let's talk about something other than politics...

[Rondinone]

...Food. Since there seem to be so many cooks on the board. Lately I've been getting away from "manufactured" foods because of the additives. So far I've cut out high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated fats and artificial sweeteners. I'm also getting ready to bail on lactose. Has anyone else tried this? How's it feel long term? Any positive effects?

[ronb]

Raw foods only for me for the last year, and for many years before that, no refined sugar or processed grains (with the switch to raw though, no grains. I did the switch to raw in order to help heal my back from a really terrible injury...I thought that the advice to go raw was probably bu!!***** but i was in such pain that I'd try anything. And it did help a lot).

Dropping all sugar and refined foods is really a great way to regain the energy you had as a kid. As you age, what you've been putting into your body becomes more and more important.

Without getting too dogmatic about it, it's possible to have great meals all the time, without processed stuff. One finds one has a lot more energy and muscle as well.

There's a lot of conflicting info out there, one of the best books i have seen is called "the 3 season diet" - it's a very intelligent reworking of ayurvedic thinking (the writer doesn't really tell you that (ayurveda = indian medicine, 5000 years of excellent observation of body types etc). It shows you how to figure out your body type, and what foods and ways of working are most appropriate. You keep eating what you normally eat, it's not some sort of odd diet thing, but gradually a few things shift and you realize that you're in much better health than before. Worth getting the book, the author is John Douillard.

Before i went raw foods only, on the rare occassions i'd buy meat, it was only local meat, much better than supermarket stuff....if it's too pricey...eat less of it. There is so much hormonal additives and antibiotics etc that supermarket meat is pretty toxic and really affects your health in the long term.

Now I eat a lot less, sleep less, have more energy and a lot more focus. I am one of the people though who is very effected by food, it's not the same for everyone. But regardless though cutting out the processed stuff makes your body much more happy.

I'm fortunate in that we have a huge vegetable garden that we eat from 8 months of the year (although we're in the Northeast), as well as our own fruit trees, and also that there are sources of fresh produce round here all year long. However it's possible to utilize farmers markets and or CSA farm shares - now in most urban areas - that's a great program which supports local agriculture - but more importantly - you get great food out of it.

Check out also the whole "Slow Food" movement. While it can be a little precious, the concept is great, and worth looking at...great meals and food, w/o processed *****.

[nostatic]

raw foods. Does that mean you ask for your big mac rare?

[Burnin' oil]

Originally posted by ronb


Check out also the whole "Slow Food" movement. While it can be a little precious, the concept is great, and worth looking at...great meals and food, w/o processed *****.

Man, do I hate processed *****!

[Dantilla]

I'm going to quit buttering my Ding-Dongs and Twinkies.

I'll let you know what happens.

[ronb]

Processed ***** -ADM & Monsanto - quite awful, esp in the dark.

There's a good comment from Anthony Bourdoun - that vegans are the Hezbollah of the food world....so then what are the raw foodists? I'm pretty relaxed about it, ie it works for me, not necessarily for everyone (and I spent a good part of my 20s hanging out in restaurant kitchens in Paris etc learning how to cook, so it was a bit of a life change for me).

2 raw eggs a day for me....in a blender w a banana and some vanilla extract & honey...the best zabiglione you've ever had.

So long as you know where them eggs came from...the salmonella that eggs have is from commercial egg farms washing the clear coating off; if your eggs are from a local producer...no commercial egg washer = far reduced possibility of salmonella.

Definetely though cutting back on processed foods and grains makes a giant improvement in ones health. Butter your ding dongs and twinkies all you want though...just don't put up a video of the action.

[tabs]

Originally posted by Burnin' oil
Man, do I hate processed *****!

Yeah and it smells too!

[dhoward]

Butter your ding dongs and twinkies all you want though...just don't put up a video of the action.

