- Symptoms of Transition

Symptoms of Transition to a Raw Food Diet

Symptoms of Transition

Let’s take a look at some of the symptoms that you could experience when transitioning to a raw food diet.

Some of these symptoms can appear simply by switching from a typical, high-fat raw food diet to a low-fat diet such as the one I promote.

Let’s review these symptoms one by one, understand them, and know what to do about them, if anything needs to be done at all.

Sleeping More

If you find yourself needing more sleep when you switch to a low-fat raw food diet, it’s probably a normal response from cutting many stimulants. In other words, you’re catching up on sleep debt you didn’t even realize you had.

You want to make sure however that you’re not eating too much fat or nuts and seeds. Analyze your diet to make sure that you’re not above 10% by calories.

If that’s not the case and you still need more sleep, get all the sleep you can, even if it’s 10-12 hours a day. After a month or two you will stabilize to your normal levels.

Also remember that increasing your fitness will increase your sleep requirements.

Sleeping Less (Insomnia)

The opposite, common problem is suffering from slight insomnia when first going raw.

I recommend going with the flow and not forcing any sleep you don’t feel you need.

If you’re truly tired because you were not able to get enough sleep and couldn’t fall asleep, I suggest the following:

-    Make sure you’re eating enough calories. Undereating can cause insomnia.
-    Avoid mild stimulants such as vinegar or spices.

From my experience, this mild insomnia can also be caused by muscle recovery. For example, if you haven’t exercise in a while and suddenly start to go to the gym to lift some weights, you might have trouble sleeping at night because of the stress you’ve recently put your system through. So go progressively.

Depression

Generally, a sudden depression after a diet change can be caused by quitting stimulants such as coffee or alcohol.

Make sure you’re not making major mistakes with your diet and know that this will pass very soon.

If you don’t feel better after a week or two, there might be something else going on.

Constipation

Some individuals may experience a stubborn constipation after changing to a low-fat raw food diet. It’s generally not common.

But if that happens to you, the best advice I can give you is what Dr. Shelton used to say to his patients:

“Do your job and let your intestines do theirs.”

In other words, leave your intestines alone and don’t try to hasten the process with an enema, laxative or colonic.

I’ve know a few people who became constipated after eating only fruit. In one case it lasted over 10 days.

But I told them to be patient and in every single case the constipation was resolved on its own.

Contrary to common belief, constipation has never killed anyone. If try to overcome it with a laxative or enema you will only create bigger problems down the road.

Headaches

Headaches are generally caused by suddenly quitting stimulants like caffeine. But even just an important diet change can also cause headaches.

If it’s a mild headache, spend as much time resting as possible, drink water and stay on the program. It will go away.

If the pain is unbearable, you can take a pain-killer like aspirin. You should only need to take it once though. If you stay on the program, the headaches won’t come back. 

Low Energy

This is a pretty common and normal transition symptom, as long as it doesn’t last more than a couple weeks.

If you are constantly tired for a longer period, it could be because of the following reasons:

-    You’re not consuming enough food. Track your calories and make sure you are getting more than enough.
-    You’re consuming too much fat. Track your meals at www.fitday.com and make sure you are not over 10% fat by calories.

Cravings

There are two types of cravings you might experience. The first one is the mild, psychological craving where you’re basically physically satisfied, but your mind wanders and you start being tempted to try something different.

This is purely psychological and perfectly normal after decades of eating in a certain ways.

In future issues and in our bonus features (see the website for one great new feature this month), we’ll give you plenty of strategies on how to deal with the psychological aspects of cravings.

The second type of craving is a strong, physical desire to eat practically anything. This simply won’t go away.

This generally means that you’re not consuming enough calories or in the wrong ratio (too much fat and not enough carbs).

If you’re craving cooked carbs such as potatoes, bread, sandwiches and pasta; it means you are not eating enough carbohydrates.

If you’re craving very heavy, fatty or protein-rich foods like hamburgers, fried chicken or anything of that nature; it means you’re are severely undereating. You need to start counting calories and making sure you are getting enough.

