made in germany

[Bio-shell Avatar]

hey all,

i'm a 34 yo male from germany. i've had no major health issues which prompted me to go all-raw but i'm very interested in optimizing my diet and health. i'm currently self-employed working in the music business but plan on becoming a certified nutritional adviser in a few years, when i feel that i'm ready to move on. i see so many people struggling with bad health and all kinds of diseases, not knowing how easy it is to become healthy with just some changes in their diet and environment, so i want to use the knowledge i gained to help as many people as possible.

i've eaten a regular unhealthy diet until about 2 1/2 years ago, then went vegan from one day to the next. the following two years were basically vegan, mostly raw, with a few periods of vegetarianism inbetween.

overall, the veganism helped to detox my (thankfully still reasonably healthy) body from three decades of abuse but my health continued to deteriorate after the initial "high" (as happens for lots of vegans/vegetarians) and i lost about 15 pounds of lean mass. i used supplements so i didn't have problems with lack of b12 or fat soluble vitamins but my digestion got worse and worse due to lack of stomach acid (making many of these supplements all but useless in the end)

during these two years i continued to study health and nutrition in my free time and eventually started to read not just pro-vegetarian and pro-vegan books (i love animals and don't want to eat them if i don't have to - these basically were my thoughts back then) but also checked out what the opposition had to say. the book that totally changed my mind early this year was "nutrition and physical degeneration" by weston a. price, which also prompted me to forego any further vegetarian experiments and again include meat in my diet (though only from "happy animals"...grass fed or wild). in the following weeks i devoured everything re lc/hf, paleo and primal diets i could find (books, websites, videos etc.), started high intensity (hit) and high intensity interval training (hiit) and managed to regain the 15 pounds of lean mass i lost during the previous two years in about three months.

i'm currently eating a high fat/low carb diet with mostly raw muscle meat, some organ meats, plenty of raw butter, some raw kefir and raw or fermented veggies. i decided to again go 99%-100% raw (this time incl. animal foods) a couple of weeks ago after coming across aajonus vonderplanitz website & interviews. i knew from my raw vegan days that the ideal and most healthy food is raw, but was still under the delusion that raw food only detoxes and doesn't build (which is true for vegan diets as my own weight loss proved to me, but not for the paleo/primal kind)

then a few days ago while browsing the web for testimonies from paleo eaters and more info about high meat i came across this forum and after reading many of the very interesting posts decided to join.

my goal is to incorporate more raw organ meats as well as high meat into my diet (like many others, as a "beginner", still struggle with the taste) and otherwise keep a ratio of about 70% calories from fat, 20-25% protein and about 5% carbs. i continue my hit and hiit exercises and notice increasing energy after going all-raw.

the few minor health issues i had were mostly due to poor digestion and some candida overgrowth which cleared up completely after about two months on the hf/lc diet. right now all that's left to get rid of are dark circles under the eyes which i guess might come from too much raw milk and overtaxed kidneys (i've just cut this out and consume only 1/2 liter of kefir a day. i don't seem to have any issues with lactose intolerance or fatigue/brain fog due to milk ingestion). it could also be the last remains of an anemia due to my vegan experiment. only time will tell...

[TylerDurden]

Hmm, just as well  . As soon as I saw the title of this thread, I erroneously  thought the post was from a spammer advertising  products made in Germany. Anyway, welcome to the forum,  we need more members from Central Europe.

Incidentally, while some people do get instant reactions to bad foods, some others can take a couple of years to find out that they actually don't do well on a food like raw dairy, for example, as  the relevant food has only a very slow-acting negative effect over time.

As regards Aajonus, we find him a sort of  fascinating mixture of genius, guru, charlatan etc. A lot of rawists find problems with the massive amounts of raw dairy he recommends, the  odd foods like raw coconut cream, the raw veggie-juice and large amounts of raw honey. Though some thrive on his exact recommendations.

[Bio-shell Avatar]

hi tyler

sorry about the title. i meant i was made in germany 

i agree to some extent with your thoughts on dairy although i think it really depends on the individual. in my own case i developed clogged bile ducts in my liver after a period of eating raw cheese (100-150g/day) when i was still vegetarian. i noticed it after a series of liver cleanses brought a considerable amount of stones to light which hadn't been there before the cheese experiment. i tend to think that the problem was caused by the high carb vegetarian diet (mostly fruits and some veggies besides the raw cheese) because my liver had hardly any reason to excrete any but the smallest amounts of bile. i'm eating raw cheese again now on the lc/hf diet but i'll make another series of liver cleanses in a few weeks to see what comes up (or not). if there are stones again i can be sure the dairy is the culprit because my liver was perfectly clean early this year when i was still vegetarian with nothing but raw butter in terms of animal foods.

aajonus advocates what works for him but perhaps disregards that not everyone reacts the same to certain foods and that there exists scientific proof that a high fructose intake is quite deadly (long term). i'd never include honey back in my diet and certainly not in large amounts because i know from my vegan days what a high fructose intake will do to one's liver (fatty...), arteries (AGEs, high triglycerides) and gut flora (candida) and actually the rest of the body as well. i agree with his recommendation of raw (green) veggie juice but i'm usually too lazy to clean the juicer so i only drink it occasionally during summer (mostly dandelion leaves and some lettuce)

[aLptHW4k4y]

i tend to think that the problem was caused by the high carb vegetarian diet (mostly fruits and some veggies besides the raw cheese) because my liver had hardly any reason to excrete any but the smallest amounts of bile.

Cheese is typically very fatty (40-45% fat), unless you've been eating some really low fat cheese..

[Bio-shell Avatar]

Cheese is typically very fatty (40-45% fat), unless you've been eating some really low fat cheese..

yes certainly but it was my only fatty food and only animal protein food at the time. my whole metabolism was adjusted to a high-carb plant-based diet with focus on fruits and consequently my liver didn't have to produce a lot of bile or get rid of excess cholesterol...until i introduced the cheese. then...bam...the excess cholesterol from the cheese may well have clogged the bile ducts (or the triglycerides from the excess fructose, who knows?). it may not have happened on a high fat diet like i'm eating now. i'll know that for sure after the next few liver flushes. if there are stones again i'll drop the raw cheese. raw milk, kefir and yogurt will be the last to go because that would leave only meat and veggies (i seem to be allergic to eggs and hardly ever eat fish because of toxins, heavy metals and/or radiation). i don't think i can limit my foraging to these two food groups so i really hope my liver will stay reasonably clean, especially now that i'm off the fruit-centered (fatty-liver creating) diet.