How much of Nuts, Avocado, Oil is OK?

[fiona o]

I went RAW say about a month or more ago, and had started off eating nuts, avocados etc. each
day in the form of making nut cheese, flax crackers, nut and fruit crusted pie, raw icecreams etc... All fun and yummy! Usually as a snack or addition to a salad eg. Not excessive. I don't eat ALL those goodies each day - maybe say a salad with nut based burger or some nut cheese or avo, or an avocado desert or something. I also mainly have green smoothies, salads, fruit etc. so it's not like I just eat treats all day! In fact, these days I don't really need these treats or crave nut fudge or icecream etc. as much, but rather I just enjoy making the tasty and elaborate things possible with such ingredients. I LOVE to cook (or UNcook and eat!)
Anyway, I had read that these good fats don't make you fat and are not stored as excess fat in your body ( Alissa Cohen's 'Living on Live Food' book). So the message was you can eat them regularly. THEN I just read on other sites and Raw Diet pages to LIMIT nuts, oils and avocados (eat rarely!) because they contain
too much fat! I'M CONFUSED! How much and how often should I eat them?

[Double Helix]

If you are just starting out, you may not want to force the issue or be extreme one way or the other, as you want to be able to stay raw, and sometimes the heavier foods will help, many have found.

As you go along, you may feel a lot better lightening up the fat load. Although there's no "one size fits all" approach to fat intake, the general consesus amongst heart doctors and natural hygienists is not much more than 10-20% fat intake by calorie.

However, you will find differing opinions amongst the raw community, as there is a "no fruit" crowd, which relies heavily on fats, and a "low-fat" crowd which relies heavily on fruits for caloric intake. Vegetables especially greens hardly make up caloric intake but provide essentials so they are always an important factor.

Again, as you are starting out, you may want to concentrate more on staying raw, then slowly adjusting the diet which may be an easier and have more staying power in the long run.

[greenbunny]

The number one way to be healthy is to be happy, love your food and enjoy it thoroughly. If your body feels good, then you are doing it right. It's really as simple as that. The whole thing about this raw thing is following your own reasoning and your own intuition. I've been around this for 20 years and all the new fangled "eat this percent or that percent" seems silly to me really. It's a big enough deal that you are raw! That's amazing!!!! Whatever you are doing you can count yourself as one of the very few people that are raw and feel good and are having fun. Forget what any expert tells you raw or otherwise. Use your own body and common - sense to guide you.

How much fat you need/want will change over the years in different stages. You'll figure it out without numbers or percentages or experts. Just eat what makes you feel good - that's what I say. Limit when it comes to raw foods is not in my vocabulary. I eat as much of anything raw my taste buds and body want. That's how to stay raw for the long haul. Have it be yummy and fun!!!!

Greenbunny

[nothinkingbehind]

I agree with DH here..... I am only a couple of months into raw, and I don't monitor my percentages or where my calories are coming from, as long as I eat as raw as possible (I'm not 100%). Greenbunny has several posts that talk about changing things a little at a time, and making new "habits" that you will stick with in the long run. Really listening to your body is important. If your body talks to you like mine talks to me, it doesn't always say it's looking for the right things, because I haven't fed it right in the past.

In a nutshell, I eat avocados all day if that's what my body is asking for. Little by little, I will fine tune it to include as many nutrient dense foods as I can for optimal health.

The other thing I have found is that, for me, there is no "wrong" way to eat raw. You don't overload your body with bad fats, you don't weigh down your digestive system with pounds of cooked meats, and you don't muck it all up with bad carbs. My body seems to know what to do with the raw foods with no problem, and anytime I eat cooked foods, I eat it with a good portion of raw.

Good luck and keep us posted on your progress...

Melissa

[fiona o]

Thanks for all your helpful replies, guys. I guess my worries were that maybe sometimes I wouldn't feel like nuts or avos etc. and then I would end up with a fat deficiency or something. Or that I'd overeat on something and lack another nutrient or whatever.
I guess, though, that as you said - your body will be your guide. But is it always right? If so, why do so many eat what they want eg. all fruit and then end up with problems from deficiencies later on down the track? And say you crave avos and eat several that day, well that isn't good for you - it's too much high calorie Raw food. So going on your instincts and cravings surely isn't foolproof, is it?
And some days I eat not because I'm hungry but because I worry I won't get enough nutrition if I don't eat enough. So is that wrong? Should I really only eat when true hunger strikes? I fear I wouldn't eat enough if I went about it that way, as I'm already too skinny!
I totally agree on most of what you are saying, and believe your body is a powerful healer and guide, but you can understand my concerns...
Please do feel free to add to my post...
Fiona O

[rawhippie]

let me first start out by reminding everyone here that the human body IS THE MOST PERFECT PIECE OF "EQUIPMENT" EVER CREATED AND THAT IS KNOWN TO MAN.

now then, let's start with the first part of your last post:
cravings, and how people "eat what they want":
this is where the whole "listening to your body" thing comes in. you will start to find out through reading, and personal experience what cravings mean what. the one i use most often is this; generally speaking, if you are craving sweets your body is actually low on calcium. now, this information was gifted to me from a friend after i told her i couldn't get enough raw chocolate. it was after this that something hie me; before starting raw food, i was quite over-weight and ate lots of fast food. it always puzzled me how after a "big mac" i would be super hungry again about thirty minutes after the fact. once i had the "cravings" concervastion with my friend i realized why that had happened to me. i was literally feeding my body garbage (which of course everyone knows), but it's what came next that got to me...oh my god, i was hungry again so soon because my body was smart enough to tell me, "what are you doing, and what the heck was that? i am hungry, and that provided me with nothing useful, give me life, and give me nutrients." it was at that point i really learned that my body was talking the whole time, i just wasn't listening.

