Hello Beautiful!

It looks like you're new to The Community. If you'd like to get involved, click one of these buttons!

In this Discussion

raw food... cooked food

i feel like i’ve read everyone’s opinions about the proportions of raw/cooked foods they have in their lives and why those proportions work for them. if you do eat a percentage of cooked foods, how do you cope with feeling ‘guilty’ about not eating ‘100%’ raw? how do you avoid binging on your favorite cooked foods? i’m just struggling with my severe addiction to cooked hummus. i don’t think it’s that bad of a food, health-wise, but i tend to eat a lot of it when i decide to eat it—more than i should. i feel like i should cut it out completely but i just love the taste. the same could be said for raw hummus, too- i love it and eat too much of it whenever i make it. thoughts? suggestions?

Comments

  • TomsMomTomsMom Raw Newbie

    Honestly, I loved the raw hummus so much, raxbnl8, I had to stop buying the ingredients so I would not be tempted to indulge!

    So you could just do that, or you could try to recreate the flavors in a recipe that doesn’t have, say the fat/oil. I assumed that was why you didn’t want to overeat the raw version. Like you could make a spread with zucchini, garlic, just a spoonful of sesame paste and enough water to puree it until it’s creamy. See what I mean? Just mimic the flavor and consistancy. The garlic and spoon of sesame paste will be the flavor.

  • bittbitt Raw Newbie

    i do not thinking eating a lot of raw hummus made with zucchini is something to worry over. you are lucky one of your favorite cooked foods can be easily made raw!

    you might still be in that adjustment period where you are still figuring out how to listen to your body. i think “cravings” are often the body’s signal that they really need a certain nutrient. if you increase your overall nutrient intake with lots of juices and greens and/or green smoothies, perhaps some of those “cravings” will disappear.

  • elizabethhelizabethh Raw Newbie

    there’s two reasons i recently decided to be 80% (on average) as opposed to 100% raw. first, for me, it’s really important not to go to any one extreme. extremism is my nature, and when i get into an extreme state of mind, (and in this world raw foodism is certainly an extreme), it is psychologically a bit much for me and i tend not to lose focus on other areas of my life. second, and i’ve mentioned this before, i believe it is potentially detrimental to eat as much (raw, whole) sugar as many raw foodists tend to, and as i did, because most of us are not climbing trees for our food and are not constantly physically active. this lack of constant activity prompts me to make compromises in my diet in order to keep blood sugar levels in check, as i do believe it’s important to eat low GL foods for good health, unless one has just worked out and/or lives in a tropical environment. so i am completely vegan, also eat only whole food (i.e. no refined sugar), nothing fried, very rarely something baked at low temps., and just some lightly steamed veggies, whole grains, pre-sprouted legumes. i always take digestive enzymes for vegetarians and probiotics with my cooked meal. so far i have found this to be the best balance for me. i eat my cooked meal in the evening (unless i have a raw dinner, which i sometimes do), and raw the rest of the day, including fruit because i work out pretty hard in the morning.

    phew, that was long. the gist of it is that i believe it is necessary to take into account not only what is “most natural”, but also factors like lifestyle, local food availability, climate, and the sociopsychological effect of any way of eating. so while 100% raw high fruit and so forth may be the most natural hunter gatherer way, and it may work best with the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, it may not work best for a modern person, for the reasons i’ve mentioned. that’s where i’m at right now anyway=)

    best of luck!

  • Roxbn—I struggled with the guilt for not being 100% all the time for a few years when I first adopted a raw food diet. The longest I’ve been 100% is 3 weeks and most of the time I’m more in the 80-90% category.

    I decided not to fight what was and the range in which my body was working well. I also decided that I didn’t need a number to define my success, but whole healthy choices in that cooked percentage. My family isn’t raw and I do love to make and enjoy whole grain waffles with fruit every once in awhile with them. I am completely fulfilled with hot veggie soups in the winter. And I’d find that my body needed potatoes from time to time.

    I think one key thing you mentioned was binging on cooked foods. If you do adopt a high raw diet, you are right to want to avoid binging on the cooked so it’s not out of proportion (and so you are in control of what you eat). I find that if I grind up wheat to make bread, I will eat way too much if I allow some vegan butter with it. If I just eat it plain, I’m satisfied to stop sooner. I also find that if I eat cracked or sprouted wheat instead of fully ground into flour, I get full much faster. So work with your binge foods and see if there’s a way to eat them in a form that you can control.

    If you can’t do that, then stop buying them in the store. It’s much easier to avoid food in the store than it is in your kitchen!

  • skizzyskizzy Raw Newbie

    i think guilt is more unhealthy than eating cooked food.

    i have found it much more helpful to allow certain cooked foods in my diet and not even think of them as “bad.” the feelings of deprivation and guilt can ruin the whole positive effect of eating raw.

  • germin8germin8 Raw Master

    So true skizzy… My life is a whole lot healthier when I take raw food one-meal-at a time. I didn’t realize how stressful eating was for me… I felt everything I ate was bad (I should mention this was after I read Trudeau’s book and months later I tried raw for 2 months). But, I take it easy and don’t feel guilty eating cooked food; I try to select healthy cooked food. And, I love my CSA and try to eat that food raw… I just couldn’t cook away all those nutrients in organic-local-fresh-picked food.

  • wow, thanks everyone. i think i’m really trying to find that balance… thanks alix for the suggestion on mimicking the flavors of hummus.

    everything seems rather overwhelming to me… this isn’t my first time “going raw,” but i’m always fascinated by the variation in people’s diets and the logic that everyone has for eating how they do. i suppose i’m searching for my own perfect way of eating and just haven’t found it yet. thanks for the suggestions!

Sign In or Register to comment.