The 99% Raw Food Diet?

If you click on the “About Tom And His Raw Foods Blog” link at the top of this blog (at least it’s there for now; it may be some place else if I change the blog template), you’ll see that it has changed. Here’s what it originally said:

My name is Tom Brownsword. I’m a computer security analyst with a couple of certifications (CompTIA Security+ and ISC(2) CISSP®). I run a couple of computer security websites at:

The Business Protector
Simple Security Tips

I’m the father of four children and there are exactly 25 years — to the day! — between my oldest and youngest. I blog about that — sometimes — at:

Parenting 25

I’ve been intrigued with the link between health and what we eat for some time, and through a few links from a friend’s blog, I found out about Roger Haeske and his raw foods blog. He gave me a gentle push that prompted me to start his six step transition to a raw diet. This blog is part of the deal.

I think that some raw foods blogs can be a bit intimidating for somebody just starting out. For example, Roger (who has been extremely helpful thus far) has been doing the raw foods diet for years, and for somebody just starting out, that can be a bit intimidating. You think to yourself, “How in the world am I ever going to get there?”

Well, this blog starts with Day 1 of my efforts to switch to a completely raw diet. Simply start at the beginning and watch a complete newbie to a raw diet try to make the transition. One of my reasons for doing this was to give you an honest account of somebody trying to make the switch.

Please remember: this is just my online journal of my progress. Take it as that; the account of somebody making the transition. Get somebody with experience to help you and to provide you with the information you’ll need to do it right. I’m not that person. Above all, don’t decide that something I do is going to be the correct and safe thing for you to do. I don’t know you and can’t give you advice, so what I write here should not be construed as advice. We’re dealing with your health and welfare here; there’s nothing more important in my eyes and I simply don’t want to see you do something that will hurt you simply because you read about me doing it. Thanks for understanding.

Thanks for reading my blog(s), and if you have any questions, suggestions, or comments, be sure to leave them on any blog post.

Smacznego!
Tom

Why did I change it? Because I’ve changed and therefore it needed to be updated.

What does it now say? Well, click on the link and find out…!

Here’s what’s changed: I’m no longer in the “transition” phase like I was at the end of February 2008 when I started this blog. In fact, I kind of skipped over most of Roger Haeske’s transition phase and went 100% raw about two weeks after I started this blog.

And pages that are obviously outdated on people’s web sites annoy me and I don’t want too much of that on my web sites.

So where exactly am I now? I am 99% committed to 100% raw foods. There’s just one minor “exception” that is currently keeping me from being 100% committed — and I’m going to talk about today.

I do a lot of, uh, “research” on various diets and the like (it sure sounds better than “web surfing”!). I came across a diet known as CR (for Calorie Restriction). Basically these people are kind of fanatical in the way they eat. They measure and weigh everything, obsess over food combinations to ensure that they get the right mix of nutrients every day — you know, stuff like that.

In contrast, one of the nice things about the 80/10/10 raw food diet is that you don’t really need to worry too much about such things, which works for lazy people like me (actually, I currently don’t see the value in doing stuff like that). I’ve heard Roger Haeske say that you don’t see chimpanzees running around the jungle, worrying about how many calories they get every day or if they are getting enough zinc in their diet. On the other hand, chimpanzees don’t have to worry about looking good, like I do…

That’s got me to thinking that perhaps I should be paying a bit more attention to what I eat every day to help ensure that I at least get close to the right nutrient mix every day. I’m not worried about calories, and I suspect that you wouldn’t either if you had lost over 75 pounds, as I have. I do think that seeing how my daily nutrient needs play out might be a good thing, though.

On the other hand, keeping track of what I eat and figuring out the nutrient mix sounds like a lot more work than I want to do. So for now, I’m going to consider it a “good thing to do someday” and let my mind program my subconscience until I actually decide that it’s something I’m going to do.

But during my research of the CR diet (and those people do tend to live a long time and seem to have a good quality of life in the process), I came across an article about a guy who decided to do the CR thing for a few months. He topped it off by having a CR dinner with a bunch of well-known people in CR circles but took along a friend (who presumably follows the S.A.D. diet).

After the meal, the “friend” basically said that he came away with the impression that the whole CR thing smacked of being like a cult to him. The people were quite smug in their opinions of the “superiority” of the diet and were quite fanatical in their devotion to it. It obsessed them and seemed to drive their lives. In this writer’s case, it motivated him to head to the nearest fast food restaurant the next day and order the extra large meal…

Which, of course, got me to thinking: Are 80/10/10 raw foodists cult-like? After all, almost everybody who does it seems to be fanatical in their approach to it, talks bad about the S.A.D., has their own “lingo” (like 80/10/10 and S.A.D.), etc. etc. ad naseum. In other words, they pretty much act like the CR people I summarized in the last paragraph.

And hey, I’m not much better; I do the same thing. So what’s really going on? Is the 80/10/10 lifestyle a cult?

To find out, I, the Human Guinea Pig (oink-oink!) conducted another experiment for several days last week. But before I reveal the details, I must warn you that you should NEVER, under any circumstances, try this yourself. I am a trained professional (yes, people actually buy the book at the top of the main blog page; you should, too! That means I have made a few bucks via this blog, which makes me not only a professional, but a PAID professional at that) and am therefore qualified to attempt such things.

So what did I do? Yeah, I actually returned to last year’s eating habits for several days — with the exception of breakfast. I love my bananas and oranges and grapes…

The results? Several days of feeling like a blob of deteriorating dog poop that had been left in the sun for several days that even the flies won’t touch. YUCK! GROSS! DISGUSTING!

Yeah. Big Macs, fries, grilled chicken, ribs, chips, pizza… You name it, I probably ate it over the space of several days last week. Yes, I became a S.A.D.-ist (sorry, bad pun… BTW, S.A.D. stands for “Standard American Diet”).

