HOW TO GET STARTED WITH THE RAW FOOD DIET. By Mikkel Gisle Johnsen

HOW TO GET STARTED WITH THE RAW FOOD DIET _______________________________________________________________________________ By Mikkel Gisle Johnsen Ho...
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HOW TO GET STARTED WITH THE RAW FOOD DIET _______________________________________________________________________________ By Mikkel Gisle Johnsen

How to Get Started With The Raw Food Diet. Copyright ©2015 by Mikkel Gisle Johnsen. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews. Please contact us at [email protected] for this type of correspondence. All photos are taken by Mads T. S. Gisle Johnsen Thanks are given to the beautiful hills, trees, birds and people here in Costa Rica, providing an excellent environment for writing this ebooklet.

You may contact us with any questions or comments at [email protected]. Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/sweetnaturalliving Subscribe on YouTube: www.youtube.com/sweetnaturalliving For private health coaching and more, visit our website at www.sweetnaturalliving.com

Thank you! Mikkel

LIFE IS FOR THE LIVING First of all, let’s make it clear – this is not a DIEt, this a LIVEit. The conventional understanding of the word diet is that it’s something, out of the normal, we do to reach a certain goal. It could be things like weight loss, weight gain or “cleansing”. Then afterwards we go back to our normal lifestyle once we’ve reached our goals. We are done with that mindset. We are done with trying to make up for our bad habits by constantly going on diets and modifying our daily life to compensate for the damage done by unhealthy living. Everyone knows that life sucks when you’re on a DIEt! What’s the solution? The solution is to create a lifestyle that doesn’t need to be rectified and remedied, a lifestyle that actually cultivates health. What is health then? Health is the natural state of the body, it’s the default. In today’s world, sickness and disease seems to be the norm, and our current idea of health is simply “absence of symptoms”. Let’s realize what health actually means. Health means “Whole”. All systems of life, in and outside of the human body, are always “striving” towards the optimal, towards the most efficient way of functioning and towards being whole. What happens when you get a cut? Your body heals it – it becomes whole again. What happens when you regularly exercise a muscle, it grows and adapts to the new level of demand put on it. The body is always, by default, doing its Health means Whole. It’s the best! So no food, substance, treatment, pill, herb, needle or natural state of any system. influence can ever stimulate the Whether it be a human body or a body into a state of health, the body larger ecosystem – health is already doing it the best way represents the integrity of the possible, after millions of years of organism, always “wanting” to evolution (adaption and optimization). Therefore, one of the return to optimal. When taking first things to realize when starting care of the bodily needs – Health is the raw food diet, is that there’s the default outcome. It’s effortless nothing special about the food itself and pleasurable since it is the that will heal you from disease or natural state. magically make you super healthy. What happens is that when you stop hurting yourself on a daily basis with the denatured, cooked, artificial “foods” you used to eat, your body will immediately be able to “catch up” with the healing and cleansing process. For the first time in years maybe, you’ll have an excess of energy available for things other than digesting indigestible foods and eliminating the toxins ingested and created by a less optimal diet. But of course, you got to eat! So

you replace the old DIEt with whole, fresh, ripe, raw fruits and vegetables and now you’re not only saving yourself from the damage done by cooked, unnatural foods, but you’re also supplying the body with those much needed nutrients that it was truly starving for. The effects are incredible. You actually notice that you’re feeling GOOD for the first time in a long while! There’s nothing “magical” going on, you’re just starting to feel how you’re “supposed” to feel. Remember, health is the natural state, and all you’re now doing is supplying the normal needs of the body and saving it from the onslaught of a toxic and deficient diet! You’re now at square one!

TAKING THE PLUNGE So you’ve realized that the raw food diet makes a lot of sense, that all animals in nature eat a raw food diet and that there’s nothing special about it as such. It’s not a fad diet. It’s not a miracle cure. It’s proper nutrition, that’s all. But, coming from where we are coming from, the effects of this simple change can be huge! But where do you start? That’s very simple, you Making the commitment start right here, right now. The first step is to to change is THE single make the commitment. Take the plunge. If you most powerful part of truly want optimal health, what you eat will the whole process. greatly affect your journey. Essentially, it’s all about eating the diet for which our physiology is designed, our specie specific diet. It so happens that our anatomy and physiology is that of a frugivore. We’re certainly not carnivores, by any stretch of imagination, but we’re not herbivores either. Do you salivate when you look at a field of grass? I certainly don’t! Cows are herbivores, we’re not. What about a dead animal in front of you, do you really want to “get in there” head first, relishing the organs, blood, bones, brains and all? Probably not? Lions are carnivores, we’re not! What about omnivores? They eat a little bit of everything. We’ve certainly been omnivores by culture for quite a while, probably out of necessity as we moved out of our natural environment, and today we could almost be classified as whatever-vores, since humans today seem to be completely careless, and will eat almost anything chewable that can be swallowed without instant death. Looking strictly at our bodies; our anatomy, our physiology, our biochemistry and our natural instincts, senses and inclinations, they all point to the same conclusion – we are fruit eaters predominately!

So the first step towards changing your DIEt and eating more in line with your bodily needs is to make the decision that this is something you want. Do it right now! Tell yourself out loud, or in your head, “I’m doing this! I’m worth it! I deserve the best of the best, and I’m gonna give my body what it truly needs – and I’m gonna love it!” Making the commitment to change is THE single most powerful part of the whole process. If you don’t want to change, you’re not going to. So if you’re ready, let’s do it!

IT’S NOT ABOUT DEPRIVATION Some of the most common misconceptions about this way of eating is that it’s boring, tasteless and bland. NOTHING could be further from the truth! There is no food on the planet that’s more delicious, satisfying, varied and complex as fruit! There’s an infinite number of fruit species and varieties in the world. Think of Papayas, Bananas, Mangoes of a thousand varieties, Cherimoyas, Rollinia AKA Lemon Meringue Pie fruit, Chempedaks, Jackfruits, Black “Chocolate Pudding” Sapote, White sapote, Green Sapote, Rambutans, Lychees, Watermelons, Rockmelons, Cantaloupe melons, Galia Melons, Custard Apples, Soursops, Marangs, Durians, Yellow Sapote AKA Eggfruit, Canistel, Peanut Butter Fruit, Miracle Fruit, Pears, Apples, Tomatoes, Peppers, Cucumbers, Avocados, Passion fruits, Tamarillos, Plantains, Mamey “Pumpkin Pie” Sapote, Coconuts, Ackee, Mangosteens, Dragonfruits, Figs, Grapes, Guavas, Oranges, Apricots, Nectarines…I could go on and on and on! The different flavours, textures, aromas, colours have no end and the depths of the taste experience reaches so deep. Looking at how fruit appeals to all our senses, tantalizing us with smell, looks and of course taste - it’s almost like they are “made to satisfy our senses”.

