"4 Raw-Food Diet Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Health"

by Frederic Patenaude

Don't get me wrong: eating a mostly raw or completely raw diet is one of the most powerful things you can do to improve your health, but as in everything, there are mistakes you can make that can often lead to more problems.

With the raw-food diet, the mistakes are sometimes obvious, sometimes not. Unfortunately, most of these mistakes come from misinformation spread in various books on the subject.

Here are some of the biggest mistakes people make on a raw-food diet. You'll find a more exhaustive list in my book The Raw Secrets as well as in the upcoming sequel teleclass “More Raw Secrets: Advanced Health Secrets for Raw Food Enthusiasts.”

Overeating Acid Fruits

Acid fruits are excellent for health, however, there's a limit to the acidity that your body can handle. When acid fruits are consumed in excess, the acidity can eat away the enamel of your teeth, or cause other problems.

I've seen a lot of people go on “grapefruit cures” and in just 7 days softened the enamel of their teeth, to the point that they chipped a tooth!

So what is “excess”? It will depend on each person, but from my experience, it's fairly easy to consume too many acid fruits. So my recommendation is, on average, to have only a maximum of 2 big oranges per day, or 1 grapefruit, or half a pineapple.

The fruits to beware are: oranges, pineapple, lemons, and most citrus.

A way to “by-pass” this would be to drink freshly-squeezed orange juice or an orange smoothie, and making sure the acid doesn't touch your teeth too much (don't swirl the juice in your mouth).

You can also make great smoothies by mixing acid fruits with non-acidic fruits, which is good because the acidity is “tampered” by the other fruits.

Eating Dried Fruits

Dried fruits eaten on a regular basis tend to cause two main problems: digestive problems and dental problems.

People who eat dried fruits tend to get a lot of gas, but they also tend to have strong cravings for foods they try to avoid. That's because dried fruits disturb digestion so much you end up wanting to eat *anything*.

As for dental health, dried fruits won't do anything to your enamel, but they will stick to your teeth and provide perfect nourishment to the bacteria that cause cavities.

Unfortunately, raw-foodists often rely on dried fruits heavily. These include raisins, dried figs, apricots, and even fresh dates.

My recommendation is to avoid eating dried fruit on a regular basis. I recommend fresh fruit, not dried fruit. Dried fruit should only be eaten occasionally when nothing else is available instead, such as when going on a long trip.

Overeating Nuts

When a person goes on a raw-food diet, they tend to eat a lot more fat than what would be optimal. That means a lot of avocados, oils, and nuts.

Problems will show up fast if you decide to eat a lot of nuts. People don't realize the fact that nuts are not only high in fat, but they are also difficult to digest for most people.

Overeating nuts will leave you tired and fatigued, but there's also something else. Even though they are rich and filling, when you overeat on nuts you tend to crave all sorts of food and never find balance in your diet!

As a general rule that can be modified depending on the individual, my recommendations would be to have a maximum of about 2 ounces of nuts per day, or 3-4 tablespoons of nut butter.

Listening to Misleading Advice

A lot of people label themselves “experts” and send out misleading advice to the masses. When I first learned about the raw-food diet, the general advice given by most authors was, “Eat anything you want, as long as it's raw.”

Obviously, this is not a great plan for success.

Recently, the advice was modified to: “Try to figure out what works for you.”

In that case, the “experts” left it to their poor confused readers to go through the hurdles of learning and experimenting...

Let me just tell you that this is completely unnecessary!

Eating raw is great, and the truth is you don't have to eat 100% raw or even 90% raw to get some great results! But what you do need is to get the right information.

Avoid the misleading advice of those who are just interested in selling you their new line of supplements. Instead, learn how to tap into the power of raw foods by getting the right information, and you'll see, it's much easier than you think, and the rewards will just keep on coming!

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