Little girl gets on the school bus one morning, and before she has a chance to get in her seat the bus driver pulls away and has to make a sudden stop to avoid a car pulling out of a driveway. The little girl falls down and her lunchbox hits the floor pretty hard, releasing all of it's contents. As the bus driver helps gather up the escaped luncheon delicacies, he holds up her dessert item and exclaims, "Aw little girl, there's hair all over your Twinkie!"
"Yes!" she says, "and I'm only nine years old!"

Happy Friday

[tcar]

What's the problem w/ grains? I thought they were good as long as it wasn't white flour.

[vash]

Originally posted by tcar
What's the problem w/ grains? I thought they were good as long as it wasn't white flour.

nothing wrong with grains. you just want to focus on the complex carbs. stuff that takes a bit of effort for your body to break down. give it time to leak into the system. white bread is turning to sugar fast and unless you are MATBOLISM man, no way you keep up.

i try not to eat too much processed stuff. nothing from the freezer out of a box. i hardly ever eat fast food. and i made the switch to brown rice around 3 years ago. and for a chinese dude, that is HUGE!

i dont understand raw diets. like in veggies, the human body doesnt even have the tools to break that stuff down. are you not losing out on a bunch of vitamins? heat breaks down cell walls to make the nutrient accessible, right?

[Rondinone]

Originally posted by vash
nothing wrong with grains. you just want to focus on the complex carbs. stuff that takes a bit of effort for your body to break down. give it time to leak into the system. white bread is turning to sugar fast and unless you are MATBOLISM man, no way you keep up.

i try not to eat too much processed stuff. nothing from the freezer out of a box. i hardly ever eat fast food. and i made the switch to brown rice around 3 years ago. and for a chinese dude, that is HUGE!

i dont understand raw diets. like in veggies, the human body doesnt even have the tools to break that stuff down. are you not losing out on a bunch of vitamins? heat breaks down cell walls to make the nutrient accessible, right?

This is true. But if you eat enough, you'll be OK. We evolved eating raw food. Chew thoroughly.

I'm getting ready to bail on wheat products also because I'm trying to track down some mild food intolerance. We didn't evolve (or weren't designed, depending on your feelings about it) to consume large amounts of grain, especially refined grain.

Has brown rice made you feel any better? What's wrong with white if it's not parboiled?

[Rondinone]

Originally posted by ronb
Raw foods only for me for the last year, and for many years before that, no refined sugar or processed grains (with the switch to raw though, no grains. I did the switch to raw in order to help heal my back from a really terrible injury...I thought that the advice to go raw was probably bu!!***** but i was in such pain that I'd try anything. And it did help a lot).

Dropping all sugar and refined foods is really a great way to regain the energy you had as a kid. As you age, what you've been putting into your body becomes more and more important.

Without getting too dogmatic about it, it's possible to have great meals all the time, without processed stuff. One finds one has a lot more energy and muscle as well.

There's a lot of conflicting info out there, one of the best books i have seen is called "the 3 season diet" - it's a very intelligent reworking of ayurvedic thinking (the writer doesn't really tell you that (ayurveda = indian medicine, 5000 years of excellent observation of body types etc). It shows you how to figure out your body type, and what foods and ways of working are most appropriate. You keep eating what you normally eat, it's not some sort of odd diet thing, but gradually a few things shift and you realize that you're in much better health than before. Worth getting the book, the author is John Douillard.

Before i went raw foods only, on the rare occassions i'd buy meat, it was only local meat, much better than supermarket stuff....if it's too pricey...eat less of it. There is so much hormonal additives and antibiotics etc that supermarket meat is pretty toxic and really affects your health in the long term.

Now I eat a lot less, sleep less, have more energy and a lot more focus. I am one of the people though who is very effected by food, it's not the same for everyone. But regardless though cutting out the processed stuff makes your body much more happy.

I'm fortunate in that we have a huge vegetable garden that we eat from 8 months of the year (although we're in the Northeast), as well as our own fruit trees, and also that there are sources of fresh produce round here all year long. However it's possible to utilize farmers markets and or CSA farm shares - now in most urban areas - that's a great program which supports local agriculture - but more importantly - you get great food out of it.

