Go Green, The Raw Food Way!
* What’s New?: New E-Book Update
* Feature Article: Go Green, The Raw Food Way!
New E-Book Update
As was mentioned in a recent email, I have been busily working on my very first e-book, titled:
“21 Days to Conquer Your Cooked Food Cravings”
A Guide for Ending Cravings on a Raw Food Diet
The writing phase is finally done and I’m now working with the wonderful web designer Amy De Wolfe (designer of this site, btw) to make everything pretty and professional.
I’ll be sending another email update out to all of my subscribers later this week. It will include more details on the book itself, as well as bonuses that will be offered, pricing, and the launch sale.
Feel free to send in any questions that you would like answered to swayze@fitonraw.com.
Swayze 
P.S. If you would like to receive updates about my new book on cravings, as well as get your own copy of my free 24-page report The 4 Principles of a Raw Diet, I encourage you to subscribe to my newsletter Peachy Keen Ezine. To sign-up, simply enter in your name and email address in the box at the top right.
Go Green, The Raw Food Way!
I’ve received a handful of emails lately concerned with the amount of sweetness on a low fat, high fruit raw vegan diet. As expected, several of you aren’t quite used to the sweetness of so much fruit
To solve the problem, many beginner raw foodists substitute savory greens and/or nuts, seeds and avocado for sweet fruit.
Big Mistake
There are 2 problems with this approach:
1. Greens and vegetables have few calories
2. Nuts, seeds, and avocado are high-fat foods
In terms of greens, these foods are simply too low in calories. Even a large salad of 8 ounces of romaine, one large cucumber, a whole bell pepper, and two medium tomatoes is under 200 calories! The only way to increase the calories in this meal would be to add in fruit or fat.
Which brings me to the second problem: fatty nuts, seeds, and avocado. Contrary to what people (raw and cooked foodists alike) like to believe, nuts are NOT a high protein food. Take an ounce of walnuts (14 halves), for instance. With only 9% of calories from protein and whopping 83% from fat, it becomes clear that nuts and seeds are really a high FAT food.
Avocados are in the same boat, with 4% protein and 77% fat.
SIDE NOTE: I’m referring to the Hass avocado here. There are avocados with lower percentages of fat, such as some Florida varieties, but these are not as readily available.
While there’s nothing inherently wrong with this fact, it becomes a problem when these foods are substituted for fruit and eaten in mass quantities. While it is perfectibly acceptable to eat a pound (or two) of fruit in one sitting, this is a recipe for disaster in terms of fat.
Too much fat has been linked to obesity, heart disease, atherosclerosis, and even depression.
To learn more about the problems associated with eating a high fat raw food diet, check out this article.
This is why I side with the numerous doctors and health institutes – including Dr. Joel Fuhrman, Dr. Douglas Graham, Dr. Dean Ornish, and The Pritikin Longevity Center – in recommending a low fat diet for optimal health. This works out to about 1-2 ounces of nuts or ½ – 1/3 of an avocado per day (depending upon your caloric needs).
This means that if you decide to substitute sweet fruit for fat you will need to keep the quantities low. Say you add 1 tbsp of nuts to the salad example above. This still only gives you about 350 calories!
And that’s assuming that you can actually consume such a mountainous salad in one sitting. I’m pretty proud of my eating prowess when it comes to fruit. But 8 ounces of lettuce and a slew of veggies?
No way, Jose!
With the low amount of calories in this dish, you’ll be back in the kitchen looking for more fuel (probably in the form of simple carbohydrates) within the hour.
What to Do?
The easy way out is just to eat more sweet fruit. But you’re sick of sweet!
It seems we’re back at square one, right?
Not quite.
There is a tasty solution.
Go Green!
Green smoothies, that is!
A green smoothie – renowned amongst gourmet and low fat raw foodists alike – is a fruit smoothie with greens added to it. Sure, you’ve probably heard of them. But have you actually tried one?
Here’s a tasty raw recipe:
- 3 bananas
- 1 pint of strawberries
- Handful or two of romaine lettuce
Blend everything together. Add water to achieve the texture you desire. I like my smoothies thin so I tend to add a few cups to the mix.
Why It Works
The green smoothie concept works for (you guessed it) 2 reasons:
1. It’s still fruit-based, providing quality fuel and satiation to your body.
2. The greens help to cut the sweetness.
Even though green (and contrary to the lovely picture in this post, often times pretty gross looking), green smoothies are very much a fruity meal.
As you can see from the recipe above, the smoothie is still mostly fruit. The green comes from only a handful or two of romaine.
It is this small amount of “green-ness” that really adds a nice crisp, clean taste to the meal. The drink will still be sweet, but not sickly so.
And you can easily add more fruit or make more than one smoothie to meet your caloric needs.
For instance, whenever I make smoothies (green or not), I have to make two separate batches because I like them so thin.
*sigh* If only they made 64 ounce blenders… 
Long-Term Sweet Sickness?
Almost every beginner raw foodist has a problem eating so much sweet fruit at first.
Even I, the Fruit Queen Goddess that I am, had some troubles. Bananas were especially sickening to me. They were just so thick and sweet. Yuck!
And to think, now I eat multiple bananas EVERYDAY!
If you stick with a high fruit, low fat diet, you will not experience this aversion to sweetness forever. And the transformation generally does not take that long. We’re talkin’ just a few weeks or so, on average.
