1 - Many raw fooders do not eat enough greens.
Solution: regularly consume energy soup or green smoothie to guarantee the proper amount of greens.
2 - Many raw fooders do not consume enough fiber, soluble and insoluble.
Solution: Drink more green smoothies or energy soups instead of juices.
3 - People on raw food often consume too many fats. When they try to imitate cooked dishes, they substitute starches with nuts. For example, when making raw cakes, they mimic a wheat crust with a nut mixture.
Solution: use nut pulp left over from making nut milks, use more seeds and less nuts, and use more fruit and vegetable pulp from juices in your mixtures, to minimize the consumption of nuts.
4 - Raw fooders commonly try to become too perfect too fast. They don’t give their bodies a chance to adjust to such a radical dietary change.
Solution: gradually adjust and purify your own individual diet to help you ease into the healthiest diet for you.
5 - When people change their diets, they usually decide the other components that make up health are no longer important, such as: sun bathing, exercising, proper rest, fresh air, etc.
Solution: practice a well-rounded healthy life style.
6 - People on the raw food diet often over-indulge in some particular foods and neglect the variety of other fruits and vegetables. For example, orange juice is very healthy, but in extremely large quantities, it can be damaging to teeth and sugar levels. Large amounts of sprouts, berries, and anything else will inevitably create disharmonies.
Solution: eat foods in reasonable quantities.
7 - The biggest mistake that many make is that they listen to the raw food authorities and don’t trust the invaluable messages their own bodies communicate.
Solution: keep a diary of your daily food consumption and how it affects your well-being.
Your comments will help me a lot. I’ve been raw 4 years, am 75 and have never had many problems with my teeth until lately. Now I need 3 crowns, one with a root canal. Another tooth needs filling. I eat dark greens every night, I gave up on my smoothies because got tired of frozen bananas in every one—now I’ll use your recipes–I do have 2 of your books. I have a piece of fruit in the morning, then take vitamins with a glass of my almond milk(from your recipe). I do eat 2 hand fulls of nuts daily that I’m going to stop after reading your article. I won’t stop making almond milk tho. I also juice carrots and dark greens daily. Wonder if my diet is too high in sugars(carrots, fruit).If so, will only juice small apple, dark greens and celery, or a mixture as you said. I believe the carrots have helped my eyesight. I also put on about 8 lbs, the nuts I’m thinking.
Do you ever differ from the smoothies to juicing in the mornings?
Carole
Carole – Sometimes Victoria enjoys green juice although green smoothies are her preferred choice. It’s good to have some variety and juicing also has it own benefits. You may like to read this article about the importance of jaw exercise http://greensmoothiesblog.com/jaw-exercise-2/
Hello Victoria
The whole book is fascinating – “Biomimicry – Innovation Inspired by Nature”, Janine M. Benyus. Chapter 5 is “How will we heal ourselves? – Experts in our midst: finding cures like a chimp”. If you haven’t already read this book I think you will really enjoy it, especially this chapter.
With great gratitude to you, your family and colleagues – Deborah Corwyn, Ballarat, Australia.
My Partner had been drinking one litre of green smoothies for 6 months and then increased it to two litres for two months we added i tbsp of chai seeds and i tbsp of flaxseed to increase the omega oils for his arthritis. He has become very ill and has had chronic diarrhoea for 10 weeks. He has seen two naturapaths
and had heaps of tests done by his regular doctor.
The doctor thinks that he may have damaged the lining of his small intestine He is due to see a gastroenterologist next week. Would the chai and flaxseed have caused this????????
If your partner added i tbsp of chai seeds and i tbsp of flaxseed to the whole blender, it is not too much. But if he added it to one cup, then it is definitely a lot. Still, I don’t believe these seeds could damage the lining of his small intestine. Another possibility is that he already had irritable bowel syndrome. People with IBS usually react to any fiber even in small amounts. When such people come to my retreats, I serve them juices for a couple of days and then slowly add green smoothie with the fiber. But no flax for them.