Living foods diet

January 27, 2005 2:15 PM

Has anyone tried eating a living foods diet? How long did you do it and . . .did you see a benefit from the effort?

I've enjoyed going demi-vegetarian the last 7 months. But when I looked through some raw foods cookbooks the menu and the plan didn't seem realistic.
posted by iwearredsocks to Health & Fitness (20 answers total)

I did living foods for about eight weeks once. I felt very lively, had wonderful mental clarity, but ultimately didn't continue. I think it's a great tool for a cleansing, detox sort of diet, but long term it just isn't very realistic.

Incidentally, I think that winter is not a good time to do this diet. Raw foods have a cooling effect on the digestive system (both physically and energetically, if grok that kind of thing) and you need your warmth. Wait until spring, says I.
posted by Specklet at 2:32 PM on January 27, 2005

did it for about a week/couple days when i was in high school and i was CONSTANTLY hungry. I think mostly due to the fact that 1) i wasn't eating meat either, and 2) i didn't have any source of grains (so basically really low carb and no protein).

i don't know if i would recommend a full raw foods diet; but hey, nothing should get in your way of checking it out. I'd just plan out some sort of "go-to" food that'll fill you up so you don't feel like you're fasting.
posted by fishfucker at 2:50 PM on January 27, 2005

Well, miso's alive. Yogurt's alive. Sauerkraut and pickles are alive if you get the good stuff and not that canned pasteurized crap. Blue cheese is alive...

(...mmm... blue cheese... wanders off to kitchen)
posted by nebulawindphone at 2:52 PM on January 27, 2005

I second Specklet. I've done raw foods (aka "living foods") as part of a month-long cleanse, and really enjoyed it. As a cuisine, it's fantastic, and there are some amazing raw restaurants out there (especially in SF, LA, and NYC).

But in terms of a long-term lifestyle diet, even my hardcore off-the-grid food-nazi hippie friends couldn't maintain it for more than a year or two. Unless you want to eat very simply (salads, etc), it's a very prep-time intensive diet. Lots of time spent with the dehydrator and food processor.

Here's a great article examining some of the presumptions behind the raw food lifestyle.

That said, I think everyone would be healthier if we ate more raw food.

Lots more resources:
living-foods.com
rawfoodnetwork.com
rawfoodsupport.com

Related:
beyondveg.com
posted by arielmeadow at 2:55 PM on January 27, 2005

The raw foods way of life is great. You will notice a wonderful difference in your skin, in your energy, and ability to think. This type of eating is especially good for people with allergies.

Most of the typical food that a person eats is full of pesticides, or GMO's, and the impact that these will have on human life long-term has yet to be examined. It is true that many of the raw food books out there have elaborate recipes, and many call for ingredients you may never have heard of, or ask for the use of a dehydrator, etc.

The best advice I can give you is to try it, start out simple by eating organic fruits in the morning about every half-hour and then for both lunch and dinner have a huge organic salad full of all your favorite veggies with a squirt of lemon for dressing.

Drink plenty of water, and for snack have a handful of your favorite nuts. Good luck, and if you have further questions my email is in my profile.
posted by Quartermass at 3:10 PM on January 27, 2005

I bet you'll notice a difference in your skin. A lot of vegan-type people I've met are oddly yellow.
posted by abcde at 4:48 PM on January 27, 2005

That was way snarkish, by the way. I didn't mean to imply there was anything wrong with it (vegetarian here), I was just noting.
posted by abcde at 4:50 PM on January 27, 2005

I've been a rawwie for almost two years. It's a fantastic way of life, I think. I'm not sure what it is that you want to know. I'm vegan too. Yes, the health (and beauty) benefits are off the charts amazing. I have really great skin (um not yellow), super white teeth, tons of energy and stamina, nice hair...I don't know what to tell you. I'm in perfect health and don't take any meds, although I took plenty of them before I did some fasting and ultimately went raw. I'm also a lot more levelheaded, and nicer. Don't know why, just am.

I eat a lot. I have fruit (plain, fruit salad, smoothies, etc) for breakfast, usually. Today I made what's called Energy Soup for lunch - it's avocado, greens, and spices blended together, and I ate it with a kind of salsa thing that I made from fresh corn, spices, and tomatoes. For dinner I had a big salad, and a kind of sushi that I make from blended veggies and grated fruits that are rolled up in raw nori sheets. There's a lot of 'raw gourmet' out there, too. Yesterday I made lasagne, which was decidely orgasmic.

Quartermass, are you a rawwie?
posted by iconomy at 4:56 PM on January 27, 2005

I tried a macrobiotic diet for a few months, which I gather is similar to living foods. I felt high and healthy all the time. I liked cheese too much to sustain it in any meaningful way, though.
posted by kmel at 5:45 PM on January 27, 2005

Quartermass, are you a rawwie?

Recent convert after getting my ass handed to me by Atkins diet.

Mmmm.... greasy bacon fat...
posted by Quartermass at 6:32 PM on January 27, 2005

hey Quartermass, what do you mean?
posted by palegirl at 8:15 PM on January 27, 2005

Tried Atkins (five months - fifty pounds lost), and it made me really, really unhealthy (tired all the time, loss of concentration). I wasn't even doing it all the way - I was doing more veggies and less meat.