And eventually, you’ll stop thinking of fruit as sweet altogether. At some point, it just becomes delicious, mouth-watering, satiating food.
Go raw and be fit,
Swayze
P.S. If you thought this post was going to be about environmental responsibility, I’m sorry for “tricking” you! I promise to write a truly green article in the coming days.
Forgive me?
13 comments
What about if I’m hypoglycemic?
Josephine Reply:
October 19th, 2009 at 7:58 am
I have had blood sugar swings up and down for decades. This diet has answered this problem for me, though, just looking at it initially, it seemed it would make me ill. Not having any fat with the sweet lets a lot of problems end.
Debra Reply:
October 19th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Hi Swayze,
I love Green Smoothies, they have been a God-send for me. My main issue with eating 100% raw and even with the smoothies is bloating and very foul intestinal gas. It seems that it has gotten worse the longer I have been doing pretty much an 80/10/10 diet. I started doing raw about 6 months ago.
I am open as to what changes to try.
Thanks!
Josephine Reply:
October 20th, 2009 at 9:09 am
I thought i would have this problem, so I add seasonings and eat mono-meals pretty-much. If I only eat bananas, peaches, or whatever, without ground clove, fresh basil, ground cinnamon, or rubbed/fresh sage, I can’t eat as much without bloating. I can eat a bunch of grapes with nothing added and not bloat up. I CAN put greens with anything and not have bloating.
A few days ago i got homeopathic drops for candida. I just like to do something like every year or less. That might help.
Josephine Reply:
October 20th, 2009 at 9:11 am
Oh! I make sure i don’t drink a smoothie quickly. I make each meal, of any style, last at least 12 minutes, even if I just put the glass or banana down and read for a few minutes.
How interesting!
Although there are a select few fruits that I can eat almost everyday in season (watermelon, grapes, sweet plums, juicy Bartlet and Danjou pears, clementines and tangerines; and to a lesser degree, bananas and oranges), others I can only get vast amounts of if I make them into smoothies (almost all berries) and shun most others (I have never liked mangoes, papayas make me gag, kiwi are rarely sweet enough for me, and thanks to the Beverly Hills Diet of old, after a couple tastes of pineapple- even in a smoothie, and it’s over), I have had the opposite problem when it came to non-sweet fruits and leafy green vegetables. Except for a few fabulous salsa recipes (Swayze, your Salty No-Salt Salsa is the best!) I have learned to appreciate the raw flavors of iceberg and romaine lettuces, baby spinach, sweet red, orange and yellow bell peppers (I like the small, baby-sized ones) and almost any variety of ripe tomatoes- without dressing! (And I have never had a taste for avocados, since they make me gag, too.)
I knew I’d see the day when I would be able to enjoy my non-sweet fruits and leafy greens without masking their flavors with oily dressings, and it has come to pass! Now, if I could just give up the fish and the occasional chicken- I don’t eat any other cooked foods- I will be 100% raw! And just as I nave adapted my taste buds to leafy greens and non-sweet fruits, I know eventually I will be able to give up the salmon, tilapia and chicken. Thanks Swayze, by the way, for that illuminating article on fish.
It seems there some people who are inherently drawn to non-sweet foods, or is that just conditioning?
I think that if some can embrace the non-sweet fruits and leafy greens, others can surely come to appreciate the sweeter fruits that are our natural diet.
The best to all of you (and to me! 100% raw is on the horizon for me, and hopefully for those of you struggling with the sweetness of fruit, it will be no struggle on the horizon for you as well)!
Carol
My banana-celery smoothie is a pretty light green color, like yours above, Swayze! But I love the dark green ones too. Especially when in a hurry and need to take it with me on the run. I keep them simple: banana-romaine, banana-celery or sometimes adding some pear too.
I love celery in smoothies, too. I love seasoning, so i grow herbs. Some water, tomato, celery, lettuce and fresh sage and parsley is great. I might heat the water some if I want a warmer drink. I might even soak the sage in warm–not simmering–water to activate it some. I do the same with cinnamon, though I cannot grow that fresh here.
Yes, they do make 64 oz blenders, the new Vita Mix 5200 holds 64 oz. Thank you for your wonderful articles & web site!
Swayze Reply:
October 20th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
Really?! I’ll have to check that out. Thanks!
And glad you like the site.
Mona Reply:
October 20th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
I bought mine 2 weeks ago and I absolutely LOVE it!!! I also own a blend tec which I have had for 7 yrs now. This new 5200 happens to be more versatile PLUS it holds the 64oz. Have fun!!!
Anytime my weight is dropping, I do take an herb: milk thistle. I either take the herb/seed capsules at three times what they recommend, or I take a standardized sylimarin capsule. Tablets bother my body; they are full of the silicon dioxide that is also in table salt. This herb protects the liver from toxins at they are being released when body weight, expecially body fat, drops. It keeps me from feeling tired or sad or stressed.
I have discovered that I have more health problems sitting under the CFL’s and in front of the computer/TV than when I don’t. The flourescent tubes, which are also in many monitors and TV’s, deplete the body of Vit. E, and hence the fat-soluable vitamins are not protected from destructin in the body. I put an old window, in a wide frame, in front of my TV and got a big bulb cover for my CFL and I soon felt a LOT better; shielding the flourescent tubes stops the destruction–something that would have helped a LOT at my Jr. High School. Also, I did take about 100 IU of Vit E for two weeks, to build back up.