Cooked food is bland. Dead. That’s why we have to use so much salt, spices and gravy to make it taste “good”. Have you ever thought about why the whole house smells like food when you cook? It’s because all of the flavor is now leaving the food and floating into the air! You lose nutrients in the cooking process, and nutrients have taste! Our senses, including our taste buds, are tuned into specific nutrients. Raw food are living, intact whole foods with a full complement of By all indicators of nutrients and therefore also complexity in taste. anatomy, physiology and If a food has to be cooked in order to be eaten, that food is questionable as a fitting food for biochemistry – humans humans don’t you think? The only foods that are frugivores by nature! are edible AND delicious as they appear in nature, are fruits – and to a lesser degree tender vegetables, nuts and seeds. So the raw food diet is not about depriving oneself of the experience of tasting good food and being a foodie. Quite on the contrary it’s actually the exact opposite. It’s the ultimate when it comes to being in love with food. Fruit is the highest taste experience we can have as humans, because we are meant to eat it! There’s a symbiotic relationship between our species and the fruit trees. We serve each other. For the true Gourmand – Fruit is the ultimate gourmet treat! And you get to eat as much of it as you want!

WHAT KIND OF RAW FOOD DIET? Depending on where you first heard about the raw food diet, you’ve probably heard about lots of different approaches to it. There seems to be an endless array of “raw food diets” that all claim to be the ultimate for human health and happiness. The most commonly known is probably the so called Raw Gourmet approach. This is the one you see in all the raw food recipe books in the mainstream bookstores etc. The main idea is that “as long as it’s raw it’s good for you”. These diets are usually focused around very complex dishes, replicating cooked food classics, usually very high in fat due to the use of nuts and seeds as the main ingredients. This is not a natural diet for human beings, and remember, all animals in nature eat simple. Usually just one food at the time until satisfied. If simple eating sounds boring at first, bear with me as I will get back to the subject of monomeals later in this booklet. Another common raw food diet is the “superfood” approach where special properties are attributed to certain foods and it’s all about getting as much as possible of a given nutrient. But why is more better? We need the right nutrition,

and I trust Mother Nature in that regard. I trust that our bodies are developed for a specific type of food that is ideal for it. When exposed to that food via sight, smell, touch and taste we will relish it and love it in its natural state. Therefore I don’t believe in the hype surrounding high fat gourmet raw food diets, superfood diets, liquidarian green juice diets, green diets (always high in fat since greens don’t provide enough calories) and similar fads. The best raw food LIVEit is the one we are designed for by nature. Fruit.

SOMETHING’S COOKING IN THE KITCHEN One of the most powerful realizations I’ve had is that no matter how committed you are to something, you can only run on willpower for so long, and the natural instincts of the body, like hunger for example, overrides almost ANYTHING if pushed to its limits. Therefore, understanding the needs of the body, and providing for them, is essential. However, I am also a firm believer in Create an environment that’s optimizing your environment to stack your conducive to success by cards in favor of success! This means that one of the first practical steps I would eliminating foods that no recommend doing would be to eliminate longer serve you from your all the “foods” that no longer serve you kitchen and stock up on high from your kitchen. I’ve noticed with quality, fresh produce. myself, after years on a raw fruit based diet, that if I’m in a house with ONLY fruits available, or better yet if I’m out in a natural environment surrounded by nature, plants, insects, birds and animals without any exposure to the sight or smell of the addictive and stimulating cooked foods that I used to eat, I never once crave them. I’m perfectly satisfied with my fruit. However, as soon as I walk through a town and get exposed to the smell of Pizza for example (I used to love eating Pizza) I get tantalized by it. This is simply a matter of brain chemistry. Unfortunately, this is something we will have to deal with on a regular basis in life, and it’s fine – as long as you stay physiologically satisfied by eating enough fruit! If you’re hungry and starving, there’s no telling what you might eat! Back to the kitchen - throw out the animal foods, the bread, the crackers and the pasta. Toss the leftover vegan lasagna, the Oreo cookies and the sugary junk. Eliminate all alcoholic beverages, sodas, coffee and tea. Throw out anything in a package, bottle or can. Does it have an ingredients list? Get rid of it. You may or may not want to get rid of all of your spices and condiments at this point too,

depending on how deep you want to plunge! If you are still keen on making simple recipes and salads you might want to hold on to some of the more simple condiments like herbs, natural spices like cumin and even salt, but if you are ready to go all in, get rid of it all! Essentially, you want to clean your kitchen out so that there’s nothing left but whole fruits and vegetables left. If you live alone, then this process is easy, but some of you might be living with other people and sharing a kitchen. In that case, just deal with your own stuff and leave the rest. Make sure that you have your own personal area in the fridge, cupboards and elsewhere to keep your food easily available and separated from the food of your friends and family. One thing to remember though, we are all on our own journey and everyone has the right to make their own choices. Making comments about your friend’s food, judging them for what they eat, is never a good idea! Don’t let your love for health and fruit destroy your relationship with loved ones. It’s just food.

LET’S GO SHOPPING So your kitchen is almost completely empty now! The next step is something that’s going to be your new favorite pastime! It’s time to go shopping for some fruits and vegetables at your local market! Yay!

The best fruits grow in the tropics and subtropics (during summer), so if you’re there; this is pretty much super easy! If you’re outside the tropics it might be more challenging to find good produce, but with some simple tips and techniques we’ll get you educated on how to choose the best stuff in no time! You might find yourself going to a local farmers market (this is by far the best place to go since you get it fresh and you can talk to the farmers about the food), a wholesale market, roadside fruit stall or even the regular supermarket. Regardless of where you will be sourcing your food, the principles for choosing what to buy are universal. The first thing to think about when buying fruits and vegetables is what appeals to your eyes? You might find yourself wandering over to the papayas for example, attracted by their vibrant orange colour. The next thing you want to think about is how does it feel? As you lift it up you feel for ripeness and weight. Does it feel right? This is an inexact science at best, and I’ve come to realize that the only way to Picking out fruits is all really learn is by trial and error – the hard about trusting your senses. way basically. But here’s the basic principles Remember – they are nevertheless. If the fruit is too soft it might designed for this purpose! be over ripe and already decaying or bruised, Choose what attracts your but if it’s rock hard it might be picked way eyes and sense of smell. Go too early and never ripen properly. If you’re shopping for 3-4 days at a time for the fruits that feel good (recommended) you want fruit that is fully to touch, looking for signs ripe for today, almost ripe for tomorrow, of quality, freshness and and “getting there” for the last day or two ripeness. before you go shopping again in a few days. The next step would be how does it smell? Does it have a pleasant aroma? If it smells like alcohol or vinegar it could mean that it’s fermented and over ripe. Trust your senses. If you loved the color, enjoyed the touch and relish the smell, chances are you picked out a good specimen and you can go ahead and buy it! Now, as a fruit eater you will eat more volume than what you are used to (we’ll get back to this concept later) so bear in mind that you will need to buy quite a lot of food. Remember also that every single fruit is different, so after picking out that one papaya, you need to go through the same process, more or less, with all of them. Look for signs of freshness like a wet stem, fresh looking skin and ultimately – look for ripeness. Educate yourself on fruit ripening and

