Do You Have the Right Raw Priorities?
So you want to go and stay raw, but you don’t know if you’re quite ready yet. You’ve read all the raw food wisdom out there, but what if you get something wrong? What if you make a mistake?
What if all of your produce isn’t organic? What if you eat late at night? What if you use condiments like salt and pepper in some of your recipes?
My advice? Stop sweatin’ the small stuff.
You Must Eat All Organic All the Time
Eating organic is one topic I get emails about quite often from newbie raw foodists. Many are so worried about pesticides and the like that if they can’t get certain produce organic, they simply won’t buy it at all and end up eating a less varied diet.
Some will even buy fruit that isn’t as fresh just because it has the organic label.
If this is you, stop worrying! While eating organic is important, it shouldn’t be your top priority. A healthy raw vegan diet is far superior to a cooked food diet, even if the produce consumed isn’t organic.
Trust me on this one. I’ve been on a low fat raw vegan diet for almost 4 years and have consumed mostly conventionally grown produce during that entire time. Nonetheless, I’ve seen amazing health changes in myself and could never imagine going back to cooked food.
And anyway, organic isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be.
You Must Finish Dinner 3 Hours Before Bedtime
More sound advice here. Because our ability to digest food lessens as the sun goes down, finishing your last meal for the day a few hours before you go to sleep is a great idea.
But if you eat dinner a little later or feel the need to have a snack before bedtime, don’t sweat it.
Your top priority should be WHAT you’re eating, not when. Some fresh fruit or a simple salad before bed likely won’t affect your digestion or sleep that much.
You Must Avoid All Condiments
Again, good advice. It’s best to avoid condiments like salt, cayenne pepper, and garlic. They’re just flavor-enhancing foods with little to no nutritional benefit. Many of them, especially salt, are actually harmful to your health.
But as long as you aren’t loading up on these ingredients, it isn’t a big deal to include them in some of your recipes. A pinch of salt here or a tablespoon of garlic there really isn’t a big deal.
Again, it’s more important to focus on the basics.
So What are the Basics of Eating Raw?
Great question! The basics are:
- Eat as much fruit as you want
- Get in your greens (typically at least 1 pound a day)
- Limit your fat intake
Once you’ve got the basics down and it’s become second nature, then you can start worrying about smaller matters like cutting back on the condiments, eating more organic produce, and not eating too late in the day.
Go raw and be fit,
Swayze
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20 comments
Great article, Swayze. My background is marketing, now in the animal protection field, and one of the aspects I discuss is making change doable. By setting priorities here, you’ve made low fat raw vegan more manageable. I am interested in your comment about organic not being all it’s cracked up to be. Maybe a future article or one I’ve missed?
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Swayze Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 11:13 AM
Hi Caryn,
Check out my article on organics here:
http://www.fitonraw.com/?p=3132
Swayze
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I so totally agree with everything you said in your article. I am 63 years young and have been 100% raw low fat…(80-10-10 raw) for over three years now. I have never felt better in my life.
I love how you are helping people get to know more about how to do this. Thanks.
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SO true Swayze!! I love how you’re so dedicated to what you teach, but also relaxed. Indeed it’s important to focus on the bigger picture sometimes. I just started cleaning up my diet again and focusing on raw, fresh produce, low fat green smoothies and fresh juices again. Never felt better! Keep up the good work my friend. Best wishes!
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I do the same Swayze. I’ve been raw for over two years and eat organic when I can but I buy mostly non organic because of the cost. Thanks for the post its good to hear others doing the same.
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Thanks so much, Swayze. Great articles on organics. I appreciate your quick and helpful response as well as the super info.
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Swayze Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 4:42 PM
No problem!
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“Limit your fat intake” : i never mix nuts, seeds, oils, fats with smoothies and have never slower or difficult digestion
Whenever i use fats, oils, nuts/seeds … it is always at the end of a meal ( sequential eating : eat the simple easy digested foods first , before eating the nutrient-dense foods )
I also never mix starchy food and never mix protein-rich food with fats or oils ( the lipids create a kind of film around the starches and proteins , which slows down and makes digestion more difficult )
I use only the “better” fats/oils, or raw egg-yolk in very moderate amount at the end of my mid-day fruit/veg smoothie
“Better” fats : no transfats , no milk-fats , no industrial processed oils , no oils rich in omega-6 fatty acids …but vegetal oils rich in omega-3 fatty acids ( hempseedoil can be used long-term , flaxseedoil is too rich in omega-3 for long term use ) , or tropical oils ( like the very easy digested coconutoil )
The end of my late afternoon/early evening meal ( oeps , sorry : cooked starchy potatoes , sweet potatoes , carrots ..)
is the time for me to use a small amount of nuts/seeds ( without extra oil/fats)
PS : sorry ,
i don’t like the starchy bananas and never can see myself eating 10 bananas for breakfast with their more difficult to digest complex carbohydrates , and at the same time i find myself loving potatoes …
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“eat as much fruit as you want ” : yes
Lots of fruit is not harmful, it is 80 to 90 % of the purest water , but in the same breath , i would add :
- Don’t overuse acid-rich fruits ( to prevent demineralisation and damage to surface layers of teeth )
- Eat enough sweet fruits ( to maintain a normal bodyweight and to prevent being confronted with underweight ) , like Doug Graham and the (older generation ) german rawfood-vegan Helmut Wandmaker are proposing
- Prefer smoothies ( with natural fibers ) or the whole fruit , instead of fruitjuices ( deprived of most fibers ) , to have lower excessive swings in production of insulin ( viewed in the long-term it is a very easy healthy habit not to overstimulate insulin-production and avoid possible problems in later life)
My personal habit : i also separate acid-rich fruits and sweet fruits : my “late morning-smoothie” is very rich in sweet fruits, while my “mid-day-smoohtie” is rich in acid fruits , which is usually finished with some small amounts of fats/oils
Now i have adopted the habit to eat only a melon for breakfast and leave for an 1-hour early walk , before actually eating something more nutrient-dense , ideal to get your body awake and prepared for a richer meal ( a biological awakening , like our prehistoric ancestors would have adapted to )
Am I too focused on eating and food ?