Raw Health Starter Kit The Best Value Bundle! Over $500 worth of products bundled into one, low-priced starter kit. You can get started on the raw-food diet and learn how to use it for boundless energy, detox, rejuvenation, or achieving your ideal weight. Instant Raw Sensations — sprial bound recipe book by Frederic   The Raw Secrets — fresh perspective on raw food diet by Frederic Health & Energy With Raw & Living Foods CD   How to Create Passive Income in Health CD   Starter Kit CD   Digital bonuses - and more! For More Information, Click Here!

- Answering your questions

Raw Health Starter Kit The Best Value Bundle! Over $500 worth of products bundled into one, low-priced starter kit. You can get started on the raw-food diet and learn how to use it for boundless energy, detox, rejuvenation, or achieving your ideal weight. Instant Raw Sensations — sprial bound recipe book by Frederic   The Raw Secrets — fresh perspective on raw food diet by Frederic Health & Energy With Raw & Living Foods CD   How to Create Passive Income in Health CD   Starter Kit CD   Digital bonuses - and more! For More Information, Click Here!

- Frederic's Update: Raw Events This Summer!

- Feature Article: Fred Challenged on the High-Fruit Diet

I hope that you’re enjoying the spring as much as I am, even though here in Canada it feels like winter rather than summer is coming

I have three updates for you:

1)  Raw Chat Event! On Sunday, June 7th, at 9 p.m. Eastern I’ve been invited to host a 1-hour live audio/video chat for the website Raw Food Friends. Come to ask me any questions about raw foods and meet other raw food friends. All you need is join at: http://www.rawfoodfriends.com/member/join.php

2)  Raw Event This Summer! Are you looking for a great raw event to meet other like-minded people and learn a ton about this lifestyle with live lectures and demos? The event to attend this summer is the Vibrant Living Expo, on August 21-23, in Ft. Bragg, Northern California, organized by Cherie Soria and her team. I’ve attended many raw food events for the past 10 years and this one beats them all, hands down.

I will be there giving two lectures, and with a booth where you can meet me and get to chat a bit in person. Other lecturers include:

•    Dr. Doug Graham
•    Kevin Gianni
•    Howard Lyman (the Mad Cowboy)
•    Victoras Kulvinskas
•    John Robbins (author of “Diet for a New America”)
•    Matt Monarch & Angela Stokes
•    Don Weaver
•    Brian Clement
•    And many others

Get more information and sign up at www.rawfoodchef.com. Make sure you sign up early to get a discount.

3)  Low Fat Raw Vegan DVDs finally in! Last week I launched my first series of professional raw vegan DVDs, where I show you on the screen how to make simple, delicious and nutritionally sound raw recipes. This is the first DVD series that presents low-fat recipes.

The DVDs have already started shipping. Order yours at: www.fredericpatenaude.com/lowfatdvds/

“Who Else Wants to Watch Professional DVDs and Become Confident in the Kitchen With the Most Amazing, Simple and Delicious Low Fat Raw Recipes Ever?”

Watch the preview YouTube Video to get a peak at what's inside this DVD series. For more information on the Low Fat Raw Vegan DVD Series, click here. On the video, click "HQ" after it has started for better quality.

To order the Low Fat Raw Vegan DVDs, click here.

Frederic Challenged on the High-Fruit Diet

I was recently interviewed by the Fresh Network for a special event they are doing for their magazine, where they are interviewing different raw food expert and challenging them with important questions about the raw-food lifestyle that are often left unanswered.

I’m publishing below a part of the interview.  Each expert got a slightly different set of questions. As you’ll see, mine featured a lot of questions on the fruit-based diet and the concerns that many people have about it.

1. Fruit

•    How much fruit do you think we should consume for optimal health, and why?

For optimal health on a raw vegan diet, we should consume enough fruit to provide us with the bulk of our calories. The reason is quite simple: no other food that can be eaten raw can provide us with sufficient calories, vitamins and other nutrients while at the same time be low in fat.
Fruits are packed with vitamins, minerals, and contain enough calories to maintain our weight.
One pound of lettuce only yields 63 calories, while one pound of bananas yields 400.
To this fruit-based diet, we add 1 to 4 pounds of vegetables and non-sweet fruits per day, which will provide additional mineral density, such as sodium, which may be lacking in fruit.

