QuestionDEAR Geoff!
I would rather not to overexploit you kindness, but as far as I'm in search for a vibrant health, I venture to ask some more advice which might help me hit the very right road.
One day you said here about excessive amounts of food that Aajonus recommends for each day... Let me get this clear... Maybe it's not that much at all when one turns to Primal Diet after deficient Raw Vegan/Fruitarian days (being skinny and exhausted requiers great amount of nutrients to rebuild and recover)... And what do you suggest to be optimal quantity to maintain good health? Maybe you have some info how Aajonus shifted his ground on this point?
Then, you also mentioned the higher raw fat content of organ-meats. But, if I'm not mistaken, save the tongue, other organ meats (kidney, heart, liver) have rather low fat ratio... So, is it necessary when eating innards to always include more fatty ones (tongue, brains, marrow)? I aslo came to the conclusion that your's number one choices are kidney and heart. If so, is this due to nothing else than you taste and liking?
Another one is about chewing. Some nutritionists suggest for best digestion to chew all food close to liquid before swallowing... Does it equally apply to meats or not? What is Aajonus' point if you know?
From you own experience, you stated that it took you until the age of 26 to work out that you diet was to blame for you health and a further 3 years to find the correct diet. The mistakes on the RPd you mentioned were made within those three years? And those mistakes on the raw version proved to be much less harmful than vegan deficient diet?
And as well you claimed that you own increase in muscle-growth only happened once you gave up raw dairy completely. So, may I presume that being weakened and exhausted by the raw vegan high fruit diet you (even on the raw meat but with dairy inclusion) didn't show any sings of health improvement (i.e. weight growth) and that the diary was to blame? Or you did achieve some progress but without diary the process well accelerated?
thanks a million!
P.S. My over-close attention to the details results from the fact I now find myself in practically the same condition you once were(when following vegan diet). So, only after trying RPd I gained some confidence and currently are more determined than ever to successfully continue this healthy experience.
P.P.S. MU were poor on Saturday and we endured a heck of a lot of hard luck... we just didn抰 deserve that...
AnswerRe excessive food-intake:- Aajonus has, indeed, gradually reduced the amounts of raw food he recommends, after getting feedback, over time, from past clients - at least, according to some RPDers who still do occasional, individual consultations with him. If you read his 2 books, you'll see that he used to recommend people to drink several large glasses of raw-veggie-juice every single day, along with numerous "Lube" formulas consisting largely of raw dairy and raw eggs, as well as several tubs of raw honey etc.
The point about not eating vast amounts of food during the course of each day, is that the more you eat, the more you put stress on the digestive system and wear it out - and the process of digestion is quite stressful on the body
, though much less so with raw food.
The body does need time to recover and heal, and when it's swamped constantly with the dozen frequent, small meals that AV used to recommend each day, then healing will be slowed down.
Admittedly, when I first started on this diet, I too thought exactly the same way you did:- that the more (healthy, raw) animal food I ate, the quicker my recovery would be. However, this turned out to be a false conclusion, and it just led to increased fatigue, after a while.
I can't give you exact estimates of what amounts you need - it's really dependent on your body-size, your individual metabolic-rate etc. For the moment, just eat as much as you need, no more . Later on, you might try the occasional fast-day, but that's not necessary right now.
The fatty organ-meats(tongue, marrow, suet,brains) are likely the most important, given their fat-content. However, heart, kidneys and liver are also vitally important. For example, raw heart has coenzyme Q10, which helps to prevent various age-related illnesses(such as heart-disease), while liver has vitamin C etc. Best not to miss them out. And raw heart and kidney have various essential fatty-acids in them as well which are highly useful for health, even if their fat-content is nowhere near as high as with marrow or suet.
As for my number one choice, that would really be raw
marrow, but I like kidney and heart as well. I try very hard to include the main organ-meats(though I don't bother with nutritionally useless organs such as lungs etc.)
Re Chewing:- Chewing is an absolute must if you're eating a cooked-food diet. However, many RPDers state that bolting raw (animal) food down actually makes digestion easier
. In my case, I only do minimal chewing, as I figure that the raw meat is already capable of self-digestion given the enzyme content within it. I have no idea what AV's point of view re this, is.You could ask him on
[email protected](just don't mention my name, though!).
As for my own diet history, I started out on the Hay Diet at around age 26 or thereabouts. Hay Diet consists of 80% raw fruit and raw
veg/20% cooked animal food. At the same time, I simultaneously went in for lots of processed vitamin/mineral and herbal supplements(which were also completely useless). I did not switch to (c.80%)
vegetarianism for ideological reasons, but solely because eating any cooked-animal-food caused me increasingly painful stomach-aches, over the years. . I then started reading about 100% raw (vegan) food diets, after about a couple of years or so,
, and switched to that, minus ALL animal food.
. Unfortunately, I soon found out that raw vegetables have an appalling taste, so I became 100% Fruitarian, by default, within weeks. The Fruitarian diet did result in my slimming down a lot - I would experience a massive increase in energy-levels for c. half an hour after eating fruit, followed immediately after that period by a sudden feeling of intense fatigue and hunger-pangs for more fruit. I ended up spending vast amounts of money on food, as a result. A month before my 29th birthday, I finally gave up on (Raw) Fruitarianism, as I'd realised that I was continuing to deteriorate health-wise,
and started on the Primal Diet(minus the veggie-juice, due to cost). At the time, I was unable to get hold of raw dairy, so I experienced minimal benefits from the lean, raw muscle-meat which gave me a little
hope(eg:- no stomach-aches from eating raw meat)
, only for my health to drop catastrophically when I finally found a source of raw dairy a month or two, later. I carried on with the raw dairy for 6 months of agony, before cutting it out and going in for organ-meats. My health had been so compromised by the frequent consumption of raw and pasteurised dairy over the years that I doubt I would have successfully recovered so fast(or at all?)
without the extra nutrients available in the (grassfed) organ-meats I'd had at the time. As for the issue of weight-gain, I ought to mention that it's not necessarily healthy. In my case, in those days, eating any cooked animal food or raw dairy inevitably resulted in vast, sudden
weight-gain so that I became hideously obese as well as fatigued etc. Cutting out the raw dairy from my diet
helped me to get a more flattish stomach, and able to function without suffering constant pain etc.
RPG
- Prev:Waist-watching diet and exercise plan
- Next:Are diet pills safe to lose weight and then quit?