Now it is of course your choice whether you want to be 100% HCRV, high raw, or whatever, but this site's primary intention is to encourage and support those whose goal it is to be HCRV 100%, wherever you live, ideal climate or not. Those who are vegan and/or high raw are of course still welcome here.
While there are certainly far worse things we can be eating than cooked veggies, it is the conviction of the 30BaD crew and many of the most experienced frugivores here that they are far from optimal compared to our specific foods, raw fruits and vegetables. Nor are cooked foods necessary if we have access to enough ripe fruit. Even frugivores in the coldest winter climates are able to secure abundant supplies of fruits and stay 100% raw throughout the winter.
If you want to eat steamed greens or boiled sweet potatoes, that's your choice. Being vegan is probably the most important dietary choice you can make for ethical and environmental reasons. A high raw low fat vegan diet has tremendous health benefits compared to the alternatives.
30BaD is ultimately about what is optimal regarding health, particularly with respect to diet.
We are not ultimately controlled entirely by our external circumstances: staying 100% raw or eating cooked food is our choice. Either way is not right or wrong, but like all our choices they have consequences. Most of us are aware of the health benefits of staying HCRV so I won't elaborate on them here. We do encourage you to consider doing so if you haven't already, and to stick with it if you are 100% raw but are having doubts. The consequences of wise choices regarding health are health benefits after all.
Those who are AGAINST the idea of being 100% raw vegan or have absolutely no faith that it is optimal for human health would probably do best seeking another forum.
I do understand that doing lfrv 100% in a cold winter climate can be quite challenging at times; it gets as cold here where I currently live (Canada) as it does in northern Scandinavia. So I've decided to start a support group for those in colder climates to go/stay raw, BigG's 811rv Winter Bootcamp. Humans were intended to live in the tropics, particularly during the winter. No frickin' doubt about it! But that doesn't mean that any of us can't do 811 100% virtually wherever we live, until we can relocate ourselves to a more suitable location. I'm sure as heck planning to move to a warmer location as soon as I can, but I'm staying 811rv 100% until that time; I'm not going to wait for ideal circumstances to present themselves. If I decided to wait that long for going 811rv 100% may never have happened.
Whatever vegan diet you choose for yourself, and of course we encourage you to choose HCRV 100%, we do welcome you here as long as you abide with the forum guidelines.
Sincerely,
The 30BaD crew: Freelee, Harley, and the mods.
Replies
We occasionally have cane juice ourselves and this is a compromise which we seem to do fine with and enjoy but we would not prescribe it to newbies trying to heal from serious dis-ease in the bodymind because it's still a bit of a "grey area", we can confidently say that whole food has been proven to be healthy, refined green juices? Still questionable..
The potential danger of concentrated amounts of green juice is unkown so till we do know we will be recommending fruits & greens be consumed in their whole state. Eating sufficient amounts of a variety of fruit mono meals will give us sufficient amounts of vitamins and minerals and blending these foods will help digestion & absorption significantly.
Nothing personal just keeping on the wholefood trail to healing :)
I havent had green juice for the last 2 days,i want to see how i go,i actually havent been attracted to greens at all except for a little fancy lettuce,just going with what my body wants ..
- thanks Debbie we appreciate that...it can be easy to be seen as the "bad guy" when trying to achieve this!
Cooked food,no matter what it is,is not harmless,this is for sure,especially once the body has become so clean and vibrant on lfrv :)
That being said,steamed vegs and vegs soups are good,for TRANSITIONING from a SAD way of eating to all raw,especialy if there are bowel or digestive disorders to take into consideration. from one who has been there with these issues,i can say whole heartedly once the transitioning is done,there is nothing like lfrv,to keep the body vibrantly well :)
How we eat raw,or high raw is up to us for sure.However i didnt enjoy seeing cooked food eating promoted on some of the posts lately either,for whatever reason.I do find it odd,that some say they are eating 811 but eat cooked vegs too,sorry but thats not 811 guys! I dont eat 811,i eat lfrv,bc i have green juice,and juicing isnt regarded as being part of 811.Its important to state honestly what we are doing,so it may help others on their journey too .
Peace :)
This was point I was trying to make Karmyn, thank your for expressing it so succinctly.
On the issue of discussions relating to what people do in "less than ideal circumstances," I would argue that if someone eats cooked food because of these discussions, this person would have eaten cooked food anyway. With regard to these discussions providing further excuses for people, if people are looking for excuses they clearly have not decided that 811 is right for them. Once someone is happy with 811, they can read all the excuses they want and it won't affect her or him. So I think such a circumstance will always tell us more about the person than about what the person read.
On the subject of my claim that a false environment is being promoted by this policy, I believe that this policy is asking people not to say certain things about themselves if those things conflict with 100% 811rv. Therefore, certain natural inclinations to say things about diet may have to be suppressed in accordance with the policy. Thinking back to a recent cooked food discussion, Bliss did a post saying she was eating sweet potato because the imported fruit available was unripe. Whether she used the word 'can't' or 'won't,' I don't feel that her post was in accordance with this new guideline.
I've had a look at your article. It's a very nice argument. I'm not sure that it provides conclusive evidence, however. Take this on steaming:
"From old sources: A study at the University of Wisconsin showed that cabbage, when steamed, lost 22-43% of nutrients (amongst these - protein and calcium). Ragnar Berg ('Vitamins'): 'the mere steaming of vegetables for five minutes dissolves out so large a proportion of the inorganic bases that the residue contains an excess of acids.'"
Now, a reduction in nutrients is surely a bad thing. But if the individual consuming the cooked foods has already consumed a sufficent quantity of a nutrient from elsewhere, a lack of this nutrient is (in the cooked food) neither here nor there. It certainly isn't damaging to the body. Also the above quote only relates to cabbage and therefore has very limited use.
What might be damaging about the cooked cabbage is the "excess of acids." I do not understand the process that is described as causing the excess of acids, due to lack of knowledge. I will therefore give the author the benefit of the doubt and assume that she or he is correct. This point still only relates to cabbage.
The other, more recent, cited studies on steaming
"say that steaming destroys various vitamins, most notably Vitamin C. And in a study published by Journal of the Science of Food Agriculture, researchers investigating effects of various means of cooking broccoli found that steaming caused an 11% loss in certain antioxidant compounds."
Again, all that is being claimed is that steamed food contains less nutrition than it does in its raw state. In no sense does this indicate that eating the food will be damaging to the body.
I won't look at the other types of cooking because I would imagine that steaming is the least harmful of them. The studies you cite, for me, only provide a minor suggestion that steamed vegetables are damaging to the body in the suggestion that steamed cabbage contains excess acids, and this, of course, is a very limited claim.
I do take your point, however, that this is an 811 forum and that it may get tiresome if people debate this endlessly. I must say, though, that I think its a shame because I think the 'toxic' nature of all cooked food is often assumed without much argument. I would love to discuss this issue, and I doubt I will find another forum where the people have such well-worked out opinions who can provide me with the information I desire.