•    Please comment on the following: “Although it is clear from our anatomy and physiology that we are frugivores, the fruit that is commercially available today is so different from the fruit our earliest ancestors ate that it is no longer an ideal food for us. Specifically, it is much lower in minerals and much higher in sugar. Therefore, is it not wise to consume sweet fruit in moderation and favour non-sweet fruits, and vegetables, as those foods are likely closer to the fruits on which our ancestors based their diets?”

I don’t believe there’s any evidence for the sugar content of fruits that our “earliest ancestors” ate. If so, I would be interested to see it. We’re talking millions of years, so I don’t think it’s possible to know what the sugar content was back then.

From having travelled the world, I know that the sugar content of wild fruits varies greatly. Some wild fruits are not very sweet and others are extremely sweet. I believe it would have been the same for foods grown millions of years ago.

Let’s compare two raw vegan diets of 2000 calories. Let’s say that someone follows the advice of eating fewer sweet fruits and more non-sweet fruits and vegetables. Because there are not enough calories in the diet, the person will invariably be drawn to eat more fatty foods such as avocados. The result will be an unhealthy diet containing too much fat, even more than what is traditionally recommended as the upper limit.

On the other hand, a person eating mostly fruits grown today can eat the same quantity of vegetables and non-sweet fruits as the person described above, but will avoid the problem of excess fat. So the diet will be more nutritious, contain more minerals from vegetables and less fat.

•    Do you believe it is advisable to eat seasonally and locally? And if so, aren’t those living in cold climates where no fruit grows for 6+ months of the year better off focusing on foods that do grow in their locality, and enjoying local fruits when they are in season, rather than eating imported fruit year round?

Yes, I believe it’s a good thing to eat seasonally and locally as much as possible. However, it’s not advisable to make it a religion and avoid imported fruits when local fruits are scare and not sufficient to provide enough calories in the diet. If not, you will be forced to eat other things such as cooked grains, which are not as healthy.

•    It is very difficult to get ripe fruit these days. Most commercially available fruit is picked 1-2 months before it’s ripe. What are the consequences of consuming unripe fruit?

Yes, fruits are picked unripe but they ripen after they’ve been picked and should be fairly ripe when you eat them.

There would be negative consequences to eating a truly unripe fruit, such as a green banana, which could lead to indigestion. But no one eats them that way.

What I believe people should do is seek the best quality fruit they can. It doesn’t matter that it’s been picked a few weeks earlier, as long as it has had the right conditions to continue ripening properly. Even in the tropics, bananas are picked green, otherwise they would get eaten by monkeys and other animals!

•    Sugar consumption is known to accelerate the aging process as it contributes to cross-linking of collagen in the skin and also the formation of Advanced Glycation End-products (AGEs), both externally and internally. Given the link between sugar and aging is it not wise to consume sweet fruit in moderation or not at all and to favour low-sugar plant foods instead?

I did some research and found this (from http://longevity.about.com/od/researchandmedicine/p/crosslinking.htm)

"Researchers believe that if the concentration of sugar in the blood is high, then more cross-linking occurs. Everyone could benefit from keeping their blood sugar from spiking."

If you read the above statement, you will understand that it’s not sugar per se that is the problem (after all, our cells need sugar), but high levels of blood sugar, which is completely different. One of the main factors resulting in high blood sugar is the overconsumption of fat (for proof, see the works of Dr. Fuhrman, Barnard, Mc. Dougall, Klaper, Graham, Ornish).

By trying to avoid sugar in fruit, a person will invariably consume more fat, which will lead to the very problem they were trying to avoid in the first place: high blood sugar. On a low fat diet, consuming large amounts of fruit only results in normal, not high blood sugar.

On a personal note, I have tested on myself and with many people using a blood sugar monitor the sugar response from eating fruit. I have found that even after eating a large quantity of bananas (as many as 15), blood sugar doesn’t spike, is extremely stable and in the healthy range, and that for hours.

The author Steve Pavlina also did similar experiments and came to the same conclusions: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2008/02/raw-food-diet/

•    Since it is known that sugar feeds cancer cells, and that cancer cells have more insulin receptors than normal cells and therefore will get fed first when sugar is consumed, is it wise for someone with cancer to cut down on all sugars, including those found in fruit?

