Raw Foodism

This is a post copied from my DA account (faerykisses.deviantart.com) So the date written will not sync with date posted

At the beginning of the week I was meditating (a fiasco with a friend let me realize that I needed to do more of that) and soon I was floating in a peaceful black void. I could just feel the delta waves (lol). After a while I met a deer and soon I was in a peaceful field with a babbling brook, tall waving grass, butterflies, and that same little fawn. What does it say that my spirit guide is a fawn? I'm sure it means something or another. Anyway, The fawn suggested to me that for the next seven days I should eat nothing but raw fruits and vegetables. After only one day I felt incredible. I usually go to bed at 10 and wake up at 10 or 11 and I'm still tired all day, but after only one day on this semi-fast I stayed up until midnight and got up, refreshed and energized, at 7 AM. That has been the pattern all week.

Soon, a memory popped into my head from the 2004 sci-fi reality show, mad mad house, (which i really wish they'd do more of) and I remembered that they had a naturist on the show, avocado was his name and at some brief point on a single episode, he mentioned that he was a rawist. He didn't really explain this too much but the word stuck and I started looking it up on the internet.

I read dozens of articles for and against rawism. What it means, basically, is that at least 75% of the food that you eat is raw. Mostly fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. The theory is that cooking these things destroys important enzymes, proteins, and fats in the food. I thought, hum, this is basically what I eat already, just without the processed foods and pasta. Now, a not so strict rawist can allow for up to 255 by weight of their food to be cooked so I've decided to still eat eggs, as they are a good source of protein. I've also found that there are a few very rare exceptions to the whole theory that raw foods are better. for example, cooking tomatoes ruptures the cell membranes which releases more licopene. It's also theorized, however, that cooking creates more free radicals, which we all know give us cancer. It's thought that by eating a rawist diet, you can cure and prevent a whole host of diseases, including allergies, asthma, diabetes, obesity (duh), and cancer.

There haven't been any good studies in the US on this type of diet, mainly because there's no profit to be made. God bless the US dollar, right? but there has been a couple of studies done in Finland and studies show that those who eat a rawist diet of high levels of lycopine, betacarotine, essential vitamins and so on. The only negative that was found was a very slow, but steady drop in B-12. This is easily fixed with a supplement. And, overall, the rawists were healthier than the omnivores.

But, you ask, how do you stay full on a diet of fruits and veggies? The answer? You eat more. A rawist has to eat an average of 6lbs of raw foods in order to sustain body weight assuming that you take in an average of 1800 calories. That's three times more than the average omnivore. But perhaps this is the problem with overweight Americans. They probably still consume a good 6lbs of food with way way more calories. Of course, if you're trying to lose weight, you don't really have to worry about that and you can eat less. Honestly, you get fuller than you think you would. Personally, I don't try to ear 6lbs a day, I just eat when I want to and it probably amounts to about half that.

Being Pagan, this rawist diet makes me feel much more in touch with my ancestors. I feel the spirit of the forager. I feel more like I"m living in harmony with the earth, and i'm creating less pollution since I'm no longer buying processed foods which require packaging which creates trash... not to mention the pollution caused by the factories which produce the processed foods.

Overall, I'm definitely pushing the 25% thing, but that's mostly because I'm still new to this diet and still addicted to all of the chemicals in the processed foods. I'm positive it'll get easier over the next couple of weeks.