Is an all-raw diet for you?
Personal Development for Smart People guru Steve Pavlina has started out 2008 with a 30-day raw food diet, and he’s chronicling his daily progress on his blog for all to see. It’s an interesting read if you’d like to learn more about an all-raw diet.
Steve’s version of the raw diet for this trial is very paired-down and heavily fruit-based. He’s not using herbs, spices, salt, garlic, or onions. You can see more of his self-imposed rules .
While I’ve never really given much thought to an all-raw diet, his experiment does remind me of a time in college when I tried to eat nothing but fruit. I had been having a lot of mysterious food allergies, and my neighbor tried to convince me that a fruit-only fast would help cleanse my system and might even help determine what foods I was allergic to (with the idea that I’d be adding back other foods one at a time and watching for reactions).
Skeptical, I decided to give it a try for a day. I approached it as a sort of adventure rather than really expecting any benefits from it. Two of my roommates decided to join me, and we headed off to the market to stock up on massive amounts of delicious, fresh fruit.
That day we ate, and ate, and ate… more fruit than we thought was possible to eat in one day. We just couldn’t get full. I came home from an evening class to an empty house and decided I just couldn’t take the hunger anymore – I boiled some pasta and ate it with some garlic and olive oil. It was the most delicious thing I had ever eaten.
My roommates came home, and I felt overwhelmed by guilt – here they were doing this fruit-only fast to support me, and I had given up before the end of the day. As it turned out, my guilt was short-lived: as soon as I had left the house for my evening class, they had cooked up some pasta of their own. (This was in Italy – as students there we basically lived off of pasta, veggies, and cheese. It never got old.)
At any rate, I’m interested to see how Steve’s 30-day trial turns out. Maybe I could be persuaded to give it a try for myself.
Have you ever tried an all-raw diet?
Hi Jul!
I’ve been following Steve’s trial too!
After a few days reading his accounts, I felt that this wasn’t a diet that I would follow. It is extremely restrictive, and I thoroughly enjoy cooking so, for me that’s a no. Having said that, I do understand what benefits can be gained from a raw food diet. So what I do, is include raw food in my meals along with cooked food. Last night for example, I made “tartines” (large slices of bread topped with pesto and tomato slices with finely chopped red pepper grilled in the oven) and served that with celery sticks and rocket salad. That way I can gain the health benefits of uncooked food while preserving the enjoyment of a standard cooked meal.
I’m following Steve, as well. =) I tried to do 30 days raw once. I caved in to toast and marmite (of all things!) on day 4. My problem (which Steve addresses) is that I spent waaaay too much time preparing food. The only cookbook I had was uber gourmet. I relied on the juicer, which made a mess every time.
I’m skeptical about the all fruit thing (I could never do this – my sweet tooth is limited). All the same, it’s an interesting life experiment and I’m enjoying his updates. I’d put money on him not sticking to it, though. Any takers?
As someone who at one time dealt an eating disorder, one of these very restrictive diet plans would have the potential to send an anorexic into a relapse, I think.
However, for someone without those triggers, I don’t think it would be at all bad to try it. I just know that if I started to do it, I’d get very obsessive and weirded-out. Still, there’s nothing wrong with veggies and fruits — love ‘em raw, cooked, or just a tad warmed up!
I’ve been an advocate of the high raw diet since 2003.
All raw is a no-go for me because I easily lose a lot of weight. But about 80 percent raw works fabulous (that, for me, means eating raw all day and having a cooked vegan meal at night).
I believe it’s not so much raw that helps, but not eating processed foods loaded with additives, chemicals, etc.
Don’t forget, do not be so dogmatic on what you are eating. Remember other important things that attribute to good health such as: love, friendships, exercise, creativity, not holding grudges, etc.
He’s a popular one, that Steve.
Celine – that dinner sounds yummy! I eat a lot of raw foods anyway, too. Salads are often on the menu at my house, and I snack on raw veggies and fruit regularly (ok, the fruit is less regular…).
Monica – interesting wager! I guess I’ve always assumed he would actually get through the month, since he’s such the master of 30-day trials. But now that you mention it…
Angelique – good point. I’m not prone to eating disorders, and even I can get pretty obsessive about food if I give myself too many restrictions. I do better when I focus on what I want to be eating (whole foods, lots of fruits and veggies) rather than focusing on cutting certain foods out.
Healthy – good for you for finding a balance that works well for you. I agree – I stick to whole foods (raw or cooked) as much as I can, too. And I think you’ll find that I’m one of the least dogmatic vegetarians around.
That’s funny about your short-lived raw food experiment! I mentioned your post on my site today…#99 on my 101 Things list is to eat only raw food for ONE DAY, which doesn’t seem quite so bad when I think about doing it for a month!