raw food - Forum - The Frugivore Diet

please share your results/experience after 30 days on the frugivore (raw food) diet!

2021-01-31T08:08:38.000Z

would love to hear how you went after 30 days on the frugivore diet. please lettuce know in the comments. the struggles, the successes etc. and congratulations!

WHY are you here? what is your motivation to eat a raw food diet?

2020-12-30T19:42:55.000Z

it's nearly time for the 30 day frugivore challenge! it's good to get clear about why you are doing this and write it down to help your conviction. please share here what motivated you to want to eat a raw food diet. what health challenges do you want to heal? what inspired you? etc

Why i stopped eating cooked food and the raw till 4 diet.

2020-12-30T01:49:50.000Z

hey frugivore!

i figured this discussion would be beneficial as you head into your 30 day frugivore diet challenge. please add below why YOU are choosing fresh living food now instead of cooked.

i have been a fruit-based vegan for 14 years on January 1st 2021. initially i spent many years on an all-raw living-foods diet. it was amazing but i allowed myself to get too hungry too often and fell back into cooked foods. for years i tried to get 'back on board' then i gave up and decided 'raw was too hard right now'... obviously an excuse. since april 2020 i have been back on living foods and many wonder why i made the shift from raw till 4 back to all raw.

so i should clarify here. since being back on the frugivore diet (high carb raw vegan), i have had toasted nori, a pasteurised juice here and there and maybe a few dishes with cooked cashews (which are never raw). i am eliminating these, not for purity reasons but because i feel best eating living foods.

below are some of the reasons i prefer the raw vegan frugivore diet over the raw till 4 diet.

BEAUTY-FULL: on living foods i just feel beautiful even if nobody else thinks i am. 💁🏼‍♀️ like a superhero 🦹‍♀️ sometimes it's hard to put into words how i'm feeling but beauty-full, as in filled with love. nourished, whole, alive, vibrant, satisfied, excited, complete. when i eat meals of cooked food this beauty-full feeling is dulled and suppressed.
TASTE: one thing i had forgotten over the years since including cooked food was that i actually prefer the taste of living foods over cooked foods. this ofc makes sense seeing that's what human frugivores are designed to eat! i love the depth and complexity of flavours of raw living plant foods whether it's just fruit or combined dishes. cooking destroys so much of this complexity and the delicate flavours then the human frugivore attempts to add it back in with various condiments. once my tastebuds were 'clean' again (and i ate enough calories) i no longer 'craved' cooked food.
PASSION: my senses are sharper and i feel an extra ziiiiing and passion for life. i have never achieved this fully while eating cooked meals.
DIGESTION: my digestion is not optimal when eating cooked meals, it never really has been. i came to the lifestyle with very poor digestion and large fruit meals have always been queen when it comes to optimal digestion and assimilation.
SKIN: i've been taking notes on this for years - i love the sun protection phytochemicals like carotenoids (namely betacarotene) gives my skin. this protective effect disappears with the inclusion of a single daily cooked meal as the amount of fruit ingested in reduced below what is needed. the betacarotene is stored under the skin (that rawfoodie glow) where it awaits conversion to vitamin A when needed and also provides SPF 4 which is great because SPF 8 can block 90% of vitamin D production. although you can still burn on raw, i find myself being able to withstand so much more sun and tan more easily. also love the year round glow this gives. i find my skin is constantly moisturised and never dry regardless of weather. skin pores also shrink and return to normal. overall skin quality is fantastic and obviously much healthier.
HEALING: my wound healing is clearly accelerated on the frugivore diet. more nerve energy is freed up from digesting difficult cooked meals that can now go towards wound healing and tissue regeneration.
ADDICTIVE TENDENCIES: i love how loud and clear the 'eat' and 'stop eat' signals are on the raw frugivore diet and how there are no addictive tendencies. no emotional urgency to eat just a relaxed feeling even when hungry. for instance, one time i cried and actually got angry over the thought of not being able to have my usual plant-based burritos within the next hour. i was extremely emotional and wasn't overly hungry. and when i did have these foods the rate of eating was hurried and intense. my blood sugar variations were also much greater. i realise not all cooked food is created equal but now no matter how hungry i am i don't have this crazy pull to eat eat EAT and as soon as i do feel that 'must eat more of this NOW' feeling then i know what i've eaten is not raw. i had this sensation after eating some 'raw' crackers which actually ended up having a number of cooked ingredients. even fermented saurkraut doesn't give me this feeling or even salted raw food dishes.
PERIODS: i really enjoy lighter periods and without fail they are always lighter on all living foods.
FOOD PREP: i love love love flameless food prep, it's magic for me! so enjoyable, no sweating, no burns. i actually love creating beautiful vibrant dishes now whereas it was a chore with cooked food at dinner time.
PEACE: i seek out more peaceful surroundings and people. i strive to conduct myself in a peaceful manner. i am still a passionate fiery individual ofc but raw inspires me to approach life from love rather than judge others harshly and see them as bad people, to understand their struggle. that doesn't mean i won't be holding others accountable and speaking up passionately with the truth but it's about always keeping my intentions pure and from the best place.
ETHICS: animal liberation is important to me and eating this way is far better for the animals and environment than even a cooked vegan diet.
FOOD FOREST: i am more excited to grow my own food and spend time in my food forest.
BIOLOGY: i'm a frugivore so i am designed to eat this way 🤷‍♀️
IM DONE: that's it! cooked food just doesn't work for me anymore. yep, it doesn't... but it never really has, no matter how much i told myself it was ok.

i may add to this list as things pop into my head. please lettuce know below why you are doing the 30 day challenge or why you stopped eating cooked food etc. let's inspire eachother to be true to our frugivore biology :)

Welcome new and returning members to The Frugivore Diet!

