Reddit reviews Becoming Raw: The Essential Guide to Raw Vegan Diets
We found 9 Reddit comments about Becoming Raw: The Essential Guide to Raw Vegan Diets. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
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I don't see anything wrong with a well planned out raw vegan diet. They're not eating any unhealthy food at all, it's definitely a healthy diet. I'd prefer a raw vegan over any paleo/zero carb/atkins/low carb/blah blah carbs are cancer person any day. They'd be much healthier too, and raw vegan doesn't have to mean skinny, which is why I mentioned "a well planned out raw vegan diet".
There's truth to their arguments. For example, an enzyme called "myrosinase" in broccoli gets released when you cut/chew it (if you cut it you have to wait at least 40 minutes for the enzyme to do its job), basically cutting it or chewing it mixes the enzyme and "glucoraphanin" in the broccoli and the enzyme transforms glucoraphanin into "sulforaphane" which is the most powerful phytonutrient you can get from a food (this is one of the main reasons why everyone needs to eat several servings of cruciferous leafy greens every day!!, it's important, don't be a lazy person and just freaking eat some...)
I wouldn't argue for the destruction/absorption of enzymes or nutrients. If it was a problem then everyone eating cooked foods would have a ton of digestion and health problems and that's not true.
For example, people who only ate cooked broccoli still had sulforaphane present in their urine. How is that possible? If you cook broccoli it destroys the enzyme, and in the end that enzyme doesn't get to mix with glucoraphanin to transform it into sulforaphane. Well, it was found that the gut in your bacteria can do the same job. That's right, your gut bacteria has the exact same enzyme found in broccoli that makes it one of the healthiest foods on the planet! There was an issue though, it took 10 cups of cooked broccoli to get 1 cups worth of sulforaphane from raw broccoli, so it's still important to either include just a little bit of raw broc, or cut it up and leave it for a little bit (a good strategy is to cut up veggies up every day and leave em in the fridge until needed).
While cooking might destroy some nutrition it also makes a lot of it bioavailable. Some foods like broccoli had better nutrient absorption while it was steamed, but boiling lowered it (because it's in the water, so if you're making stew/soup it doesn't matter), and microwaving for 5 minutes destroyed a lot of nutrition (making it around 50% worse than raw broccoli).
>It seems based completely on woo and appeals to nature
You complain about fallacies.
>I've met a few raw vegans and at least two of them have eating disorders 'in their past'
Then you go associating a whole diet with some anecdotal evidence. Don't argue against fallacies with fallacies.
https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/135/10/2372/4669843 - can't blame the diet for the b12 deficiency. People should take responsibility.
>This study indicates that consumption of a strict raw food diet lowers plasma total cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations, but also lowers serum HDL cholesterol and increases tHcy concentrations due to vitamin B-12 deficiency.
Raw vegan diets do need to be well planned (just like any diet...) with some issues that you have to overcome.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15795346
>A RF vegetarian diet is associated with low bone mass at clinically important skeletal regions but is without evidence of increased bone turnover or impaired vitamin D status.
One group was eating a lot more calories though - If you eat a low amount of calories you're obviously going to lose size.
>Nutrient intakes differed significantly between the groups. The RF vegetarians ate a variety of raw vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, sprouted grains, and cereals, dressed with olive oil (1285-2432 kcal/d; approximately 9.1% of calories from protein, 43.2% from fat, and 47.7% from complex carbohydrates). All of them strictly avoided cooked and processed foods containing trans-fatty acids, highly glycemic foods, and foods of animal origin. Their mean daily dietary intakes of calcium and vitamin D (calciferol) were low, 579 ± 260 mg/d and 16 ± 36 U/d, respectively. The control group ate usual American diets containing foods of plant and animal origin (1976-3537 kcal/d; approximately 17.9% of calories from protein, 32.1% from fat, and 50.0% from carbohydrates). Their mean daily dietary intakes of calcium and vitamin D were 1093 ± 394 mg/d and 348 ± 192 U/d, respectively.
But...
>Surprisingly, serum C-telopeptide of type I collagen11 and bone-specific alkaline phosphatase,12 well-accepted markers of bone resorption and formation, respectively, were not significantly different between the 2 groups. This finding provides evidence that these RF vegetarians are in a steady state in regard to their bone turnover and suggests that their low bone mass may be due to a transient increase in bone degradation or decrease in bone synthesis that occurred during the early adaptive weight loss response to the RF diet. Although low bone mass is a risk factor for fracture, bone quality also plays a role.13 It is therefore possible that RF vegetarians with a low bone mass may not have an increased incidence of fractures because of good bone quality. Clearly, it will be necessary to follow up a large number of RF vegetarians for a sufficiently long period to determine whether they have an increased risk of developing fractures.
