As personal (and perhaps yucky) as it may be, one of the greatest benefits gained from adopting a healthy raw food diet is excellent elimination.

But what exactly does healthy elimination “look” like?

Perfect Poo

Sorry, I just couldn’t resist.

Moving on, here are some simple qualities that can be expected in healthy stools:

1. Quick
2. Little Smell
3. Little Mess – Healthy stools require very little to no toilet paper.
4. Painless

As Frederic Patenaude points out in his well-known book The Raw Secrets:

Stools from a healthy human are not as dense, dry, and solid as those of people living on standard fare. They can be loose or dissolve in the toilet bowl – it doesn’t matter. They shouldn’t have any bad smell or be difficult to pass. A healthy bowl movement literally happens in an instant – a matter of seconds.

Many people are surprised at first by how quickly they see improvements in elimination after switching to a low fat raw vegan diet (I know I was!). But that’s not even the best part…

The real beauty is that the results are lasting! You will never again struggle with super stinky and uncomfortable elimination as long as you adhere to an easy to digest diet and healthy lifestyle.

Having Toilet Trouble?

Poor elimination is more often than not a sign of poor digestion. People who do not experience quick, painless, and nearly odorless stools as described above usually DO have gas, stomach pains, gurgly tummys, and sometimes heartburn.

The best remedy begins at the start of the digestive process: the mouth. The vast majority of these problems can be easily assuaged by eating a low fat, high fruit raw vegan diet and avoiding food combining no-nos.

Take a close look at your current diet:

• Are you eating simple fruit meals?
• Are you limiting your fat intake?
• Are you consuming your sugary sweet fruit and fatty fruits and nuts separately?
• Are you eliminating salt, spices, and condiments from your raw dishes?
• Are you eating until comfortably satiated, rather than uncomfortably stuffed?

If you are and you still have tummy trouble, then it may be a particular food you are eating that does not agree with your body. Start by slowly eliminating foods one at a time from your diet until you weed out the culprit.

You could also try drinking water before each meal.  My own digestion is always better when I do this.  Just be sure to finish the water and then wait at least 10 minutes before you begin eating your meal.

Go raw and be fit,

Swayze

P.S. The quote above is just one of the many gems from Frederic’s book The Raw Secrets.

If you are interested in learning more about the absolute best raw food diet from the book that completely convinced me to go raw, then please visit the link below:

The Raw Secrets

You’ve probably even encountered “juice feasting,” in which people live on raw fruit and vegetable juices alone for days, even months at a time.

But is it necessary or even helpful to include juicing as part of your raw diet?

Juicing for Assimilation

Supporters of juicing often claim that it helps the body absorb and assimilate the nutrients from the foods. The juicer essentially “digests” the food for you.

Yes, juicing fruits and vegetables does make the nutrients in them more readily available to the body. However, this is unnecessary when you are *only* eating foods that we humans evolved to eat, i.e. whole, fresh, ripe, raw fruits, tender leafy greens, and nuts and seeds. We can digest these foods in their whole states without any trouble.

In addition, juiced foods have had the all-too-important fiber removed, which means that the nutrients from the food will enter the bloodstream much too quickly. Loss of fiber also means that you won’t feel as satiated as you would eating the food whole.

Juicing for Variety

Proponents also claim that juicing allows you to add more variety into your diet by juicing foods that would be difficult to eat in their whole state.

Variety is very important in a diet. By variety, I mean eating from the wide range of foods that humans have evolved eating. These are foods that can be eaten with relish in their whole state. I do not mean juicing otherwise inedible foods in order to gain their somehow superior nutrients.

Juicing for Green Consumption

Lastly, juice lovers believe that juicing allows people to eat enough greens during the day.

This is valid, but instead of juicing, I would advise you to blend your greens. You will retain all the fiber and nutrients from the whole food, but in an easier-to-digest form.

An excellent way to do this is to make green smoothies. Just take your favorite fruit smoothie and add greens to it. Be sure to taste as you go, otherwise the smoothie may turn out bitter or just too “green” for your liking.

My Experience

Personally, I have not juiced any foods in quite a while. The only fruit juice I like is orange juice and I never juice greens or vegetables because I find the taste horrible and the color completely unappealing.

And to be quite honest, I’m lazy. I’d rather eat a giant bowl of peaches or a few bunches of bananas and be done with it.

There was one winter in particular when I consumed orange juice pretty regularly. During this period, I experienced pretty strong cravings for cooked foods. I was getting plenty of calories, but I still never felt satisfied.

It finally dawned on me that it might be all the juicing, so I stopped. My cravings reduced substantially just like that. This makes perfect sense because, as I mentioned above, juicing removes fiber, which is necessary for satiation.

