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

Anything sugary that you put into your body – whether it’s a slice of pound cake or a slice of a peach – is bad for you.  It spikes your blood sugar, causes Diabetes, makes your children go nuts, increases belly fat, on and on…

But this hatred of all things sweet is not just limited to the cooked food world.

Most raw foodists are very wary of the sweet stuff and shun eating more than a piece or two of fruit a day.  Some even eliminate fruit altogether, for fear of Candida overgrowth and fermentation in the intestines

In fact, the most sugar-bashing I have seen has come from RAW FOODISTS!

But is this really true?  Is all sugar really created equal and, therefore…evil?!

We Have a Sweet Tooth For a Reason

How many times have you heard someone claim they have a “sweet tooth”?

How many times have you finished a big starchy, meaty cooked meal and wanted nothing more than a big bowl of ice cream or a piece of chocolate to truly satisfy you?

In my cooked food days, a meal was never complete if I didn’t finish off with a cookie, candy, or pastry…or two.

There’s a reason for this sweet obsession and the reason is clear: humans need sugar!

Just look at the way your body processes food.  Every single thing you eat – carbohydrate, protein or even fat – is broken down into sugar (glucose).

This is the only way your cells can utilize the food for fuel.

So…if our cells must break everything down into glucose anyway, wouldn’t it be efficient and make sense to eat food that is already in this form?

And wouldn’t it be even MORE efficient and make MORE sense to get this sugar from a healthy, whole, easy-to-digest source?

But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Refined Sugar vs. Fresh Fruit

Of course, you can’t just eat ANY ole’ sugary substance and become a beacon of health.  Unlike what modern medicine, media, and mainstream raw foodists will have you believe, all sugar is NOT the same.

I’m the first to admit that junky, empty calorie, processed and packaged foods like breakfast cereal, candy bars and fruit gummies are NOT healthy and contain little to no nutritional value whatsoever.

But these foods are not unhealthy because they contain simple sugars glucose and fructose.  They are unhealthy because they contain *refined* sugars!

Even the so-called “natural” products containing “natural fruit flavors” are still completely refined.  They contain nothing more than the concentrated sweetness of the whole, raw ingredient they are meant to resemble.

Fresh fruit, on the other hand, is well…fresh!  When you eat whole, ripe fruit, you are getting all of the simple sugars completely unprocessed, along with the oh-so vital water, fiber, and other necessary nutrients.

No refined sugar.  No nutrient damage.  No preservatives.

Yet another problem only tied to *processed* sugar products?  Many of them are quite fatty.  Just look at some of the ingredients in America’s favorite dessert dishes:

• Apple pie – granulated sugar, butter (100% fat), eggs (63% fat)
• Brownies – granulated sugar, butter, eggs
• Chocolate chip cookies – granulated sugar, butter, eggs

Are you seeing a pattern?

When eating these foods, you get a double whammy: nutrionally-ruined refined sugar AND copious amounts of fat!

And I’m sure I don’t have to tell you the problem with eating a diet even moderately high in fat…

And eating this fat with copious amounts of sugar?!  Oh man, that’s just *begging* for trouble!

Ditch the Processed Desserts, Go for the Gold (Apple)

Moral of today’s story? All sugar is clearly NOT created equal OR evil!

When it comes to refined sweets, most people have it right.  Processed sugary foods provide nutritionally deficient calories and hold no place in a healthy diet.

But when it comes to WHOLE, RIPE, RAW sweets, ignore the hype and use your better judgment.  Our species thrives on simple sugars and the best way to give your body what it needs is to eat a diet high in delicious and nutritious fruit!

Go raw and be fit,

Swayze

P.S. Looking for recipes high in delicious and nutritious fruit?  Check out my raw recipe book “Low Fat, Fruit Filled, High Fun Raw Recipes” at the link below:

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

* What’s New?: Raw Food Meeting in Memphis

* Feature Article: How to Indulge in High Fat Raw Recipes

Raw Food Meeting in Memphis

Next Wednesday, February 24 at 6pm I’m hosting a little informal raw food get-together.  I’ll start the meetup by discussing the basics of a low fat raw vegan diet and then move on to the importance of calorie consumption for optimal health.  Then there will be plenty of time for discussion and noshing on yummy low fat raw vegan fare.

For more info and to RSVP, visit this link.

So if you happen to be in the area February 24 at 6pm, be sure and drop by!