2020-12-25T01:56:56.000Z

Hi there!

welcome fellow frugivore! it's great to have you here on the new site. this site was formerly known as "30 bananas a day" and that URL will still bring you here. i created 30 bananas a day back in 2009 and have spent about $8000 on the site since then (mostly on fees and graphic design). the site is now over $1000 a year but will always be free for you to enjoy (as long as i can afford it!). i stopped posting on the site a number of years ago after giving into cooked food :-/ and although the site was still costing me money, I resisted deleting it as it's such an amazing wealth of raw living food information with over 34,000 discussions (so be sure to do a search!). i also knew deep down that i'd be back ;) another reason for revamping the site is that i detest the control facebook, youtube, instagram has over forums and our data. this platform is a lot better and allows more freedom.

personally, since april 2020 i am back on what i call "The Frugivore Diet" which is a raw living foods diet or high carb raw vegan diet and the perfect fresh name for the site imo. as far as i'm concerned - this is it, for life! i hope to connect (and reconnect) with many more of you on the same path and reignite the worlds love for fruit and living foods. new year, great time to embrace a new (or old) healthy way of living. i am still tweaking and updating the site so you still may see reference to 30 bananas a day here and there. if you have any questions feel free to leave them below and i will reply when i can. i plan on spending more time on the site but am still busy with youtube and my food forest.

would love to hear about why you are here or why you are returning, please lettuce know below. the site is a little quiet now but i'm sure we can get it 'fired up' again. please spread the world and invite those you think will be interested. i will be making a dedicated video promoting the site on my youtube channel. i know i'm excited for the future!

love freelee (& yes i have since dropped the use of capitals for a number of reasons!).

PS - here is an example of a week of eating for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8aCCH9W23Q

JOIN THE 30 day frugivore challenge Jan 1st!: https://www.thefrugivorediet.com/forum/topics/30-day-frugivore-diet-challenge-starting-1st-jan-who-s-in

check out the forum and do a search of over 34,000 discussions: https://www.thefrugivorediet.com/forum/topics

say hi to over 31,000 other members: https://www.thefrugivorediet.com/members

browse through over 38,000 photos: https://www.thefrugivorediet.com/photo

write a blog here and add to the 11,000 already up: https://www.thefrugivorediet.com/profiles/blogs

check out nearly 10,000 videos here: https://www.thefrugivorediet.com/videos

join one of 341 groups https://www.thefrugivorediet.com/groups

RAW red pepper corn chips and salsa. :)

2015-04-23T23:23:08.000Z

Just two ingredients:

fresh or frozen corn

red bell pepper

Recipe here :)

Sweet apple noodles in date sauce. :)

2015-03-12T03:20:12.000Z

http://www.vryvgn.com/sweet-apple-noodles-in-date-sauce/

Jason Young Loses 140 Pounds on 65-Day Juice Fast, Raw Diet

2013-06-04T16:53:44.000Z

One of my favorite stories to feature in nine issues of Fruit-Powered Digest so far is Jason Young's. Read his incredibly moving story—and don't forget to join my free mailing list to receive this growing e-magazine the 1st of each month!

Can someone explain how plants contain complete proteins?

2013-05-29T05:46:32.000Z

You hear it all the time. There are amino acids/proteins you can only get from animals. Plant sources don't contain all of them. What is the foundation for people saying this? The earth is flat?
I'm really just wondering the science behind it, since I hear this a lot and would like to give a good, well researched response with valid sources. Does Doug Graham cover this question?
Thank you guys!

Durianrider & The Banana Girl are not your parents! ;-)....

2012-06-17T03:37:04.000Z

I guess this is a semi-rant ;-)

I was just sitting in bed with the sun shining in eating gooey dates (yes breakfast in bed) and started thinking....

One thing i've noticed over the years (since being a promoter of a high carb raw vegan lifestyle), is something interesting happens when certain folks/fans of ours fall off this lifestyle. They promptly go back to eating tortured animal bits and pieces (which is extremely saddening for me), and become bitter, resentful, develop a penchant to lie and basically all round HATEFUL of us :-/ Out of the blue WE are now responsible for how THEY feel. It's kinda like we suddenly have kids we didn't know about! I thought Durianriders vasectomy took care of that already! ;-O Please remember we aren't your parents, we are not responsible for the actions you take in life and promoting fruits and vegetables is NOT dangerous! Sigh…I won't lie, it IS disappointing. Durianrider, he is the MOST giving person I know, he loves nothing more than to see other people succeed in life and gives SO much of himself to increase the chance of this happening. His methods of helping some folks may not always make him popular BUT they are REAL and he is a very kind person with a heart of gold.

What I find ironic is the recommendations we gave these undercarbed folks WAS freely accepted (and met with unending gratitude) but is now deemed to be dangerous, irresponsible and unfair!! ( READ THE REST OF BLOG HERE

My latest video

Which Vibrams (shoes) should I get?

2012-06-15T18:43:17.000Z

http://www.vibramfivefingers.com/

I know a lot of you on here use these and recommend them. :)
Which should I get? There are so many choices!
I'm just getting into running, will likely be on a lot of trails and such.

Pros/cons?

Thanks! <3

Having trouble sticking to raw? Caving in to cooked around dinner time? Read me!

2012-04-30T06:10:09.000Z

Hey guys! I posted this is a comment in a discussion here, but I really wanted to share it with everyone.
If you're having trouble being 100%, or giving in to cravings, or not having enough energy... I think this will help you.
I know that everyone here repeats this time after time, but please make sure you are eating enough! If cooked food is appealing to you, not like "Ah yes, I used to enjoy that", but to the point where you drive to the store at 3am to get it or find yourself saying "Just a little won't hurt", you're not eating enough!
So here's the comment!:

--
I knew this whole time that my problem was undereating. Why was I craving cooked food at the end of the day? I had eaten so much already...
I wasn't eating enough! Seriously! Seriously guys! Eat more! If you are having trouble with this lifestyle, eaaaattt moreeee!!!!

