Greetings, paleo people

[GK420]

Hi all,

These "I'm new here" messages are always pretty cheesy so I'll get the basic stuff out of the way. My name is George and I'm 16, and I'm (obviously) quite interested in the raw paleo diet, and have been since I quit my vegetarianism a while back. Somewhere around a year ago I went vegetarian (those damn vegan propaganda videos...) for about 5 months, the last 2 of those being vegan. I planned to go raw vegan, but had no idea how I would cope with it. That plan failed when I realised that my reason(s) for being veg*n made no sense, and returned to eating meat and other animal products. Being a veggie did teach me to cook for myself and look beyond freezer meals, though it was obviously very non-paleo (rice, some tofu etc.) which won't do much for me if/when I go raw paleo. I found out about Mark Sisson's take on the "paleo" diet when I was a vegan, and obviously rejected it at the time, but took quite an interest in it when I became an omnivore again. I have tried to follow his take on paleo eating -- which, compared to a raw paleo diet, doesn't seem paleolithic at all -- but it kinda failed, mainly due to the inconvenience of it when eating at places like school. That's one of my main concerns about eating raw paleo, as I can't really see myself taking a huge raw steak into school and going caveman on it around the sandwich eaters. A huge sack of berries doesn't sound like a good option either . Anyway, hopefully I'll find all the answers I'm looking for and more on here.

[TylerDurden]

Hopefully, if our numbers increase past a certain point, we'll eventually be able to cry "discrimination" if local restaurants/schools etc. do not provide rawpalaeodiet-friendly dishes.

I would suggest bringing raw honeycomb to school. Also raw fruit. If you look on rawpaleodiet.com, Lex has provided instructions on how to make beef jerky using equipment costing 10 dollars. Bringing dried beef jerky to school would not antagonise SAD-eating friends. It isn't ideal, given the lack of water-content, but it's better than eating cooked foods, by far.

Bodybuilders often talk about eating raw eggs in public. It doesn't seem that unusual to me.

Of course, what you could do is Intermittent Fasting  which means you eat just one large meal a day, often in the evenings. If you eat some raw animal fat in that one meal, you can last for ages without eating, thus not needing to eat at school.

[sabertooth]

Once I got into this diet, eating out while in public was a problem.

I have solved the problem by just taking a mason jar of meat with me and bolting it down on the sly.

I work hard and need a small meal for lunch to keep my energy up through the day. Usually 2/3 a pound of meat and fat in a jar is all I need to take with me, and I can eat it in some corner in a couple of minutes without anyone paying much mind.

Run to a dug out, locker room or bathroom stall and bolt down a jar of meat, then return to the lunch room with a small piece of fruit; if you are afraid of persecution from your non paleo peers.

[TylerDurden]

It's sometimes dangerous to let people know about one's raw-meat diet. Some people are fine with it, others think it's weird but put up with it, still others exist who are so limited they cannot stand any eccentricity, so they react badly. After one or two negative experiences, I virtually never tell farmers about my raw diet.

[goodsamaritan]

Hi all,

These "I'm new here" messages are always pretty cheesy so I'll get the basic stuff out of the way. My name is George and I'm 16, and I'm (obviously) quite interested in the raw paleo diet, and have been since I quit my vegetarianism a while back. Somewhere around a year ago I went vegetarian (those damn vegan propaganda videos...) for about 5 months, the last 2 of those being vegan. I planned to go raw vegan, but had no idea how I would cope with it. That plan failed when I realised that my reason(s) for being veg*n made no sense, and returned to eating meat and other animal products. Being a veggie did teach me to cook for myself and look beyond freezer meals, though it was obviously very non-paleo (rice, some tofu etc.) which won't do much for me if/when I go raw paleo. I found out about Mark Sisson's take on the "paleo" diet when I was a vegan, and obviously rejected it at the time, but took quite an interest in it when I became an omnivore again. I have tried to follow his take on paleo eating -- which, compared to a raw paleo diet, doesn't seem paleolithic at all -- but it kinda failed, mainly due to the inconvenience of it when eating at places like school. That's one of my main concerns about eating raw paleo, as I can't really see myself taking a huge raw steak into school and going caveman on it around the sandwich eaters. A huge sack of berries doesn't sound like a good option either . Anyway, hopefully I'll find all the answers I'm looking for and more on here.

Hello there.  My son is 10 years old.  He got really sick on cooked food so he needed raw paleo diet.  When he started going to school again I always had him bring a cooler with ice and sashimi / ceviche fish.

[Haai]

People think I'm weird for taking a (glass) bottle of water to work with me. If you aint got a can of cola in one hand and a big fat sandwich in the other you're going to get some strange looks and remarks when it comes to lunch time. Even eating nothing doesn't help the situation....people soon notice that you never eat and think you have some eating disorder or somthn. But hey, if that's what they want to think...just let them. Not really a huge problem after all.

