The Reluctant Raw Vegan

On Wednesday, Kira Cochrane reported for The Guardian on her week long venture into the raw vegan world and her visit to The Fresh Network’s yearly event – ‘The Fresh Festival’.

Her piece is entitled A Raw Deal. Seems her editor coerced her somewhat into the week long trial and her reluctance makes for quite an amusing read.

“The Raw Food Coach” – Karen Knowler captains The Fresh Network, an organization encouraging and supporting raw vegan diets.

A raw vegan diet means eating only plant foods and eating them as nature intended – raw.

“That’s extreme”, “It’s not a balanced diet” and “vegans are all thin and pasty looking” is the usual reaction to this information by the uninitiated…

Well we sort of see that reaction in Kira. Although I have to say that the idea of having a weeks trial is somewhat bizarre.

Why? Because you can’t just swap one style of eating for a raw vegan diet without a major shock to the system. So it’s not surprising she had a tough time. I wouldn’t recommend cold turkey in any but crisis situations. Kira had to give up a day early and I can’t say I blame her for that. :-)

So, we have the reporter in a state of severe detoxification, not such a good move. Then, already skeptical, and I have to say with a fairly typical mindset, she encounters quite extreme comments from some of the fresh network event attendees.

A woman that’s been binging since January on and off. A guy who’s been on various diets that would be considered weird, ending with a 6 week fast! And several elitist comments from folks claiming the diet is for ‘high achievers’. Gawd.

The plain fact is that a raw vegan diet IS extreme when viewed by Joe Bloggs. Not only that, but it attracts people in extreme situations that have look to extreme measures. I was in a crisis, so I count myself in. It can take a good deal of mental chewing to overcome your own objections to such a seemingly strange idea.

For me, I was already sick of trying to make logical sense of the conflicting nutrition advice so when I came across the idea of eating directly from nature you could hear the very loud “CLICK” in my brain. :-) EUREKA!

I overcame 13 years of hell (CFS, CFIDS, M.E.) with this very diet. This diet and this diet alone made the difference to my condition, along with regular walks when I was able and having all the mercury taken out of my teeth.

Is it natural? Yes and no. It contains no unnatural foods but is a restriction on what I would consider we are biologically adapted to. I’ve given the subject much thought in the last 20 years.

In my own experience of a raw vegan diet I found not a weird way of eating, but a beautifully simple way. Once you get past the transition nothing could seem more ‘right’. I would have 2 fruit meals of generally one type of fruit at each, more fruit and a large salad with other raw bits in in the evening.

I did this for 6 months and maintained my weight on only about 1200-1400 calories per day. I felt fantastic! I’m not saying my plan was optimal, by the way. That’s just the way I did it back then.

Kira’s objection that the planning, shopping, and eating of this diet would put most people off is quite simply wrong.

It can be as complicated or as simple as you make it. Eating 6 oranges for a meal saves one hell of a lot of work, not create it! I would love everyone to give a raw vegan diet a go for one simple reason:

The experience of feeling so great is a benchmark for what is possible! No longer will you take all your health woes as ‘normal’. You will know differently. But only the experience itself can give you that.

I think the raw vegan diet can be an amazing tool to aid in healing many conditions but long term I have doubts. There are no natural models for veganism in whichever direction you look. I think of raw vegans as pioneers somewhat. It’s very much early days for raw veganism although its popularity is growing exponentially.

Once science gets in on the act, which it will for sure, the many questions about raw will be churned out in a more universally acceptable way. For me, eating from nature directly is without question. Eating only plant foods however, I do question.

The comments of the taxi driver at the beginning of Kira’s piece made me chuckle:

“All these faddists – they’re often the most anaemic specimens you’ll ever see. I don’t believe in it myself,” he notes in his broad Somerset accent. “I’ll eat anything.” He pauses. “I’ve eaten swan.”

“Erm,” I shift in my seat, “isn’t that illegal?”

“Oh no, I didn’t kill it,” he clarifies. ‘I noticed it fly into some electrical cables and I don’t believe in wasting nothing. I’ve eaten badger. That was good.”

“Like chicken?”

“No,” he muses, “quite gamy. I tried fox – can’t say I enjoyed it, but apparently the thing to do is to leave it in a stream for a few days and let the water run over it. Cleans the flesh.”

“Used to be a pig farm, this,” he continues, gesturing towards a low-slung modern building: the festival venue.

I’ve had 20 years to chew this stuff over in my mind and now I’ve got a very clear mindset on what I feel is right.

The worry here is that folks hearing about natural ways of eating for the first time might be put off by the article and that would be a real shame.

It reinforces the cultural mindset that we all inherited. Only those in real need, those that are suffering are likely to question.

Well they say there’s no such thing as bad publicity! (grimace)… Thanks to Kira for an amusing if not entirely balanced read :-)

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