Check out also the whole "Slow Food" movement. While it can be a little precious, the concept is great, and worth looking at...great meals and food, w/o processed *****.

How did your sleep habits change?

[ronb]

Re grains - they're harder to digest, so if one goal of a raw food diet is to make digestion easier....I cut them out. Not suggesting that this is a universal thing to do. I am now very aware of my digestion, and i know that when i eat cooked food of any sort, or grains etc - it takes a few days instead of a few hours to move through...with constant processing. The nice thing about the raw diet is that food is digested within a few hours and afterwards the energy usually being used to digest is available for the rest of the body....that sounds a bit clinical as if i'm measuring...but i can actuallly feel the difference.

Regarding the comment about how one's body CAN'T digest raw food, eg vegetables fruits sprouted grains etc - that's wrong. Cooking above 120 degrees kills the enzymes that are IN the food that help one's own digestion break the food down. Raw food theorists tell you that cooked food is a whole lot harder to digest because it's without those enzymes, essentially the food is dead fiber with some nutrients, rather than a live enzyme rich food. Think about the difference between digesting a decent salad vs a hunk of lamb, no matter how well prepared - what sits in your gut for longer?

Re the query about sleep - I now am completely rested after 5 - 6 hours of sleep, which is very solid sleep, as opposed to before when i could sleep 7 - 9 hours waking up a few times at night. Because your body isn't working so hard during the day it requires less sleep....and because it's not still digesting stuff at night...better quality of sleep.

I know it sounds like a lot of wacko stuff, and i was not all that convincable except by having the experience myself. Note - that i got the suggestion from my physician (who is WAY out there though...but I trust him because everything he said was accurate...this guy was quite scary, but in a good way....the first time i saw him, in huge (back) pain, he put his hands on my feet and said...."you're alergic to x y & z, you don't drink coffee or tea but do eat chocolate etc etc, he knew exactly what was going on with me. I then went to a more "normal" doc and had tests, and everything the first guy said was completely accurate...just from careful observation / energy awareness etc, and a deep understanding of ayurveda).

Anyway....other benefits of the raw food thing for me have been a lot of small things clearing up that i just assumed was due to aging etc...I have a pretty vigorous daily physical practice, and since i made this dietary switch, i've made more progress with that than in the 4 previous years. Was quite astounding (and measurable ie against my training logs and notes, etc)

[ronb]

Oh - and from prior to the raw diet experience....the switch from white to brown rice is huge....but then from grains to no grains equally huge. Again this is my own personal experience, depending on your body type and internal stuff one may or may not notice the difference (for instance my wife who eats whatever i prepare has noticed far less changes than i have. But we can also practically CHART the differences in my 3 year old son, depending upon what he eats (ie the diff in energy, mood, tiredness etc). And certainly it is chartable in me. It's odd to think that we're so effected by chemicals, ie the chems in the food we're eating....but we are.

[Rondinone]

Originally posted by ronb
Re grains - they're harder to digest, so if one goal of a raw food diet is to make digestion easier....I cut them out. Not suggesting that this is a universal thing to do. I am now very aware of my digestion, and i know that when i eat cooked food of any sort, or grains etc - it takes a few days instead of a few hours to move through...with constant processing. The nice thing about the raw diet is that food is digested within a few hours and afterwards the energy usually being used to digest is available for the rest of the body....that sounds a bit clinical as if i'm measuring...but i can actuallly feel the difference.

Regarding the comment about how one's body CAN'T digest raw food, eg vegetables fruits sprouted grains etc - that's wrong. Cooking above 120 degrees kills the enzymes that are IN the food that help one's own digestion break the food down. Raw food theorists tell you that cooked food is a whole lot harder to digest because it's without those enzymes, essentially the food is dead fiber with some nutrients, rather than a live enzyme rich food. Think about the difference between digesting a decent salad vs a hunk of lamb, no matter how well prepared - what sits in your gut for longer?

