To Be Raw Vegan or Not to Be?
By April. Filed in Eating |Tags: diet, eating, Gerson, raw, vegan, Weston A. Price
Am I 100% Raw Vegan or not? Absolutely not, at the time being. I did it for a while but my thoughts on the subject are this:
If it is so wonderful to be 100% Raw, or Vegan or, Vegetarian, or whatever you may choose to be, why do we then begin to add to our new “title” an amount of time we have been that way? Labels like these do us a disservice and I too found myself boxing myself into labels as I experimented. I was Raw Vegan for a while and kept track because it was difficult for me. I experienced healthy weight loss and some healing. For others there would probably be greater healing than it was for me because I had an oxalate allergy I was unaware of and I was taking in way more oxalates than my body could handle and I developed rashes all over my hands and arms to the point where I couldn’t use them. If I weren’t allergic to oxalates I would have probably stayed with the raw diet, but my diet became too limited and frustrating for me. I ventured away from it here and there over the past year and came back to it.
Through hours of research I have seen testimonies of those who the raw Vegan diet caused rapid healing and has even helped them heal from cancer. The Gerson Institute is the place to find more information on that and there are several movies I can point you to if you want to learn more. If I were ever diagnosed with cancer or several other diseases that Raw Vegan has helped others with, I personally would not resort to western medicine and I would be road tripping it to The Gerson Institute. Again, that would be MY personal choice. I don’t foresee that happening with the amount of raw foods, juicing and herbs we eat around here though.
I also need to point out that when you eat a Raw Vegan diet you are not just leaving out animal products. I think this fact is often overlooked and people choose to blame the animal products for the problems they heal from. You are leaving out many harmful grains like wheat as well as gluten. Also, what kind of animal products were you consuming before? Was it GMO fed, pasteurized and full of antibiotics? All things to consider. So we can’t only credit the lack of meat, cheese and milk for the weight loss and improved health in my opinion.
So why not be entirely Raw Vegan if I think it’s so great? Well, there’s always another side to the story right? Absolutely, in this case. There is a book called Nutritional Degeneration by Weston A. Price and he has studies that he did that make me feel like a permanent Raw Vegan diet is not healthy for everyone and definitely not something I plan to do with my children. Their teeth being a huge factor that is affected by this. This doesn’t mean that we need to eat meat every meal or every day. It is very important to me what my children put in their mouths, so not just any meat will do. It has to be grass-fed, hormone and antibiotic free beef. I do struggle with the animal losing it’s life aspect of eating meat. I am also not perfect and sometimes we do eat out, but we like to limit those times to as few as possible. I like the majority of my children’s food to be nutritionally dense, alive fruits and veggies. We try to steer clear of gluten as well. There is no arguing the amazing life force and energy in plant foods and we like to eat a lot of them and experiment with different recipes. I am always changing and following the latest research, so for now we like our as high raw as we can get it diet.
Everyone is at a different stage of learning and if they have something that works for them that’s what is most important. The ultimate goal is to feel good and prevent illness. <3
Thursday, May 12th 2011 at 3:44 pm |
Cool tips! I have been hunting for things like that for some time these days. Thanks!
Saturday, May 14th 2011 at 2:31 am |
I am very excited to have found your site. Brand new here. Gotta say something though. Wheat is the staff of life, it is not harmful. Yes, some people are allergic but YOU know that could be from many, many contributing factors. Pure, organic grains (wheat included) are good for our bodies. We need them. Balance. My personal philosphy is to take into my body those foods I can walk out my front door and find in nature. That would include animals and animals products that I could make in my own kitchen (yogurt, cheese, etc.) Fruits and veggies should be a big part of one’s diet as should protein (animal protein provides a few key nutrients you can’t get from non-animal protein.) And our body needs fat. Good fat. Fat we can find in nature. Our nervous system needs salt to function. I whole heartedly agree with the few paragraphs I’ve read so far but I become immediately suspicious when anyone tries to claim unbalance for our dietary needs.
Saturday, May 14th 2011 at 5:17 am |
Kara, thank you for your comments! I agree with you on everything but the wheat. I didn’t mention salt in the article but I have researched a lot about salt and in the end I trust that sun dried sea salt is good for us. I used to use Himalayan salt but don’t even do that anymore after I listened to an interview with Dr Jubb who creates a good case against it. It’s funny you mentioned salt because I just finished reading this article about it: http://articlesofhealth.blogspot.com/2011/05/new-scientific-research-confirms-dr.html It confirms with science what we both believe to be true.
I am currently reading Cure Tooth Decay by Ramiel Nagel among a few other books and you may be interested in reading it. It explains on page 62 how grains are a modern addition to our diet and are the cause of tooth decay and many modern diseases. Grains have the toxic anti-nutrients, lectins, gluten, and phytates which all inhibit digestion. Lectins bind to insulin receptors, bind to human intestinal lining, and they cause leptin resistance. Leptin resistance can then predict a worsening of the symptoms of metabolic syndrome. Gluten, found in wheat, rye, and barley, is a composite of the proteins giladin and glutenin. It effects calcium and vitamin D3 levels and interferes with nutrient absorbtion, including fat-soluble vitamins. It also flattens the villi (the finger-like structures that absorb nutrients in the small intestine.) Phytates are a problem because they make minerals bio-unavailable. This means those healthy vitamins and minerals we are told we need from whole grains are not getting absorbed.
I would love to talk more about this after I finish the book because I think it’s going to solidify not eating wheat for me. I never looked into sprouting grains myself but that may be a way around some of the things I listed above. We used to eat Ezekial bread which is sprouted but I try not to even bring that into the house anymore. I just can’t find anything we are lacking by leaving it out of our diets and see a lot we are damaging by keeping it.