[GK420]

Hopefully, if our numbers increase past a certain point, we'll eventually be able to cry "discrimination" if local restaurants/schools etc. do not provide rawpalaeodiet-friendly dishes.

I would suggest bringing raw honeycomb to school. Also raw fruit. If you look on rawpaleodiet.com, Lex has provided instructions on how to make beef jerky using equipment costing 10 dollars. Bringing dried beef jerky to school would not antagonise SAD-eating friends. It isn't ideal, given the lack of water-content, but it's better than eating cooked foods, by far.

Bodybuilders often talk about eating raw eggs in public. It doesn't seem that unusual to me.

Of course, what you could do is Intermittent Fasting  which means you eat just one large meal a day, often in the evenings. If you eat some raw animal fat in that one meal, you can last for ages without eating, thus not needing to eat at school.

I have tried making jerky and I failed miserably lol, but I will definitely try it again. I'll check the link now, cheers. Honey sounds like a good one, it's just that my mind sort of blocked honey out of paleo eating when I first read about it. When I was trying to eat "paleo" I did skip some lunches at school, but I did feel hungry. Hopefully this won't be the case with raw paleo when done properly. And I was about to say that I'm not surrounded by the SAD as I live in the UK, but when I think about it they can't be much different. Oh the wonders of globalisation...

[GK420]

And reading all of these posts makes raw paleo eating sound like some kind of underground cult of crazy people. It's almost like the new form of vegetarianism. 

[sabertooth]

This is not a cult of crazy people.

Its a sacred sanctuary from the insanity of the dietary ignorance of most of the modern world..

Perhaps much of my own extreme fervor for the Raw meat could be comparable to the truly insane vegetarian fanaticism, in some abstract conceptual realm.

I cant speak for everyone here, for all I know every other member of this forum could be "crazy", but I have the personal results in strength vitality, virility and overall mental well being, that most vegetarians could only dream of. That is enough proof of my sanity (at least in my book)

[goodsamaritan]

We're just a bunch of happily cured people spreading the good word about the original human diet, spreading cures as well.

A female Japanese friend came visiting and I told her about our raw paleo diet, and she did not think that we were strange at all... the Japanese sashimi everything.

[cherimoya_kid]

And reading all of these posts makes raw paleo eating sound like some kind of underground cult of crazy people. It's almost like the new form of vegetarianism. 

You wouldn't believe how insanely some people can respond to this sort of thing.  We're eccentric, most of us, but some people go absolutely apeshit when they hear you're eating raw meat.  It's not fact-based, and they need to think about the fact that hundreds of millions of people eat sashimi every day, and have for hundreds of years, and don't get sick from it.  They don't think about that, though.  They just react.

[MarkC]

Hi George, welcome to the forum. Hope you find it as useful as I have. I am always saddened when I hear of young people, particularly adolescent boys, who are following a vegan or vegetarian diet. I did that myself and I know from experience it can have a detrimental effect on your physical and mental development. So I'm glad to hear you're over that stage. I wish I had known about the raw paleo diet when I was a teenager.

Don't worry too much about eating at school. Tell your close friends and see what they think. If you've got good friends they'll probably think it's cool. Then you start eating raw meat around them. If they don't, they are probably closed-minded and best not to hang around. But if you want to stay friends with them, just don't mention the raw meat thing again and they will forget about it.

There are lots of things you can eat at school, like fruits, vegetables, honey and nuts. With this diet it is also easy as others have said to consume enough calories in two or even just one meal a day, so you may not need to eat during lunch hour. I also sometimes do a sabertooth and just find myself a quiet spot where I can bolt down some meat without being disturbed.

How do your parents feel about you doing a raw paleo diet? That could be a crucial factor in whether you can do it successfully.

[GK420]

This is not a cult of crazy people.

Its a sacred sanctuary from the insanity of the dietary ignorance of most of the modern world..

Perhaps much of my own extreme fervor for the Raw meat could be comparable to the truly insane vegetarian fanaticism, in some abstract conceptual realm.

I cant speak for everyone here, for all I know every other member of this forum could be "crazy", but I have the personal results in strength vitality, virility and overall mental well being, that most vegetarians could only dream of. That is enough proof of my sanity (at least in my book)

I wasn't trying to call anyone crazy if that's what it sounded like, I just meant most people are too glued to their conformist lifestyles to open their mind to anything out of the ordinary and would see it that way. It is good though that certain people are already exposed to some amount of raw meat eating in their cultures.

[GK420]

How do your parents feel about you doing a raw paleo diet? That could be a crucial factor in whether you can do it successfully.

Well I mentioned it to my mum and she seems to think it's another one of those stupid diet trends, so I asked her what the natural human diet is. Obviously, there was a blank silence and no answer. She did say she would like to see me try and eat raw meat though, so she shouldn't be too much of a problem. As for my dad, he had no huge reaction when I mentioned the cooked paleo diet, but I'm not sure how he'll react to the idea of doing it raw. He is quite stubborn and argumentative, but he moved out some time before they got divorced, so he doesn't really have any say in what I do at home anyway. I think my only obstacles will be the usual ones of not giving in to temptation and working my way around eating out with friends and family at certain places.