My blender broke last week, and all the fruit I had was frozen bananas and various mixed fruits. So I was mostly eating cooked that week, and all I was craving was a banana smoothie. I said, "I promise, I will never complain about eating raw again." So I finally got a new blender the other day (an apparently cheap one that works great :p), and let me tell you, those smoothies were had.
I was probably eating 1500-2000 calories before. Not on purpose, I just felt like I couldn't eat any more, but at the end of the day I was still hungry.
The past two days I've had at least 2000+, and I feel AMAZING. I have so much energy, I'm ridiculously happy, and I've *wanted* to be active and have been enjoying doing just that. And cooked food cravings? None! Really none, not the "Oh I don't want it...." kind. Like legitimately none.
I still feel like I can eat more, though. The only reason I didn't today is because I plowed through all my ripe bananas lol. I had a fifteen banana smoothie this morning, when before I usually had seven, ten max. I don't know what changed!

So tomorrow I'll have all the oranges in my house for breakfast, and forage for some ripe nanners. :)
"Well this seems like enough calories..." isn't working for me. I'm going to eat as much as I wish this week and see how I feel. If I had to set calorie goal I'd say 3,000. It really seems up there to me, especially because I'm not that active. But now I want to be active. So hm! Maybe I'll have 4,000!
Oh, and one more thing. The past two days, eating more than I ever have? I lost four pounds. Yeah, what!

So guys! Eat your fruit! Do it now!!
--

End of comment. :)
I hope this helps you guys out. I wish I could explain just how lifted my mood is. I'm so full of energy, I feel really happy and content, I'm not fighting with myself about wanting to eat cooked food.
I've been raw on and off for the past year. The "off" parts because the "on" parts didn't have enough calories. I've been 100% and eating more for only two days total, and those two days I've felt better than I've ever felt. It's so important to make sure you're eating enough.
Even if you can't eat large amounts right now, just eat more frequently. Instead of a ten banana smoothie, have two with five each, a few hours apart. Can you do that four times a day? That's 2,000 calories right there! Add dates or eat them on their own if you're struggling to eat enough. I love orange juice in the morning, I use a citrus juicer and add the pulp back in. Really easy. 15=about 1,000 calories. Mono meals are where it's at!

You can do this. It has been so easy for me these past two days. I made it hard for myself for a whole year before I realized how easy it really is.

<3 <3

I propose a Raw-For-Woodstock challenge! :D

2012-04-27T17:11:22.000Z

I'm officially going to the Woodstock Fruit Festival! Yeahhh! :D
The WFF is August 20-28. By that time, I am going to look HOT in a bikini.
Who's with me?
:D

You don't actually have to be going to the WFF to take part. :)
Just post here for some love and support! <3

For those of you who are having trouble sticking to this lifestyle for whatever reason, whether undereating or lack of motivation or what-have-you, I'm proposing a challenge.
Beginning May first (or whenever!) until August thirty-first (and after!), let's strive to be the best we can be. The main goal here is to be 100% raw, and in addition add whatever personal goals you'd like to achieve in the upcoming months.

I personally am going to strive to:
*Be 100% raw (overt free)
*Eat my veggies
*Consistently wake up early (around five am)
*Be active (see how I didn't say exercise :p) six days a week, at least five.
*(Bonus points) learn a musical instrument haha. :)

Let's get to it! Post here whenever you want, every day or every week or whatever! Let us know how you're doing and what you are accomplishing. :)

Also, this is a good discussion for logging your fitness stuffs. :)

<3 <3

How many smiley faces am I allowed to use?
...
:)

Update: I've been doing Freelee's challenge on Facebook. Much more organized! lol. :)
Awesome. <3

Gourmet 801010 dinner coming up

2012-04-27T04:42:46.000Z

I wanna throw a family dinner and prepare 5 courses 801010 for 30 peeps. I wanna blow everybody's brains out with the food. Anybody having some super fancy recipes that might be gourmet in the sense that they take long time to prepare and have more than 3 ingredients, but that are **not** gourmet in the usual sense (meaning i still would like to eat them myself, so they have to be 100% animal, salt and oil free). Thanks sisters and brothers! :*

Orange juice WITH pulp, and green smoothies? Upset stomach when eating salads/greens.

2012-04-23T10:34:36.000Z

Hello!

Okay, so I know juicing isn't the greatest since it takes out all the fiber and whatnot. What about juicing oranges (with just a citrus juicer, nothing too fancy) and adding the pulp back in?
I noticed on Cronometer, juiced oranges have significantly less calories than whole ones. Is that because it's not counting the pulp? When I juice oranges I have pretty much all the orange in my glass.

Also, I've been having trouble eating greens. Salads make me bloated the next day. I usually just do iceberg/romaine/spinach, tomatoes, cucumber, and lemon juice. The tomatoes and cucumber are fine because I can eat those alone. It's the greens that make me bloated, even if I eat them without the tomatoes and cucumber. I'm not eating fruit too close to the salad. I'm hydrated. So what gives?
Cooked food made me really bloated the past year before going raw, and the greens have the same affect.

I was thinking about trying green smoothies instead. Is there any problem with that? Do you have a good recipe? I really like tomato, so would something like tomato/spinach/celery/some other kind of greens blended be about right? I'm definitely not an expert on greens!

Thanks guys!
<3 <3

Former smokers please tell me about your detox.

2012-04-07T04:45:47.000Z

Hello fruitpeeps. I was a heavy smoker. 25+ a day, for 15 years, always strong cigarettes. Plus a couple of joints on many days as well, with tobacco, smoked through a self-made paper filter, so that is very strong stuff. I stopped 2 years ago when i found 801010. I had 2-3 more episodes of a few weeks of smoking during 801010 (i know, eating monomeals but smoking a pack, how well does that go together :/), but now i am 100% clean since almost 10 months, and know that i will never ever schwever go back!

Now here is the thing: I never had any detox! I hear from people that they started to cough, were getting sore throats or even a strong fever when they stop. Nothing for me. I never had mucus coming up my throat either, and have not been ill in the slightest way for those 2 years on 801010.

I started running and ashtanga yoga since on 801010, having been a couchpotato for 30 years prior to that. I was increasing my running performance slowly but steadily over the last two years. Now i feel since a few days that my running gets worse, and that the source is in my lungs because i feel restricted in my breathing, and my lungs and chest even hurt a little after a few kilometers. Could it be that they are finally opening up and i will get rid of that stuff? Can it really take so long? Wow, there must have been something else seriously wrong with me if my body did not focus on the lungs first and had to do other repair work initially. Well yes, there was something else seriously wrong with me, so that totally would make sense now that i think about it.

