What do you think of a sprout oriented raw vegan diet?

[Jannes]

I know I know.. Restricting a restricted diet even more sounds very dangerous. It's also the diet that most ex-vegans on YouTube say they followed. But there are good and bad ways in executing this diet and given that everybody here likes to share his own unique take on diets I thought I share this very unique diet as I also have personal experience with it. 

What is a raw vegan diet?

-Its vegan (duh)

-It includes only raw food. Raw food is defined as food that isn't heated more then 42 Degrees as going above that the heat kills the living enzymes. 

So all that is left is fruits and salad? These foods can certainly be included but they shouldnt make up the bulk of the diet, otherwise you are just going to starve yourself to death. You can include nuts (sprouted), seeds (sprouted) and grains, pseudo-grains, lentils, peas and beans also all in sprouted form as most of them loose their toxicity when they are sprouted. Avocado and Olives have a special place in this diet. Tempeh and soy joghurt are also allowed because they have living bacteria. There is even raw vegan protein powder. You should of course supplement vitamin B12 and Omega3 at least. (98% raw vegan is still raw vegan)

So it's not really about being limited in your food choices. You are rather limited in your meal choices because not being able to heat things up makes cooking really hard. Some things you can do is muesli (sprouting grains and then drying them), smoothies and smoothie bowls, crackers (dried grains and seeds) with avocado or raw nut butter, salads (with a focus on avocados or olives for calories or a raw high calorie salat dressing), raw vegan trail mix (out of dried sprouted grains, nuts, sunflower seeds..).

For my personal experience. I did this diet for about a year. My diet consisted mostly of 500g sprouted buckwheat (raw mass) and 200g sprouted lentils (raw mass). Also some nuts, fruits and raw veggies. I made two giant meals out of it which was absolute madness as it killed my gut. I also trained in the gym at the time and managed to put on some muscle mass. Even though I get stomach pain just thinking about the time there were still some upsides to the diet. For one I was always very awake. When you eat cooked food you always feel a bit dizzy and tired after it. It's so normal that we don't even think about it anymore. But with the raw vegan diet I never felt tired after a meal. I could eat 2000 calories of sprouted buckwheat and I could feel my stomach working but I didn't feel tired in the slightest. I also had pretty good skin at the time. For people who can work with lots of raw fiber and plan their diet a bit smarter (smaller meals with more frequency and a bit less sprouts for nuts or avocados) this diet can certainly work. 

Edited February 19, 2023 by Jannes

[Michael569]

I did something similar for about a month couple of years ago. I wanted to see if my allergies would improve on it. I didn't notice any changes in energy but I did feel a decrease in the mood because the diet was boring, tasteless and kinda dull. I also notice, the plaque on my teeth was building up faster and I had to brush my teeth more often. 

Best time to do this would probably be summer rather than the end of winter tho. It is a cooling diet and you don't want to be eating smoothies and cold dishes in February too much. 

Also the thing with enzymes is bs, enzymes are not living, they are just a bunch of chemical mediators that get triggered at certain PH or an environment and get chemically attached somewhere else to catalyse a certain other reaction.  It is a trigger & effect method. Your body is full of enzymes btw and none of those are living. You can add synthetic enzymes and they work just as fine as your biological ones. There is no component of living organisms there. Although enzymes might get denatured at certain temperatures, that's true but they do not "die" per se. The benefits of most raw foods probably come down to fibre content and polyphenol content rather than enzymes. That and radical drop in saturated fat & salt consumption. 

Most proponents of raw diet are quacks with eating disorders and some of them are completely delusional and I think, even have undiagnosed mental health disorders. It is rare that long term raw foodies actually look healthy and strong, most just seem emaciated, wrinkled and aged. You will still find some like Kristina Carillo-Bucaram who looks like a human goddess or John Rose, who seems fit as fuck at his age, but those seem to be an exception rather than the rule. And there are some like Durianrider and Freelee who seem a little bit....out there.  

All the quitting raw foodies on YouTube are the ones who, I think genuinely tried for years and they just couldn't do it - they lost their periods, and their hair, and started having dental health problems. I don't think it is a good long-term choice. You don't quit after having spent a decade building an audience just because you want to try a steak. You quit because your health is falling apart. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that up to 30-40% of top Vegan influencers have been secretly eating eggs, dairy and meat for years. Especially the ones who do it for fame rather than ethics 

That being said, it can probably be a good diet for quick weightloss and some form of cleansing. 

If you do it, let us know how it went. 

Edited February 20, 2023 by Michael569

[Jannes]

10 hours ago, Michael569 said:

I did something similar for about a month couple of years ago. I wanted to see if my allergies would improve on it. I didn't notice any changes in energy but I did feel a decrease in the mood because the diet was boring, tasteless and kinda dull.

Yeah dude I would have rather got food injected into my blood than to eat that shit. On the other hand it was always really "natural" which made it exciting in some way. Not tasty but exciting. But I definitely learned to detach from food pleasure there. 