The Final Word

I do not recommend juicing foods that you would otherwise never eat whole. If these foods are unappetizing to you in their original state or hard to digest, this is a sign not to eat them at all!

Just because bitter foods like kale have higher levels of certain nutrients than other greens does not mean that they are nutritionally superior or even appropriate for human consumption. More is not always better in terms of nutrition.

With that said, I see no problem with occasional juicing of fruits and tender greens. If it is a practice that you enjoy, indulge every now and again! Just know that there is no need to juice. It does not offer any nutritional benefit and actually removes some important components from your food.

Last but not least, PLEASE don’t feel compelled to buy one of those huge, expensive juicing machines. A nice little electric juicer for around $30 will do just fine.

Go raw and be fit,

Swayze

P.S. There are some uber tasty and nutritious smoothie recipes in my recipe book Low Fat, Fruit Filled, High Fun Raw Recipes and you can easily add greens to any of them.  The “Bananas Foster Smoothie” would be particularly scrumptious with some romaine or bib lettuce.

You can purchase ‘em here:

www.fitonraw.com/low-fat-raw-vegan-favorites

* What’s New: Jackfruit, My New Love

* Feature Article: A High Carb Diet for Raw Success

Jackfruit, My New Love

I was lucky enough to experience a new fruit this weekend…jackfruit!  Jackfruit is a large, spiky, tropical fruit that can weigh in as much as 80 pounds!  Mine was only about 12-15lbs, which is still huge!

Here is the damage that was done to the first half of the fruit, as well as the second half on the right:

Here is everything edible that I got out of it:

Not bad, huh?

Apparently, jackfruits have two different textures: crunchy and soft.  The fruit I have is definitely crunchy.  I think I could have let it sit for just a few more days to ripen more, but it is still delicious.  The fruit has the craziest texture and tastes eerily similar to juicyfruit gum!  I love it!

You might be wondering where you can find this crazy fruit.  I located mine at a local Hispanic market.  Asian markets are known to carry them as well.

What new and/or delicious fruits have you been dining on?  I’d love to know!

Swayze

A High Carb Diet for Raw Success

Anyone who has ever eaten a meal of raw fruit knows how intensely pleasurable this can be.  Fruit requires little to no preparation (all you need to eat a banana is opposable thumbs).  It is easy to eat and digests quickly, usually in just 30 minutes.

Best of all, fruit tastes great and completely satisfies the sweet tooth in the most healthy way possible.

Just like avocado and nuts, fruit is calorically dense.  However, fruit is also high in volume, like vegetables.  This means that a meal of fruit both provides enough calories AND enough volume to leave you completely satiated until the next meal.

Just Fruit?!?

The idea of eating only fruit for a meal is very strange to people.  Much of this confusion stems from the fact that we grow up thinking of raw fruit as a snack or part of a dessert.  The idea of eating more than a couple pieces of fruit in one sitting is completely foreign to us.

As a result, people who are new to a low fat, high fruit raw food diet often under eat on calories at first.

To make the transition easier for you, here is a simple example of a sufficient fruit meal…

*Fruit Meal*

Let’s say you need 2000 calories a day and you like to eat 3 meals a day.  If each meal is divided equally, one meal would be between 600-700 calories.

One medium banana contains about 100 calories.  In order to consume 600-700 calories in one meal from bananas alone, you would have to consume 6 to 7 bananas.

And that’s it!  It really is that simple.

Of course, if eating a meal of only one type of fruit seems much too boring to you, there are many alternatives.  You can combine your favorite fruits into a nice fruit salad.  A popular choice for beginners is to blend fruits into a smoothie.  This is an easy way to get enough calories from fruit.

Here is a delicious smoothie you can make in just a few minutes…

*Two Pears in a Peel*

5 bananas
2 pears
1 cup of water

Blend ingredients together and enjoy!

There are many different combinations you can make.  You can also add greens, which will add some nice variety and counterbalance some of the sweetness.

Problems with Fruit

Many raw foodists believe that fruits should be severely limited, or even eliminated, because they contain simple sugars like fructose and glucose.  These simple sugars are believed to lead to such ailments as diabetes and Candida.

First, I want to clarify that the sugar in fruit does not cause sugar metabolic disorders.  It is an excess of fat in the body that coats the insulin, blocking it from reaching the sugar molecules.  The excess sugar in the blood leads to a high blood-sugar level.

Without the excess fat, the insulin will reach the sugar molecules and transport them out of the blood and into the cells.

Second, there is a huge difference between the simple sugars found in fruit and the simple sugars found in processed foods.  These refined sugars have been removed from whole foods (i.e. fruit, sugar cane) and further processed.  They no longer contain any nutritional value whatsoever.