Swayze

How to Indulge in High Fat Raw Recipes

One of the most important aspects of eating a low fat, high fruit raw vegan diet is (you guessed it) eating low amounts of fat.

As I discuss in The Truth About a High Fat Raw Diet and has been covered extensively by low-fat promoters Douglas Graham, John McDougall, Jeff Novick, Joel Fuhrman and others, an *optimal* human diet consists of no more than 10% of calories from fat.

On a 2000 calorie diet, this works out to around 4 oz ( or 1/3 to 1/2) of an avocado or 1 ounce (2 tablespoons) of nuts/seeds.

However, I recognize that sometimes you may wish to have a little bit of extra fat.  Maybe you are attending a raw food potluck and want to try some of the dishes offered, but many of them are nut-based and you’re worried that they will push your fat intake over the top for the day.

Or perhaps it’s a particularly cold and rainy day outside (like it is today for me, actually) and you just really want a big, hearty salad with a nice diced avocado (or two) on top.

I’m sure we’ve all been in these situations (I know I have), given in to the extra fat and possibly (okay, most definitely) felt guilty as a result.

But is this guilt really necessary? Can’t we indulge in high fat raw recipes from time to time?

Yes, We Can!

I just cut right to the chase on this one, huh?

An important concept to understand is that the 10% or below fat ratio – as mentioned above – does not have to be followed every second of every minute of everyday.  Making sure that every meal you eat falls within these low fat guidelines is not necessary for optimal health.

What IS necessary for optimal health is that you follow a low fat raw vegan diet *overtime.*

Overtime, Not Everyday

You can indulge in high fat raw recipes as long as you remain within the healthy fat range overtime (say, over the entire month) and you will still be maintaining a healthy low fat raw vegan diet.

But how do accomplish this?

Easy!  Here’s an example:

Say you eat a 2000-calorie diet.  For five days, you choose not to consume any overt fats and so your fat intake stays around 5% of total calories.  On day six, you decide to eat one avocado for the day, shooting your fat intake up to around 20%.

No big deal!  If you average out the entire six days, you’ll notice that you have only consumed about 7.5% of your total calories from fat!

One Word of Caution

After a while you may experience some negative consequences from eating fatty recipes, even if it’s an infrequent event for you.

I know that in my early raw days, I could eat 2 avocados in one sitting on occasion without any ill effects.  Today, I can’t eat more than about a third of an avocado at a time without getting a headache and waking up nauseated the next morning.

And I have to be very careful to eat overt fats later in the day, as any morning or afternoon fatty snacking leaves me very groggy and irritable.

Easy, Right?

Hopefully I’ve shown how easy and guilt-free it is to indulge in high fat, gourmet raw recipes from time to time.  As long as you remain mindful of the fat you are consuming and average out your fat intake overtime, you can easily make sure that you remain well within a healthy range.

What About Salty Raw Recipes?

Great question!  And it’s one that I’ll give my take on in a future post so stay tuned!

Go raw and be fit,

Swayze

* Feature Article: Fruit And Fat…Okay?

* Your Questions Answered: Do You Have To Purchase An Expensive Blender To Go Raw?

Fruit And Fat…Okay?

One of my absolute favorite raw food blogs is Frederic Patenaude Talks.  Frederic has been in the low fat raw food field for over ten years now.  His vast knowledge regarding health and fitness has always been a huge inspiration for me.

And as I’ve mentioned before, The Raw Secrets was actually the book that convinced me to go raw.

Needless to say, I rarely ever disagree with the information that Frederic posts on his blog and sends to his list.  My reaction usually ranges from “Yeah, I know!” to “That’s so true!”

However, I was a bit surprised by his article on food combining posted a couple of weeks ago.  Click here to read the article.

Reading the title “Rethinking Food Combining Rules on the Raw Foods Diet,” I figured that it would be sort of an expose on how superfluous the majority of food combining rules are and how the “no fruit and fat” rule is the only one that really matters.

Then I read the first few lines:

The other day I was eating a delicious salad made with the following ingredients:

- Crisp romaine lettuce
- Sweet and ripe raw corn
- Garden-ripen tomatoes
- Diced mango
- Small amount of avocado
- Fresh herbs picked from the garden
- Lemon juice

I can’t express how delicious this salad was. It was truly amazing! And part of the reason why it was so good is because it was made with fresh and ripe ingredients.

Wait a minute.