Ok, if you are a former heavy smoker, please share a couple of things with me. For example:

- Did you have a detox or a detox-like period on 801010 that you relate to smoking?

- What were your symptoms?

- Did that happen early or later on?

- Please share with me any other thoughts you have on that subject.

Thank you! Looking forward hearing from others who abused their bodies in that way in the past! Feels so good to be finally breathing fresh air and not stinking like a sewer from my mouth anymore :)

Half naked picture of Freelee from today.

2012-03-25T07:33:43.000Z

Freelee in a bikini. After 2 meals. Today. No starvation, no dehydration, no diuretics.

So we look at Freelee's before shots and we know what works now.

2-3 hours light cardio a week works.

Vegan works.

Squatting vs sitting on the toilet works.

Unlimited carb cals works.

Low sodium intake works.

B12 shots work.

Fruit works.

Going to bed early works.

Being patient with results works.

Aiming for a sub 20min 5000m works.

Talking the stairs works.

I ate a fruit that tasted like a donut (seriously), has someone else experienced something similar?

2012-03-12T15:05:08.000Z

It seems unreal and strange, but yes I actually ate a fruit today that tasted like a doughnut/donut. It wasn't any special rare fruit, it was just a clementine or mandarin or something like that. It was one or two that had that weird familiar donut taste. The rest of them were normal and sweet and juicy like they should be. :)

It wasn't like one of those american dunkin donuts type, more like one of these (below) that are covered in sugar and with jam on the inside. In my country they usually eat those to celebrate the 1st day of May. They have never tasted like that to me before, and I certainly don't think the donuts tasted like fruit before when I used to eat them. I haven't eaten that in a long time so what is this?! I didn't enjoy it very much, it was just a weird experience. I wasn't thinking of donuts so it was not imaginary. lol... I know this seems crazy.

So am I an alien now? Or has something like this happened to other people?

~ D

Our High Carb Raw Vegan Dating site...

2012-02-01T11:33:21.000Z

Hey 30BaDers,

We have another site which has laid dormant for a while now. I have just reactivated it so when you get a chance check it out. It's specifically for those who want to meet their High carb raw vegan honey. ;-)

CLICK below to check it out>>

FRUITAPEEL

We are also looking for a reliable moderator who has been a member of 30BaD for some time.

Have fun!

Why are my lips so chapped? Update: much better now. :)

2012-01-18T03:09:50.000Z

All above my top lip has been chapped/red, for the past week. Not my actual lips, but all around the top.

Some backstory!:
I've been 100% for the past week, 90% (plain steamed potatoes at dinner) for a couple months. Off and on for six months before that.

I have around 2500-3000 calories a day right now. I drink around three liters of water a day, more in the past week trying to see if it was a hydration problem, so I don't think that's it. I seriously drink so much water.

I'm consistently losing weight, usually half a pound each day.

I don't exercise a lot, but do crunches/push-ups stuff like that occasionally, more often recently. I did go running when it was warm out.

Also the past week I've been sleeping a LOT, but not being able to sleep at night. I'll go to bed around four am and sleep for 10-12 hours, when usually I sleep for 8-9. I haven't needed to wake up early for work for a few days and have been sleeping in like crazy. Not being able to fall asleep at night isn't new, though.

When I was off/on, I noticed a couple times when I was 100% my lips would start to get chapped, even though I was well hydrated, and when I ate some potatoes or something it would be immediately better. So I tried that a few hours ago, but it didn't work this time. So at least I can rule that out!

I've been eating monomeals, oranges for breakfast, bananas for lunch, more bananas or apples for a snack, and same for dinner. Every few days I'll have salad at dinner, different lettuces and tomatoes. Sometimes I have cantaloupe. I usually have dates too but I ran out last week.

The only thing I can think of is the oranges, I've been eating a lot more than I ever have. I think my lips started getting chapped the same time I started eating more oranges. I've never had any food allergies, but maybe I'm sensitive to citrus? Should I not eat it for a couple weeks and see if it gets better? I don't think I was eating them when this happened before though, at least not as much.

Also... this isn't related to being raw because it happened last year too, but if anyone has any info that would be great. Last year I got this rash on my hands that seemed a lot like poison ivy or something similar, except I wasn't around any poison ivy. My hands were extremely itchy and if I scratched, little bumps would come up and it would spread to any other places I scratched. If I left it alone it went away, and it took a couple weeks to do that since I ended up scratching in my sleep.

A couple weeks ago this happened again, but on my face, around my chin. Scratching in my sleep caused it to spread to my cheeks, and on my wrists. It's pretty much cleared up now, as long as I don't scratch. It's not noticeable unless I do start scratching, then the bumps show. I was just wondering if anyone knows what this is? I couldn't have gotten poison ivy or something from outside, since it's winter and I haven't really been outside anyway. I'm in a new apartment and the last time it happened was here as well, though I vaguely recall it happening at my old house too a couple years ago.

I don't this this has anything to do with my lips being chapped though, it's different.

Wall of text much?

Thank you guys. <3

Update: Thanks to Greenmama, I think I found out what my rash was (from mango sap! Of all things.). :)
Also, my lips got a little bit better within a few hours after eating the potatoes, but not significantly like the last times. Today it is almost completely better, whereas last night it was still pretty bad. I drank a lot of water last night and had a big banana smoothie, so maybe that helped. My face was was very dry when I woke up too, especially my chin, but I think that was from the weird mango rash.

I'm still sleeping a ridiculous amount, but I also haven't been eating nearly enough the last few days. I feel really well rested today though, and went to bed earlier last night. So I'll focus on lots of cals and water today, and getting to bed earlier.

Thank you guys for all your help! I appreciate it. <3

"Chinese animal activists rescue 800 dogs from slaughterhouse."