What happened?

• For starters, I gained 11 pounds in the space of four days (I’ve since lost about seven pounds of it). If you go by the rule of thumb calculation that you have to eat an additional 3,500 calories to gain a pound, that means that I ate an extra 38,500 calories in the space of three or four days. I think that’s almost impossible — so where did the weight gain come from? (HINT: Your body really does store a lot of excess garbage if you don’t eat right).
• Cooked food didn’t satisfy me. I had to eat an unbelievable amount of cooked food to feel full because I now eat fruit — with all of the fiber and water and Good Stuff Like That — and it fills me up nicely. In other words, I think my stomach is actually larger than it was last year in spite of the fact that I’m much thinner. And cooked food just doesn’t fill it up like fresh fruits and vegetables do. I had to eat what seemed to be TONS of cooked food to even start feeling full.
• The digestive by-products, or What Happened After The Cooked Food Got Into My System. As I mentioned a few posts ago when I ate cooked food for half a day, my body no longer knows what to do with cooked food. Let’s just say that I made sure the bathroom was full of creature comforts over the past several days because I spent a LOT more time there than I normally would (thankfully that is now all, uh, “behind” me… A couple of days 100% raw took care of it). In a way, it was a benefit because I was way behind in my reading…
• I slept more, felt more tired, and didn’t have anywhere near my usual energy.
• I started noticing the “ailments” that used to bother me. Yes, a lot of them were due to my diet.

I’m sure there’s more, but you get the point. I didn’t like it.

Returning to the question at hand: Are we raw foodists exhibiting cult-like behavior? In my opinion, absolutely not. We’ve simply found something that, by experience, we KNOW is superior and are quite smug in our convinctions. I’ve gained a LOT by switching to all raw foods, and going back to a S.A.D. diet for a few days has shown me exactly why I chose my new and Superior lifestyle. It really is superior, and you can discover this for yourself if you simply give it a try.

Yes, it can be difficult to make the switch, and you may lose some things by doing so (like the ability to walk into any restaurant and eat), but I choose to be healthy. I’m focusing on what I’ve gained, not on what I lost. I like my new lifestyle and simply don’t want to go back, and these past few days have shown me that quite clearly.

Henceforth I’m going to be (politely) obnoxious about it, too. I like raw foods and what they do for me. I like being low fat. I like it when friends, neighbors, and co-workers “complain” about how skinny I am (my weight is normal, according to insurance company tables, so I suspect it’s jealousy). And I’m saving my best shots for those who think that their S.A.D. diet is better, especially if they are ignorant and don’t want to learn the truth (no, we are NOT carnivores and don’t have sufficient acid in our stomach and the short digestive track typical of carnivores — and you get anemic because you don’t take the occasional B-12 supplement, not because you don’t eat meat. But ask your doctor; I’m probably lying to you). In other words, just because you lack the fortitude to make changes in your life doesn’t give you the right to try to pick apart what I’ve done in an attempt to expose it as being “dangerous”. Gimme a break, fatso!

On the other hand, if you give it your best shot and occasionally mess up, no problem. I’m just showing you what helped me; I’m not your judge. Just say “oops” and keep on eating raw stuff. No big deal.

One more word about the 99% thing: There are times when (GASP!) I’m also going to sneak in a bite or three of “un-raw” food. For example, I was on the road last weekend, driving about 450 miles by myself, so instead of eating oranges, I took a couple of bottles of 100% orange juice with me (not from concentrate and the label said nothing about pasteurization, which of course heats the stuff up). I also buy smoothies in a bottle from time to time for road trips. And if I get super hungry, I’m going to cook myself some simple food to fill me up (brown rice is my favorite, and I keep a bag around just for such occasions). No meat or chips or Anything Like That; if I do decide to eat something cooked, it’s still going to be as close to natural as I can get it and “just enough” to satisfy my craving (for lack of a better word). Of course, I’ll also check to see if my wife bought any Oreos…

In other words, I’m committed to this diet, but I’m not going to get fanatical about it. And neither should you. Committed? Absolutely. But don’t get hung up on perfection.

From my perspective, I think a lot of people get so wrapped up in doing this “perfectly” that even the tiniest setback messes up their minds. So don’t strive for perfection. I’m not going to, so if you’re looking for somebody who is only 99% committed to the 80/10/10 raw food diet, you’ve found that person. I love it, I love what it does for me, but if I occasionally want something cooked, then I’m going to eat it.

And how about this: If I eat something cooked, I’ll make a blog post about it. That way you’ll know how often I do it and you’ll have a factual example of an expert who thinks it’s No Big Deal if you slip up every once in a while. Now I’m not going to do it every day — and neither should you — but isn’t it better to eat just one or two cooked meal per month than it is to eat 93 cooked meals per month?

Don’t crucify yourself if you slip up every once in a while. I’ll forgive you — just “go and sin no more”. Heck, if you want, leave your “confession” as a comment to any blog post and I’ll respond by giving you an official “you’re forgiven” response. How’s THAT for a deal?

Here’s to 99%!

Or should I call it the “80/10/9/1″ diet?

Smacznego,
Tom

P.S. — If you are a CR-er and happen to be reading this post, I think you guys rock! Too much work for me (I’m lazy), but you all are obviously much healthier than 99.9% of the population of this planet and think you’re on to something much better than S.A.D. Had I not come across the 80/10/10 raw food diet, I would have seriously considered CR-ing it — and would gladly switch to 1% mode to share a meal with you. And no, I don’t think you are cult-like… You simply know that your lifestyle is better and want to communicate that to others. Even if, like me, you occasionally get accused of proselytizing…

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