I must be seeing things.

Is that mango…and avocado…in the same dish?

Sweet fruit AND fat?!?

Blasphemy!

According to Fred, the combination of small amounts of fat with sweet fruit is perfectly acceptable.  The key is “small amounts” of fat, (i.e. 1/2 an avocado or 1-2 tbsp of nuts).

He’s not talking about the fatty-fruity raw desserts that you see in restaurants and fancy “un-cook” books.  You will definitely experience tummy trouble after a small serving of one of these.

So what led Frederic to this conclusion?

Over the years, I’ve watched some other raw-foodists eat who didn’t know these food combining rules.

She simply made combinations she liked that tasted good, without paying too much attention to the combinations like I did.

My big surprise was to realize that I could eat many combinations that I thought were “bad” without any negative effect whatsoever.

The main combination I’m talking about has to do with mixing fat and sugar together.

I have read a few accounts like this on raw forums.  Usually these raw foodists have been raw for many, many years (like, before the internet and the raw food combining craze) and so they never came into contact with these rules.  They usually intuitively eat very simple dishes and sometimes this includes the combination of some fat and fruit.

Frederic continues with another reason why the fruit-fat combo is not so abominable, which I found very insightful.

Many foods in nature contain the combination of fat and sugar in significant proportions!

For example, the durian, a beloved fruit of many raw-foodists, is very rich in sugar and quite rich in fat (20% on average).

Even avocados contain some sugar and carbohydrates, and so do nuts.

And surprisingly, all fruits and vegetables contain a certain percentage of fatty acids.

There are also other fruits in nature that contain this forbidden mixture of fat and sugar, such as the “Ackee fruit”, popular in Jamaica.

So it seems to me a little strange to completely ban this combination, when you can enjoy a ripe durian which contains a mixture of fat and sugar.

I never thought of that before!  I knew that the durian was higher in fat, but I never made the fruit and fat connection.  I guess this goes to show that we can easily become so entrenched in our beliefs that we forget to question why we hold them in the first place!

Fruit and Fat…Okay?

So (as per usual), I have to agree with Frederic.  As long as you eat fatty foods in a very limited quantity, you will likely be able to safely consume them with sweet fruits.

For instance, there have been times in which I have eaten an acceptable amount of avocado soon after a fruit meal with no digestive upset at all.

No bloating.  No gas.  No gurgly tummy.

With that said, I do not have the same success with raw nuts and seeds.  If I consume nuts after a fruit meal, I always have trouble.  Even raw nuts on their own do not digest too well for me.

I believe this is mostly because the nuts I eat are dehydrated and not truly raw nor fresh.  This means they will take longer to digest as opposed to a raw, ripe avocado.  It is possible that if I had fresh, tree-ripened, nuts and seeds I would have a more favorable experience.

Final Thoughts

I am really glad that Fred published this article.  It can be so easy to become dogmatic in our approach to what we eat (or anything we do, for that matter).  As raw foodists, we are already living the healthiest of all lifestyles.  A little fat and fruit is certainly not going to kill us.  After all, it’s just food!

So if you’ve been dieing to try an avocado and mango salad or similar combination of sweet fruit and fat, I say go for it!

And if the combination doesn’t work for you?  Well, lesson learned.  I mean, no one’s ever died from an upset stomach (I don’t think). 

Just remember to keep the fats to a minimum and be sure to get the majority of your calories from sweet fruit.  You don’t want fatty foods to rival your sweet fruit consumption in anyway.

Never forget, fruit comes first!

Go raw and be fit,

Swayze

Do You Have To Purchase An Expensive Blender To Go Raw?

Which blender should you spend $400 on, the Vita-Mix or the Blendtec?  This is one of the big debates within the raw food movement today.  But are these two blending machines the only options for sweet smoothies, savory salsas, and smooth soups?  Is it really necessary to spend so much money on a plastic container and a spinning blade?

Nope.  You can definitely purchase a perfectly functionable blender at

I suggest making a trip to Target or Walmart and checking out the selection there.  Cuisinart and KitchenAid are always reasonably priced ($150-$200) and good quality (I used a Cusinart when I first went raw).  Be sure to avoid the super cheap blenders like Oster and Black and Decker ($100 and below).  You won’t be able to blend so much as a banana in water with these things.

With that said, I actually own a Blendtec.  I just couldn’t resist the kooky Will It Blend? videos!

* 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