Cairidh wrote:
I was cooked vegetarian for 2 years, then cooked vegan for 1 year, then fruitarian for 6 months. Which really ruined my health! I ate a lot of fruit including avocados, olive oil and squash. My calorie intake was easily high enough but my protein intake was far too low, and I became deficient in everything, but especially protein. My hair became extremely thin, I lost a lot of muscle, my skin became so thin that just wearing shoes would wear deep wounds in my feet which wouldn't heal.
After 6 months I could barely walk and I had to start eating other foods. Not knowing any better I went straight back to cooked vegan. Big mistake!!! My body had completely stopped being adapted to cooked foods, and everything I ate made me violently ill - pain, fever, hangover, raging headaches, every cell in my body feeling poisoned....unbelievable how ill I could become from everyday foods, but its a common experience for raw foodists who eat cooked food after a long time of 100% raw.
I struggled with ill health for years because I didn't know what the problem was, and was too scared to go back to just fruit. Eventually I found out about raw foodism and switched to raw vegan which helped hugely. Raw foods don't make me violently ill, although I don't feel great on the raw vegan diet. (Exhausted and sluggish and weak, poor memory, insomnia, chemical/noise/light sensitivities). This is because after my 6 months on just fruit, everything except fruit (especially vegetables) has a bad affect on me. I know of other people who experienced the exact same thing after eating a fruitarian diet. I don't think is because other foods are bad....its just that we messed up our bodies by only eating fruit.
Since then I have tried eating just fruit for short periods and always feel dramatically better at first, then after a couple of weeks I get deficient again and have to stop.
Finally I tried just eating fruit and nuts. Wow!! I felt amazing, and a healer I'd been seeing couldn't believe the difference. I didn't tell her I'd changed my diet but she certainly noticed, and enthused over and over about the difference in me, and said the energy was all flowing, and said whatever you're doing keep doing it, because it's working. However after a few weeks I got deficient and felt awful again and had to stop, and went back to raw vegan.
Since then I have been too scared to try giving up raw vegetables even though I know I feel so much better without them.
I would really advise anyone to be very careful eating just fruit and nuts.......
The raw vegans who seem to be healthiest are those who eat mostly fruit and greens with some fat. The other primates all eat like this also....our closest relatives the chimpanzees eat 60% fruit, 40% greens. All* the vegetarians in nature make greens their staple food. It seems in nature animals survive on either greens or meat. I think we need one or the other and if you cut out both you'll probably have health problems.
Vegetarians on cooked diets (in different cultures all around the world) eat grains+legumes to replace the greens or meat.
If you're not eating any of these staple foods, I think you'll be in trouble. I'm hoping yolks will help me as they're so nutrient rich.
*somebody's probably going to correct me on this, so I'll say nearly all
You could cut out fish first, see if that stops your symptoms. Or if you do remove both fish and yolks, add dark leafy greens which are very different from the other veg. Or algae or wheatgrass. Some kind of greens. I don't think humans can survive on just fruit and nuts indefinately...sooner or later they will starve to death....and the stages in between are not pleasant!! I've been there.
Cairidh, thanks for sharing!
I am not afraid at all to live on fruit (and some nuts) foods, as I have been living without animal foods for so long, as well I am an experienced faster, and I have learned to live without eating and drinking for some periods with the aim to heal and recover my body-mind...
I do not miss plants/vegetables at all, I feel so free by giving them up completely...
I think, IME, that our body (and mind) have an inner intelligence and ability to heal, recover and purify itself to its natural balanced perfect state of health and being as mother Nature intended, this will happen specially when undergoing of complete rest and fast, as well when reducing eating to satisfying of true hunger, not eating for the sake of boredom, entertainment or any other reason...
As well, we all know and experience that high-water containing sun-ripe preferably organic fruits are easiest to digest, absorb and eliminate... This is a fact and all who have tried it out by themselves know about it...
When you have learned to live for some time be eating less (according to your true hunger) and by eating of high-quality easily absorbable-biovailable fruits, your body will adjust in a positive way, you allow your body to heal and keep more clean at the same time... So, when re-introducing worse quality or in improper combination, or wrong, or processed, or in too high amount foods, your body as a result of being more sensitive will instantly and strongly send the signal to you via different adverse symptoms as nature intended, it is done in a very pronounced way, to tell you that this or that "food" stuff is not good for you at all, or that it is too much of it to handle, etc... - This reaction is actually not bad at all, the thing is, you are not used to such a NORMAL reaction, as your body been most of a time clogged up, not sensitive and none-responsive as it should be, being most of the time in a mode of heavy load and constant repairing of the damage......
Many people complain of adverse effects when reintroducing ingestion of bad stuff over and over, and are surprised of too "strong" reaction of the body, and think it is bad and unnatural... But, it is not...! It is similar reaction as the reaction to poison..., it MUST be strong and recognizable, for you to get the message quickly... Many foods we have learned to eat are actually poisons and drugs...! and are very harming to our body... We just have learned to live in constant poisoning of ourselves...
In my own case, I get very heavy reactions when reintroducing bad food stuff in to my body, they are so heavy that i get the message instantly and change my habit accordingly, offering body rest and peace to take care of my mistake...
That is how I experience this thing, I will report of my progress...
Thanks,
