Buying Enough Bananas!

Hello! Do you struggle on a raw diet? I have one big tip to share today if you are someone who falls into the large camp of people who want to, but do not know how to accurately execute a raw vegan diet.

A big turning point in my success on a low fat raw vegan diet was when I really learned how to buy fruit like a fruitarian. (Why fruit-based raw veganism is the only way to go!)

These days, we normally try to keep 40+ lbs of fresh bananas in the house, plus maybe 30 (give or take) lbs of frozen bananas in the freezer at all times (we have 2 large chest freezers so this is no problem).

Bananas are very cheap and dense in calories, so they make a pretty obvious staple unless you live in a mango forest or something. (; They are easy to peel and prepare and make the best smoothies - I'm not even a huge fan of plain bananas, but I wouldn't make a smoothie without them! (Here are a few if my favorite smoothie recipes - bad food combining though some may be.)

I normally buy discounted "overripe" nanas Kwiktrip (a gas station in central US). Depending on how many discounted bananas they have - or how few I have at home - we'll buy anywhere from 5 - 40lb at a time. The person at the cash register sometimes doesn't blink an eye. Other times, s/he'll ask if I'm making banana bread....I tell her I make lots of smoothies and she's like, "oh, I see." No big deal. (:

I think a big part of being successful on a low fat raw vegan diet is getting over caring too deeply about what people think. At first, you may feel crazy buying 40lb of bananas at a time. people around you may confirm your feelings either verbally or with shocked looks. But wait!

Ask yourself what's REALLY so crazy about buying loads of bananas? You eat lots of bananas, they make you feel good, etc. You have very good reasons for buying those bananas! What is far more crazy when you think about it, is spending hard earned money on all the junk crap (potato chips, instant meals, little debbies...) you see in every other shopping cart! Who wants to put their resources into stuff that's not doing good things for anyone, and actually makes them feel worse?!

Once you've found a place you like to buy bananas, you can give them your name to a produce manager and suggest they call you if they ever have a large amount of "overripe" bananas. This is good for you and the store! That's a symbiotic relationship! (I think. I had bio last year. We dont talk about symbiosis too much in physics :p).

In conclusion, bananas are awesome and they will make your raw vegan life so much easier! Buy loads of bananas, specifically discounted ones if available. Get to know the people in charge of the fruit. And remember... Going through 4 - 7+lb of bananas per day is not crazy! It's just abnormal. (;

Peace!

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Struggling On A Raw Food Diet?

Are you not getting everything you had hoped for out of your raw food diet? If so, you're not alone! Many, many people find themselve exactly where you are. I myself was struggling with my raw food diet for quite a while, until I discovered the information that I am going to share with you in this article.

Most raw foodists say they eat "a lot" of food. But the thing about raw food is that it is MUCH less calorically dense than the cooked food they were raised on. My first thought, if you are not feeling awesome, is that you are not getting enough calories. Are you tracking your caloric intake on a website like Cronometer.com? Doing this really helped me to better understand the foods I was eating, how much I should be eating, ect. I suggest aiming for at least 2500cals per day for women, 3000 for men, and significantly more than that if you excersize or are otherwise active.

Next, it's best to examine where your calories are coming from. Namely, are you eating enough fruit? On a raw diet, there are 2 places to get our calories from: fats (nuts, seeds, avocado) or sweet fruits. Obviously, greens/veggies could never supply enough calories to keep us going throughout the day. Fats are good in small amounts (maybe 1 avocado or 1 - 2oz nuts per day), but I don't think there can be much argument that we shouldn't be getting the bulk of out calories from them!

So that leaves us with fruit as the bulk source of our calories. What could be better? Everybody knows how nutritionally awesome fruit is. However, sadly, many people are scared to eat too much fruit because it's "too much sugar". I hope you haven't fallen into that trap. Remember that the sugar in fruit is accompanied by fiber, nutrients, water, ect. It is not refined and it is nothing to be afraid of. It is worth noting that generally any study that points to fruit as the source of health complications (such as obesity or diabetes) used isolated (refined) fructose or glucose, NOT whole fruit.

In fact not only is fruit not bad for us, but it is what our bodies run on most optimally. It is delicious, it digests so easily, and it kicks cravings like none other! The energy in fruit is very easy for us to utilize, as our bodies run on glucose. It takes very little relative effort by your body to convert simple carbohydrate sugars to glucose, which means more energy for you!