techniques for picking out good fruits by looking at our YouTube videos and studying the subject! It’s fun! Just to give you an idea of what we’re talking about here - if I were to buy fruit for three days at an “average” market or supermarket somewhere in the northern hemisphere during summer, I would probably come home with something like 9 kg of bananas, 7.5 kg of nectarines, 8 kg of mangoes, 3 young coconuts, 3 avocados and 2 kg of cucumbers. Depending on the season I might also get some fresh sweet corn on the cob (edible raw when fresh and young), possibly even some baby spinach if I feel like it. If I’m in the tropics with access to high quality fruits I might go for something like 10 kg of papaya, 10 kg of mango, 3 durians and 10 fresh coconuts. It all depends on season and locality. That’s the beauty of this lifestyle, there’s endless variety and there’s always something new coming into season! The bottom line in terms of buying fruit is to buy foods that you can make a meal of by themselves, buy in bulk, buy enough (!) and trust your senses! You will learn what and how much to buy over time, as you gain experience. Don’t worry too much about “getting it right” as you’ll figure it out as you go along!

TIME TO EAT So you spent all morning cleaning out your kitchen, then a couple of hours at the market and now you are back home filling up your shelves and fridge with fresh fruits – the colorful concoctions of Mother Nature. You feel hungry and want to eat. Fruit is always best eaten on an empty stomach. If you ate a fairly light dinner the day before, chances are your stomach is empty. However, since cooked food, animal foods and other high fat foods have a tendency to digest fairly slowly, you might consider the possibility of your stomach still digesting some of those foods even though you ate them last night! If that’s the case, the fruit will simply sit on top of that and stay in the stomach for too long, causing fermentation which

in turn causes gas and indigestion. So if you are unsure about truly being hungry, give it another couple of hours before you eat, if it’s your first time trying an all fruit meal. Most likely though, if you’re hungry – go for it! Choose whatever fruit appeals most to you at that time, sit down with an unlimited amount of that fruit and simply eat until you’re satisfied or full. Papayas can be cut in half and eaten with a spoon, mangoes can be peeled with the hands and eaten like a popsicle and pretty much everyone knows how to eat a banana! It’s very simple. If you wish to prepare a meal in the way that you’re more used to, go ahead and cut up some mango into cubes, cut some bananas into coins and mix it all together in a bowl. Feel free to experiment! It’s important that you find what works best for you!

THE MONO MEAL In nature, all animals pretty much eat one food at the time when hungry until full. There’s no mixing in nature, no sandwich and no salad, everything is eaten by itself. In fact, this is also the healthiest thing to do for us! There are several benefits to eating one food at the time. One of them is that our digestive system can easily get overwhelmed by complex combinations of different foods. Our digestive enzymes are designed to handle one type of food at a time, and so when we make incompatible combinations (see food combining) we tend to end up with indigestion of some sort. The fact that different foods have different digestion times also makes a difference. Watermelon digests very fast for example whereas avocado tends to take longer. If we were to combine these two in a single meal the watermelon would ferment in the stomach as it’s “waiting” for the fat in the avocado to be processed. Not the best idea! Another great benefit to mono meals is that it’s easier to eat enough without overeating! How do you know how much you’re going to eat when you’re preparing a fruit salad? You’re guessing. The same is true if you make a smoothie. If you make too much, you might end up “forcing it down” due to our cultural conditioning to “finish the food on our plate” and “don’t waste”. If you make too little, you’re probably not going to go through the effort of making another small smoothie to make up for the deficit. In either case, you’re not eating optimally. When you sit down to a meal of mangoes and eat until you don’t feel like eating any more, you are actually listening to your body. You are allowing your body to “tell you” when to stop. How do all the animals in nature know how much to eat? Why are they all fit, perfect weight and generally healthy? It’s because they

eat a natural, raw diet of whole foods as they appear in nature, perfectly suited for their specific species. When hungry, they seek food and then they eat until they don’t want to eat any more! Simple! The mono meal allows for the least amount of distraction from other foods, condiments and prearranged quantities to let you focus on eating, as much as you want, until satisfied. As you get more used to eating simple, you will start to discover the most amazing thing: The simpler you eat, the more you enjoy the food and more complex the taste experience gets! Have you ever noticed when going from a light room to a dark one that you suddenly go blind, but then within minutes you can see just fine? A similar thing happens with food. If you are used to eating lots of salt on your food for example, your taste buds have adapted to a high level of saltiness in the food. When you cut out salty foods altogether and just start eating fruits, there will be a period where you are not able to taste the natural salt in the food because you are used to the food being much saltier. Over the course of a few weeks you grow more sensitive to salt and eventually you will be able to taste the salt that’s naturally there. For me, biting into a tomato, sipping a coconut or eating some celery is a distinctly salty experience! This happens with all the flavors, so allow some time for your body to adjust to the subtle nuances in fruit and eventually you will relish the simplicity just like me and all the rest of the animals on planet earth – guaranteed! Granted you are eating high quality fruits, of course.

EAT MORE TO LIVE MORE A standard diet is usually not very big in terms of volume. It only takes a few slices of Pizza to meet your caloric demand for that meal. Cooked, high fat foods are denser in calories than fruits and vegetables. This is because fruits and vegetables are rich in water and fiber! This is a good thing as they are important nutrients that are dramatically deficient on a standard diet! Basically, fruit has less calories per bite, and so we need to eat more of it to stay satisfied and healthy. This increased bulk is not a problem, quite on the contrary – apart from the sheer joy of eating more, a diet high in bulk and water is an important part of healthy digestion! I have to tell you, my digestion while eating this way is superb! No more constipation, no more 20 minute toilet breaks leaving behind the A 900 calorie meal of…. stench of death! Going to the toilet is a like a dream now. I go, I sit, I Olive oil: 100 g / 3.5 oz poop and I’m done! No pushing, no Potato chips (with oil): 170 g / 6 oz effort, no pain and no patience Pepperoni Pizza: 340 g / 12 oz needed! It’s wonderful! Pasta: 560 g / 1.2 lbs Rice: 810 g / 1.8 lbs However, coming from a cooked diet, your stomach volume Bananas: 1100 g / 2.4 lbs has shrunk due to the small volume Mangoes: 1500 g / 3.3 lbs typically eaten. Therefore in the Papaya: 2100 g / 4.6 lbs beginning you will actually reach a Lettuce: 6000 g / 13.2 lbs point of “being full” in terms of volume/amount of food, but not actually satisfied in terms of calories. As an example, if your stomach had a capacity of around 800 g and you were eating mangoes three times a day, you would only be able to eat around 1500 calories that day (since 800g x 3 is 2400g and 100g of mango has 60 calories) and that’s just not enough to keep you satisfied and healthy. If you’ve got weight to loose when you start out, then maybe a little deficit isn’t such a bad thing – for a while. But eventually you’re going to run into problems if you are consistently under eating like that. The solution is to train your stomach to be able to process a larger volume of food. This is mostly effortless and will happen by itself, but if you want to make a conscious effort to reach a point where you are able to eat enough to accommodate your caloric needs, you may want to slowly train stomach by pushing your limits slightly. This is just like working out in a gym, you push a little bit every time, but not too much! So when you reach that point where you feel full, take another couple of bites, training your stomach to deal with a slightly larger volume. Don’t eat to the

point of pain, that’s never good, but slowly work your way towards a volume that satisfies you completely in terms of volume and fuel/nutrients.

