Raw Fooding, Fruitarianism and Veganism have their place BUT…
There is a lot going on these days to continue with the Vegan movement that began a few decades ago, but is back with a lot more roar this time around…and with some good reason.
I was a lacto-ovo vegetarian for about 15 years. This meant I ate eggs and dairy as part of a meat-free diet. My reasons for having this lifestyle were first and foremost due to discovering what factory farming was all about, and finding the treatment of animals so disgustingly abhorrent, I wanted as little to do with it as possible.
When I became seriously ill in 2005, an alternative practitioner on the west coast (I reference the west coast, since I’m in New York…a lot of cutting-edge theory comes out of this area of the country where the mindset is simply a little different than it it on the east coast) suggested I consider incorporating some meats back into my diet, as a means of regaining my health.
I struggled with this horribly. It was a monumental sort of “spiritual,” for lack of better words, decision to make.
I decided to eat some meats again, while continuing to avoid others, which I have avoided to this day (mainly that of cow meat/beef, lamb, pig and others).
I figured out how I could eat these foods and be ok with it from a spiritual standpoint. Without going into a lot of detail, I adopted a favorite study of mine, aboriginal lifestyles/beliefs, which fit perfectly with what I needed, almost as if by design. What this boils down to above all else, is simply being conscious of the food source and giving thanks for the life sacrificed to feed me. Respecting and appreciating the grander cycle that we are all a part of.
And then since the late 2000’s, the raw food movement has grown dramatically, and I’ve studied it as intensely as I’ve studied the rest of the education I bring to people in the areas of weight/fat loss, nutrition, exercise and pain/illness.
Here’s the deal:
There is no doubt that for some people, such lifestyles can seem to work for them.
There is also no doubt at all that for some people, these kinds of lifestyles do not work, and can create a lot of adverse health issues.
Many “experts” in the raw food movement would claim that the latter group simply did not know how to “do it right,” explaining why this kind of diet did not work for them.
And in some cases (perhaps many) I believe this assessment may indeed be accurate.
The raw food/vegan/fruitarian lifestyle absolutely *does* need to be understood before it is undertaken. There are a LOT of foods at the grocery store which would fulfill these kinds of diet needs, BUT…and a HUUUGE “BUT” here…are nothing more than meatless “garbage” foods (reference to my “Grocery/Garbagey Store” phrase) that unquestionably lean towards being outright unhealthy.
As one easy example, a lot of vegans may opt for wheat-based products. What if that vegan has a gluten sensitivity, the way a great many people do these days? (And some studies I can provide show that nearly *everyone* is adversely affected by wheat consumption, including having a negative impact on the *brain* almost universally).
In such a case, that vegan will get mighty sick in short order.
And there are other examples I could use.
But to cut to the chase, there are applications and times for these kinds of diets. Perhaps for the short term, perhaps for the long. If I was dealing with a serious illness, my diet would be mostly raw food and vegan for a time, but would absolutely *not* be fruitarian.
And if I was dealing with a lot of extra weight and/or fat on my body, I would not go fruitarian either.
The way I live my life right now, I have times when I will, according to seasonal fruit availability, greatly increase my fruit consumption, but while altering other parts of my diet to compensate. Not for calorie issues, but instead because fruit sugars are impacted by fat consumption in other parts of the diet.
When these things are compensated for, not only can we indulge in fruit a lot more if we wish, but we can also choose specific kinds of fruits to use specifically for both appetite satisfaction, as well as cleansing and detoxification.