10 hours ago, Michael569 said:

Also the thing with enzymes is bs, enzymes are not living, they are just a bunch of chemical mediators that get triggered at certain PH or an environment and get chemically attached somewhere else to catalyse a certain other reaction.  It is a trigger & effect method. Your body is full of enzymes btw and none of those are living. You can add synthetic enzymes and they work just as fine as your biological ones. There is no component of living organisms there. Although enzymes might get denatured at certain temperatures, that's true but they do not "die" per se.

Okay I just followed the raw vegan cult somewhat mindlessly tbh so good to know. So you think synthetic enzymes would have the same "wakening" effect as I described with raw food?

10 hours ago, Michael569 said:

The benefits of most raw foods probably come down to fibre content and polyphenol content rather than enzymes. That and radical drop in saturated fat & salt consumption. 

I ate like 90g of raw fiber a day. There is a big difference between cooked and raw fiber in my experience. Raw fiber rubs on your stomach insides in that amount. My diaphragm got a lot stronger over time so I could handle fiber better. I could eat a 400g package of dried plums without any stomach problems. Still I never adapted to the amounts of sprouts even over the year period. I don't know if that much fibre is even useful for the human body. 

10 hours ago, Michael569 said:

Most proponents of raw diet are quacks with eating disorders and some of them are completely delusional and I think, even have undiagnosed mental health disorders.

Yeah that's me actually. Got that eating disorder because fitness was something I felt was in my power of control because I had good experiences in it and I was to afraid to tackle other areas in my life so I just looked for ways to keep improving in the fitness area which I already mastered and made it worse. 

10 hours ago, Michael569 said:

All the quitting raw foodies on YouTube are the ones who, I think genuinely tried for years and they just couldn't do it - they lost their periods, and their hair, and started having dental health problems. I don't think it is a good long-term choice. You don't quit after having spent a decade building an audience just because you want to try a steak. You quit because your health is falling apart. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that up to 30-40% of top Vegan influencers have been secretly eating eggs, dairy and meat for years. Especially the ones who do it for fame rather than ethics 

Do you think that veganism is hard to maintain good health with or were you referring to raw veganism?

10 hours ago, Michael569 said:

That being said, it can probably be a good diet for quick weightloss and some form of cleansing. 

That for sure. 

10 hours ago, Michael569 said:

If you do it, let us know how it went. 

Horribly 

But someone could do it better than me I ate to much sprouts and should have eaten with more frequency. 

But honestly after hearing about my enzyme bs there isn't really a good reason to do it I think.

[Michael569]

10 hours ago, Jannes said:

So you think synthetic enzymes would have the same "wakening" effect as I described with raw food?

I don't think that effect has anything to do with the enzymes. I'm not sure what it is. Maybe the hype. Like when people go 100% carnivore and experience that. I think it is partially psychosomatic. It goes something like "I did it and it works for me even tho they said I couldn't. Now look at me being all radiant and glowing :D" - not the Fallout type of glowing. 

Maybe it is about eliminating foods that don't sit well with you. 

I'm sure there is energetic component as well coming from the pure ultra high fruit diet but a lot of the stuff these people claim is just nonsense when you look at them and they look like the girl shared in the other Carnivore post yesterday. To her she is the healthiest she has ever been, to an outsider she looks like a skeleton. 

10 hours ago, Jannes said:

I ate like 90g of raw fiber a day. There is a big difference between cooked and raw fiber in my experience. Raw fiber rubs on your stomach insides in that amount. My diaphragm got a lot stronger over time so I could handle fiber better. I could eat a 400g package of dried plums without any stomach problems. Still I never adapted to the amounts of sprouts even over the year period. I don't know if that much fibre is even useful for the human body. 

I see this as the greatest benefit. The huge fibre amount. It is probably more than we need but ancestrally, I believe in periods when there was no mean people would eat even more fibre. 

[player1995]

I think you are onto a healthy start.

You will find your body will be even healthier when you start mono-eating or having a maximum of 3 ingredients per meal, your body will thank you, your mind will be at ease, life will flow well. I disagree with the part of starving to death on just fruit and salad, I have lived on mostly fruits, salads and raw food for years and never supplement B12 or animal-based omegas. You don't need them. You can get everything and more from plants.

As your body becomes more "efficient" you will find you will need less and less and the simplicity is where its at.

[vindicated erudite]

On 19/02/2023 at 3:05 PM, Jannes said:

-It includes only raw food. Raw food is defined as food that isn't heated more then 42 Degrees as going above that the heat kills the living enzymes. 

I'm pretty sure this is a meme since these enzymes have to travel through stomach acid, which should denature these enzymes.

[Schizophonia]

What is the point ?

[Jannes]

22 hours ago, Schizophonia said:

What is the point ?

Science.

Also I felt very awake after eating raw vegan food while on cooked food I always felt tired. I only noticed that when I switched to raw food. I dont think it's just placebo or the type of food as Michael thinks. So that is a potential big benefit.

[Schizophonia]

1 hour ago, Jannes said:

Science.

Also I felt very awake after eating raw vegan food while on cooked food I always felt tired. I only noticed that when I switched to raw food. I dont think it's just placebo or the type of food as Michael thinks. So that is a potential big benefit.

It's not vegan but have you been interested in Vonderplanitz? or just the paleo diet?