WHAT IS SATISFACTION? The need to eat is a physiological need just like the need to breathe. The body uses several indicators to determine whether or not enough food has been eaten at a meal. The main two factors are volume and sugar. Since we are frugivores, our bodies are ideally suited to run on carbohydrates for fuel. The simple sugars present in sweet fruits satisfy us like no other food does; the body recognizes the fuel and signals satiety to the brain and we stop eating. This is why eating a high fat diet, or even a starch based diet, is not ideal because of the time it takes for the body to digest those foods and recognize them as usable fuels, it simply doesn’t allow for enough time to “realize” what’s been eaten – unless you eat ridiculously slowly. With cooked food I always found myself eating to the point of being painfully full, and even then I was not satisfied and wanted more. With fruit I’m perfectly satisfied at the end of a meal because the food provided me with the nutrients I needed, and more importantly the fuel I needed. No matter how much you breathe, you’re not satisfied unless you get that usable oxygen! No matter how much you eat, you need that sugar to be satiated. The other main factor is volume. If you drink 300 ml of oil, that’s about 2700 calories and that’s probably around the caloric need of a moderately active man. You had all the calories you needed for that day but you are not satisfied at that meal. To be satiated, you want to eat more bites and you want to fill your stomach! Fruit comes the closest of any food to exactly match our caloric needs and our need for volume while providing those calories in a perfect ratio of carbohydrate, protein and fat – as well as all the other essential nutrients.

CALORIES Calories are almost like a curse word these days due to all the dieting, weight loss obsession and anorexia that’s prevalent today. It’s largely misunderstood. Let’s set the record straight – a calorie is a unit of measurement just like centimeters, kilometers and Fahrenheit! Without getting too technical, calories are a way to measure the latent fuel value of a food and/or the expenditure of fuel in the body. It’s inexact because it’s difficult to actually make measurements,

but even if it was completely arbitrary, the more we use the system, the more we learn to relate to it and the more effectively we are able to utilize it. Most people look at calories as an actual substance in the food. This is a misconception. Due to the nature of cooked, denatured foods and the fact that if you eat them without restriction and/or heavy exercise you will gain weight, most people have grown “scared of calories” and it seems everyone pride themselves in eating less calories or making a product with only 200 Kcal etc. (Kcal = 1000 calories – an adult typically needs between 2000 and 3000 Kcal per day depending on activity level and body composition). The amazing thing about the fruit based lifestyle and eating foods for which your body was designed, is that you don’t have to count calories, all you have to do is trust your body to regulate food intake just like it’s meant to do! With natural foods this is true! When you eat unnatural foods like all cooked foods, you bypass the satiety triggers of the body and end up with overeating usually. Partake in natural, raw fruits as much as you desire, when hungry until satisfied!

less volume of course, since they are getting it from concentrated, dehydrated, refined, high fat foods! With fruits you can eat more, while calorically eating the same – ending up with exactly the right amount of food for your physiological needs. You can take a look at our YouTube channel for lots of videos of us eating fruit meals and talking about this very subject. If you are in need of one-to-one advice, we offer coaching via our website (go to www.sweetnaturalliving.com for more information).

However, due to the nature of our culture and how we have grown accustomed to certain portion sizes and portion control - we have both physical (small stomach volume) AND psychological (culture) challenges working against us eating enough fruit to stay healthy. We can use the calorie model to our advantage as we start out. It’s important that we eat enough, otherwise we will be hungry all the time, not get enough nutrients and generally be unhappy. Therefore I would recommend that as you are starting out, if you feel like it, check out cronometer.com or nutridiary.com to play around with the numbers a little and get a rough idea of what it takes to satisfy your caloric needs on a fruit based diet.

Another thing to understand is that when most people hear that you eat only fruit they are going to be saying things like, “there’s almost no iron in fruit, what about protein, what about essential fatty acids, what about calcium” etc. The reason for this is that they are used to looking at nutrition from a per gram basis rather than a per calorie basis. 100 grams of fruit is mostly just water! So when they compare the iron content of, say 100 grams of mango vs 100 grams of beef, rice or bread, fruit comes out looking pretty bad. But you would eat much more than 100 grams of mango! If I’m eating only mangoes on a very active day I might eat something like 7.5 kg of mangoes in a day, that’s about 5kg of edible portion. 5000 grams of goodness! That’s what you’ve got to look at if you want to objectively evaluate the nutritional content of fruit. Essentially, you’ve got to look at, say, 2500 calories of conventional diet vs 2500 calories of the fruit diet to objectively compare the two in terms of nutrients. But no one even considers that anyone would eat more than a few pieces of fruit a day so it never crosses their mind! Let’s stop looking at food on the basis of nutritional In the end it’s important to remember this though: we can never outsmart science and rather base nature! No matter how much we analyze we nutritional science can never find the true essence of whatever it around a whole foods is we are looking at. No amount of nutritional natural diet! science can ever “figure it all out”. We don’t want to become reliant on micromanaging our diet trying to “get enough of this nutrient and enough of that nutrient” by obsessively analyzing everything we eat in an effort to create “the perfect program”.

People are often shocked when they hear that I eat about 2.8 kg of mangoes in a meal! Minus the refuse that comes to about 1.8 kg of edible portion which is about 1000 calories. That’s a sufficient meal for a man for sure, but nothing extreme! Most people eat more than that every day for dinner, yet much

We can use the science for what it’s worth, it can give us some pointers that might be valuable but at the end of the day we must rely on nature to provide everything in a perfect package. Our bodies know what to eat, when to eat and how to eat. Nature provides whole foods with their full nutritional profile perfectly

suited for our needs. Trusting our body, our senses and ultimately the whole eco system itself is more valuable than graphs and numbers figured out by scientists in labs trying to prove arbitrary theories.

might just be too low in calories to satisfy (the high water content filling me up before I’ve had enough sugar/fuel) in which case a banana meal might be more appropriate. It’s all about learning to know your body and supplying it with what it needs.

IDEAL FRUITS Since we are tropical animals originally, it’s fairly obvious that tropical fruits are more ideal for us than temperate fruits. The color, texture and sweetness of tropical fruits are much more appealing to our senses than your average apple or pear! This doesn’t mean we need to exclude those fruits as they are wonderful in their own right, but it’s good to realize that if you are looking for an optimal diet, tropical fruit is the way to go!

