The Dirty Little Secret of the Raw Food Movement
February 16th, 2010
16 Comments » (click here to leave a comment)
Yes, it’s true. The raw food movement has a dirty, nasty little secret.
It’s this: Many people go raw, only to encounter NEW health challenges, sometimes much worse than what made them go raw in the first place.
Over the years I’ve received numerous letters about this. One woman even described her journey from SAD (Standard American Diet), to Raw, to insulin-dependent Diabetic.
Surprised? I was. So much so that Dr. Flora van Orden III – PhD in Nutrition, and a 40-year raw fooder – Dr. Flora and I spent time consulting with each of them, over the years.
In every case we found the same fundamental cause. The person in question suffered from a dietary deficiency. That is, while they were eating healthy, nutritious food, they weren’t eating a balanced diet.
That is, they weren’t getting all of the different nutrients that their bodies need.
The insulin-dependent diabetic, for example – she admitted that her raw food diet consisted almost entirely of fruits, and the overload of sugar did her in. She sees this now, and her request is that we make people aware of potential traps like this one.
Statistically, after one year most vegans are only eating seven different foods.
That’s not enough for the body to get all the different things it needs – the typical list is 112 different vitamins and minerals, all available from plant-based foods.
So, how DO you get enough protein? How about vitamins, especially B-12? Carbohydrates? Some fat in your diet is important, but what’s the right source? Where do you get Omega 3 if you don’t eat fish?
This is where Dr. Ann Wigmore’s Raw Living Foods Lifestyle Program comes in.
Dr. Ann Wigmore has been called “The Queen of Green,” “The Original Raw Diva” and many other compliments, along with earning numerous degrees and awards (click here to read them).
Dr. Ann developed her “Raw Living Foods Lifestyle” back in the 1950′s after being told by her doctors that nothing could be done for her colon cancer.
Through study, research and experimentation she healed her cancer, then went on to teach thousands of others around the world how the body can heal itself with the proper nourishment.
Dr. Ann found that certain foods – foods most people overlook – are essential to a balanced, healthy diet.
Dr. Ann taught that it’s not about “superfoods,” it’s not about supplements, it’s about balanced, living nutrition.
By the 1960′s she had become a world-recognized expert in the field of raw food, had earned numerous degrees, and her advice was sought all over the world.
Sadly, all great programs lose some of their momentum after the founder passes.
Dr. Ann perished fighting a fire in her apartment in 1993. Eighty-four years old, she was found in the hallway with a bucket of water beside her, and another bucket in the bathtub, with the water running. Smoke from the fire had overcome her.
Dr. Ann did leave us her Lifestyle Training Programs. You can learn about the various hands-on programs at AnnWigmore.com – Learn More. I’ve been to a number of them and have seen people undergo amazing transformations.
My first exposure to Dr. Ann’s program was at Creative Health Institute in Michigan, and it did wonders for me.
I’ve been a member of the Board of Trustees of their non-profit Trust for many years. My favorite is the Living Foods Institute in Atlanta, Georgia. Brenda Cobb and staff do a wonderful job of imparting a true Wigmore program. From what I’ve seen and heard, they all do a great job.
Dr. Ann’s program works. It really works. It works because it focuses on the proper types and varieties of plant-based foods in order to give the body full, proper nutrition.
For those who can’t afford two or three weeks and several thousand dollars for a hands-on program, we developed the Dr. Ann Wigmore Raw Living Foods Home Study Program five years ago, and it, too, has benefited thousands, all over the world.
We have hundreds and hundreds of testimonial letters. You can read and see some of them at the following links (be sure to click on Previous or Next at the bottom of the pages):
See chiDiet.com/blog/category/success-stories
and chiDiet.net (see the “Feedback” pages)
and AnnWigmore.com (see the “Testimonials” pages)
Look around these websites and you’ll find many more positive success statements. We have such a big collection of them than I don’t have anyplace to publish all of them.
However, even the Home Study Program isn’t inexpensive. The current economic climate has pushed me into coming up with something new and even more affordable.
Here’s what I’ve refined Dr. Ann’s program into – The Dr. Ann Wigmore Collection – a collection of 10 DVDs of the basics of Dr. Ann’s Raw Living Foods Lifestyle.
While the Dr. Ann Wigmore Collection is only a good overview of her program, it contains enough to get you started on the right track.
Seven of the DVDs give you hours of rare footage of Dr. Ann teaching her program, and cover a lot of detail, especially about the right foods to eat, and why.
The other three fill in the gaps that Dr. Ann’s videos didn’t cover, and are taught by veteran instructors from Creative Health Institute, which was co-founded by Dr. Ann and has been teaching her program since 1976.
In addition, these two instructors have agreed to be available to you for personalized coaching by phone or email.
I can think of no better way to get on the right track with a new Raw Living Foods Lifestyle than to view – and re-view this information.