2012-01-16T05:05:27.000Z

http://www.care2.com/causes/chinese-animal-activists-rescue-800-dogs-from-slaughterhouse.html

From article:

"Dog meat has long been a popular dish in certain regions of China. But over time this cultural and culinary tradition is getting more and more unpopular, as international and Chinese animal protection organizations increase pressure against the dog meat trade. And these rescue missions speak volumes about changes in Chinese culture. Thank you, brave Chinese animal lovers."

Thought I'd share. :)

<3333 Keep spreading that peace&love!

WHY I NEVER EXERCISE!!! EVER!!

2011-12-10T14:19:18.000Z

What is the most efficent way to save the earth? <3

2011-12-09T11:16:41.000Z

We are all doing the biggest thing individually by choosing our lifestyle. Each one of us is doing an AMAZING thing.

Now that personal nutrition is figured out, what is next? I know spreading raw veganism to others is one of the greatest things we can do, with probably the greatest impact on the earth.

But what's next?

Optimal living might mean living in a village, no grocery stores, no cars... and that's all great, but if we just disappear into the forest then who is saving the earth? (Besides the fact that doing so would be saving the earth on an individual level.)

I feel like things are getting better every day, getting closer to what is right. But I also feel like we all need to work as a group to do something else... Where nutrition is concerned, we're at the best place. If everyone were raw vegan and factory farms were phased out, that is one problem taken care of. But... what about cars, pollution, airplanes, electricity...

I definitely understand how amazing it is to be able to travel to other countries quickly, I enjoy the comforts of heat and lights (though a fireplace and candles would be just fine!) and the internet especially. I'm very glad for the internet because it brings us together.

Is there a way for nature and modern comforts to coexist?

Solar power, wind power, I'm glad these are replacing their more harmful counterparts. But... it's still harmful. The materials needed to make windmills etc, out of metals and plastics, I feel puts strain on the earth as well. Of course this is better than using oil and whatever the heck nuclear power is.

As for cars and airplanes, how would we travel long distances quickly but still be non-harmful to the environment? Are there earth-friendly options? Besides trekking like Frodo and Sam?

What can I do? What can we do together?

So what I'm asking for is ideas. Should we buy land, build awesome villages out of natural resources and plant fruit trees for generations to come (well yes :p)?

What about cars? People can't seem to live without them. What is appealing to someone who uses a car every day, that isn't a car?

There are these ideas of electric cars, solar cars, to undo the damage that was done. But why not no cars? (PS is riding horses ethical if you treat them right?)

I appreciate this 'green movement', even if a lot of people do it (not talking about the people here) because it's popular. I'm glad it's popular. But I feel like all these things, all these 'green products', 'eco friendly' things, they are still things that we don't need.

I feel like we are curing a symptom and not the problem. Like being sick (not that we really get sick; has anyone gotten a cold while being raw?), you might take medicine to cure the symptoms of coughing/sneezing/high temp., but you're not curing the problem of why you were sick in the first place (lifestyle). Apply this to the earth. People's destructive habits make the earth sick, we have to take care of it the way we would take care of ourselves. So how? All this time and effort is going into things that we can simply do without. So how do we make that appealing to those so attached to material living? How do we do it faster? Should everyone just movie to tropical climates and then abandon modern travel? :p

What am I doing personally? The same as most of you guys I guess. I recycle, I unfortunately drive to work and the grocery store (am getting a bike for going to work in the summer), I share this lifestyle with everyone I meet it seems. But I want to do more, so badly. So please share your ideas. Let us live on this earth peacefully, in harmony with it. Hippy froo froo peace and love.

Tldr: How do I get to Thailand by paddleboat?

Staying raw in the Winter...

2011-11-29T04:00:18.000Z

Don't forget to join this group if you are struggling on raw during the winter>>>

STAYING RAW IN WINTER

VEGAN DISEASES AND DEFICIENCIES!!

2011-11-25T14:53:25.000Z

Should I go to college?

2011-11-22T02:42:31.000Z

Update:

Thank you all for your replies, every one of you has helped tremendously. I believe I have made my decision.

I think I wanted to go to college out of loneliness and uncertainty (being out of high school and not talking to many people, seeing everyone around me going to college). If I do decide to go one day, I will. For now I will focus on travel, connecting, the important things. I can learn from a library and from actual conversations with people, better yet real life experience.

I believe what it comes down to, for anyone wondering if they should go to college... is that there is no should about it, it's about what you want and only that. You can have everything you need, without paying massive amounts of money for an "education" you can get for free. If you feel like college will help you get places you want to go, then go for it. It all depends on what it is you want. If you want a job, you need an education. If you want a life, you need to live.

<333

PS. I still want to go to Oxford one day. I'll find a way. :)

----

I want to go to college because I feel like I'm missing out. "Everyone's doing it." Stupid reason huh. I want to live in a dorm and be invited to crazy parties even though I'll turn them down. I love learning, I love school. I've never done it and I want to, at least for a couple years.

But... it's SO expensive, and for no reason. Colleges charge you so much for every little thing, why? Are there any colleges that don't do that? With good teachers who know what they're talking about? I tried college for a month last year, at a school I didn't want to go to with people I didn't like. I ended up quitting due to unreliable transportation.

I don't currently drive, it makes me really nervous. I want to live on campus but I've never been far from home (I have an apartment with my boyfriend not far from my family). Should I get a car first? I hate the idea of cars...

The university I want to go to has requirements higher than what I have, so I would need to go to community college and transfer. I would have to commute then. It seems like a lot of work, paying for a school I don't want to go to, so I can get into a school I do. Is it worth it?

I don't even know what I'd want to go to college for, aside from the experience. I don't know what I want to do. I'm interested in history and for a while I wanted to be an archaeologist. It was my childhood dream to go to Oxford. Then I dropped out of high school because I couldn't stand it there, I hardly went and my grades were withheld because of my poor attendance, so they wouldn't let me graduate. I have my GED with an almost perfect score except average for math.

Every day I go to work, come home. Working at a job I don't really like, to pay for an apartment I don't really like. I don't really dislike either, but I'm not happy. I feel stuck. I want to learn, I want to travel, I want to make amazing friends, I want to see this beautiful world. I don't want to make lattes for snobby customers anymore.