Common “ideal” fruits include papaya, banana, mango, fig and coconuts. Even when analyzing these fruits through the nutritional software mentioned earlier, they come out “looking better” nutritionally than a diet of apples, pears and oranges for example. Another thing to realize is that some foods are better sometimes and other foods at other times. If I’m just waking up in the morning, I might prefer to eat papaya since it’s so water rich. But suppose I’m coming home from a long run, super hungry and in dire need of “filling up the tank” with sugar fuel, papaya

80/10/10 As mentioned earlier, experience and science both point to the fact that the human body works best burning carbohydrates as fuel as opposed to fat. We always burn a little bit of fat as well, but the body mainly prefers carbohydrates, preferably in the form of simple sugars.

Science and experience teaches us that the ideal ratio between carbohydrate/protein/fat as a percentage of total calories – is somewhere around 80/10/10.

80/10/10 is a ratio of carbohydrates/protein/fat popularized by Dr. Doug Graham in his book “The 80/10/10 Diet”. This book has been highly influential in my own journey and I would recommend it to anyone seeking health, even though I don’t agree with absolutely everything in the book. It’s not that Doug “created” the principles of 80/10/10 though, he simply observed nature, our body and the scientific literature and thus came to the conclusion that 811 is the optimal average ratio of macronutrients in a healthy diet. The ratio seems to be naturally just happening if one chooses to follow ones instincts and eat a diet of whole, fresh, raw fruits and tender vegetables. It’s not that one needs to really work hard to “enforce” the ratio of 811, but more that it is an average to be observed over time. Fatty fruits would only appear seasonally in nature, so most of the time we would subsist on sweet fruits alone. More importantly, we have to learn from our experiences and I’ve found, along with countless others, that when my fat intake goes higher than 15% of total calories, I’m simply not functioning optimally and I’m not satisfied. I find myself drawn to sweet fruit for the most part. Essentially, you must find your own preference but the majority of the science is pointing to the fact that as calories coming from fat increases beyond 15 % of total intake, health decline seems inevitable. There’s issues with digestion, absorption, malnutrition and of course lack of readily available fuel in the form of sugars to fuel our daily activities!

In terms of protein, there’s more than enough on a fruit based diet. Most fruits average about 6 % of calories from protein, about the same as mother’s milk. As adults we need much less protein than an infant (as percentage of total calories, not in terms of grams) so 6 % should be more than sufficient. The amino acids that make up proteins are present in ALL whole plant foods! Don’t worry about the protein propaganda so prevalent today. Get educated on the subject and think for yourself!

More typical green vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower and different roots like carrots and beets are far from ideal for our digestive system. They are difficult to digest, tastes more or less horrible and/or boring and doesn’t provide us with enough calories to be worthwhile eating a lot of. Many of them, like the cruciferous ones (broccoli, kale, chard etc.) also contain antinutrients like oxalic acid and poisonous substances like mustard oil. I would stay away from tough vegetables like that if I was seeking optimal health.

What does all this mean in practice? Rely on sweet, tropical fruits for the bulk of your diet. Eat sweet fruits when hungry, until satisfied. There’s essential fats and protein in all the fruits so even if you don’t eat any overtly fatty foods for a while, you’ll still get enough Omega 3’s etc. Play around with fatty fruits like avocados and durian to find your happy medium where you enjoy them without overeating on them. It can take time to learn. Feel free to experiment and don’t take my word for anything! As nuts and seeds seem very difficult to digest for most people, they are probably best eaten in very small quantities, very rarely. It’s probably also a good idea to eat your overt fats as part of the last meal of the day since they are typically slower to digest than other foods.

Tender green vegetables like green leaves, lettuce and perhaps celery are much more appropriate for our species than the harder ones just mentioned. However, they are still somewhat in the gray area of the human A fruitarian diet based on high dietary niche. Most of us are not quality, tropical fruits and coconut immediately attracted by greenery water may be all we need for optimal in the same way as we are to the health. However, if you feel drawn to aromatic and colorful fruits. Also, eating greens, enjoy the tender they all contain various amounts of toxins, often tasting bitter to leaves as much as you want! our taste buds. I believe greens are unnecessary, granted you are eating high quality, tropical fruits and drinking coconuts on a regular basis. All factors being ideal, we thrive best as pure fruitarians. Does that mean that you should attempt a 100% fruit diet right away? Not necessarily! There’s a lot of debate on this particular issue, and I think the bottom line is that you must follow your own body and trust your senses. If you find that you particularly enjoy eating greens and relish them as they are without covering them up with a dressing, then go ahead and enjoy them as much as you please! Should you however find that you dislike them, then trust your body and make up your own mind about it. Coconut water provides sufficient sodium not to worry about electrolytes at all, which I think is partly the issue when people are adamant about greens for optimal health. I don’t shun vegetables and greens, but I’m certainly not very attracted to them either. As we are always evolving, and especially on our journey from sick to healthy, I am open to the possibility of this changing over time for me. The key once again – listen to your body, and not your mind, when it comes to what to eat and what not to eat.

WHAT ABOUT VEGETABLES? A lot of the foods we call vegetables are actually fruits! Things like cucumbers, tomatoes, avocados, peppers and okra are botanically speaking fruits! Since they are so low in calories usually, it’s difficult to make a meal out of them unless one has eaten sufficiently of sweet fruits earlier in the day! Go There’s plenty of vegetable fruits to ahead and explore the different enjoy. Things like cucumber, peppers, “vegetable fruits”, perhaps at the tomatoes, avocados and okras are end of the day. As an example, I find that I very much enjoy eating true fruits botanically since they have a medium meal of mangoes seeds in them. In the kitchen we tend followed by an avocado, some to refer to them as vegetables! tomatoes and a cucumber for dinner nowadays. As long as I adhere to some general food combining guidelines, I find that I don’t necessarily have to eat strictly mono meals, and that it’s ok to combine a little bit as long as I’m not mixing too many foods at one sitting. I still eat all the fruits as is, as opposed to cutting them up beforehand and making a salad! It’s up to you to find out what works best for you!

FOOD COMBINING AND SEQUENTIAL EATING There’s is really only one food combining rule: Don’t! Fruits are always best eaten by themselves. However, we have a culture built around the table, where we combine foods and try different things at once. If you wish to combine foods, realize that there isn’t too much of an issue to it as long as you follow certain guidelines.

General food classifications: Melons: watermelon, cantaloupe, I would also place Papaya here… Acid: Citrus, Pineapple, tomatoes, berries…

bloating. The key is to understand the time it takes for various foods to digest in our stomach and intestines. Typically, the more water rich the food is, the faster it digests. Fats are also slower to go through. Watermelon for example, is one of the fastest digesting foods. If we start our day with melon and then follow up with bananas for lunch, which takes much longer to digest (still pretty fast though compared to cooked food) we’re fine. But suppose we ate the watermelon after the bananas, in that case the watermelon would “catch up” with the bananas in the intestines and be hindered in its path so to speak. This would cause the fast digesting watermelon with its readily absorbable sugars to stagnate a little and as a result ferment as it’s being acted upon by our intestinal bacterial flora. The result would be gas and possibly some slight discomfort. If this all sounds like a lot of work and effort, don’t worry – you will learn by experience over time, and in the end this is not a huge deal, just another little “hack” towards optimal health!