On the contrary, the sugars in whole fruit have not been processed and are accompanied by necessary water, fiber, Vitamin C, Vitamin A, phytonutrients, etc.

How Much Fruit?

I recommend that the majority of your calories come from fruit.  The best way to determine how much is to simply eat sweet fruit until you are full.  As a general guideline, our closest relatives the bonobos consume 95% of their calories from sweet fruit.  The other great apes consume between 70-90% of their calories from fruit.

Dr. Douglas Graham, a well-known leader in the raw food movement, recommends in The 80/10/10 Diet that 80% of our calories come from simple carbohydrates in the form of fruit.  You can check out this excellent book and the rest of Dr. Graham’s top-quality catalog at FoodnSport.

On average, I consume between 85-90% of my calories from sweet fruit.

Take Action

You can get started today by simply eating all fruit for your next meal.  Many people prefer to wait until breakfast, as it is the easiest meal to transition.

You could also begin your next meal with as much fruit as you can eat, and then finish the meal with your regular fare.  Just be sure to wait at least 30 minutes between your two meals so that your body has time to fully digest the fruit.

Go raw and be fit,

Swayze

* Feature Article: The Truth About a High Fat Raw Food Diet

* Your Questions Answered: What Causes Tummy Bloat?

The Truth About a High Fat Raw Food Diet

What if I came to you and said,

“I have the absolute best diet in the world. You will lose weight, you will have more energy, and you will prevent and even reverse any and all diseases. AND you get to eat 60% OR MORE of your calories from fat!”

You would probably a) laugh in my face, b) turn and run, or c) ask if I was a raw foodist.

That’s right, folks. The average raw foodist eats 60% of his or her calories from fat! That’s over HALF of one’s daily calories, all from fat!

Are you surprised? I know I sure was when I went raw. I could not believe that there were people actually promoting a high fat diet when all the evidence for a healthy diet pointed to the exact opposite!

So why are so many raw foodists eating so much fatty foods? What it boils down to is the “If It’s Raw, It’s Healthy” fallacy.

If It’s Raw, It’s Healthy

Many raw foodists will argue that raw fats are much healthier than cooked fats and do not result in such problems as heart disease and atherosclerosis. As long as it’s raw, you can eat as much avocado, nuts, and seeds as you want.

Yes, it’s true that raw fats are much better than cooked fats. Cooked fatty foods have had the majority of the water removed and many necessary micronutrients along with that water (not to mention all the nutrients that are destroyed by the heat alone).

Once fats are cooked, they quickly go rancid and produce harmful carcinogens. The more oxygen that these foods come into contact with, the more rancid they become and the more dangerous carcinogens they produce.

The Problem With Too Much Fat

However, eating an excess of either cooked or raw fats produces a host of problems for the consumer:

#1: Fat takes a long time to digest and it remains in the bloodstream for a long time. When too much fat is consumed, the excess fat in the bloodstream interferes with insulin production from the pancreas. Under normal circumstances, the insulin would attach itself to sugar molecules within the blood in order to carry them to the cells. With the fat in the way, the insulin does not reach the sugar. The pancreas becomes fatigued from producing extra insulin. The blood-sugar level becomes elevated because the sugar cannot be transported out of the blood by the insulin. As you can see, sugar metabolic disorders like type 2 diabetes and Candida are not caused by a lack of insulin or too much sugar. They can be directly linked to an excess of fat.

#2: An excess of fat in the body slows down digestion of other foods that are eaten. Fruit, which normally takes minutes to digest, now has time to ferment inside the body. This results in uncomfortable bloating and gas.

#3: Too much fat in the bloodstream also interferes with the red blood cells’ ability to transport oxygen. A low oxygenated body is a perfect environment for cancer cells to thrive.

#4: Excess fat consumption is linked to numerous physical and mental ailments, such as:

• Heart disease
• Atherosclerosis
• Breast cancer
• Prostate cancer
• Diabetes
• Candida
• Hyperglycemia
• Hypoglycemia
• Anemia
• Arthritis
• Depression
• Bipolar Disorder

How Much Fat?

Dr. Graham, author of The 80/10/10 Diet and a leader within the raw food movement, advocates a diet of 10% fat or less. Personally, this is the guideline that I follow and recommend as well. Anymore fat than this and it is likely that you are not consuming enough simple carbohydrates in the form of fruit.

10% of calories from fat is surprising to many people. However, many reputable sources (including the world-renowned Pritikin Center) recommend that only 10-15% of calories come from fat.