Skip the wall of text:

What are you guys going to college for? How do you pay for it? Is it worth it to you?

*Youtube vid on college. Courtesy of DR. :)

The Mind - Who Runs Your Life?

2011-10-26T11:17:43.000Z

We all have a mind that we use to run our daily lives with. It can be very roughly divided into the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. The conscious mind is home to thoughts and ideas, it possesses logical processing faculties and is home to our sense of identity. Everything we can grasp in terms of words and thoughts resides in the conscious mind. The subconscious mind runs most of the functions of the body without our conscious input, making sure we breathe, use our limbs, regulate our temperature etc. in a proper way. It has been proved in various studies that the subconscious mind makes use of the vast majority of our brain functions, whereas the conscious mind occupies a much smaller part of the brain.

There isn't one single region of consciousness, it is built up of connections between various parts of the brain, and we experience consciousness only when all of those regions communicate in certain ways. Recent brain studies of sleeping people have shown that the regions of the brain which scientists believe are active parts of our conscious mind remain active, to a degree, in sleep, but they cease to communicate with each other in the way they communicate when we are awake. Other kinds of communication continue even in sleep. In essence, this communication between them lies at the heart of our conscious mind.

Though no one has any clear figures, I doubt it'd be an exaggeration to say that our conscious mind uses maybe 20 % of our cognitive powers, whereas the subconscious mind uses the remaining 80 %.

What I really wanted to tell with this post is that our subconscious mind really runs the operative system of our mind. It makes most of our decisions. Recently, scientists have developed methods of predicting our decisions up to 6 seconds before we become aware of them. Though the tests they have developed so far are very simple - push one of two buttons - the mechanism is easy enough to extrapolate into more complex decision-making, and they have been able to predict which button the test person will press up to 6 seconds before the test person him/herself becomes aware of his/her decision. What this tells us is that the decision is made in the subconscious mind and only later enters our conscious mind.

Our conscious mind, on the other hand, has one extremely powerful feature. It deeply dislikes chaos and wants to have logical reasons for everything. This feature has in many people developed so strongly that their conscious mind creates an interpretation of a subconscious decision that the conscious mind keeps itself unaware of. In one test, people were hypnotised and then told to do various things, such as open a window. Then they were returned from hypnosis, and promptly proceeded to execute the command given to the subconscious mind. When asked why they opened the window, the conscious mind quickly threw up a rationalisation: "I felt hot", "I need more air" and so forth. The conscious mind often feels that it must have a rational explanation for our subconscious thought processes which it doesn't understand. In most people, this happens with such automatisation that they are nowhere near aware of this process. They believe that they are masters of their mind and make their decisions based on logic and rationality while in fact, most of their actions are run by their subconscious mind and whatever reasons they come up with are nothing more than rationalisations by their conscious mind of their subconscious processes.

This is why the OS that our subconscious mind runs is crucially important to how we live our lives. While philosophers and ideologists often come up with highly complex and well laid-out plans of their ideas using their conscious mind, they are not aware that their subconscious mind is running the OS, making them become interested in the things they are interested in, seeing things the way they see them and feeling about things the way they feel about them. They proceed to cover these subconscious processes with a layer of conscious rationalisations and believe that they create ideologies such as communism, democracy, anarchy, primitivism, theocracy and so forth. The driving force behind almost everything they do is, in fact, their subconscious OS. The reasons they give are their conscious rationalisations of them, just like the window-opener above.

To understand which OS we run in our subconscious mind, it is necessary to understand what makes up our subconscious mind. The brain comes into being during gestation and continues to grow for some years after birth. It retains remarkably high plasticity throughout most of our life. As soon as the first brain cells are formed, they begin to process all data they can collect. The younger our brain, the deeper the tracks left by whatever experiences the brain comes across. During gestation, the growing brain gathers a wealth of data from the conditions it grows in; the womb of the mother and the fluids providing the baby with nutrition are full of hormones and other chemicals giving plenty of information about the mother's mental state to the child, shaping its brain accordingly. It has been proved that babies react differently to different stimuli during gestation, and can at a few months of gestation recognise voices they have heard before. Scientists have also been able to scan their brain activity in the womb and shown that strong, sudden sounds for example create an alarm reaction in the brain of the growing baby, more so in some than in others. Scientists have been able to show that already during late pregnancy, some babies ract differently to strong stimuli such as strong, sudden sounds, with what is in essence an anxiety response; likely because their brains have already formed emotional reaction pathways modelled after the mother. Some babies do not react at all and remain perfectly calm, whatever reasonably tolerable sounds the scientists test them with (they obviously do not use dangerously high sounds). The brain is busy shaping itself based on its built-in growth program and the data it comes across in its surroundings.

Once the child is born, this process goes into hyperspeed, pulling in zillions of impulses from the child's environment and creating brain pathways to deal with them. The baby's brain forms pathways to deal with various parts of the body and their movements, to breastfeed, to learn to crawl, then walk, make sounds, use the eyes and a wealth of other things. But the brain also develops to deal with the emotional environment that the baby grows in. What happens in essence during gestation and early childhood is the programming of our subconscious OS. This is Bill Gates writing bleepy Windows. This OS will run our subconscious mind for the rest of our lives. And because the subconscious mind uses the vast majority of our cognitive capabilities, this OS-writing essentially defines us. Our conscious mind, which is re-shaped a lot more through our later life experiences than our subconscious mind is, is little more than a rationalisation organ for all the decisions made in our real, subconscious OS. We think that we re-shape our ideas of the world as we grow older and get new ideas, that we develop radically different worldviews and so forth; yet all these changes in the conscious mind are little more than a thin blanket covering most of our mind, our real OS.

This is why I always look beyond people's rationalisations for what they do, and explore whatever signs of their subconscious processes that I can detect, to understand why they really do what they do. Most of all, I explore myself in this way. What we like and don't like, our deepest behavioural patterns which we are not aware of all go back to our early conditioning, they all reside in our subconscious OS.