Re the query about sleep - I now am completely rested after 5 - 6 hours of sleep, which is very solid sleep, as opposed to before when i could sleep 7 - 9 hours waking up a few times at night. Because your body isn't working so hard during the day it requires less sleep....and because it's not still digesting stuff at night...better quality of sleep.

I know it sounds like a lot of wacko stuff, and i was not all that convincable except by having the experience myself. Note - that i got the suggestion from my physician (who is WAY out there though...but I trust him because everything he said was accurate...this guy was quite scary, but in a good way....the first time i saw him, in huge (back) pain, he put his hands on my feet and said...."you're alergic to x y & z, you don't drink coffee or tea but do eat chocolate etc etc, he knew exactly what was going on with me. I then went to a more "normal" doc and had tests, and everything the first guy said was completely accurate...just from careful observation / energy awareness etc, and a deep understanding of ayurveda).

Anyway....other benefits of the raw food thing for me have been a lot of small things clearing up that i just assumed was due to aging etc...I have a pretty vigorous daily physical practice, and since i made this dietary switch, i've made more progress with that than in the 4 previous years. Was quite astounding (and measurable ie against my training logs and notes, etc)

I think what he meant was, cooking breaks down the cellulose walls that make up vegetable matter. For that reason you can extract more calories from cooked food. Yes you lose nutrients in the cooking process also. If you're interested I can dig up a paper or two on this.

Anyway thanks for the good info. I happen to have a PhD in chemistry, and I don't think a raw diet is "wacko". Actually I think it makes quite a bit of sense. Many things about digestion are not intuitive, e.g. people with malabsorption problems have a much slower gastric transit time. I'm really starting to believe that our society's approach to food is not in tune with our bodies, so I'm fishing for ideas. I really want to know what people have tried and if it worked. We have so much obesity, type II diabetes, GERD and IBS that it ought to be clear that something is seriously amiss.

[ronb]

Actually I was told the opposite - once your digestion is working properly your body breaks down the cellular walls just fine and there are a lot more nutrients to extract. After a few months of the raw diet, i realized i could eat a lot less than i was used to eating probably for that reason - more efficient utilization of energy.

Also...as the raw food thing has been gaining momentum - there are now some great cookbooks out there, not what you would expect (eg take a piece of wood, add water, and eat), but books by people like charley trotter who worked with the famous place in LA, Roxanne's; also a new book by the restaurant in NY called Pure Food & Wine (that's the restaurant, not the book). Pretty great recipes and ideas in there. So it's a lot of really tasty stuff also.

[tabs]

Now we're being ANTI-AMERICAN....what the heck is wrong with a nice juicy charbroiled Steak once in awhile....the American BBQ is as American as Mom and Apple Pie.... what do U boyz have against Mom's anyway?

[ronb]

Personal choice. When I was buying beef I'd buy it from a local guy grass fed, well taken care of cattle etc. Feedlot = monculture = disease....it's not farming anymore, it's chemical production.

Cattle production is really inefficient use of resources...I find commercial production as painful as daily SUV consumption, however it's a personal choice. Not anti-Murican in the least to make personal choices, so long as i don't push it down yr throat, so to speak.

Lamb or pig - much better use of resources, but still not that great.

And Tabs your qualifier - "once in a while" - that's the key thing - sure once in a while is fine with both production and personal health, but every day / McDonald's culture = death, both personal and environmental (ie just a part of it....but again, beef production is a huge worldwide environmental drain).

Enjoy your steak once in awhile or whenever, but in a mindful way - that's the most important part.

[scottmandue]

I have some sugar in the house somewhere but I never use it, never had a big thing for sweets. Then the doctor tells me I have high blood sugar... I'm like WTF I don't eat sweets! But I was big on pasta, bread, white rice. I did the low carb thing and now I'm okay. I read "Fit for life" and "The Zone" and kind of came up with my own lifestyle somewhere in there.

Kind of fell off the wagon lately and been doing the alcohol in the evenings and caffeine mornings plus getting lazy and hitting the fast food a little too much, got to get back on track.