Peppery raw radishes
Nothing will ever be
attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome. ~Samuel Johnson
We are very pleased to present our first guest blogger, Brandi Simpson. I was visiting Brandi for some spring snow in Utah last month, and the subject of MindfulEats and food came up. Of course, we started talking about interesting diets. I told her about my prior flirtation with the raw diet, and she volunteered to go raw for a week. I was delighted - Brandi is a distance athlete that is interested in food and health, but not a freak (she still eats pre-packaged cookies with hydrogenated oils). Perfect! A healthy, normal person goes raw:
I had mixed emotions the first time I heard about people adhering to a raw only diet. Extreme? Check. Inconvenient? Check! Nutritionally sound? Maybe if you do it right, but it seems like that might be very, very difficult. On the other hand, I could see some of the virtues of the raw diet. The idea of consuming only unprocessed, whole foods seems like it should be a sure path to physical wellness. I fully accept the notion that a diet consisting primarily of raw fruit, vegetables, and nuts ought to significantly reduce the amount of non-nutritious junk we consume. However, as a believer in the value of low-fat dairy products and lean meat as good sources of protein and essential vitamins and minerals that are difficult to get from plant sources, I had to believe that it would be difficult to get all of the nutrients one needs from a raw diet.
A little about me: I eat a lot. I do, however, try to make healthy food choices as our ever mindful friend, Jean, suggests. I eat lots of fruits and veggies. I don’t eat a lot of processed food, but when I do, it usually takes the form of true junk – pretzels, candy, crackers (oh I do so love candy!) In fact, at least once or twice per month, I go a little nuts and consume enough sugar to keep a small Caribbean island nation solvent. I compete in triathlons, running races, and am training for an upcoming century bike race, so while I am certainly burning those candy/cracker/cookie calories, I am not doing my body any favors by consuming them. By the same token, I do need more calories than the average bear (or in this case a 115ish pound female).
So why would I subject myself to a diet that I suspected would leave me weak with hunger? Two reasons: The first is that my normally healthy diet had somehow become derailed. I had been craving sugar and other junk food and was giving into those cravings far too frequently. I felt like I needed to somehow “reboot” my body (and frankly dropping the extra few pounds I had gained over the holidays would have been a bonus). The other reason is that I was curious what would happen if I ate only raw food. Would I suddenly feel clean and full of energy as the proponents claim? Would my skin take on a new youthful glow? Or, more likely, would I be so ravenously hungry after the first day that I would chew off my own hand?
As I planned my “raw week,” I went online to try to figure out which foods were and were not “sanctioned” by the diet. Would herbal tea be “allowed”? What about olive oil? As it turns out, there are many schools of thought regarding raw eating. I will spare you the gory details. I decided that I would eat mainly fruit, veggies, nuts and nut butters/pastes (all raw of course). I also decided that I would try to stick with my normal workout schedule, which consists of about 60-80 minutes of cardio most days with the occasional yoga, Pilates, or weight lifting session thrown in.
I imagined that with the proper mixture of raw nuts, homemade nut pastes and large quantities of fruits and veggies, I would manage to fill myself up enough not to feel hungry yet would still consume far fewer calories than I am used to. I was sadly mistaken.
On day one, I severely underestimated how much food I should eat for breakfast and take to work. Perhaps there are people who can live only on raw fruit and vegetables, but I am not one of them. By 10 am, I had eaten the small amount of raw almonds I had taken to work, and by 3 pm I had consumed seven pieces of fruit (yes seven) and a small garden’s worth of celery and carrots yet I was still hungry.
On my second day, at about 1:00 pm I tallied up how many calories I had already consumed for the day and was not terribly surprised when my total was 1300 calories. This alone wouldn’t have been terrible, except that I was famished. That evening I soaked steel cut oats, which I had learned are considered acceptable by most raw foodists and blended them with blueberries and raw almonds for breakfast. This helped me make it through the morning, but by evening, although I ate a healthy quantity of nuts and half an avocado along with my fruits and veggies throughout the day, I was ravenous. The rest of my days were somewhat similar.
I had to eat a lot (and I mean a lot!) of nuts and dressings made with cold-pressed oil to not feel hungry. It is possible that if I had stuck to the plan for more than a week, I would have naturally adjusted to consuming food that didn’t seem to have any staying power, but I doubt it. What is more likely is that I would rely a lot more heavily on soaked grains and that sprouted bread that claims to be uncooked (huh?). But, this is where the whole thing falls apart for me. I can accept that, in general raw fruits and vegetables are better for you than cooked. But I really can’t buy that the same is true for grains. Perhaps it is a failure of imagination on my part, but. . .
Aside from the hunger, I did feel pretty good while eating only raw food, especially in the morning. For the most part, I maintained my workouts, which certainly contributed to my, at times, extreme hunger. Only one workout felt harder than usual. Not surprisingly, I really missed hot food. I am sure that if it had been warm outside, it wouldn’t have been an issue, but it was still snowing outside. I was yearning for a steaming bowl of tomato soup.
After a week of raw eating, I was dreaming about non-raw foods, warm and cold. Strangely however, I wasn’t dreaming of cookies or brownies or a big juicy steak. I was craving tomato soup, roasted vegetables, plain Greek yogurt with fruit, and various other very healthy, yet non-raw foods. It has been over a week now since I stopped the raw diet and I can count only three things that I have consumed that would be considered less than optimal food choices (an ounce of pretzels, a white roll, and a handful of wheat thins (the name may sound healthy, but I beg to differ)). Everything seems to taste just a little bit better – and I am a lot more thoughtful about what I eat and how it makes me feel. From that standpoint, the experiment was a huge success. I am also eating a lot more raw foods in my everyday diet and in fact came up with a couple of raw veggie salads that I love and plan to eat regularly. I did however, gain a pound or two. The food I was eating just didn’t have the staying power I needed and thus I ended up eating more calories than usual. Had I stuck with the diet longer, I would have become better about presoaking grains and raw beans or perhaps would have adjusted to less food.
For me at least, the raw diet seems like a good way to “cleanse” without going on an actual fast. I do feel a little healthier having done it and actually plan to have more raw weeks here and there in the future – especially during the warmer months. In the meantime, I am going to enjoy cooked and raw food with a new appreciation.
What I ate: 15 oz. green juice, 2 hard-boiled eggs, 1 banana, 12 oz. skim cafe au lait, 1 cup brown rice, seitan + tofu + broccoli stirfry, 1 coffee, 1 apple, 4 sqaures dark chocolate, 1 handful Mindful Mix, 1 steamed veggie dumpling, 2 shrimp dumplings, Chinese broccoli, lobster + cellophane noodles, 50 oz water
Exercise: 15 min stationary bike, 30 min weights
