All posts tagged raw food diet

raw food diet versus alkaline diet

by Robyn on September 10, 2009 in Raw Food with 6 Comments
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I was having this conversation on Facebook today with a reader, and since I’m sure not all of you are my facebook friends or check in there regularly, I thought I’d share here part of the discussion:

Dear GreenSmoothieGirl (condensed question): I was feeding my kids almond milk but read that overconsumption of nuts leads to mold in the blood. What else should I use?

Answer: The most restrictive diet I know of is the alkaline diet (Robert O. Young, etc.). Well, except for the candida diet, which is even tougher. Dr. Young writes extensively in his various books of mycotoxins (mold, fungus, bacteria, and their byproducts) in the blood from eating acidic foods.

I am highly supportive of this diet but based on observation of human behavior, I don’t feel that most people will undertake it, EVEN IF THEY ARE ILL. If you want to eliminate nuts and eat totally alkaline for a period of time to overcome health challenges, good for you. Your health will benefit. (The alkaline diet will also require that you get rid of grains and many fruits!)

I am very intentionally sitting in the middle of that big divide between folks eating the Standard American Diet and the all-alkaline or all-raw folks. Raw foodists will call what I am teaching “transitional.” I actually believe that a LONG-TERM commitment to eating what I teach, “high raw” or 60-80% raw and the remainder of the diet being whole foods (legumes, grains, cooked vegs), will prevent disease very well for a LIFETIME. I believe that it doesn’t have to be a “transition” to some kind of more pure or “ideal” diet. What I am teaching, I believe, is a common-sense approach that returns you to the basics, the way we were meant to eat, using foods God put on the Earth, but without tons of cooking. Like the vast majority of indigenous and ancient cultures have always done.

Raw goat milk is another good alternative to pasteurized, store-bought dairy milk. You can search this blog for more info.

By the way, I haven’t tested it yet, but at the suggestion of readers, we’ve added a search feature to the site.

Also, almonds are actually pretty alkaline (other nuts are more acidic, like cashews). And yes, eat nuts–but overconsumption will lead to weight gain, too. A quarter cup a day is enough, unless you’re an athlete, in which case you might eat half a cup. I have 1/4 cup cashews in Hot Pink Smoothie in the morning, and usually eat 1/4 cup of almonds, too, as a snack later. (Factor in that I play sports an average of 90 min. to 2 hours a day.)

raw food diet: why not raw meat?

by Robyn on July 29, 2009 in Raw Food with 4 Comments
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Talking more about the raw food diet here. Most raw foodists don’t eat animal protein (supermodel Carol Alt is an exception). See my book review here of The China Study http://greensmoothiegirl.com/reviews.html or read the book for why. I won’t go into detail, since I often talk about that huge study in great detail on this site.

But also, while carnivores have high hydrochloric acid concentrations—so they can digest unchewed meat–humans don’t. We put a tremendous strain on our ability to digest, particularly on our kidneys and liver, when we eat meat, even raw. The uric acid in the meat has to be neutralized, causing our body to struggle to find enough alkalinity and ultimately robbing calcium from the bones. Plus meats are high in phosphorus, leading to more bone loss.

raw food diet: isn’t steaming good? and, my kids come back sick

by Robyn on July 28, 2009 in Raw Food with 12 Comments
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Update: Yep. All four of my kids puked their guts up at their dad’s family reunion. Just like always. Poor little guys. (Well, one of them is 6’2″, not that little, huh?) Back to the green smoothie diet! So happy to have my kids back. It’s my job to help them recover.

My daughters come back from an extended period away, wanting to cleanse. I told the girls today to sit down and brainstorm a list of fruits and veggies they want me to buy for them. That way they’re in the driver’s seat, eating things they like, and I get my way, too (high nutrition, mostly raw food diet). Remember that old prayer asking God to grant me the serenity to accept the things I can’t change, and the will to change the things I can? I can’t change what their dad feeds them.   (My girls report that their aunts and uncles all provided a vegetarian option to the menu made for everyone else on the nights they cooked, which was sweet.) But I CAN help them cleanse and drop unwanted pounds when they’re home. Once the girls came home and said, “Mom, we want to eat nothing but fruits and vegetables for three days. Can you help us do that?” (Of course I can.)

Still talking about the raw food diet today. Everybody, including nutritionists, suggest steaming. I’d rather have you eat steamed broccoli than no broccoli! (I personally do not enjoy raw broccoli unless it’s chopped small and in a really yummy salad. NO, NOT THE KIND WITH BACON.)