It is relatively easy to change the conscious mind. You can come across new ideas, you can change your entire take on life, you can develop vastly different ideas about reality. It is, relatively speaking, more difficult to change the subconscious mind. First of all, we are dealing with much deeper tracks in our brain, much broader brain pathways, and we are not conscious of most of them. We don't detect them, we can't see them. On top of this, virtually everyone of us carries deeply suppressed, emotional pain from our earliest childhood, because of the emotionally impaired way virtually all children are brought up today, by emotionally impaired parents. This can begin with the growing baby picking up signals of emotional distress in its mother in the womb and continue as the shaping of its emotional processing apparatus and reactions in the earliest childhood.

A human baby is, above all, a survivor, and it will do whatever it takes to survive in the conditions that prevail. If there is too much emotional pain to deal with for the undeveloped cognitive faculties of the baby, it has a highly efficient suppression mechanism which stores those painful emotional experiences in deep, subconscious parts of the mind, well below any awareness. The conscious mind can aid in this job, creating rationalisations of painful experiences in ways that make it easier for us to live with them. It can create a rosy picture of a childhood with serious emotional shortcomings, and it can conjure up a multitude of explanations as to why any early experiences don't really matter.

It is possible to change the subconscious mind as well, in a number of ways. I have only begun exploring a few of them so my experience and understanding are very limited so far. I am mostly familiar with contemplative techniques as they appeal to me on an instinctive level, but there are a huge number of both active and contemplative techniques which can access the subconscious mind directly. If a technique requires conscious cognitive processing such as words and conscious thoughts, it is my understanding that its ability to access the subconscious mind is very limited. This is a huge limitation on most traditional mental therapies which rely heavily on speech. While I am aware of a number of non-verbal, apparently simplistic techniques to access the subconscious mind such as EFT, drugs, bodywork therapies (Rosen therapy among others) etc., I have not practiced or studied them in any detail. Apparently, they can sometimes be highly effective.

What I personally do is explore my subconscious mind by clearing my conscious mind of all noise. It seems to me that what I then gain access to is the subconscious mind. I do this by simple meditation - observing my mind, not pulling, not pushing, simply observing. In my experience, when I do this for long enough, I find that at some point, all thoughts subside, and in my mind, I am in a thoughtless, timeless and spaceless place where I become less aware of my body (I have occasionally felt myself "floating in space" and "expanding into a larger space than my body") and more aware of what I believe is my subconscious mind. It is hard to describe since the experience is a thoughtless and wordless one (using thoughts or words activates the conscious mind and pulls me out of the subconscious), but what typically happens is a sleep-like state of quiet and peace where I lose track of time, and once I "wake up", what usually happens within the next day or two is, I begin to notice processes that I was not aware of previously. Emotions I had not felt before, thoughts I was not aware of before.

Quite often, solutions to problems I could not solve before simply appear as if from nowhere. It is my belief that the contemplative technique I practice allows the subconscious mind to deal with the matter at hand without interference from the conscious mind, producing surprisingly effective solutions seemingly without any effort. In my case, this also often gives rise to cristallisations of my experiences in the shape of poetry and songs. The words that form these poems and songs appear after contemplation without any conscious effort on my part, and usually arrange themselves after a specific melody or rhythm that appears in my mind. Obviously my mind cannot have access to words that it has not come across through reading or listening, so only verbal material that I have "fed" to my mind through reading and listening can be re-arranged into whatever my subconscious mind produces. In other words, I do not write poetry in Chinese. It is also known that many brilliant ideas and inventions have happened in a similar way, when the conscious mind cannot solve something and the scientist or inventor stops trying, accidentally or on purpose empties his/her mind (by taking a walk, fishing, smoking, listening to/playing music etc.) whereupon the solution as if miraculously presents itself, seemingly out of nowhere.

I am just a beginner and make very slow progress so far, but I am fascinated by what I gain access to when I am able to let go of everything and just observe. A year ago, I was experiencing a deep longing to never have existed; I felt that I didn't choose life, it was forced on me. This was one of the most profound emotional experiences I've had in my life, a truly deeply rooted longing not to be in this world. Not so much to end my life, although I felt some of that too, but to never have come into this space in the first place. Although I am still not aware of why exactly I felt this, I do now know that my mother did not really want me (or most of my 8 siblings) and this could be a deeply stored emotional response to a subconscious emotional signal from my mother to the baby me saying, essentially, that "you should not exist". It took me a couple of months to progress through the emotion - to be able to just observe it, without becoming attached to it or trying to push it away - but after a few months, it began to subside, and hasn't returned since.

In some cases, there was enough emotional instability, perhaps coupled with organic (anatomical) features of the brain, that the person always remains aware of not functioning "normally" in mental terms. Some of us carry so much from our past that it simply can't be completely hidden in the subconscious mind, which most of us after all are capable of. Some with the strongest chaotic patterns we call mentally ill, the rest we tend to use other names of. In my work, I regularly come across individuals who feel so strong anxiety in their everyday life, that they cannot function normally. They cannot, for example, walk to a shop full of people, or stay alone, or maybe talk to their parents. Their anxiety levels are so high that if they stopped and began contemplating, trying to clear their mind of the mind chatter and access their subconscious mind, they would become completely overwhelmed by the anxiety and suppressed emotions. Without going into details, I have come across accounts of highly emotionally unstable people using techniques to release subconscious suppressed emotions through non-verbal means and facing so strong emotions that they ended their lives, could not deal with it.

It is my experience, shared by at least some, that a diet of raw fruits and vegetables enhances our awareness of our subconscious mind, which can sometimes have far-reaching consequences for our life. It would seem that the diet in itself removes layers of protective numbness from between our conscious mind and our subconscious mind, bringing up experiences, emotions and realisations that we have been carrying around in our subconscious mind but not become aware of consciously. I could say that a HCRV diet at least sometimes contributes to a thinner layer of fog between the conscious and the subconscious mind. I explore this a bit here.