Doing this has made me feel so much better.
posted by Quartermass at 9:13 PM on January 27, 2005

I've been interested in trying a raw food diet but the diets I've looked at all suggest eating a lot of fruit. That makes sense, as fruit will contribute a lot of nutrients that one wouldn't get eating only vegetables. However, I'm very prone to reactive hypoglycemia (I release too much insulin when digesting sugar and end up with low blood sugar). That means I have to avoid eating much sugary food, including fruit. Has anybody had similar problems with a raw food diet and found a way to get around them? Can you stay healthy on the diet without eating much fruit?
posted by rhiannon at 1:02 AM on January 28, 2005

I do think that fruit is the cornerstone of the diet, rhiannon. I'm no expert, and since the sugar content of the food was never an issue for me, it's not something I've ever felt the need to look into. There are two raw/living foods experts that frequent the forums here - one goes by the username nora, and one goes by the username dr flora. Nora is a self-taught raw foods coach, and dr flora trained under the well-known health guru/raw foodist Anne Wigmore, who was the proprietor of a living foods retreat. I would put that question to either of them. You could put their names in the subject line so they'd be sure to see it.
posted by iconomy at 4:32 AM on January 28, 2005

I was able to do this for about a month. Although about 1-2 meals a week I cheated and had chicken or beef (I just craved it). It was a great month and I wish I could get back to doing it again. I stopped because I went on vacation and there wasn't anything accommodating for this where I was other than going out and buying salad.

I tried doing it again, but as someone else noted above, now that it is cold it just isn't the same. Maybe it was the fact that the produce is more readily available in spring, summer, fall. We will see when it warms up.

As an aside - I went to Thailand 2 years ago and lost a lot of weight due to my eating only natural foods. It amazed me how food in the states is so different.
posted by thebwit at 5:22 AM on January 28, 2005

I also ate (mostly) raw for a couple of months and it was great but I just didn't keep up with it.

While some insist you should eat all raw all the time, I found that a lot of people who were into it ate 50-90% raw (though what the percentages meant (calories? volume?) was never totally clear to me). I don't think it's like Atkins, where it's basically useless unless you follow the plan and get your body using food in a certain way. The benefits are still there even if you don't eat all raw. I wouldn't start out at 100%. Give yourself time to get used to eating all that rawness and to learn how to make your food (I bought a really expensive cookbook by Juliano but the recipes you get from people online are so much easier and more practical for everyday).

I had a hard time starting out because I went cold turkey on coffee without thinking about it. When I identified this as why I was having such a hard time, I started having a cup a day in the morning. I also ate a cooked meal once every couple of days.

I ate a lot of avocados. Once I made a great tabouleh with sprouted wheat. But I was never again successful in sprouting it -- always went sour. But I didn't have the special sprouting container.

Good luck! This makes me want to go back to it.
posted by pluma moos at 6:33 AM on January 28, 2005

What do you rawwies think is the easiest way to transition to a raw diet, especially if you have little time for food preparation? Are there simple recipes? Would it be best to have a good food processor and blender?

How about protein? I'm fairly physically active, and hopefully more so soon. Do you need to make sure there are certain legumes and grains in your diet for complete proteins?

Do you think a (vegetarian, nearly vegan) slob like me who rushes out the door in the morning with some Morningstar soydogs for the breakroom microwave or some organic Oreos and coffee can make the transition?

Can I keep drinking coffee?

iconomy, I should probably just e-mail you sometime. Long time no chat.
posted by Shane at 6:51 AM on January 28, 2005

Pluma moos - yes, it's based on calories, but it's always been too much trouble for me to figure it out! I'm jealous that you even got one thing to sprout - I've had absolutely no luck ever sprouting a thing.

Julians's uncook book is definitely not for the faint of heart. I bought it too - very complicated, overwrought recipes! I totally agree that the bestest recipes are freely available on the internets. This place especially, has slobberific recipes, and check out the cool Raw In Progress section, too. I have a bunch of links to some raw transformation sites that will knock your red socks off, iwearredsocks, if you want them.

On preview: Hi Shane! If I were you, I would try to stop drinking coffee (it's soy frappaccinos, if I recall correctly...hehe.) first, before I did anything else. I did it that way - I stopped all caffeine (sp) about a month before going raw and it worked really well for me. Making too many changes at the same time might just lead to failure. I think at first, going raw, the key is eating tons of food - really putting on the ol' feedbag. You don't want to feel deprived. After a week or two of not eating 'hunger triggers' like flour and sugar, most people just naturally want to eat less.

We should all get together and start a journal about this. Really.
posted by iconomy at 7:05 AM on January 28, 2005

I could definitely use the support of a communal journal. Should I start a simple Blogger blog and send invitations (á la Florgh!, ico, heh)? Who's interested?

Soy cappucinos, iconomy. Shane is to coffee as crack addict is to crack.
posted by Shane at 8:29 AM on January 28, 2005

Blog...
posted by Shane at 8:05 AM on February 1, 2005 [1 favorite]