But that broccoli is still heated to well over 212 degrees, and vitamins and enzymes die over 116 degrees. And mineral salts are lost and deanimated. Cooking, even steaming, destroys indoles in vegetables, which are wonderfully anti-carcinogenic.

Worse, when you cook things, free radicals are created. (Free radicals are unpaired molecules that destroy cells and cause cancer. Antioxidants in raw foods mop them up.) Some amino acids (lysine and glutamine) in proteins are destroyed by cooking. You probably already know what high heats do to fats: alter them to become trans fats that are highly destructive carcinogens. And when fiber in food is cooked, it is slimy and soft and doesn’t have the broom-like power to clean the intestine any more.

I do eat cooked plant food and make no apologies for it. But I make every meal or snack at least 60% raw food, and often it’s 80% or more. Then you’re supplementing the cooked foods with enzymes. Doing this regularly will have a dramatic effect on your youthfulness.

On a related topic, here’s the dehydrator I recommend, by the way, to make crunchy snacks like in Ch. 7 of 12 Steps, preserving enzymes and vitamins:

http://greensmoothiegirl.com/dehydrator.html

the raw food diet and swine flu

by Robyn on July 25, 2009 in Raw Food with 9 Comments
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I hope you’re undertaking a raw food diet while it’s in season? This is the time of year your body wants to cleanse. If you do, you have much lower risk of getting ill this winter, because you’ll be going into that higher-risk time much cleaner and stronger. And that’s important as we face Round 2 of the swine flu possibly this fall.

My friend and tenant, Jean, who lives in my basement and with whom I spend a lot of time, had the swine flu and is still recovering two weeks later. She had to cancel an airline trip, she missed a lot of work, and she coughed for two hours every night. My 15-year old son had it, too. For him (a daily green smoothie drinker), it lasted two days, and besides fever and chills at night, he was up doing his summer school work during the day and rafted the Provo River with us the third day. (We used no drugs to treat his illness. We did use Vitamin C, colloidal silver, and Anti-Plague—the latter two I provide to locals in our group buys.)

My children have been in California for a week with their father and his fiancé, at the family reunion. My other three children were exposed to swine flu and I’m not there with my remedies. I can’t even reach them, as they are camping in the mountains. If I didn’t know that before they went to the reunion (where the traditional Standard American Diet will prevail), they had excellent nutrition, I’d be panicked. Every single time they go to their dad’s family reunions, they puke their guts up because they’re not used to eating like that. When your body says, “NO THANKS!” it’s not a sign of weakness–it’s a sign of strength! I’ll keep you posted on whether or not that happened this time.

I have told you before that eating a clean diet and drinking lots of alkaline water is the best prevention for the swine flu. It’s not that you can’t possibly catch any virus. It’s that your immune system isn’t constantly fighting and weakened by toxic fuel, so it’ll be much more likely to serve you well when you need it.

Are you considering a higher commitment to a raw food diet? Now’s the time!

the raw food diet

by Robyn on July 24, 2009 in Raw Food with 11 Comments
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I’m going to be talking for a while about the raw food diet. That’s the only “diet” I approve of (the very word is annoying, isn’t it?). Why? First, because it’s the biggest focus of this web site and the program of whole foods I promote: raw plant foods. Of the 9,000 new visitors to this site monthly, many are coming from the Standard American Diet. And like all things Americana (GSG readers come from 149 countries in the past year), the SAD has spread to all but the most remote parts of the globe.

But many others who read this site are committed raw foodists. The first group may find what I teach daunting. (BUT . . . this is for you, and you can do it. What I teach is very do-able by anyone who wants better health.) And the latter group may call my teachings “transitional”—a good stepping stone on your way to the ultimate, a completely raw diet.

I am unconvinced that 100% raw is necessary for ideal health, and I believe it may even not be ideal. But I do believe this: 60-80% raw plant food is absolutely necessary for good health.

Second, because this is the time of year to get the very best produce, in North America, at least. This is my favorite time of year, when my garden is exploding with vegetables and greens, and my trees are heavy with peaches and apricots. And roadside stands are selling the best foods on Earth.

If you think the raw food diet is some kind of fad—it is exploding on the internet for sure–think again. It’s been around since the dawn of time. In fact, degenerative disease began when mankind discovered fire and began cooking his food. We have gone downhill at an accelerated rate as we’ve discovered more ways to pervasively destroy the nutrition in our food.

Think about undertaking a raw food diet for a few weeks, now that we’re in the easiest time of year to accomplish it. You will need less sleep, as your body needs less recovery because digestion becomes a snap. You’ll have lots of energy, so plan in advance what you are going to do with the extra! Every time I go 95-100% raw for a couple of weeks to a couple of months, I’m always so happy I did.

 

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