The mind of the child suppresses the emotions for a reason; because it lacks the capability to deal with them. As adults, I believe that everyone does have the capability to deal with whatever we carry within, but in some cases, it may require strong assistance in many ways, helping us to feel secure and safe while looking our inner demons in the eye, so to speak. A good example of the amount of anxiety many people live with is the restlessness you can observe if they have to spend some time with themselves only. If you travel and find yourself in a space where people are waiting, the vast majority will be busy with keeping their mind busy with activities, such as moving around, listening to music, reading, watching a movie, talking and so forth. Many of them would experience highly uncomfortable anxiety if they had to sit still and observe their mind, such as I understand happens in vipassana retreats (never been to one). This is natural, given the early emotional experiences stored in them. I believe we can all overcome these, though the road may be bumpier and longer for some than for others.

While we humans tend to like rationalisations and think that we run our lives with our conscious, rational minds, it is, in fact, our subconscious OS that pretty much runs our life. We simply keep ourselves unconscious of it by coming up with rationalisations to our subconscious decisions. This process is more automatised and faster in some than in others. No doubt some of you reading this will completely deny the validity of what I write, your conscious mind struggling with the idea that it doesn't run the show. To me, the fact that scientists can predict the decision of a person by scanning his brain up to 6 seconds before the person him/herself becomes aware of the decision is a powerful sign that it is our subconscious mind that runs the show. The conscious mind is mostly busy with coming up with rational explanations to our subconscious behavioural patterns. Granted, there are situations which call for more logical processing than others, being more mathematical in nature, but most of the time, in the way we talk and respond to others, make choices in our lives and enjoy or don't enjoy people, activities and ideologies, it is our earliest conditioning that runs the show while we are happily unaware of it. If you haven't spent some serious time reshaping your earliest and deepest brain pathways through whatever therapy or method that appeals to you, your childhood OS is still running your life.

This is a message of beauty to me. There is no reason to feel anger or fear or pity or sadness at anyone else's actions, whatever they may be; they are simply perpetuating the subconscious behavioural patterns that they learned early in their life, during the pre-verbal stage and gestation. Of course, this does not mean that I condone any and all actions and smile at idiocy and bullies; some actions need to be met with enough force to stop them. But I have no reason to blame the person perpetuating these dysfunctional behavioural patterns for anything. S/he simply received a dysfunctional childhood OS which s/he hasn't reshaped, which is true for almost every single human being. Understanding this gives rise to compassion.

Conflicting Information - help, Help, HELP!!!

2011-10-21T12:04:39.000Z

First, what a fantastic site this is - many thanks to Freelee and Durianrider for creating this - love you guys.

Wel, I'm nearly four months into this lifestyle and am sometimes finding it heavy going - I am 100% sticking to the guidelines, although I think my diet tends to be more 955 - at the moment not having nuts, seeds or fatty fruits such as avocado.

Coming from an eating disorder background, not having any problem eating the necessary quantities of fruit......!

I normally have two fruit smoothies a day - each containing approx 1500 to 1800 calories, followed by a green salad or a green smoothie in the evening - approx 500 - 600 calories. Sometimes I might have a few pieces of fruit on top of this during the day.

I cycle nearly every day - normally between 1.5 to 3 hours of hilly roads (19 to 36 miles or 32 to 60 kms).

I try to sleep as much as poss, but my natural sleep pattern seems to only yield me about 7hrs per night - guess that could be due to my age - 56??

I drink 2 pints of water when I get up and have quite a few herbal teas during the day.

Sunshine is an issue here in the South West of the UK - very poor at this time of year!!

Weight loss appears to be horribly slow - I'm carrying around 40lbs of extra weight and yet only seem to be losing 2lbs per month.

Here is my conflict - 30 bad seem to promote eating a very high calorie low fat diet - nearly the more the better as long as you are doing a fair amount of exercise. On the other hand in the 80 10 10 book Doug Graham talks about restricting calories if you need to lose weight.

I'm sure I must be consuming more calories than I burn and yet I still seem to be losing a tiny bit of weight each month. Why do people keep advising that one should reduce calories to lose weight - I thought the whole thing about the HCLF raw vegan diet was that you could eat as much as you want without having to worry about it?

Is 2lbs a month a good weight loss - at this rate it will take nearly to years to reach my goal - aaaaarrrrggghhh!!! (I really want to lose the excess weight to help make my exercise more enjoyable).

Last year I did a 92 day juice feast (low fat raw vegan) and lost 56lbs....however most of that went back on again after I had transitioned to the high fat raw vegan diet which DOES NOT WORK!

Any feedback would be much appreciated - take care

Leadership

2011-09-15T17:02:42.000Z

Leaders often come up in discussions within the raw food scene. Leaders are individuals people listen to, look up to and follow.

Why?

What makes a good (raw food) leader?

Can you name one?

Do we need them?

Do you need one?

...would you want to be one?

Would we be better off without any?

Are they just examples or something more?

Can they cause more trouble than good?

Your $0.02?

Dr. Graham is correct again - Fat causes diabetes

2011-08-15T15:02:48.000Z

I just hope the majority of the world wakes up from the myth that diabetics have to avoid all fruits! or that fruits make you fat!

Dr. Doug Graham is correct again! Link to article

Seeking college-age travel buddies. :)

2011-08-10T03:19:01.000Z

At this moment, I just really want to travel.

I looked into the Woodstock Fruit Festival, and it sounds awesome, but I'm a bit late in reading about it so haven't saved up. Hopefully next year. :)

I've never really gone anywhere before, at least not on my own or with friends. It's always been with family, and only a few states south.

Of course I'd love to visit another country, but right now just visiting somewhere else in the US would be nice, raw friendly, immersed in nature, with beautiful scenery, mountains...

Is anyone interested? Sometime in the next few months, or whenever. I'm looking for travel buddies who would like to actually be friends, and go on more adventures together. I'd like to talk first on here, and on the phone maybe later. I want to be as safe as possible. I'm a bit more interested in traveling as a group of 3-5+, girls and guys. Also preferably around my age, teen-29ish. College age. I think we'd have more fun that way. :)

We can talk about where to go, honestly I don't have any recommendations. Just somewhere beautiful. Like a nice city with mountains and stuff close by or something.

Oh. And somewhere humid. Please. Or else. ;)