About my experience of raw food.

Question
Bojour,
Merci d'accepter les messages en fran鏰is. Il est plus facile d'exprimer une id閑 dans sa langue maternelle. Aucun probl鑝e pour moi ?comprendre l'anglais.
Ma question : de f関rier 2001 (j'ai v閏u ?L.A. de fin 199 ?mai 2002. Ensuite, retour en Belgique) ?juin 2006, j'ai suivi assez strictement le mode alimentaire (diet) conseill?par Aajonus. En 閠?2004, j'ai m阭e mang?de la viande pourrie (high meat) pendant une semaine. Une de mes raisons : me gu閞ir d'une d閜ression nerveuse assez grave. Sans succ鑣. Que pourriez-vous me conseiller ? Merci d'une r閜onse et bien amicalement.
Carl

Answer
Well, high-meat is definitely recommended, in this regard, as it's useful for boosting mood etc.(you might want to eat much higher amounts than usual?) - it seems odd that it didn't work at the time, but if symptoms are sufficiently serious, perhaps a longer period of consumption  is needed? You should also be looking for any means necessary to reduce stress, such as meditation/autogenic training/(light)exercise if your endurance-levels are OK etc.. One website, based on the famous Lozanov Method, might be useful for you(they had the only subliminally-oriented product that worked for me, to some extent, re stress-reduction:-

http://tinyurl.com/etg1

From what I've read re your condition, it's usually recommended to add enzymes and probiotics as the digestive system is often damaged as a side-effect - you don't need probiotics if you have access to "high-meat" or EM-products, but you might want to consider adding in enzyme supplements to see if that helps - you should certainly use them before eating any cooked foods. Bacteria-rich EM-products are an alternative if you simply can't get used to the "high-meat".

Other than that, one of the biggest problems with Aajonus's Primal Diet(which you say you're following) is that it recommends only a very limited range of foods(ie coconut-cream, raw lean meats, dairy, large amounts of raw honey, veggie-juice). Many people complain re the veggie-juice as they point out that juicing allows one to consume far more of the antinutrients in the raw veg than one normally would, thus resulting in nutritional deficiencies etc. Others point to the excessive amounts of raw carbs consumed on such a diet, so heavily reducing the amounts of raw honey/veggie-juice would be a very good idea. (I don't view raw fruits as a terribly bad thing, unlike Aajonus who wants them as less than 5% of one's diet, though I think it would be a bad idea to rely on them too much as a major food-group).

Oh, and many RPDers report problems if they include too many raw eggs in the diet - mine and others' experience is that raw eggs are OK as a quick energy-boosting raw food, on occasion, but that they are not
to  be relied on as a major food-group- even Aajonus, last I checked, admitted that raw eggs weren't useful re actually rebuilding the body. Loren Cordain has stated that one shouldn't really be eating more than 6 eggs a month, given that eggs were a real y in the human diet in Palaeo times(given no domestication of birds in those days). I myself only eat raw eggs when things like raw suet/marrow  or fatty muscle-meats like raw mutton are unavailable. Some people are squeamish re the issue of avidin and the egg-whites but, IMO, one would have to be eating 10 or more raw eggs a day to experience problems re avidin.

Anyway, my recommendation would be to incorporate some raw organ-meats into your diet as well, in order to correct any potential nutrient-deficiencies caused by a Primal diet of mostly lean-meats -organ-meats are much denser in nutrients than other kinds of food. Suggestions include raw liver, kidney and heart(rich in coenzyme q10) and especially raw, very fatty organ-meats like tongue, suet and marrow - all obviously from grassfed/organic animals - even from wild animals if you're lucky enough to find such a farmer willing to sell such). Also do try to eat some (wildcaught) seafood, in addition - many RAFers find raw oysters are a godsend re health.

Also members on my forum have been recently discussing the consumption of raw glands, and, given that your condition is routinely linked to damage of certain glands in the body, this option is well worth considering(by "glands" I'm referring to adrenal and thyroid glands, though others such as thymus and pancreas might help as well). If you can't get hold of them from farms, there are some glandular supplements sold in some alternative-health-oriented websites which provide healthy, freeze-dried(or even raw) glands from grassfed animals - don't know of any in Belgium-based ones, though.

The other aspect is allergies. Since allergies can result in quite a number of very nasty side-effects in the long-term(such as your condition, among others), it might well be a very good idea to do an elimination diet(excluding one major food at a time for several weeks/months) to see if any one in particular affects you. Everyone has different sensitivities, due to past illnesses/conditions prior to going raw:- some people can handle all Primal-Diet foods with ease, others are hypersensitive to all amines(so can't tolerate high-meat) etc.

Given your condition, I would very strongly advise you to ditch the raw dairy from your diet completely(not even including raw butter) - instead, add in other, healthier types of fat such as the white fat on muscle-meat or suet/marrow/tongue etc.. Dairy is the one food on the Primal Diet that causes the most negative allergenic symptoms for raw-animal-foodists. Many people become heavily addicted to it, leading to magnesium-deficiency:-

(In Palaeolithic times, consumption of calcium and magnesium was at a 1:1 ratio to each other; if excess calcium  is consumed(ie much higher than the  1:1 ratio), then uptake of magnesium into the human body is blocked, thus leading to magnesium deficiency. Since dairy has up to a 12:1 ratio of calcium:magnesium in it, depending on which type of dairy is consumed, this inevitably causes problems if one consumes a lot of dairy, over time(no other food is remotely as high in calcium levels). I would be willing to bet that you have magnesium-deficiency, as many Primal-Dieters consuming lots of dairy  report needing to take magnesium tablets. While I normally frown heavily on the use of supplements, you might consider, as an emergency, to use magnesium-supplements and/or  magnesium-rich raw pumpkin seeds if you can get them, just to see if things improve a little.
Magnesium-Deficiency Symptoms:-

http://tinyurl.com/37csl9

http://www.ctds.info/5_13_magnesium.html

http://www.ctds.info/magnesium.html


Hope This Helps,

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