I’ll be drawing upon the wisdom of our friends at The Spruce. The essence here is to explain what a Raw Vegan diet is, and how it can impact health positively!
The basics: A raw food vegan diet consists of unprocessed raw vegan foods that have not been heated above 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 degrees Celsius). This automatically excludes anything that’s been pasteurized or homogenized or disinfected using heat as the primary form of disinfection.
Foods cooked above this temperature usually lose some of their most essential enzymes and thus a significant amount of their nutritional value. While they may or may not be harmful to the body, uncooked foods provide living enzymes and correct nutrition.
There are benefits to eating raw foods, including weight loss, more energy, clear skin, improved digestion and improved overall health. Many people clarify that they eat a “high raw” or a certain percentage of raw foods in their diet, such as “75% raw diet” or a “90% raw diet”. I personally have a high volume of raw food in my diet, and I feel the benefits of energy, fast healing skin, and overall superb health. If you’ve been reading you know my hair is lustrous and thick – while most men in my family are famous for extreme hairfall in their early thirties! In fact my community also suffers from a reputation of being a little sluggish when it comes to using brain power – but I don’t need to boast about this point; you can meet me and see for yourself what it’s all about.
It may help to include unprocessed dairy products in your diet; mainly calcium intake and good quality milk-fats – I personally include tea, coffee, home-made wines (I never drink the shit they sell at the store; that’s just poison). I’ve seen a huge interest in the raw goodness of raw foods myself and would suggest you give it a shot!
What can I eat?
My diet includes:
- All raw fruits and vegetables
- Nuts and seeds
- Sprouts
- Roots, root vegetables, and squashes
- Fresh herbs and raw spices – the Wellness Tree spice mix adds a good bit of flavour
- One meal a day ‘regular’ cooked food – may include rice, breads, curries, etc
- Tea and Coffee – depending on what my mood says today
There’s a new concept for “processed raw food” (which sounds stupid to me, but I include it here as TheSpruce has made an emphatic note about it) as long as the processing involves does not involve heating the food over 115 degrees.
Some of these processed raw vegan foods include:
- Cold pressed oils
- Unprocessed olives
- Raw nut “milks”
- Fermented foods such as miso, kimchee, and sauerkraut
- Pure maple syrup
- Unpasteurized raw soy sauce (nama shoyu)
- Dried fruits and vegetables
- Vinegars and foods cured in vinegar
- Unprocessed raw cacao (raw chocolate)
There is some debate as to whether certain items are in fact, truly raw and thus suitable for a raw foods diet, and many people prefer to exclude some processed foods from their diet, even though they may be raw. If you are preparing food for others, its best to err on the side of caution, and prepare a dish that you know is 100% raw, such as a salad or fruit dish.
This is the essence of a Vegan raw diet. I’ll write more about it in the coming days; but this is roughly where I started and I feel it’s a good thing to share!