[MarkC]

Hey George, I'm glad to hear your mum is actually encouraging/challenging you try raw meat. That will make things much easier. Who buys the food in your house? Do you think the rest of your family might be interested in switching from grainfed to grassfed meats? Do you have access to farmers' markets and online stores?

Regarding obstacles, I find I am not tempted at all by non raw paleo food. My body is satisfied so I don't get unhealthy cravings. My only temptation is giving in to societal pressures.

[GK420]

Hey George, I'm glad to hear your mum is actually encouraging/challenging you try raw meat. That will make things much easier. Who buys the food in your house? Do you think the rest of your family might be interested in switching from grainfed to grassfed meats? Do you have access to farmers' markets and online stores?

Regarding obstacles, I find I am not tempted at all by non raw paleo food. My body is satisfied so I don't get unhealthy cravings. My only temptation is giving in to societal pressures.

Actually, I just mentioned it to her as I was making dinner this evening. "You're not eating raw meat", she said lol. I'm not too bothered about what she says though, as I know she'll eventually give up if I throw some sciencey stuff at her. Speaking of which, I need to educate myself more on the raw paleolithic diet so I actually have a better answer than "it's natural" when people get all defensive about it, that way other people will get off my back about it too. She pays for the shopping, which means she doesn't like seeing too much organic food being thrown in at the supermarket (which is understandable). I've just been looking into farmers markets near me, and haven't found any too close yet. I have found a few places online that sell grass fed meats though, so I'll give them a go sometime soon.

As for the tempting non-paleo foods, it's a problem because whenever I try and avoid non-paleo foods I open the cupboard to find junk food that I know I shouldn't eat, but sometimes give into. When I start eating raw paleo I thought it would be a good idea to divide the cupboards and fridge between us so that I don't have that problem.

[TylerDurden]

When wikipedia goes back online, have a look at the raw foodism page. There's a whole section on the "potential harmful effects of cooked foods" there, in which numerous studies appear, backing raw foods.

[GK420]

When wikipedia goes back online, have a look at the raw foodism page. There's a whole section on the "potential harmful effects of cooked foods" there, in which numerous studies appear, backing raw foods.

I would have read it before but I'm never really convinced by "research shows that ---" because there's usually some other research going against it, plus I wouldn't want to rely solely on Wikipedia. I just read it now though and I see that cooked meat clearly does have some downsides with all the carcinogens and whatnot. I'm still a bit unclear on food poisoning caused by meat though, as it's clear that we can safely eat raw meat, and even rotting meat without getting sick. Is this simply because people's bodies are not used to digesting it in this state? Go back a few years and I would have thought a person who eats high meat must be insane. And what about things like oysters? Are they only safe to eat within a certain period of time?

[TylerDurden]

The problem is not with the bacteria it is the environment the bacteria in which is important. So raw, high quality foods plus bacteria are fine while cooked foods plus bacteria are not. In the case of food-poisoning, one invariably finds that almost all of them were in a vulnerable state prior to the food-poisoning. I mean, very young or very old very sickly people would likely die if they encountered even a minor upset in their digestive system, no matter how minor, as it's just one stress too far.

I'm not so sure that it takes time to adapt to raw foods. That is, when I first went rawpalaeo, I instantly noticed that raw meats were far easier for me to digest than any cooked animal foods.

As regards studies, there are very, very few scientific studies which claim that heat-created toxins in cooked foods aren't harmful. But there are huge numbers of studies confirming that these toxins are indeed harmful. So, the evidence is pretty clear-cut.

[GK420]

I'm not so sure that it takes time to adapt to raw foods. That is, when I first went rawpalaeo, I instantly noticed that raw meats were far easier for me to digest than any cooked animal foods.

Well apparently some people have had bad reactions to eating certain raw meats early on, but I suppose that could be due to a number of other factors.

And thanks for all the help, but I just have one last question. Is there any sort of rough guideline I should follow in regards to the amount of different foods I eat? I understand that people's diets can vary quite a lot in the percentages of meat and plant matter, but I just want to be sure I'm not over or under eating certain foods.

[TylerDurden]

Those iniital "bad" reactions mostly only involve detox which is a process required to get rid of toxins from the body. Some others will involve things like allergies towards certain raw foods such as raw dairy, but that's all.

As regards percentages, we all vary. Some go in for diets high in raw plant foods, others go in for raw animal foods completely. You just have to experiment. All I can say is that, based on the evidence, most RVAFers feel most comfortable with raw animal foods forming most of their diets(65%+) but also having some raw plant foods as well(5-35%).

[GK420]

Ah ok, sounds like I'm set then. Cheers for all the info!