Again, I believe here the key is to avoid high blood sugar, rather than sugar itself. The only way to keep your blood sugar stable and avoid the spikes and crashes is to eat a low fat diet and keep your body fat at reasonable levels. Other factors such as exercise will improve your insulin sensitivity.

It’s not possible to avoid sugar completely. If no simple sugars are consumed, complex carbs will be broken down into simple sugars. If no carbs are consumed, the body is forced to convert fat into fatty acids and ketone bodies for survival during a state referred to as “ketosis”, which is essentially what happens during fasting. The body needs a source of energy, and simple sugars are its preferred source.

The consumption of fruit in the context of a low fat diet promotes a stable sugar, which could be key in recovering from cancer.

It is good to note that the American Cancer Society recommends plenty of fresh fruits. ((REF: http://tinyurl.com/8a3e3)

Raw Health Starter Kit The Best Value Bundle! Over $500 worth of products bundled into one, low-priced starter kit. You can get started on the raw-food diet and learn how to use it for boundless energy, detox, rejuvenation, or achieving your ideal weight. Instant Raw Sensations — sprial bound recipe book by Frederic   The Raw Secrets — fresh perspective on raw food diet by Frederic Health & Energy With Raw & Living Foods CD   How to Create Passive Income in Health CD   Starter Kit CD   Digital bonuses - and more! For More Information, Click Here!

My "Low Fat Raw Vegan Cuisine" DVD series is launching today! Get your copy now:

http://www.fredericpatenaude.com/lowfatdvds/

Order during the launch and you will get a third bonus DVD called "The Low Fat Raw Vegan Diet in Practice"! Find out more at:

http://www.fredericpatenaude.com/lowfatdvds/

PS: The launch will only last 72 hours. Make sure you get your bonus DVD by ordering during the launch! Get the details at:

http://www.fredericpatenaude.com/lowfatdvds/

UPDATE! The DVDs Have Been Released: http://www.fredericpatenaude.com/lowfatdvds/

Here's everything that's covered in the DVD series:

• How to make a salt-free vegetable seasoning
• The art of raw smoothies (several ideas and recipes)
• Green smoothie (including my favorite green smoothie recipe — ever!)
• Fruit soups — one of the best fruit meals you can make (two recipes)
• Fat-free vegetable soups. These soups are so delicious that I have one every night. Learn how to make these amazing soups without even needing to add extra fat in them. (two recipes)
• Fat-free dressings (three recipes)
• Fat free salads (including great recipes)
• Vegetable juicing
• How to use nifty kitchen tools that you may not be aware of
• Creamy vegetable soups (two recipes)
• Creamy blended salads
• Low fat dressings (three different kinds)
• Low fat salads
• Nut pate + How to make a Nori Roll and more!
• Avocado dips
• Fat-free raw spaghetti
• How to open a coconut!
• Dessert recipes: coconut cream, durian pudding, and more!
• Much more!

IMPORTANT NOTE: To view in better higher resolution, click the "HQ" button, after the video has started.

Fat Free Salad

Nori Rolls

Durian Ice Cream!

Raw Spaghetti

I just finished an exciting interview with Anne Osborne, an English woman who's been living a complete fruitarian diet (not nuts or greens) for the past 17 years.

She thrives on the diet, and also has raised two healthy fruitarian children.

If you're not a Raw Vegan Mentor Club member, you still have a chance to listen to this interview for the next 24
hours.

http://www.fredericpatenaude.com/anneosborne1.html

In it you will discover:

- The story of how she's been living on fruit for the past 17 years
- Her point of view on greens in the diet
- How she raised two healthy children on a fruitarian diet
- And more !

It's a very inspiring interview. Check it out here for the next 24 hours:

http://www.fredericpatenaude.com/anneosborne1.html

Tell others, because it won't be around for long!

Yours for health and success,

Frederic

PS: This interview is also available for download in higher quality, iPod-ready format in the member's area of the Raw Vegan Mentor  Club, along with the complete written transcript for easy browsing. 

To read more about how you can get access to this interview, the monthly raw vegan menu plannner, the monthly
newsletter, and more, go to:

http://www.fredericpatenaude.com/mentorclub.html
 

UPDATE! 
The DVDs Have Been Released: http://www.fredericpatenaude.com/lowfatdvds/

Here's a first preview video from my upcoming Raw Vegan DVD Series: the Low-Fat Raw Vegan Cuisine. This will be the first DVD series in the world teaching the low-fat raw vegan diet in practice!