I'd say almonds should be eaten daily for raw vegans, because they're a great calcium source, and not only calcium, they have a good nutritional profile over all.
If you're truly interested in the science of raw vegan diets, then here's a book with the best up to date research:
"Becoming raw: the essential guide to raw vegan diets"
If you're not interested in books, I'd recommend: One of the best doctors on earth, mister Dr. Michael Greger
I don't really have any tips for going raw, but Dr. Greger suggests this book for people that do. I thought about doing it, but it seemed like a big hassle for little reward so never ended up doing it lol. Good luck :)
Awesome, great job of getting out of bad habits.
I'm also not really into the raw thing but a couple of quick tips. Buy a blender and get your smoothy on! You can throw as many fruit and vegetables in that thing as you like. Just find out what combinations you like.
If I eat smoothy as a breakfast I usually put in a banana, some frozen berrys, a fist full of spinach, an inch of ginger, a cup of rice or almond milk, some lemon juice and some flax seeds.
But they can be much simpeler, just a banana or mango, rice milk and some cinnamon is also great.
To make just plain old veggies a little more exciting try eating them with humus, peanut butter or sriracha if you're in to that. Thats great with carrot, apple, bell pepper, cucumber or whatever.
But I do encourage you to learn a bit about basic nutrition and how to encorporate it in your daily life.
This is supposed to be a very good book on raw veganism. I have the same book for a normal vegan diet and it is very thorough and helpfull.
Any of these books are great for beginners. I would recommend checking out these amazon links and skimming the reviews...
Goneraw and Rawfoodtalk are good for recipes.
EDIT: Broken links
Your primary mistake is in making the assumption that the group "raw foodists" is a homogeneous group. While it is true that some raw foodists subscribe to the theory that enzymes found in raw foods supply significant aid in the digestion and absorption of nutrients, this assertion is not supported by science. These enzymes play a minor (if any) part in aiding digestion. This is not why I am a raw foodist.
Another fallacy you launched was the idea that raw food diets are environmentally destructive. Sure, I can eat coconuts and other tropical fruits, but I do not eat them in any greater quantity than I did when I was a cooked vegan. In fact, I strive to eat as locally as possible, getting as many of the fruits and greens I eat from local farms. If anything, I would say that my environmental impact has gone down since going raw. I am no longer using energy to cook my food and the amount of packaging waste that must be discarded or recycled is practically nil. The average family produces hundreds of pounds of food packaging waste per year. What I produce in a year could probably fit into a backpack.
Beyond that, I am a raw foodist because I like it. I have completely lost the taste for cooked food and after 7 years of being 100% raw vegan, I feel and look better than I ever have. I love the simplicity and ease of it. I waste no time preparing and cooking food. Being raw also forces me to eat really well all the time. I am also free from the horrific effects of several autoimmune diseases for the first time in decades...conditions that lingered despite a whole food vegan diet. The elimination of gluten, refined foods and cooked starches does make a difference in some cases. All I'm trying to say is that if you're going to attack raw foodism, attack the diet on the facts, not some weird BS you've read online. If you want a fully fact based intro on the world of raw foods written by a registered dietitian, I would recommend reading the book "Becomming Raw" by Brenda Davis. She explains the fallacies like the enzyme myth, but also explain the real, science based benefits of a raw foods diet.
Hey if you're eating raw/mostly raw you might want to read this:
http://veganhealth.org/articles/cooking
As the above link mentions at the bottom, you might want to get your hands on a copy of Becoming Raw. It's a great book.
If you are going to do it read Becoming Raw Vegan Becoming Raw: The Essential Guide to Raw Vegan Diets https://www.amazon.com/dp/1570672385/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_zswSBbTBFH73C
I love raw food, and feel great eating more of it, but there are a lot of garbage psuedo science books about it out there.
I'm not too knowledgeable about raw/mostly raw diets but I recommend checking out http://veganhealth.org/ to make sure you're aware of what nutrients you need.
If you can get a hand on a copy of Becoming Raw that might help.
In my smoothies I use different foods at different times to keep things varied. I vary the base (water/soy/rice milk), use different frozen fruit, then add stuff like white beans, avocado, olive or coconut oil, oats, pumpkin seeds, flax, and maybe a scoop of protein powder. It depends on how many calories or how much protein I want in there.
Here are some low-cost raw recipes:
http://plantbasedonabudget.com/?s=raw&s_submit=
Becoming Raw is a great guide https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Raw-Essential-Guide-Vegan/dp/1570672385
I wouldn't eat chickpeas sprouted, they have something that leaches amino acids from you (if I remember correctly, it's in the above book though) but sprouted lentils and mung beans are fine