Hi I'm new to this forum. I've been experimenting with being raw-vegan for the past couple months and although it feels very 'clean' to eat that way, I now know I have to eat meat. But not cooked meat. Because everytime I eat cooked meat I get a really bad reaction (breathing, sinus, rashes)

I'm wondering if anyone has experience with being a raw vegan and then switching to raw animals. And then what benefits did you ahve from that? I'm also interested to hear people's benefits from raw animal foods in general.

Another question I have is, if you're familiar with the alkaline/acid diets, most of them say that meat is acid-forming. But is it possible that those tests have been from cooked meat, rather than raw meat? I would guess that raw meat would be at least less acid...?

Here is my history of Diet:

I'm 22 years old and up until a few months ago, I have basically just eaten whatever I want. Which was really bad food basically. All my friends always joked about how I'm gonna die early because I ate nothing but french fries everyday for lunch. I never ever ate fruits or vegetables. I ate a lot of cake, candy, cookies, bread, pasta, rice. I used to eat out for all my meals, usually Asian restaurants like thai, indian, korean, chinese, japanese - which are grain-heavy food. Sometimes I went for days eating nothing but dessert, candy, and pop.

But a few years ago I started getting really sick. Like I had to sleep almost all day long, and only woke up at night to drink and eat more bad food. And I didn't have enough energy to go to classes or study. And even when I did, I couldn't concentrate. And I started getting weird nerve-symptoms(tingling and numb sensations). Probably the heavy drinking had a lot to do with it.

The reason I ate so bad is because I never really had problems with my weight, so I always assumed that means I can eat whatever I want. I don't really gain weight easily. Although I don't lose weight easily etiher. But it finally took a toll on my body. So I quit drinking and quit caffeine. But I was always still sick and tired and had a lot of infections allergies and inflammations. Anyways, last year, after my mom urged me to go to a doctor, I finally agreed to go to a naturopathic doctor. And I got my blood tested for food allergies, and I had allergies to wheat, eggs, dairy, sugar, garlic, soy, and other foods I can't think of at the top of my head right now. But there's a list. Anyways, I took out all the allergy foods and immediately felt like way more energy. And a lot of my nerve-symptoms went away like 80% within a week. But then I lived in a new city for a year and it was too hard to stay away from those foods when there were so many new and exciting restaurants to try. So I quit and my health just got worse and worse. And I started also having major mood swings. In fact, I was now eating worse than before (although I still didn't drink too much or drink caffeine much).

When I came back to my home city after the year, I decided, I have to go back to my allergy-free diet. Except I figured, hey if I got such good results just from not eating those foods, then I need to figure out what the ideal diet for me is. Anyways, that's when I somehow got into raw vegan. But I kept having these crazy dreams that kept saying "eat meat. eat meat" like dreams saying I'm low in nutrients and so I need to eat meat. So I realized, ok, I'm gonna take that as a message from my body....saying I need meat. That plus, being raw vegan made me bruise so easily and that's never a good sign.

The other thing that I feel is off about raw veganism (no offense to them) is that a lot of them look really weird. I don't know how to describe, maybe you know what I'm talking about, but when you see their pictures or the videos on you tube, it's not even about them being too skinny. It's more like their fat distribution is off and they look really unhealthy. Like, their skin looks thin and skeletony. And they seem very spacey. Just..they don't look good to me.

Anyways, I know I need meat, but I also know cooked meat is not the answer. So there's my diet-history and I would be really interested to hear other people's opinions / experiences with raw veganism and/or other previous diets.