This is your second chance to win this entire set of DVDs! I want to know what you think of this new DVD series. Are you excited? Are you eager to learn tasty low-fat raw recipes on video? I will select randomly from all blog post comments a person to win this set of DVDs.

IMPORTANT NOTE: To view in better higher resolution, click the "HQ" button, after the video has started.

-  Frederic's Update

-  Feature Article "Boldly Going Where no Raw Vegan Has Gone Before

Before going to my main article today, I want to give you a quick update on my contest for my upcoming Raw Vegan DVDs.

First, I will announce a first winner.

Then, I will let you know what you can do to get another chance to win next week.

I’m of course referring to my long-awaited first DVD series called “the Low Fat Raw Vegan Cuisine” coming out soon. This will be the first DVD series showing you how to make tasty, simple and delicious LOW-FAT raw vegan recipes!

The Winner

Our first winner is Diane West, who wrote:

Thank God for YOU!!!! is all I have to say. I started out on my raw journey back five years ago ,reading Natural hygeine books and then came across your raw sensations uncookbook, My friends and family all commented on how grate I looked and felt, ans the years went on I drifted to the high fat raw with David Jubb,did countless 14 day fasts to clean my liver, then started to have problems two years into it with candita,,teeth problems,vetigo, etc. so I tried to remember back to when I felt good. and came up with YOU,and Dr. Doug Graham, I am back on track,and feelin better than ever, I have my energy, and my looks back, I soooooo cant wait for your DVD, that I couldnt unstand that noone in the natural hygeine way of thought had one, I eat simple, and The eyes always eat first, you look extremely healthy, and that is one of the reasons I chose your way of eating along time ago, I figure If someone lives what they preach,and looks good doing it, It must be a good thing, God Bless you and keep up the work. Inspired on long Island Diane.

Like most people, Diane didn’t leave an email. So to claim your prize, just contact us with your address at www.fredericpatenaudesupport.com

The Next Winner

If you didn’t win and would like to give it another try, all you have to do is:

•    Make sure you’ve posted your comments on my preview pictures article. If you haven’t done so, you cannot be selected for the next draw.

•    Wait for next Monday and Tuesday when I will post a YouTube video excerpt from the DVDs. Post your comment there. I will select a winner randomly from those who commented on BOTH posts.

Good luck!

Frederic

Raw Health Starter Kit The Best Value Bundle! Over $500 worth of products bundled into one, low-priced starter kit. You can get started on the raw-food diet and learn how to use it for boundless energy, detox, rejuvenation, or achieving your ideal weight. Instant Raw Sensations — sprial bound recipe book by Frederic   The Raw Secrets — fresh perspective on raw food diet by Frederic Health & Energy With Raw & Living Foods CD   How to Create Passive Income in Health CD   Starter Kit CD   Digital bonuses - and more! For More Information, Click Here!

Boldly Going Where No Raw Vegan Has Gone Before

I went to see the latest Star Trek movie last weekend. My dad was a mild Star Trek fan so I was raised watching those movies and series.

As expected, the new movie was incredible with just the right combination of action, great characters and jaw-dropping futuristic settings.

I started thinking about it, because the Star Trek universe is often fancied of the ultimate dream for humanity — the future where technology has done what it’s supposed to do without destroying the world, and when humans are taking the next step exploring other planets. 

The tag line is “Boldly going where no man has gone before.”

And it seems to me like the perfect metaphor for this great adventure that we’re currently on with the raw vegan diet.

A lot of people — men in particular — are fascinated by the concept of space travel and exploration.

Even though Einstein proved that it’s not possible to go faster light speed, we like to imagine what it would be like to travel even faster than this and be able to reach the farthest corners of the galaxy, where perhaps strange life forms and civilizations live.

People also like to imagine a future when all diseases have been eliminated through the wonders of science and medicine.

But is it actually what’s happening?

Even though tremendous technological progress has been made in the last 100 years, the surprising truth is that we’re getting sicker than ever.