Sub-Acid: Mangoes, Apples, Pears, grapes, peaches… Sweet: Bananas, dates, figs, jackfruit, all dried fruits, custard apples…

EATING MEALS VS GRAZING

Fat: Avocado, nuts and seeds, ackee…

In nature, we would seek out a food source when hungry and then eat until satisfied and full. Then, a few hours later, hunger would again arise and we would seek food once more. This would mean a meal based way of eating. It so happens that this is also the healthiest way to eat. When we “graze”, or eat small meals all day long, we end up with sluggish digestion. We’re never truly hungry OR truly satisfied. It’s also plain inconvenient. Some people seem to do best with two meals Two to Four meals per day a day, some with four. Most people, myself seems to be the optimal. included, are most satisfied eating about three Eat when you’re hungry meals a day. It’s also a cultural thing of until you’re satisfied. course, and I find that I really enjoy the way three meals “divide the day” into sections.

Ecstatic: Durian

Combination guidelines:       

Melons are best eaten alone. Acid goes well with Sub-Acid Sub-Acid goes well with Acid OR Sweet Sweet goes well with Sub-Acid. Fats go well with Acid and fairly well with Sub-Acid. Avoid Sweet/Fat combinations and Sweet/Acid combinations. Greens go well with anything.

It’s also a good idea to pay attention to the order in which you eat your foods throughout the day. This is to ensure optimal digestion and avoid gas and

If you are just starting out, as mentioned earlier, eating enough volume at a meal to keep you satisfied until the next one might be an issue. In this case you could try eating four meals a day, that way you’re eating a smaller quantity of food at each meal but eating more often. It’s important to remember though that if you are hungry, eat! Don’t be ruled by the clock and schedule like most people on a conventional diet are. This is an unhealthy way of relating to food. But in my experience, if I eat when I’m hungry in the morning (usually about an hour after rising, sometimes sooner,

sometimes later) I’m satisfied for a few hours and can go about my day. Eventually, hunger comes around and I eat another meal. Again the same process repeats until I find myself perfectly satisfied at the end of the day and I eventually go to bed. If I’m hungry again right before bedtime, I will eat but realize that maybe I didn’t eat enough earlier in the day since I find myself hungry at the last hour. The bottom line is always, eat when hungry until satisfied!

HOW AND WHEN TO DRINK WATER One of the things you will notice as you start eating more fresh fruits is that your need for drinking water goes down quite a lot. This is because the fruits themselves provide you with water and the foods you were eating before (like bread for example) is no longer “robbing you” of water due to them being so dry. Nevertheless, depending on location (hot, cold, dry, humid) and activity level (sweating) your need for water varies a lot. There’s a simple rule; drink water when Eating a diet of fresh fruit, thirsty. your need for water goes But just like with the sequential down dramatically! eating, there’s a few good tips to bear in mind here also. When we drink water after a meal, it does not feel good. This is my experience and I’ve heard people say they feel the same way. Try it for yourself. Eat a big meal of bananas and then drink half a liter of water afterwards. How do you feel? Probably a little bit uncomfortable right? Nothing (except oxygen) passes quicker through our system than water. The best time to drink water is before eating. So it’s a matter of listening to our thirst and responding to it when needed, but also to understand how it works and maybe do a little bit of “planning” almost. I find myself wanting some water upon rising in the morning and usually after some exercise sometime during the day. I drink as much as I please and follow up with a satisfying and further hydrating meal shortly after.

BLENDING AND JUICING Juicing is when you remove the fiber from a food only to be left with the water/juice component to consume. Fiber is an essential nutrient that we need for optimal functioning. Plus, the foods we juice are often less than ideal in the first place. Things like carrots, beets and dark green leafy vegetables are usually things

we would eat very little of at all. The idea of juicing lots of them to gain a “boost” of certain nutrients is flawed at best. Consuming a glass of juice every now and then is probably not all that bad, but as part of a healthy lifestyle – avoid the juicer and eat whole foods instead! Remember, a juice is a refined product! Homemade orange juice with pulp falls somewhere in the grey area in this regard. It’s not as refined as a typical juice, but it’s still not optimal. Smoothies are of course still whole in the sense that they have all the fiber still intact. However, the blending process oxidizes nutrients and creates a “weird” food that’s drinkable. Chewing food is an important part of the digestive process, mixing the food with enzymes that start breaking down the food elements. Another problem with smoothies is that it’s difficult to know beforehand, when making the smoothie, just how much food to prepare! Make too much and you’re likely to overeat, make too little and under eating is probable. One food at the time, in its natural state as it appears in nature is always the best way to consume food. Whole fruit is the optimal. Even though I do consume smoothies at times, I find myself preferring to eat my food whole, as is, mainly for this one reason; when I’m “drinking” my food (even though I “chew” it a bit) I feel deprived of the whole eating experience afterwards. I’m full but not satisfied. It was all too quick and monotonous. I’ve come to realize that one of the best ways to ensure satisfaction and avoid cravings is to value the meal as a ceremony almost, a time to sit down, peel, smell, lick, eat, chew, swallow and fully enjoy every part of the experience – as opposed to gulping down a homogenized smoothie while watching a video!

HEADING OUT – EATING WITH FRIENDS AND DEALING WITH SOCIAL ISSUES This is actually one of the most challenging part for many people. We are social animals, and evolutionarily speaking, blending in and being “part of the group” has been and continues to be one of the most important factors for survival! Therefore we have a strong urge to not stand out. Some of us, like me personally, either don’t care about it or positively enjoys being different. Nevertheless, to some degree, we all want to be accepted as an equal, be treated with respect and “fit in” as much as we can. This can be a challenge on this lifestyle simply because every time there’s a social situation, food is usually involved

in some way or another, and it can be difficult to blend in when having to say “no” to everything that’s being offered and instead bringing your own big plate of …mangoes! You’re probably going to be the center of attention for a few moments almost every time you eat with friends, and you might even be bombarded with slightly sarcastic comments, challenging questions and not-so-funny jokes. Just remember that this is because of their insecurity and that they feel challenged by the fact that you are eating differently. This is how you deal with it. Step one, realize that you are different and that no matter what - you are eating in a way that’s very unfamiliar to most people and perhaps even shocking! Remember that you too were once ignorant of our true dietary nature as frugivores and understand where they are coming from! Step two, realize that many people are quite insecure with themselves and will use any opportunity to bring someone else down to raise themselves up. If someone acts different than the status quo, people are going to use that to their advantage in an effort to gain the attention, laughter and support of the group while making fun of whoever is acting outside of the norm. Don’t worry about it, it’s a reflection of their weakness – not yours! Step three, join the fun and realize that of course people find it funny that you’re only eating raw fruits and vegetables for dinner. They call it rabbit food! You answer back how it’s “actually more like gorilla food, and that you feel amazing, love eating this way and that it’s so nice that we can all get together and enjoy each other’s company regardless of how we eat”. Step four is to make sure you either tell the host up front that they either don’t have to worry about cooking for you or that they can just cut up some fruits and veg and make a simple salad. The best option though, if you want to eat exactly what you like, is to bring your own. Just bring a big bowl of grapes, or a bunch of mangoes or a big jackfruit! Be sure to bring a little bit extra as you might want to share! Remember, they are all frugivores as well, they just don’t know it ;) After the questioning and commenting, once eating commences, you’ll see them peeking over at your mangoes with desire in their eyes! It’s true!  Step five is to realize that actually, no one really cares that much about what you eat, it’s more that it’s just a convenient topic right there and then as you sit there with lots of delicious mangoes looking awesomely good! Eventually they get used to it, and if they are truly your friends, they will respect your choices even though they might not agree completely. In the end they will see how good you’re looking, how healthy you are and how much you enjoy your food and realize that “hey, maybe there’s something too that diet after all”.

