What is a raw food diet?

Raw food diets

What is a raw food diet? It is when all the food you eat is uncooked.

Living and Raw Foodists believe in eating only an uncooked, unheated, unprocessed and organic plant based diet.

There are subcategories of raw food eaters -

Fruitarian - People who consume mostly fruits.
Sproutarian - People who consume mostly sprouted seeds and grains.
Juicearian - People who consume mostly fresh juice

What do you get to eat?

On a raw diet you can eat all fruits, vegetables, sprouts, nuts,legumes, dried fruits,sun-dried fruits , seeds, grains, sea vegetables, and other organic or natural foods that have not been processed. By sprouts we mean spouted seeds and grains.

Drinks:
freshly made fruit and vegetable juices
purified water (not tap)
milk from a young coconut

Sea vegetables: kelp powdered can be used as a seasoning, nori is a good snack, other types, dulse, arame, wakame,

Sprouts: beans and seeds when sprouted can be very tasty. Try traditional mung beans, alfalfa, adzuki, lentils, fenugreek seeds, radish seeds, buckwheat, flax, mint and red clover.

Nuts and seeds: Lots of proteins and essential fatty acids. Almonds, brazils, caraway seeds cashews, coconut, hazlenuts, pecans, pine kernals, pumpkin seeds, sesme seeds, sunflower seeds and walnuts.

Raw foods are high in

• Vitamins
• Phytonutrients - these are nutrients which occur only in plants
• Dietary Fiber
• Enzymes
• Chlorophyll

What you need to do:

Plan your diet carefully. Even a carefully balanced diet may still need you to take some supplements as the diet is low in iron and calcium.

Some people eat meat and fish on a raw food diet! (Think sushi!)But the vast majority are vegetarian.

You might need the following equipment

juice extractor for your fruits and vegetables
blender or a wooden spoon and sieve to crush and blend ingredients
food processor or chopper to save time and effort
Large containers to soak and sprout grains, seeds and beans - jars of plastic sprouting trayus
Glass jars or Tupperware for storing sprouts

Visit health food or vegetarian shops for info on: superfoods, such as maca, wheatgrass, goji berries, raw chocolate, chlorella, spirulina, E3Live and others.

Start off perhaps by introducing much more raw food into your diet before committing to it full one. Start by having one meal entirely of raw food. As you become accomplished at preparing sprouting seeds and include more raw vegetables then swap another meal for a raw one.

Raw food diets in the news and items about raw food diets

Raw food eaters thin but healthy

Myths about raw food diets

raw food recipes - a few recipes out of her book

USeful sites to find out more

The Vegetarian Society -
The Vegan Society -

Raw food recipes

Salads - check out the supermarket for different types of lettuce, try new ones. Use grated vegetables

cabbage (white and red), carrots, beetroot, apples, cucumber.