Even life expectancy is expected to decline by about 5 years in America within the next decades, according to paper publisher by the National Institute of Health (NIH) in 2005.

Medicine is busy trying to find a “cure” for the most complex and deadly disease, when in fact they haven’t even managed to discover a cure for the most benign illness: the common cold.

By their own admission, it’s not even possible to cure the common cold. But yet, they keep promising a cure for cancer or for multiple sclerosis!

In reality, the most obvious cure for almost all health problems is in the cause, like my friend Dr. Ruza says.

Remove the cause of the illness, and you’ve already done most of what needs to be done to let the body do the rest and start healing.

I always find it funny when movies depicting a highly technologically advanced and utopian future, people still drink alcohol and eat cooked meat!

They also still get sick, but fortunately they have a Dr. McCoy with a nifty gadget that wipes out their cancer in a few seconds and in no pain.

This unfortunately is as unlikely to happen as faster-than-speed space travel!

You cannot negate the law of cause and effect.

You cannot keep on hitting your head with a hammer, take a pill to “cure” you while you still smash your head repeatedly!

Of course, it’s not as simple as I make it sound. But you get the point.

The basic problem with our current way of thinking in health is that it’s purely symptomatic.

A guy goes to see a doctor. Doctor discovers he has high blood pressure. Doctor gives pill to patient. Blood pressure goes away.

But what’s really happening behind the scenes? Is the high-blood pressure really “cured?” Or did we just artificially lower it? And what about those nasty “side-effects?” And what if by hiding the symptoms of high-blood pressure, we’re creating more problems in the future?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to discover what caused the high-blood pressure in the first place and get rid of it?

Let’s say I’m driving in my car and I hear a funny noise. Do I go to the car mechanic and ask him to put something to cover up the funny noise so that I don’t hear it anymore?

No! I actually want to know what’s happening. What caused it? Let’s get rid of it.

By the way, I’m not against modern medicine per se. I’m sure glad we have modern surgery, dentistry and antibiotics that can certainly save your life in certain situations.

What I’m pointing out is the basic flaw of not just modern medicine — but also ALL so-called “natural” healing arts — that always try to get rid of the symptoms rather than trying to understand their cause and work on eliminating that cause first.

Boldly Going Where No Raw Vegan Has Gone Before

To come back to the title of this article, I believe that going on a raw vegan diet can be one of the greatest adventures of all time.

For thousands of years, men were puzzled by disease. At first, they attributed it to demons. Then, we discovered germs and viruses and thought ALL diseases could be explained through this model.

Now, for the first time in possibly the entire history of humanity, we understand that we are the architects of our own illnesses — at least most of them.

Even traditional doctors will admit that over 75% of all diseases can be prevented thorough proper diet, exercise and abstinence from tobacco and alcohol.

But with that realization, we also have the science to help us get to the greatest state of health possible.

With advances made in the sciences of nutrition, exercise physiology, and many other fields — we can now carefully  and scientifically design a complete health program that works.

For many years, raw-foodists and natural hygienists had good intentions. They discovered important concepts. They told us to eat raw fruits and vegetables. They told us to exercise. But they made many mistakes in the “how” this was going to be done.

They didn’t know care about calories, or percentages of fat, or principles of fitness training, and made a lot of mistakes along the way.

But now that we have that information and can use it to our advantage, we can truly embark on one of the most wonderful and rewarding adventures of all: the adventure of natural health.

Two Approaches in Raw Eating

Although the raw food movement seems quite confusing nowadays, with lots of different authors, each with a different take on it, and each with a conflicting philosophy, we can easily sort through this mess if we understand this.

There are basically only TWO approaches to the raw food diet.

The first one is what I call the “medical” approach to raw food — which also happens to be the “high-fat” approach.

Its proponents may appear to be different on the surface, but upon close examination they all have the same beliefs. Here are the main characteristics of this approach:

•    The fear of fruit. They follow the typical medical-approach to weight loss which is the high-fat diet (disguised as the “low-carb” diet). They try to teach you that fruit is dangerous and in some cases even claim that fruit eating causes health problems. 

•    The symptomatic approach. Just like a clueless doctor who only treats symptoms, these people will teach you to “cure” your lack of energy with a stimulant, like cacao; or improve your digestion with artificial supplemental enzymes; or overcome your nutritional deficiencies with a supplement, not understanding that most deficiencies are not caused by a lack of nutrition, but a problem in assimilation.