In the meantime it helps to stay educated on the subject to be able to provide good answers to stupid questions. Don’t worry about what people think, remember why you’re doing this in the first place and that people eventually get used to your “rabbit food” and might even become curious themselves! One more thing, and this is important, don’t get into discussions on why you’re not eating what they are eating. Don’t pass judgments on what they are doing right there and then as this will always upset the harmony. Educate yourself so you have good Realize that the most valuable answers to stupid questions! thing in social settings is the people, not the food! Tell them Don’t worry about what other people why you love fruit, not why you think or say! hate beef! Save discussions on diet for later. Bring your own food and eat it In restaurants it might be proudly while your healthy energy a little bit more challenging, but lights up the whole room! you can usually always ask the waiter for exactly what you want. Be relaxed about the topic while at Maybe they have some fruit as the table to avoid conflict. Remember part of a dessert recipe and they what’s most important in life, is it could provide you with a plate of people or food? Respect is the key. fruit as your main meal? Alternatively you eat before the restaurant, so you’re already calorically satisfied, and then order a green salad with avocado for example. Every restaurant in the world should be able to provide you with a clean salad without a dressing. At the very least you could order a freshly squeezed orange juice or a smoothie. You will probably find though, as you get more and more into this lifestyle, that going to restaurants is not a regular occurrence any longer and that nothing beats eating fresh, ripe and delicious fruit on the grass, in the shade of a tree together with friends! Simple living is the best!

IT’S A JOURNEY – THERE’S NO RIGHT OR WRONG Whether or not you choose to go “all raw” overnight or if you choose to take it step by step, is up to you! Go as far as you feel comfortable with. Remember though, that there’s no “health benefit” in making a slow transition! The

faster you start eating healthier, the faster you will get healthier. But, we are all on our own journey and there’s no such thing as “right” or “wrong” in life. Right and wrong are relative and depends on perspective. It’s not wrong to eat cooked food, it’s just that it has certain negative consequences for our physiology. There’s simply no room for guilt in this lifestyle. What’s the point? You pay for the choices you make no matter what, why pay twice? If you choose to eat something less than ideal, you will experience the negative effects resulting from it and that’s your “payment”. You don’t have to feel bad about it as well! In fact, it was a choice! Be OK with your choices and where you are along your journey. Don’t burden yourself with ideas like “I’m not good enough” or “I should be doing this” or “I should be doing that”. Realize that you are exactly where you need to be, to learn the lessons you are learning right now! Move at your own pace. Allow yourself to do whatever you want to until you truly don’t want to any longer! When I started eating raw food it was not because I decided to “go raw” or anything like that, I simply discovered how good I felt when I ate fresh, raw fruits and vegetables and how bad I felt when I ate less than optimal foods. It was simply a matter of preference. Allow yourself to experiment and learn from experience rather than theory. Still to this day I There’s no right or sometimes eat foods that are not ideal, but I don’t feel an ounce of guilt. Why? Because I wrong! It’s a journey! know it’s my own choice, that there’s no right There are however or wrong and that I will pay for it! To the consequences to every degree that you are willing to pay for action, choose according something, that’s fine, just realize that there are to what you prefer! consequences to everything! 99 % of the time I find myself preferring to eat sweet, juicy fruits and reap the benefits of a healthy diet. That’s just where I’m at right now, it might change, who knows? Relax and enjoy the journey! If you “jump/fall off the wagon” so to speak and eat less than ideal for a while, don’t make the mistake that many people do of entering into the vicious cycle of “bingeing and purging” where you try to “cleanse” from your unhealthy choices by under eating or consuming “special juices” or the like only to become frustrated due to not eating enough and ending up back where you started eating something you don’t really want to eat! Just get right back on track with your standard healthy program and your body will automatically return to health because that’s its natural state!

THERE’S MORE TO LIFE THAN FOOD It’s easy to get into the mindset of “now that I’m eating so clean….my health should be perfect”. Actually, the food we eat is only one part of the puzzle, even though it’s a powerful one. Since food has been one of the most damaging factors contributing to our ill health over a long time, eliminating the offending foods and replacing them with our natural foods makes a huge difference. However, there’s so many other elements of a healthy lifestyle that are equally as important. Things like sleep, rest, sunshine, relationship, climate and movement are key aspects contributing to our health or lack thereof. I won’t go into that in this text as this is mainly focused on the raw food diet alone. Feel free to look around our website and YouTube channel for more information on these specific topics! Just remember to stay balanced and realize that you are what you eat, but you will only be as healthy as your weakest link, and unless you pay attention to ALL the elements of a healthy lifestyle you simply cannot attain optimal health. Do the best you can and be OK with where you’re at!

COMMON PITFALLS AND HOW TO AVOID THEM In the end it seems there’s only one way to really learn anything in life – the hard way. Experience is our greatest teacher and no matter how many times we read something, we still need to experience it for ourselves to truly know. This is why failure is your greatest teacher in life! Every successful person will tell you, the road to success is simply a series of failures! The key is to learn from our mistakes, and get back on track, this time stronger and better than before because now at least we know what not to do! Embrace your failures as part of your journey! However, I still want to share with you some of the most common pitfalls on the raw vegan diet and how to avoid them! The biggest one by far is simply not eating enough fruit. When we are not eating enough total food, regardless of the diet, the body simply fails to thrive. The body needs to eat to provide the fuel for its activities and general metabolism. Without that fuel it will not be Remember to eat able to perform at the level that it should, and all the enough to satisfy bodily functions will suffer. Fasting (not eating at all) is your needs! something our body is adapted to be able to do in special circumstances for weeks at the time if necessary, but what I’m talking about here is simply a lack of total calories in your everyday program – not a complete absence of food. The short term effects are loss of