Many people around the world eat diets low in fat. In The China Study, the longest nutritional study ever conducted, Dr. Campbell studies people living in rural China who eat as low as 6% of calories from fat!

It is not surprising that in these areas you find much lower rates of heart disease, atherosclerosis, breast cancer, etc. compared to more industrialized places like the US and Britain.

On most days, I do not eat any overt fats and on those days I average about 5% of my calories from fat. I’ve never experienced any adverse reactions from limiting my fat intake.

In fact, I have only experienced great benefits since limiting fat, such as weight loss, increased energy, deeper sleep, mental focus, and improved digestion.

Take Action!

You can take action right now by simply limiting your consumption of fatty foods to 15% or less. A good way to do this is to replace these foods with high-calorie, low-fat sweet fruits.

For instance, if you usually eat avocados with your greens, try peaches sliced up on top instead. You can even make completely fat-free dressings from fruits and veggies. Here is a personal favorite of mine:

*Tangy Tomato Dressing*

• 2 cups of pineapple
• 1 cup of tomatoes
• 1 cup of cucumber

Blend all of the ingredients together.

The best way to track your fat consumption is to use www.nutridiary.com. There are many more sites that allow you to track your calories, but this is the site I recommend. It is easy to use and easy on the eyes.

Go raw and be fit,

Swayze

What Causes Tummy Bloat?

Bloating can be caused by many different things.  If you are new to eating lots of fruit, it is very likely that the lining of your stomach has not fully adjusted to the increased volume of food.  Keep working at it and your body will gradually become accustomed to the food intake.

If you’ve been eating a low fat, high fruit diet for a while yet you still experience “tummy troubles,” you simply might be eating too much in one meal.  Try splitting your meals up into smaller meals throughout the day.

Another reason for bloating is poor food combining.  Are you eating fruit and fat in the same meal?  Do you eat a diet that is too high in fat?  It is important to keep sweet fruits like bananas separate from fatty foods like avocados and to limit your fat intake to at least 15% (ideally 10% or less).  For most people, half an avocado or 1-2 tbsp of nuts is a sufficient quantity of overt fats for the day.

Swayze

For the “newbie” raw foodist, healthy raw vegetables can taste downright bland!

To help you increase the amount of healthy veggies in your diet, here are two super simple and delicious raw recipes.

#1: Green Smoothies

The main reason people have such a hard time eating their greens is pretty obvious…

It’s hard to chew 1-2 pounds of greens in just *one* sitting! Not only can this take quite a long time, it’s actually tiresome on the jaw.

A great way to combat this is to eat/drink green smoothies. A green smoothie is simply a fruit smoothie that has greens added to it. Pretty simple, right?

The easiest way to make a green smoothie is simply to add your favorite greens to your favorite fruit smoothie. If you do not have a favorite smoothie, here is a simple recipe to try.

*M.P.R. Smoothie*

o 4-5 mangoes
o 3 medium peaches
o 10 small leaves of romaine lettuce
o 1-2 cups of water

Blend.

With all the different fruits and greens available, the possibilities are endless. You could even try adding mild herbs like mint or parsley to your smoothies. How about a strawberry-banana-mint smoothie? Ooooohhh, now I’m hungry.

#2: Raw Pastas

Another reason people find it difficult to eat their greens and non-sweet fruits is that they get bored with the typical humongous salad. They want something new and different.

Make way for the raw “pasta”! I know it sounds complicated, fatty and all-around unhealthy (everything that I’m against), but I promise it is not.

Raw pasta is just spiralized vegetables! You simply take a non-sweet fruit like cucumber or zucchini and run it through a spiral vegetable slicer. Then, you make a clever “sauce” from fruits and veggies and viola. Now you have raw pasta!

Here is a quick, easy and delicious raw pasta to get you started.

*Alla Marina-raw*

o 2 medium-large zucchini
o 1 pint of cherry tomatoes
o 1 mangoes
o Basil to taste

Spiralize the zucchini. Gently pulse the tomatoes and mango in a blender and pour over the “pasta.” You can reserve some of the tomatoes and mangoes to dice as a garnish if you wish.

If you do not own a vegetable spiralizer, you can just use a mandolin or vegetable peeler to make raw “fettuccine.” Try to cut them as thin as possible so that they resemble noodles.

I bought my spiralizer for about $30 on amazon.com and it works very well. There are many different brands and models to choose from.

You can even add fatty foods to your raw pastas. Make a Guacamole-type sauce using avocado or sprinkle raw nuts on top of a tomato sauce. Just make sure that if you are using fats to eliminate any sweet fruits from your dish.

There you have it! Two tasty and healthy ways to increase your vegetable consumption.

Go raw and be fit,

Swayze