[RawFoodGrl]

Wow, sounds like you're asking the same question I did! For the full she-bang, you can read my post, I think it was titled "What Should I Eat?" or something like that.

Here's what I've learned - everybody is different, so no one can tell you exactly what you should eat. Everyone has thoughts, ideas, opinions, and research supporting them, but the bottom line is everybody is in fact different. We have to find our own way.

So, yes, that's not a great answer, but it'll save you some frustration.

I can give you an idea of what I eat, but portions and ratios are going to be based not only on what you need for your own body, but your body may change as it gets used to your new diet.

For instance, you bought fruit. I'm too sugar sensitive for fruit, so the only fruit I eat are goji berries. But if fruit works for you, great!

I got overwhelmed by all the fancy recipes, so I decided to keep it really simple - a smoothie for breakfast, salads for lunch and dinner, and then nuts, seeds or other pre-made raw snacks, crackers, etc for snacks as needed. Now I'm branching out into other more fancy recipes.

I'm a big proponent of superfoods - I had a VERY hard time going raw until I learned I really needed spinach and superfoods. The superfoods I eat daily are Maca, Pure Synergy, Raw Cacao, and Goji Berries. These help restore any missing macro- and micro- nutrients that are often missing from people's diets, even if they've been eating healthy, organic and taking vitamins. It made a huge difference for me! There are other superfoods, but these are the ones I'm eating right now.

The spinach, now, is because I couldn't easily give up beef. Any other meat, fine, but not beef. So if I eat spinach regularly, then I'm able to be meat-free.

Ok, so for me, the last couple days I've had a green smoothie with about 1 cup spinach, 1 cup kale, 1 cup water, then 1.5 tsp Maca, 1 Tbsp Pure Synergy, 1 Tbsp Hemp Powder (for additional protien), 1 Tbsp Raw Cacao, 2 Tbsp Goji Berries, and 1 Tbsp coconut butter (has oils & flesh, helps for taste & the fat makes me feel more full), then agave to taste.

Lunch has been a salad of about 3 cups leafy greens of all types, about 2 cups veggies like cucumber, tomato, celery, onion, bell pepper, etc., 1/2 an avocado, 1 tsp sunflower seeds, 2 tsp pumpkin seeds, 2 Tbsp salad dressing.

Dinner I've gotten fancy and am having a 3"x3" square of raw lasagne made with, well, too many things to mention!

But that definitely varies - I ate more raw foods when I started, and less now, and just kind of go by the feel. It takes a bit of time to figure out your own body and what you need.

There are some folks here who suggest more fruit, others say less protien, more fat, less fat, all kinds of things. But you have to figure out YOU.

I learned I needed to have no foods that dramatically increase my blood sugar, so no fruits, honey, maple syrup, etc. for me! I need more protiens and fats than a lot of other people, so I eat more hemp, nuts, seeds, oils and avocados. However, as I've been doing this a couple weeks now, I'm finding I don't need quite as much fat and protien as I did at first.

So, we can give you ideas and thoughts and what works for us, but you really are going to have to experiment and see what works for you. But you really can keep it very simple!

Oh, for a final note, I did learn that it's very important to eat a lot of leafy greens, and a variety of them, as they have lots and lots of the vitamins, minerals and nutrients we need. I've even heard some people say that half our diet should be leafy greens - so I always make sure to eat them at every meal.