energy, difficulty falling asleep, impaired mental function etc. The long term effects of not consuming enough food could be things like anemia, unhealthy weight loss and deficiencies of all sorts. The most noticeable symptom though, is simply hunger! When you are not consuming enough food, you will naturally be hungry! If you don’t understand why you are hungry you might end up deciding that the raw vegan diet “doesn’t work”, like so many before you. This is, believe it or not, the main reason why people fail on this lifestyle. How does this happen you may ask? As mentioned earlier, we are so used to eating very small volumes of food on a conventional diet that when switching to a raw vegan diet we are simply not able to eat enough bulk of food to supply us with the calories we need! The solution is to slowly train the stomach to reach its full potential so that it can process the food we need to eat to stay healthy. Remember, it’s not that we are “stretching the stomach beyond its capacity” – it’s that our stomachs have shrunk in size due to unhealthy eating habits over a whole lifetime, and we are just returning it to a healthy size! Eating enough food is key. The second most common issue is related to the first – it’s about eating low quality fruit! You see, the main factor for providing fuel value and subsequent satisfaction for our body when eating is Sugar! We run best off carbohydrates for fuel. That means sweet fruits! Mangoes, bananas, papayas, pineapples, grapes and much more… But the problem is that most of the fruit available today is picked early to allow for transport and longer shelf life! The fruit is often picked before it was able to develop it’s full complement of nutrients from the soil and sugars from the sunlight! So even though you just ate 2 kg of mangoes, and it’s supposed to provide you with 800 calories, if those mangoes weren’t really sweet then the fuel value was probably just half of that! In this case you would experience a never ending hunger Remember to eat only even though “you just ate a huge meal”. You will the best quality fruit! probably say things like “I don’t understand, I eat all day, so much fruit, but I still crave something more dense”. The result is more often than not going back to eating cooked food, usually starchy carbohydrates like bread, rice, pasta, corn, potatoes etc. The solution; if it ain’t sweet, don’t eat it! Make sure you get high quality, ripe and fresh fruits that are sweet enough to satisfy. When I bite into a mango that’s almost tasteless, I spit it out and throw it away – it’s not worth the digestive effort! I want my mangoes to be like “WHOA that’s good”. The third issue is once again related to the two first ones – eating UNRIPE fruit! When you eat a fruit that’s unripe, the sugars are still to a large degree in the form of starch, which is harder to digest and tasteless by

Only ripe fruit will do!

definition. You’ll end up with a stomach ache, not able to eat enough because it’s not tasty and the nutrients in the fruit are not as easily absorbable when it’s unripe. Make sure you allow your fruit to ripen properly before eating it! Educate yourself on the topic of fruit ripening and remember that you’ll learn over time. Check out our YouTube channel for more information on knowing when a fruit is ripe. We can also do coaching sessions specifically aimed at learning about fruit picking, storing and ripening. The fourth issue is about fat! Most serious studies of the relationship between human health and nutrition conclude that we do best when our intake of fat stays Focus on sweet fruits below 20 % of total calories. They also indicate that if we eat between 10-15% of calories from while keeping fat intake fat, that’s about ideal! If our fat intake goes too moderate. high, the fat will interfere with our ability to process sugars in the blood and the result can be blood sugar issues, candida and eventually diabetes! Also, by consuming a large amount of our calories in the form of fat will mean that we won’t be consuming enough carbohydrates, which is what our body prefers for fuel. Either way you put it, whether it’s too much fat or not enough carbohydrates – it’s a problem. We will end up lethargic, with sluggish digestion and a perpetual brain fog. What’s more, even though we theoretically have been eating enough calories, we will still be hungry, we will still crave something sweet! That’s because fat takes so long to digest and convert into usable energy that the body doesn’t recognize it as such and will not produce satiation! Only sweet, sugar dripping fruits will suffice to give you that satisfied feeling that we all love. With enough carbohydrates “in the tank” you will be able to perform at your highest potential, stay clear and focused all day, sleep better, feel better and of course eat better! The fifth most common problem that causes people to fail is because they are in love with an idea. Whether it be the idea that we don’t really need food (breatharianism), eating like they did in the Paleolithic age (Paleo diet), miraculous properties of a particular food (green diets, superfood diets etc.) or the idea that we must make an effort to “cleanse” (detox cures etc.) they all have one thing in common – they disregard Listen to your body the natural functioning, senses, inclinations and basic not your mind! physiology of the human body and instead adhere to intellectual reasonings as to why they do a certain thing or not. As an example, people following the Paleo diet eat meat “because our ancestors did” – but they completely ignore the fact that as a species we are naturally repulsed by dead

animals, our anatomy has no characteristics of a meat eater and our senses are naturally drawn towards vibrantly colored fruits, their aromas and of course the taste – not towards a cow in the paddock! We are all naturally attracted to sweet, yet because of an idea, some people are “worried about eating too much sugar”. That’s because they have been inundated with propaganda against sugar for their whole life. But if sugar is so bad for us, why do we have a liking for all things sweet? Why do we all love dessert? We’re frugivores and we are designed to seek sweets! As you can see, being too much in love with certain ideas, can in fact hinder you from being truly in touch with your body and follow your senses and instincts without a bias. We all have biases though, and to a certain degree we are constantly superimposing ideas on our reality. Still, in an effort to reach optimal health, I believe it’s important to rid ourselves of too much thinking when it comes to health and especially eating and just allow our senses to choose what is most appealing to eat (in it’s natural state of course), eat as much as it as we want, when we want it, the way we want etc. It’s certainly a long journey, after lifetimes of living out of tune with or physiology, but I know our bodies are able to bounce right back to health in an instant as health is indeed - the natural state!

JUST DO IT! If all of this seems a lot to take it, don’t worry about it! All you’ve got to do is jump in! There’s no need to consider anything else beforehand – just do it! Learning comes slowly but surely through experience. It’s your journey and it’s going on right NOW! Eating healthy is not a special diet plan where you have to follow a specific set of rules – it’s about getting to know your body, observing nature and doing the best you can in your given set of circumstances. As you progress towards a healthier diet based around whole, raw and fresh foods, like all other animals in nature, your body will change for the better. You will become more in tune, aligned and in touch with your natural senses and

inclinations. Previous food addictions and cravings will simply fade away and as long as you stay satisfied by eating high quality food. Sweet and juicy tropical fruits are the optimal foods for human nutrition, there’s no reason they shouldn’t also therefore be the most enjoyable! It’s about learning from our own body and observing the natural laws that are in constant operation and abiding by them. Just remember that you are worth it, that health effortless as it is the natural state and that nothing feels as good as sweet natural living does! Have an awesome day!

Thanks for reading my guide “Getting Started with The Raw Food Diet”. I hope the information was beneficial to your journey towards better health. If you have any questions about this lifestyle or health in general, feel free to contact me via our website www.sweetnaturalliving.com where I offer Health and Life Coaching services via Skype for anyone needing assistance, guidance or support. Also, be sure to visit our YouTube channel where we regularly post free videos about health, fruit, happiness and travel while sharing our journey with the world. We hope to entertain, educate and inspire you towards reaching your highest potential! Thanks again for reading! Blessed Love, Mikkel.

How to Get Started With The Raw Food Diet © 2015 Mikkel Gisle Johnsen