I don’t think so , it is just very healthy habits which are becoming second nature , i don’t crave at all to go back a more to a western traditional coffee-cereal kind of breakfast or morningmeal
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Swayze Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 7:41 AM
Very good points!
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I can give you an example of getting into excessive obsession with food and dieting : have a look at the personal diet of Ben Best , an amazing talented writer of extremely detailed and very well science-based articles on health and nutrition ( his main ideas are influenced by the “120-year diet” writer Roy Walford with his caloric-restriction and optimum nutrition diet )
Have a look at his eating pattern :
http://www.benbest.com/personal/regimen.html
where he seems to have become obsessed with all kinds of vitamin-supplements , and in my opinion has developped a not very healthy eating-pattern
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I mostly eat conventionally grown fruit mainly because of the cost, and I still have gotten lots healthier on the raw food diet, so I totally agree on the organics part.
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Just out of fun of writing – search nothing more behind it ! – some more thoughts about “greens” this time
Taken from the book “Plant based nutrition and health” by Stephan Walsh and edited by the UK-vegan society :
“……Raw food diets which do not include sufficient green vegetables or other foods relatively high in sodium, such as celery, may lead to sodium deficiency ….. Increasing the consumption of raw fruits , nuts and salad vegetables considerably beyond current average intakes can be expected to benefit individual health……… Mixing Japanese and Mediterranean {diet} styles leads one naturally to a moderate overall fat intake , while emphasing raw fruit and vegetables enhances nutrient intake and variety…..”
Luckily i like very much celery-stalks and use them daily in a fruit/veg smoothie, because there aren’t much other vegetables with a relative high sodium content , the others ones are :
and spinach 
roman lettuce
I understood that these high-sodium vegs are necessary to use in order to keep your balance between sodium and potassium intake between safe limits
Since i use everyday 1 or 2 fruit/veg smoothies i get :
1 : my daily greens
2: a reasonable sodium-intake
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stillewaters Reply:
August 10th, 2011 at 11:08 AM
take care with spinach : is also rich in oxalic acid , which inhibits the absorption of calcium
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It helps sometimes to sharpen and test your own insights,
to read some books from nutrition writers, who promote a different diet , like the low carb / high fat / high protein diet proposed by Barry Groves ” in his book ” Natural Health and weight loss”
Some of his thoughts on “greens” :
“…… The walls of all plants cells are made of cellulose , an idigestible fiber . With no means ( no enzymes , no colon-bacteria ) of breaking down the plant cell walls , the nutrients those cells contain , cannot be digested and pass unaffected through the gut , ejected as waiste ”
He writes this in order to justify his proposals for limiting vegs intake ! , but are his statements complete and correct ?
First of all : in other books you will find that cellulose walls of plants do break down to some extent
And in his 1925-book “Natural Foods” , Otto Carqué writes :
” The cellulose cell walls of immature greens, salads, leafs … break down more easily than the mature parts ”
So eating immature and soft parts of vegetables can increase
the digestion and assimilation of the nutrients inside the plant cell walls
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A very radical way of breaking down those cellulose walls of vegetables and greens , without destroying any vitamines or enzymes by cooking or steamcooking , is simply blending them with high-speed rotating blades into a smoothie !!
Another benefit will be that your digestion time will be much shorter , and the the assimilation of nutrients in the gut much increased
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Hi all, I have a problem about greens that’s been bugging me for a while and I just couldn’t figure out why. I actually like greens pretty much and have incorporated them into my diet without any difficulty, probably 6-9 pounds on cooked vegan diet (sounds like alot but I very much limit my consumption of grains and fat by then), 3 pounds on low fat raw diet with condiments including salt and 1 pound on salt-free. In common sense, I’m supposed to have a good bowel movement given my huge fiber intake (coming from veggies plus fruits) but I’m ALWAYS constipated. Lately, I unintentionally put myself on a fruitarian diet and my ailment disappeared out of the blue after a couple of days. However, I’m not comfortable without greens as I believe which is an essential part of a healthy diet. So I desperately wonder where I’m doing wrong. I haven’t got used to the taste of greens without condiments so I mostly eat lettuce (romaine & iceberg) for the moments. I prefer to make banana wraps or enjoy them with cucumber/cherry tomatoes/a sml serving of nuts in a salad (no combination with fruits). Can anyone please help to point out the problems? Or is it possible that my colon just can’t deal with greens??
Thanks a million!
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Swayze Reply:
August 23rd, 2011 at 10:44 PM
Hi Camille,
Start adding greens back into your diet slowly, one at a time, and on their own. For instance, have a meal of just romaine lettuce or just spinach. This will let you know for sure if you’re having trouble digesting greens and, if so, which ones.
Swayze
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camille Reply:
August 26th, 2011 at 5:17 AM
Many thank, Swayze! Munching lettuce alone sounds abit challenging but I will definitely give it a shot.
I have another question to bother you. Lately I couldn’t find any good quality romaine lettuce on local market. Is it OK to live on iceberg? Most ppl seem to despise iceberg as it has negligible nutrition.
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Swayze Reply:
August 26th, 2011 at 8:26 AM
There’s nothing wrong with iceberg. It’s just more water-rich than other greens and has slightly less nutrients. I definitely wouldn’t live on it alone, though. It’s fine for a while, but you definitely want to add in other greens at some point.
Leave a comment, beautiful.