hey i wanted peoples takes on this, i have done this before i liked it but at times find myself low carbing too, maybe its the paleo in me who knows, any thoughts or experiences please! thanks -amanda

I don't think you'd get much support from these forums with that diet. I was vegetarian for years, and for a while i tried to do vegan, but it wasn't for me. I enjoy the "raw foods" ideal, and don't think there's anything wrong with it, IF you pay very close attention to make sure the nutrition is correct and enough, and that is the hard part.
You're in santa monica, there's that really famous vegan restaurant there, i don't remember the name, but the owner is this egotistical surfer looking guy. He has a cookbook out too. Maybe you should try the food out? A vegan restaurant just opened up in my part of l.a., as well. I think it's becoming cool or something. It was tasty. Even my meat- loving d.h. thought it was decent. He never wants to go back, though...
Anyways, i think my point is that if you pay very close attention to the nutrients and ratios of what you're eating, and if you like to cook (Really) creatively, veganism could be a thing to try.
I'm a complete meat-arian thesedays, but still try to incorporate vegetarian maniacalism into my diet. I got a juicer recently and have been drinking weird raw vegetable juice instead of solid meals once in a while. I think a balance is good. If you love meat, i think it would be ridiculous to be vegan, though.

Lilli, do you mean Juliano? I don't know what his restaurant is called.

There's nothing nothing wrong with sometimes eating a raw vegan meal, but honestly, there's nothing extra-healthy about a 100% raw vegan diet. I've read heories about enzymes in raw food helping you digest the food better, or specially helping your body, and they are hogwash.

This site is good reading.

Yeah! Juliano's "raw" i think it's called.

The last time humankind natually are a raw vegan diet was in the garden of Eden. We've been eating meat since the Fall and it's what are bodies now do best on.

I know two raw vegans online - one is doing it for health and weight loss, and the other has an eating disorder and evangelizes her way of eating to everyone, whether or not you want to hear it. She started in here with me:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/newbir...57594144382784/

She continued here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/newbirth/190541522/

The nutrition is so important, no matter what you choose to do. My cousin became a vegetarian -- not a total vegan -- and I kid you not, he looks like Mr. Death, like he oughtta be holding a scythe or something. I am wishing we could force feed him something with amino acids already, as an intervention, before he keels over before reaching age 27, but to each their own I'm sure.

I was a vegetarian for 5 years, eons ago, but I did nothing but wreck my body with it, since I wasn't real fond of veggies and mostly lived on breadish stuff and dairy. I guess at least being vegan that wouldn't be an issue! ;-)

Newbirth that young woman is an evangelistic idiot.

(I really liked the part about being a former Wiccan. As if religion now determines food! Oh, harm ye none! Like that cow! LOL!

That reminds me of the time an interviewer asked the Dalai Llama, who is vegetarian of course, but vegetables, in their own way, don't they also scream and die when we eat them? He replied -- I love his wit -- "Yes, but not so loudly." ;-))

She seems to be under the impression that all Wiccans are vegetarians. Some are, but my best friends in that community ate meat, and I certainly always did. There's nothing in any Wiccan code of ethics about not eating meat - unless you are taking "harm none" to the extreme, in which case - as you pointed out - eating vegetables is killing the vegetable.

Sustaining life on this planet involves killing some other life - whether animal or vegetable. Dairy would be the exception. Nothing has to die for us to have milk and eggs.