This Collection is going to throw a lot of what you think you know about food – even raw foods – out the window.
Remember – this is tried, true, proven information that has withstood the test of time – and protects you from the dirty little secret of the raw food movement.
Here’s the link: chiDiet.com/hs3.php
Working with you to grow your health,
Jim Carey
P.S. “If you ignore your health, it will go away.” – Unknown
Here’s the parent page: chiDiet.com
April 27th, 2009 at 11:13 am
This is a great offer!
Thanks for sharing.
April 27th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
ahhhh, B A L A N C E
the equalizer
the great middle ground
no wonder it’s healthy !!!
May 3rd, 2009 at 12:51 am
I dont normally post comments to blogs but I have to say this is a great post and a big thanks for this blog post.
July 2nd, 2009 at 2:38 am
Hi Jim,
Another raw food secret you may wish to publish is people on prescription doses of proton pump inhibitors like Prilosec increase the risk getting parasites and other little microscopic critters. The proton pump inhibitors decrease stomach acid to very low levels. The stomach acid normally acts as a first line of defense against many microscopic critters on our foods. Eating lots of raw foods while taking this kind of medication may increase the risk of ingesting harmful bacteria and parasites. Cleaning raw foods in a healthy way should always be stressed.
July 27th, 2009 at 3:05 am
I am on insulin and I take 4-5 shots a day. Where do I start? I don’t want to end up like the other women that I just read about.
Diana fro Alaska
October 13th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Hello, good and advisory article. I want to add a few notices. If you have upper cholesterol, then you may wonder, will a low fat diet lower cholesterol? This is a indispensable inquiry, because it is a easily known fact that the most working way to lower cholesterol is straightforward diet. Certainly one ingredient of a diet for lowering cholesterol will take follows low in fat. Only this is entirely part of the report. It is serious to pull in that it is the concentrated fats that you want to reject it from the foods you feed.
October 22nd, 2009 at 10:25 pm
JIM, please, you cannot have too much fruit in your diet. First of all you should only eat fruit alone.,excess fat is the culprit. When fat levels in the blood rise, so does blood sugar, because excess fat inhibits insulin from performing its function of escorting sugar out of the bloodstream. The excess fat lines the blood vessel walls insulin receptor sites, the sugar molecules themselves, and the insulin with a thin coating of fat, thus blocking normal metabolic activity. If fat levels stay chronically high due to a poor diet, sugar will remain in the bloodstream. When fat levels drop, the sugar starts to get processed and distributed again. You need to avoid high fats like nut, seeds and avacados, not FRUIT.
November 19th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Hello Annie,
You have a contratiction here, in your first and last sentence.
Please explain,
Thanks,
Karl.
k_wittmann@hotmail.com
December 11th, 2009 at 11:50 am
Hello to all
I cannott understand how to add your site in my rss reader, wonder how this works..
December 11th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Try adding this link, Jamie. Most readers recognize Feedburner:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/ChidietRawFoodsBlog
February 19th, 2010 at 9:55 am
Karl, Annie does not have a contradiction. Her first sentence says that it is impossible to have too much fruit in your diet. Her last sentence reiterates do not avoid or limit fruit.
And I agree totally with her from all the research I’ve read. Most raw food programs attempt to copy cooked food recipes by simply replacing the meat with nuts. One person actually did an analysis of the diets promoted by a number of the top raw food “gurus” and found that they were all over 60% fat. This is extremely unhealthy.
And there is substantial scientific evidence now that it is the FAT, not the fruit, that prevents the sugar in fruit from getting into the cells where it is vitally needed, and instead keeps it in the blood, creating a condition called diabetes. Most raw food cookbooks could actually be re-named “How to Prepare Nuts and Avocados,” since every recipe uses large quantities of these high fat foods.
And the answer, by the way, is not a SAD low fat diet of refined sugar and flour and high fructose corn syrup. The way to treat high blood sugar is a balanced raw food diet, heavy in greens and fruits, and very low in fat. Try it. You’ll see.
March 8th, 2010 at 2:08 pm
Excellent article. There’s a lot of good data here, however I want tell you something – I am running Fedora with the circulating beta of Firefox, and the layout of your web site is sort of quirky for me. I could read the article, but the navigation does not work so great.
March 8th, 2010 at 9:45 pm
That’s the problem with Betas, Hectonon. That’s why they’re called Beta versions – they have bugs. I run Firefox on Mac and Windows as my everyday browser, and there are no issues.
March 23rd, 2010 at 12:47 pm
Will this help to boost my metabolism as well?
March 23rd, 2010 at 1:28 pm
Fed a diet of healthy, natural foods, the body will heal itself of almost anything. Metabolism will go to normal rates.
May 29th, 2010 at 2:52 pm
I have heard that there is no calorie counting on the EODD. Is this true?