seen her newest

book, it is described as being full of recipes from top raw chefs.

There are also raw vegan recipes and possibly meal plans you can

find on the internet, among them at:

http://www.living-foods.com/recipes/

http://www.exerciseyourwillpower.com/recipes.html

http://www.vegparadise.com/recipeindex.html#Raw

http://www.rawtimes.com/recipes.html

http://www.rawveganrecipes.com/index.php?display=new

 

I live according to Natural Hygiene. There are many books which

explain what Natural Hygiene is, I feel the best ones are the modern

classics by Dr. Herbert Shelton. There are a couple of books

covering the subject of food written by Dr. Shelton that you can

read for free on-line. These are not recipe books, but they will

give you a great idea of the optimal diet, which is very simple, as

well as of health in general:

http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020126shelton.orthotrop

hy/020126.toc.html

http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglibcat/020125shelton.pristine/

020125toc.htm

 

Regarding not losing weight when transitioning, I also was very

slender most of my life. I began to gain weight, then I went vegan

and lost weight, then gained it again, and lost it when going raw.

In order to keep my weight up I ate plenty of the most fattening raw

foods--avocados, nuts, seeds. Lots of sweet fruits (fresh, not

dried) can help also. Dr. Graham is a runner and trainer, and burns

tons of calories, but he eats lots of bananas each day, and so he is

slender but well built. However, at some point in the early years of

being raw vegan, weight loss may become inevitable, as the body must

eliminate the toxins which are stored in the non-essential fat and

muscle reserves. The weight loss is temporary, and in fact when the

cleansing is completed, the body has revitalized its ability to

assimilate--poor assimilation is prevalent as a reason people can't

gain weight. Once the body fixes it, assimilation becomes very

efficient.

 

Re a recipe for almond milk, I believe there is at least one on the

links above. I have only made almond milk a few times, and it was

many years ago, when I first began my raw life. We made it by

soaking almonds overnight in distilled water, then pouring off the

water and rinsing the almonds, then blending the almonds up with new

water, and straining out the liquid (the almond meal can be used in

recipes). To make the almond milk rich, creamy, and sweeter, we

blended in one banana, and sprinkled a bit of cinnamon on top.

 

As for what foods are likely to kill you or harm you if eaten raw,

the only things I've eaten that scared me were beans. Beans and peas

are botanically fruits when they are young. When they become old,

they harden and become botanically legumes. Normally people cook

them for hours, and even then they are a disaster to digest,

famously resulting in lots of flatulence, since they are a

combination of protein, fats, and carbs, which don't mix well all

together. I once soaked beans, I don't recall which kind, but I just

changed the water several times, and after a couple of days they

seemed soft enough to be edible. I got very sick from them, and I

would therefore advise avoiding eating raw legumes.

 

I would also advise against using pulp from juiced veggies in

recipes, especially if the juicer extracts the liquid very

efficiently. I also got very sick from inadvertently eating such

pulp as parts of the ingredients of meals at raw events, as did

other guests and companion animals of the hosts who also ate these--

we all brought it back up. There is simply not enough liquid left in

the pulp for the body to process it.

 

I frankly no longer soak anything, nor ferment, nor sprout, nor

juice anything but oranges, and my experiences with these processes

was limited, just experimentation with recipes out of curiosity. If

I'm at a raw vegan event, I will cautiously try the various

delicacies, but I keep my usual diet very simple. I go to the

produce department or the farmer's market, and buy what appeals to

me (and what I can afford!), and so I have plenty of food at home to

choose from. Then I prepare or just grab whatever my body desires. I

generally just eat my fruitarian diet, and that's what I would

recommend most highly.

 

Enjoy, and be healthy!

 

Zsuzsa