12 Reasons Why I Don’t Eat 100% Raw (Part 2)

In my last article I gave you my first six reasons why I don’t eat a 100% raw food diet, even after 15 years of being involved in the raw food movement.

If you missed part 1, you can read it here.

Here are the six other reasons:

#7 — I enjoy cooked foods (also known as: “I’m a cooked food addict”)

One simple reason I don’t eat everything 100% raw is that there are far too many foods that I enjoy eating, that I think are very healthy, and that are not raw. I know plenty of folks who really enjoy eating 100% raw. In fact, the more you do it, the easier it gets.

Everything comes with practice. The longer you eat a certain diet, the more normal it becomes to you, and the less you start missing your old diet.

But let’s face it: eliminating all cooked foods 100% from your diet for the rest of your life is a big change. Many prominent raw foods who write books on the subjects and are the most well-known people in the field told me recently that they still have dreams sometimes about eating cooked foods, even after years of eating 100% raw.

I enjoy raw foods, but I also enjoy some cooked foods. It’s not whether food is raw or cooked that is the main factor in determining whether it is healthy or not. Many raw foods are healthy, but some are not in excess. Same for cooked foods (and of course, a lot depends on how they are cooked).

Call me an addict who never managed to break the addiction, if you will. I just consider myself human.

#8- My energy is different

In terms of health, it’s a little more difficult to qualify things because I ate a raw food diet for a big part of my 20s, a time in life where health problems are usually not a concern.

I have made some important observations based on how I feel on my current diet versus the times I was eating 100% raw or close to it.

One thing that became apparent concerns my energy levels. On 100% raw, I often felt I had “more energy” but the energy was more a sort of excitement coming from a feeling of lightness. It felt great at times, but I also noticed that my energy was not as stable as it is now. For example, if I missed a few hours of sleep one night, I would be completely thrown off balance the next day, and wouldn’t have the energy to exercise.

Now that I don’t eat 100% raw and eat a balance of raw and cooked foods, my normal energy feels less “hyper” but at the same time, it also feels more stable. If I sleep poorly one night, I can still go through a tough workout at the gym and muster all the necessary energy. So on 100% raw I felt a more nervous, euphoric kind of energy — while with cooked foods I feel a more grounded type of energy, and also bigger reserves of energy.

#9- I like not having to think about food all the time

Let’s face it, when you eat 100% raw, food becomes a major preoccupation in your life. First, you have to worry about securing enough food, usually by buying giant cases of fruit at a time (which I still do, by the way).

Then, you have to worry about ripening. For example, if you live on a fruit-based diet and require a lot of calories, there’s a good chance that bananas will become a staple in your diet. When buying bananas, managing ripening time can be an issue, so you don’t end up with only ripe bananas at your disposal all at once, not knowing what to do with them. On the other end, your bananas could be green for a while and you find yourself without enough food.

There are of course issues with social situations and traveling, which require extra worry and planning around food.

I’m not saying that all of those things can’t be managed. Many people who eat 100% raw eventually learn the tricks and manage to do quite well with all of this planning.

All I’m saying is that I personally enjoy not having to think about food all the time. For example, if I’m invited somewhere, I won’t request a 100% raw meal (which in my experience, was very hard to get anyway!) I’ll be a little flexible with my food choices at times, and more strict with myself at other times. If I’m on a vacation, I’ll be very flexible with what I’m eating, because I know a few “cheat meals” won’t make much of a difference in my overall health, but being able to relax on vacation and not have to worry about securing enough fruit will have a bigger impact on my well-being during that time!

Each person has to decide whether the sacrifices they are making are worth the results the are getting. To me, being a 100% raw foodist for life was not worth all the sacrifices I was making, and that is one of the biggest reasons I don’t eat 100% raw.

#10 I “overdosed” on raw foods

To be perfectly honest, when you do too much of one thing, it can often turn you off for a long time after. For me, my early enthusiasm with the raw food diet led me to fully explore the 100% path, to the point where I got sick of it!

There are few smells in the world that I find as displeasing as the smell of dehydrating goods that come out of a raw food restaurant. This particular smell of dehydrating flax, mixed with raw onion and garlic, beets, carrots, juicing greens… this particular combination of smells is now something that will instantly spoil my appetite. Maybe it’s because it’s bringing back old memories of my time eating 100% raw where in a way, I wasn’t at my best.

Another food I have a hard time stomaching now is a giant 12-banana smoothie. After eating this daily for lunch for many years, I woke up one day and couldn’t stand the thought of it.

So now I rarely make giant fruit smoothies. Instead, I eat all of my fruit whole, except for my morning green smoothies. Because I’m getting extra calories from certain cooked foods I eat (like sweet potatoes or beans), I don’t need to eat giant banana smoothies for lunch every day to get the energy I need. So I find this works better because I can enjoy eating WHOLE fruits again, instead of downing them in huge smoothies all day.

#11 —I like to have the best of both worlds

With everything I’ve said, I would not want to give the impression that I’m anti raw foods or even an high-raw diet. I also have nothing against the concept of 100% raw, as long as it works for you and you’re happy with it.

I just think that raw foodists have taken their philosophy to an extreme by demonizing all cooked foods, even those that clearly have great health benefits.

You can criticize certain foods, like bread, dairy products, and refined sugar. You can also criticize certain cooking methods, like frying in oil. But to put all cooked foods in the same basket and label all of them as unhealthy or “toxic,” regardless of what they are, is downright silly.

Many cooked foods are not only innocuous but are also perfectly healthy. Things like slightly cooked greens such as kale, may even have more health benefits than their raw counterparts, simply because they are more digestible.

Cooked root vegetables are particularly healthy (sweet potatoes, yams, etc.), alkaline-forming, and have been part of the human diet for possibly hundreds of thousands of years.

And can we silence the fact that every single long-lived culture in the world, as identified by the Blue Zones research (see the book by the same name) uses some kind of bean or legume as part of their diet?

It only makes sense from a purely nutritional standpoint to combine the best of both world — lots of raw foods with the healthiest cooked foods. The overall quality of the diet can only be increased when there is more variety rather than a pure diet only limited to raw foods.

#12 — The guilt is gone

In many raw food groups, there is a lot of elitism. As if 100% raw foodists are somehow superior and more enlightened than those who can’t stick to all raw foods. I’ve even heard some prominent raw foodists talk about their belief that people who can’t stick to 100% raw have “emotional issues and blockages” that prevent them from going all the way.

Ultimately, we’re doing this for health. I’ve never understood people claim that the main reason they eat a raw food diet is because they feel more spiritually enlightened that way.

Health is the motivator. So ultimately, if you feel that you must eat 100% raw to be perfectly healthy, then that’s what you should do.

However, it’s also important to understand the reasons why people “feel like shit” when they eat cooked foods after a period of eating 100% raw or close to it. It’s often not what they think. That will be a topic for a future article.

Ultimately, you should be happy with your diet, and you should get the results that you desire. Guilt should not be a part of the equation.

I see too many raw foodists overwhelmed with guilt. They count the days they’ve been 100% raw and see every “cooked food episode” as a huge failure or a sign of a lack of character.

You can be healthy, enjoy your food, and avoid the guilt! It requires a little more patience though, and a more elaborate and mature health philosophy than a simple black and white statement such as “raw is law and cooked food is poison.”

But what do you think?

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