Raw Food Diet

by Caroline Bendell- Money Exchange Teller
(Philadelphia, PA)

Raw Food Diet

I am a sucker for fad diets and Raw Food Diet is said to be one of the best so I tried it. It does work because I did lose about 8 pounds after the 30th day. In fact my blood pressure normalized at 110/70. I liked the taste of the smoothies made from 2 bananas, 2 cups greens, 1 cup water. I enjoyed munching on the nuts on the way to the office. I liked the initial results. But it was only good while the determination lasted and when other health problems do not start showing up.

Getting yourself into a diet is hard enough and for me it is even harder still if my choices of food became limited. I took the Raw Food diet thinking that I had a wide range of raw vegetables and fruits to choose from. Apparently not, there is the issue about what is in season and what was organically grown. Farm fresh was the best but who could always have farm fresh during winter? I tried to make good with the diet but for the following reasons, I stopped altogether:

1. In a Raw Food Diet, the availability of suitable raw food was my first main problem. There are a lot of vegetables to choose from but I am afraid of eating just any raw vegetables because of the pesticides issue. So I always had to look for the organic types; in fact they are exactly the type of vegetables recommended.

2. The preference for organic fruits and vegetables also meant my food budget was getting higher because organically grown produce are more expensive, which I find hard to understand why. Anyway since it was for a good cause I tried to put up with the cost for awhile.

3. Food preparation was becoming too tedious. Even if they are organic there is still a lot of scrubbing to do because there is the danger of e-coli from the manure fertilizer. Unlike if the vegetables were at least stir fried the high heat in this cooking process could kill some of the remaining bacteria. I guess blenders cannot kill bacteria.

4. In Raw Food Diet, not only was my cost of food getting higher but so was my electric bill for the frequency with which I was using the blender.

5. Now the health issues: my dentist did not approve my constant munching of nuts and flax seeds. It showed in my teeth when I visited the dentist due to some teeth sensitivity problem. My dentist said I was wearing away my teeth at twice the speed for constantly grinding and chewing on the nuts.

6. The teeth sensitivity was due to too much fruit acids. Aside from wearing out my teeth I was also weakening it by too much acid passing and staying in my mouth. I was thinning out the surface enamel. So it appears that my teeth are not going to last me a lifetime if I were to keep with the raw food diet as a permanent eating habit.

7. My blood pressure went lower than 110/70 and went into 90/50 which was the ?last straw that broke the camels back? so to speak because my doctor said that it was a dangerous level. I was still overweight at 130 pounds. No wonder I was always feeling weak and dizzy, in fact even fuzzy at times. My doctor told me to go back to a healthier form of eating because the weight loss I was achieving was not worth the health condition I was developing.

8. He diagnosed me as nutritionally deficient. What he tried to explain to me was that the body had to have a balance of everything even with salt or sodium. If I ate bananas more often I had more potassium than calcium and sodium. The latter two was lacking in my raw food diet. Not having a balance of all these nutrients will result to low blood flow and fewer blood absorption in my blood cells.

9. However, he gave me advice to go back into regular eating gradually or I will have another problem in my hands. So I heeded my doctors advice by gradually adding low calorie salad dressing and some salt. Began drinking low fat milk again and started adding cooked meat and eggs.

Today I cannot say that I am fit and trim because I am still a little heavy at 132 pounds but I can say I am healthier and happier. I still eat raw vegetables but no longer worry if it is organic because I also eat them stir fried or at least half-cooked. I just keep watching over my calorie intakes at 1500 per day. I try to be more active with some weekend exercises and by walking a bit faster. I made up my mind not to punish myself with another fad diet and just eat the right food in the right amount. No more food binges either because I realized that it is all a matter of self-discipline. I still hope to lose weight because I still work on it, the only difference is, I am no longer in a hurry to achieve it with a big bang.