I have been exploring vegetarianism/veganism this year while on the vegetarian version of the South Beach Diet and have learned much about raw food diets. There are pros and cons. A While a raw food diet is not extremely high carb like the McDougall plan which is very high fiber vegan, it is not neccessarily low carb either. You can't get enough calories to survive on all salad type foods so you have to incorporate nuts and a lot of sprouts, fruits and sprouted grains.
When they say raw, they usually mean not cooking anything about about 140 degrees. In other words just warming it. Many raw fooders use food dehydrators to "cook" their food because it uses very low temps and mainly just dries the food rather than actually cooking it. Even for vegetarians/vegans, being a raw fooder can a) get boring very fast and b) take a lot of planning and work if you want to actually make recipes. I have even seen recipes for "raw" brownies and pies, etc. but they take more work IMO than regular cooking and baking. The other drawback is that you have to be sure you get all the nutrients you need. As with all veganism you may have to supplement your diet with vitamin B-12 because it is only obtained from foods from animal sources or supplements. Being a vegan takes a lot of discipline and being a raw food vegan takes even MORE discipline.

Wow, it amazed me that she felt the necessity to post comments on YOUR pictures (looking fabulous, by the way) on how you are killing yourself. How ridiculous!

Raw diet may work for some, including her, but there are all sorts of ways of eating out there that work for people. The key is finding something that works for you. I personally follow Atkins because I have found that it works for me. I openly and honestly talk about it with others. I don't feel the need to tell others that are not eating the same way I am that they are killing themselves and that when they fall ill to switch to my plan because hey, it's never too late to save your life with Atkins! Geesh.

People crack me up.

hey yea lilli the restraunt near me by juliano is "raw" and now theres rawvolution on main st its big here in santa monica... i did it for a month felt good my skin looked so clear, my sight got better, lost 8lbs, but i went back to meat maybe cuz i ate it for so long, doing atkins is too different though i just cant do the high fat thing i do better with carbs dont know, like lots of fruit i can lose weight but fat just no my weight plateaus everytime i weighed less ive had minimal fat, i respect all of you, i just think maybe different diet for everyone, also my bulimia was easier to control, and my period returned but i think thats due to elimiation of grains and other starch carbs...

ooo and about protein and vitamins etc heres a website to an all raw family the guys been raw 20yrs and is like a bodybuilder and his kids have been raw since birth the mother carried them raw etc
http://www.thegardendiet.com/

Wow, Newbirth,
That "miss catriona" really gets my (satanic) goat....I am, most simply put, a pagan- follower of the old ways...And she is the exact type of person i can't stand!!!! I'll bet she knows EVERYTHING about magick, too. Ewwww. If only all those types would go find a deserted island somewhere and take their soapboxes and move there and fight it out amongst themselves. Hopefully, for miss catriona, there will be lots of bananas and strawberries on the island.
And concerning what she said about strawberries being preferable to killing a rabbit with your bare hands, well, she certainly has NOT met my husband.
Anyway, theres my rant. In the long run i think people should just eat however they want to, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody else. And the idealsim hurts. My ears.

Okay, my devilish sense of humor came out--is your husband the rabbit? or the strawberry? I couldn't tell.

oy vey... newbirth i give you kudos for engaging her absolute raving insanity with logic, fact, and common sense. you did far better than i ever would have. i especially loved the comment about there being no evidence of an omnivoric diet based on our teeth... apparently nobody ever pointed out what her canines were for. and i'm also stumped as to the correlation between wicca and vegetarians... most wiccans i know eat meat as part of the full cycle of nature... then again i classify myself as insane-rabid-jackalope-of-doom pagan rather than the fluffy- or fuzzy-bunny wiccan.

personally, i think going vegan is far too extremist, both in actual food chemistry and in ideology. if we weren't supposed to eat meat, then our ancestors wouldn't have evolved to eat meat. we wouldn't have developed the instinctual salivary response we get to the smell of meat cooking. if you don't choose to eat meat because you don't enjoy the taste or you're allergic to it (a friend of mine goes into anaphalactic shock from meat enzymes), then that's one thing. but if you're not eating meat because it's somehow cruel - and i loved the comment of how the energy is all the adrenaline from the poor animals being slaughtered - then i just can't take that seriously.

like my dad always said... it took mother nature 1.5 million years to get us to the top of the food chain, i'm not going to disappoint her now.

What, another Thelemite?!