you have to have faith in your own body, it will never make a mistake, provided it is given what it needs.

all this leads me up to my next comment on your last post about the body. i kind of went into it above with the cravings thing, but i cannot stress enough how important it is to realize that as long as the food is raw, your body WILL know what to do with it and how to utilize it the best. listen, i've been doing this for two years, not as long as some here, but long enough....and there are still some days that i feel a little woozy at times. what do i do? i think about what i HAVE had so far in the day and get something in my body that i haven't gotten yet. if i've had only an apple and a banana on the run, i know i need my protein from my salads, fixed, done, problem solved. everyone really needs to stop over-thinking this. we have all taken the responsibility of our health back into our hands, so there has to be a point you realize the power you have given back to yourself. we are all experimenting, we are all experiencing different results, no ONE person will have the same responses, therefore there will always be conflicting answers. this is normal and is something that happens in every facet of life. we are doing just fine, you really just need to learn to trust three things:
1. your body
2. the process
3. yourself and your capabilities
we've all taken a big step in our own health, be proud and confident, no one can take away your success unless you let them.
good luck!

[nothinkingbehind]

Fiona,

I understand your concerns completely.... but you have to remember that you and your body have been programmed by our society and all of it's wrong information. We are told if we eat according to this plan or that plan our bodies will be balanced, etc.

What you need to do is to reprogram yourself. I think our bodies reprogram easier than our minds do. I think this is where it was very helpful to me to go slowly. GB is forever saying that transitioning into raw with one meal at a time is a really great option. If leave most of what you are eating the same, but just change lunch to a salad with some homemade raw dressing.

We should worry about what we eat when we put processed foods into our bodies. When we eat whole raw foods packed with nutrition, our bodies can use what we give it.

And yes, it really does work.... not because anyone found any "secret" weight loss plan, but because our bodies were designed to eat raw foods.

Good luck in the journey!

Melissa

[greenbunny]

You guys said it better than I ever could. Right on!
Melissa, you basically said exactly what I was trying to say and Hippie, that was an amazing post.

One of the biggest reasons I say to change one thing at a time is just SO you can tell what your body ??s reaction is. If you change several things at once it gets confusing ?? especially at the beginning.

I know exactly what you are talking about with trusting your body Fiona. You might say, but what if all I want is chocolate icecream? The trick is to learn the language that your body is speaking just like RawHippie was talking about. Does your body really want icecream or does it need something in chocolate or is it craving something sweet. In nature ice cream doesn ??t exist growing on trees, but fruit does and so does cacao. Translation ?? body wants fruit or raw chocolate or both. You get a big craving for french fries like you will just die without them. French fries do not occur in nature but whole raw fat and complete salts do? What kind of fat is the body needing? That is the question? I want nothing but avocadoes does the body really just need avocadoes? The answer comes from how you feel when you eat those avocadoes. I have gone through periods when I was good fat deficient from eating crummy foods where I ate three avocadoes a day and got healthier and healthier. At one point I was craving salmon like crazy. I found that eating raw salmon helped but so did flax seed oil. I needed Omega ?? 3 fatty acids. You see. It ??s a question, like RawHippie said, of understanding what your body is trying to tell you. This is done with trust, faith in, and love for your body and time. If you approach it respectfully and slowly it becomes clear. The intuitions come. Your body just starts to talk to you. If you start to give your body great foods to choose from it feels love and cared for and like you are listening. When you listen to a friend well they talk to you more. When your body becomes your friend it will talk like crazy and you will understand more and more like you do when you know a friend well.

It ??s a leap of faith, but you will be surprised. Just say to your body that you will give it any raw food it wants and you will be surprised at how happy and fast your body will respond to you.

I ??ll give you a recent example. I want cheese. Crazy! I was a vegan for decades!!! My body said CHEESE!!!! But I couldn ??t eat cheese before without getting all stuffy and really sick. I eat lots of raw cheese now and feel absolutely wonderful and oh so happy, it ??s so yummy. It makes me want to cry how happy I have made my body by listening to it. So many raw foodists say cheese is bad for me and the vegans will scoff ?? but my body gets the microphone when it comes to food. That is who I listen to, no one else. When you give your body new choices of foods that occur in nature raw and whole, there are no wrong answers. I got raw chocolate and ate that three times a day for awhile like I did avocadoes at one point. I got so strong! These weird cravings come and go. I don ??t need salmon or flax like I needed at that one time either. Some times I will want almost nothing but raw olives for a few days. Some days all I want is fruit. Sometimes I can ??t get enough nuts and seeds. It changes. I change. I listen. I adapt. I feel GOOD! I can sometimes go days eating not much and other times I eat twice as much as my husband. I never get worried. It ??s just my body doing its thing. My body is exactly how I would choose it to be. I am a great size, flexible and strong. My body weight doesn ??t fluctuate much ?? just what my body needs and wants. It has become second nature for me to take a moment and ask my body what it wants, literally, and I feel the answer. It ??s a relationship, it takes time to trust and open up, some relationships take longer than others, but if you really want a relationship like that with your body, it will come, just keep on being open and asking for it. Ask for it at night before you go to bed. Ask for it as you wake up. You will get an answer. I ??ll bet on it. Betcha an avocado!

Greenbunny

[Double Helix]

Most people (with exceptions of couse) on a cooked diet don't really think in terms of where they are getting their nutri