•    The “fragmented nutrition” approach. Instead of viewing nutrition as a whole, they understand it in a fragmented way. For example, they believe that if a food is a really high source of a particular nutrient, then it must be a good thing. They don’t understand that “more” is not always better, and the whole processes of nutrition must be understood before blindly recommending anything as “superior”. This fragmented view of nutrition leads these people to recommend various supplements, dried superfoods sold in a bottle and other artificial products, touted as miraculous.

•    The “Woo-Woo” Effect. Even though many of these authors appear scientific on the surface, it’s easy to recognize them because they will often mix in their philosophies with strange and “woo-woo” unscientific elements such as: UFO sightings, breatharianism, End-of-the-world prophesies and, of course, Bigfoot.

•    The Snake-Oil Effect. These people are not just happy sharing good information to the public. They always have an expensive magic pill to sell. Whether it’s a superfood, a dried enzyme powder, a little magnet you can carry around to diffuse “bad energy”, or a magic mushroom, there’s always something in the bag of tricks.

As for the other side of the raw food movement, you’ve guessed it, it’s the exact opposite.

•    High-fruit and low-fat, with an emphasis on calibrating the diet to fit your needs. Getting enough calories is important, as is getting a good variety of fruits and greens.

•    Full lifestyle approach. In this context, achieving a proper level of fitness is an important of your nutrition, in addition to eating the right foods in the right amounts. So is getting enough sleep and sunshine.

•    Foods as Foods, not as Medicines. It’s important to understand that foods should NOT be used as medicines. If a food has strong medicinal properties (such as garlic or medicinal herbs), that’s a good reason we shouldn’t be eating it.

There’s much more to say about this, and in fact, that’s the focus of my Monthly Raw Vegan Mentor Club, where I spend a lot of time every month to write the printed newsletter that we ship to our members. (For more information, click here)

What do you think?

How do you see the future of humanity and where does the raw vegan diet fit into this?

Looking forward to your comments.

Frederic

Over the years, I’ve often asked my readers what they think is missing in the raw food movement in terms of educational material.

The number one response I got back from them has always been the same: “We want DVDs showing us how to make raw food recipes”.

After 4 years of thinking about it, I finally decided to release my first series of Raw Vegan DVDs.

I had only one goal in make: make those DVDs the very best in the world, showing people the essentials of the low-fat raw vegan cuisine.

The first thing I did was to buy every single DVD ever produced on raw vegan cuisine, in order to at least do better than they did.

And with every DVD I watched, I noticed some interesting facts:

•    Every single one of them presented a very HIGH-FAT, unhealthy raw food cuisine, with 101 variations on how to eat nuts and avocados. These DVDS should be relabeled “The Avocado and Nut Cuisine” as it seemed to me that all of their recipes contained them.
•    A lot of these DVDs contained a lot of chit-chat and “fillers”, but not enough real content and recipes
•    NO DVD showed how to make every single element of the low-fat cuisine
•    These DVDs only showed you how to make a few recipes, but did not explain in details the “science “behind raw vegan cuisine.

Last January, along with my brother, who’s in the movie production business, and a group of highly motivated friends, I shot my first series of Raw Vegan DVDs.

Here are some important highlights that make this series completely unique:

•    With over 3 hours of information, the two DVDs in the series literally show every single kind of essential raw food meal you can present
•    The first DVD in the series feature ONLY recipes where no overt fats are used. This includes: fat-free dressings, soups, salads, and more!
•    The second half includes recipes with a moderate amount of fat, such as dressings, soups, salads, and desserts
•    Throughout the DVD, charts and slides highlight the main points and give additional information.

This exciting DVD series should be released shortly! Below you will find a few image previews from the series.

I will select randomly from all blog post comments a person to win this set of DVDs. And if you don't win now, you will get another chance with the next blog post, but only if you post on this one!

One of the delicious low fat soups presented:

The art of low-fat salads:

Even some "gourmet", but still highly digestible raw delights:

A surprising raw dessert:

Durian pudding!

Even some raw cake, ready in 10 minutes or less:

Some charts and slides from the DVDs: