Hi

I was recently at a talk by someone who is a RAW food specialist. From what I understood this means eating foods in their natural state and not heating (cooking) to over 60 degrees.

Has anyone tried this way of eating successfully? It sounds fantastic - the speaker certainly looked wonderful for her age.. but I wondered if its practical to fit in to a busy lifestyle.

Thanks
Claire

Have you searched this forum to find the other RAW food threads on here?

A good friend of mine is vegan and mainly eats raw food. She goes through stages of being more strict than others. She does look a lot better than when she was a meat eater tbh, she cut out gluten at the same time as she found out she was intolerant. She is also very imaginative with what she makes. I personally couldn't do it. When she goes out she tends to ask for steamed veg to avoid being awkward. I would be interested to find out how you get on if you try it. I think my friend has learnt it is very difficult to be strict all the time but she tries to eat raw whenever possible.

I tried it and it was better than other "fad" diets like cabbage soup etc etc - I found I lost weight very quickly but still had a lot of energy and felt healthier than I had done for some time - even by doing "partly raw" - i.e celery, carrots, spring onions and houmous(non-raw) for lunch, pr mostly raw but some ryvita or similar

It was hard work and although I still occasionally make the Raw "lasagne" detailed here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mkSMTcX81rE) as it is actually incredibly tasty (IMO better if made then left in the fridge for 24hrs for flavours to soak together) I don't think I could ever be totally raw

The time it took started to eat into the time I wanted to spend walking/cycling/running so I started to find it a conflict of interest.

It does seem to require some real dedication, almost to an obsessive level.

I've considered it many times over the past few years and have several (non) cookbooks. In general, I love the taste and freshness of the food, but can second that it seems to take a fair bit of time to prepare. However, I'm sure if I got into the habit of preparing food this way, then the outcomes would be worth the extra effort. You've probably thought of this already, but you could try eating one meal, or even one day, a week 100% raw and seeing how it works for your lifestyle. I also think it would be easier if you had a good food blender and/or food processor and a dehydrator. I haven't invested in these and that may be why I find it quite time consuming.

:smile:Hi Claire, Eating 'totally' Raw is a way of life that not many people manage to follow, it certainly requires dedication! Making some transition towards Living Foods will certainly benefit your health/how you feel/how you look ... just do what you can. Although it may be harder to do in winter when we very often want warming foods! A REALLY GOOD blender is pretty much a must eg VitaMix, and a dehydrator helps but there is plenty you can do without the latter. I'm hoping to run a course next Spring when we should (hopefully) get some warmer weather.