Now that we know fruit is the best source of calories, how much of it should you be eating? Fruit is far less calorically dense than cooked food or even raw fatty sources of calories like avocado, nuts or seeds. In a typical day I eat:

-breakfast: 9-10banana smoothie, w/ water (or other calorically equivalent smoothie) for around 1000calories
-lunch (I eat at school): green smoothie (ex: 5nanas, 1c pineapple, 1/2cilantro, 1c greens, 1c water) or monomeal (of oranges, this time of year), about 600cals
-2nd lunch (I eat again several class periods later in study hall): green smoothie or smoothie, about 600cals
-dinner: GIANT SALAD (1+ head lettuce, half a cuke, half an avo, 1 tomato, strawberries/apples/oranges, and 1/2c+ dried fruit or dates, + fruit-based, homemade, fat-free salad dressing (leave me a comment if you'd like some ideas, I'd definitely do a post on that), or a blended salad, 400 - 500cals
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All this = around 2,700cals.

Eating this way, I feel AMAZING, better than I can remember ever feeling! I have so much energy. I am 5'2 weighing 100lb, and I've been eating this way for over a year now....so all the sugar in this fruit certainly hasn't made me fat! (;
(Oh, here you go, if you don't believe me:)

I was never fat, but I haven't always had a nice, flat stomach, either! Here's a before & after.

What does a typical day of food look like for you, in detail/numeric amounts? If you still have questions, feel free to post a comment below!

Peace. (:

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Can I Eat Cooked Food Sometimes?

There are a number of reasons that a person may decide to go raw vegan. Perhaps you've chosen this path because you want to be skinnier. Maybe you'd like to look vibrant and healthy. You might want endless energy. Maybe you were attracted at the idea of never getting sick. Or perhaps, you're in it for the benefits it offers to your athletic performance. My personal favorite result of low fat, high carb, raw veganism is the mental stability, clearness, and happiness that I have experienced.

Needless to say, there are a lot of different reasons that a person might choose to follow a raw path.

There is nothing like raw and it is absolutely worth every sacrifice you have to make to get there! However, staying 100% raw is sometimes a challenge - in terms of convienience, habits, addictions, and social situations. Most raw vegans have in some instant wished or wondered whether they could get the results that the want from raw veganism, and still occasionallu eat some cooked food. (After all, we've all been taught that moderation is key! Haha.)

Well, absolutely. If you feel like you need or want to eat cooked food, experiment with it and see what works for you. (One example I often use, is that I drink not-from-concentrate Florida's Natural orange juice very liberally, and have never noticed negative results.) If you do choose to go the route of eating some cooked food, I do have a few pointers and tips you may want to at least read over and consider:

1) Always stay vegan. No matter how bad you miss meat, or how much want to be inconspicuous in social situations, in my opinion, vegan is absolutely non-negotiable.
Animal foods are severly acidifying to the body, which encourages cancer cell growth. They have also been linked to obesity, heart disease, diabetes, and other scary, chronic diseases. They are high in fats and protiens and low in carbohydrates and micronutrients. (And I'm not even going to go into the effects of animal consumption on the environment, the animals, and the starving inhabitants of Africa who are being exploited.)
I do not believe that meats have anything to offer the body, that we cannot get from whole plant foods.

2) You may not feel well constantly switching from raw to cooked and back again - you might find yourself in some sort of unpleasant limbo of constant detox or something of the sort. Just be aware of this.

3) I definitely suggest you stay away from salt (this can be very hard if you're trying to just eat what everyone else is eating/for social reasons, because it would seem that the entire world is addicted to this drug, and doesn't even realize it. As you may or may not know, salt is an excitotoxin (I don't actually know what that means in itself lol.) but, I know that what it does is 'excite' your tastebuds so that you taste flavors more vividly - however, it leaves tastebuds damaged, so that you are less able to taste flavor the next time you eat - therefore, you need more and more salt each time, for flavor....kind of the same way a heroin or cocaine user needs to increase the amount of drug that he's consuming to get the high he wants and to fulfil his addiction.
In addition, I'm sure you know that salt is cellular poison and dehydrates your body (this is why we have used it to preserve foods for hundreds of years). Bloating and other problems are the result of your body trying to protect itself from this damaging drug.

4) Stay away from wheat. It's addictive, refined, and the gluten makes you feel like crap.

5) Obviously, not all cooked foods are created equal. Try to keep it low fat, whole plant based, high carb. Baking, frying, grilling creates carcinogens. Steamed and boiled foods are always best.
Cooked veggies and tubers are the most ideal. Rice and other whole grains are acceptable. Legumes will give you toxic gas and stuff, they're hard to digest. Refined foods like bread and pasta are..well, refined.

Good luck!