Raw Vegan 90 Day Trial
90 Day Trial With Dr.Gabriel Cousens’ Living Foods Diet
December 27, 2009 by Pamela CookThe idea for this trial was sparked in my 6th month of eating a raw vegan diet, December of 2009 (why I went raw). I will begin the trial on January 1st, 2010.
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Week 7
Week 8
Week 9
Week 10
Week 11
Week 12
What is a raw food diet?
A raw food diet usually means raw vegan (excluding animal products entirely). Basically it is eating only raw vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds. The idea is to retain all the nutrients and enzymes which are lost through processing and cooking.
Since I already eat raw, what is different about this diet compared to what I’ve been doing?
I will be eating based on a book by Dr.Gabriel Cousens (M.D.), called “Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine”. In this book, he discusses why our bodies deteriorate and become diseased on a Standard American diet, and how to reverse those affects.
This trial for me is primarily about kick-starting a life-long disease prevention mindset and way of eating.
The diet he outlines is in two phases. The first phase is the reversal of deterioration you are experiencing in your body. The second phase is a maintenance phase.
Over the past 6 months, I have been eating an 80%-100% raw vegan diet. The 80% means I’d have cooked meat and vegetables occasionally,some nuts that aren’t raw, alcohol a few times a week and high sugar raw desserts.
I’m going to go as close to 100% raw during this trial as possible. The first month will not include any fruit at all except tomatoes, and I’ll be excluding many other foods I’ve been eating, as well as alcohol (see Phase Chart).
My Objectives for This Trial
I’m obviously not a scientist, and this isn’t meant to prove something scientifically, or give medical advice. It is for my own learning, and for the purpose of sharing with others what level of health could be achieved under similar circumstances. In other words, what is possible?
What can I eat?
Through the entire three months, I will not eat any meat, chocolate, coffee, tea, candy, or gum. Also no corn, potatoes, sugar, alcohol, soy sauce, yeast, mushrooms, cashews, or peanuts.
An in-between phase (1.5) adds low glycemic fruit like blueberries and strawberries, some raw grains, carrots, and a few fermented foods like apple cider vinegar and miso.
Phase 2, the maintenance phase, adds more fruits, raw carob, bee pollen, as well as a list of minimal use foods (high glycemic fruits and juices, dried fruits, seed “cheeses”, and cooked organic whole foods).
My goal is to maintain phase 1 and 1.5 for three months, and then graduate to the maintenance phase for the rest of my life.
Benefits I have seen so far from a raw vegan diet
Up until this point I have significantly decreased the chronic nature of my allergies, and have not had one migraine headache. My eczema and acne has improved, and I notice I don’t need as much sleep. I also lost weight effortlessly, and have more energy. So why go further with my diet?
Some Symptoms Still Lurking
I’ve been noticing signs that I am still not as healthy as I could be. I still have some minor sinus issues (swelling and inflammation), which I feel is not normal. My skin is still getting minor patches of eczema. Also, rather embarrassing, is a fungus that has completely taken over my right big toenail (existed before raw food diet).
On this raw journey so far (read why I started raw), many emotional eating issues have surfaced. I experimented with raw vegan desserts, and noticed that I have a tendency to binge when I make them. I also have extreme cravings for chocolate, which I eat in the form of raw cacao in smoothies or raw chocolate desserts. My cravings for cooked food have increased into the winter months.
More About “Rainbow Green Live Food Cuisine”
This book looks at health from the perspective of a “biological terrain”, and views blood as a “flowing tissue.” One analogy I like is that of mosquitos as compared to disease. Mosquitos require special conditions to reproduce. It takes a swamp to breed mosquitos. The swamp would be compared to the biological terrain. If you maintain a healthy biological terrain (conditions not conducive to disease), you will ultimately prevent disease.
The “Science” Behind It
The Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine diet is based in part on the work of Antoine Bechamp (1816-1908). He discovered that fermentation occurs in our system when our physiology becomes too acidic. He discovered one of the tiniest living things, called a microzyma, that is capable of fermenting the sugar in our system.
Bechamp theorized that when our bodies become too acidic, this fermentation process is accelerated, and the microzymas permutate into bacteria, yeast, fungus, and eventually mold. As these forms develop, they feed on substances within our bodies, in turn giving off toxins which Dr. Cousens calls mycotoxins.
This highly toxic state begins a process of degeneration that Dr. Cousens describes as “composting” (in other words the breakdown of our bodies starting on a cellular level). This process begins in a highly acidic “biological terrain” and “pushes a recycle button” within our bodies. It is this diet that is meant to reverse the composting or undo that pushing of the recycle button.
That is just a brief overview of the theory behind the “Rainbow Green Live Food Cuisine” diet. More in depth links and articles will come throughout the course of the trial.
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