Has anyone else developed health problems from eating the Raw Paleo Diet?

[psycoconnetic]

I tried eating RPD for a bit, and it eliminated the inflammation which I'd previously been suffering from immediately. However, I also experienced a lack of energy, slow digestion, muscle cramps, sleeplessness and bad odour. I stuck with the diet however(for 1-2 years), as it had stopped my inflammation after all, and I hoped the new problems would go away in time. However, they just got worse, and after a few months my digestion ground to a halt, my body stopped recovering from physical activity, and I started to get rashes and diarrhoea, as well as debilitating brain fog(the worst of all, as my intellect was my most cherished attribute), and that's probably leaving a few out. I tried everything within the scope of RPD to address these problems but nothing worked and eventually I quit, a wreck.

I'm now eating a healthy diet based on cooked food, along the lines of a paleo template/nourishing traditions diet. My inflammation has not returned, but I'm stuck slowly(at best) recovering from these maladies I picked up on RPD.

I think, if I'd learned to eat a healthy cooked paleo-template/nourishing traditions diet(proper, traditional preparation of foods), before going into RPD, I would've got rid of my inflammation without suffering from all these other problems I'm now plagued with. I never learned how to cook healthy food and was not fed healthy food(cooked or otherwise) by my parents. So, I went from eating absolute garbage, to eating just raw fruits, cheese, nuts and cooked meats, to eating RPD, without ever trying a regular healthy diet in between, as I didn't know what one was - I just went straight into eating a shoddy approximation of the paleo idea because it made sense to me, and I didn't have to know how to cook.

Anyway, I'm not here to complain as I did everything by my own choice, I'm just now interested to know if anyone else has had similar experiences with RPD and has just assumed that they're alone, or for other reasons been afraid to mention it.

Has anyone else tried RPD, stuck with it due to some positive results, and then ended up with a load of new problems? Perhaps you quit, or perhaps you're still struggling along hoping it will get better. Similarly, I'm interested to hear from anyone who has had absolutely no negative consequences from eating RPD whatsoever, or perhaps you have had a few problems but feel they are so vastly outweighed by the positives that you don't care, or you are happy to accept them.

Whatever your situation I look forward to hearing from you, and I hope that knowledge of my own experience may benefit some people too.

Regards,

Des.

[goodsamaritan]

Must have been a problem with your execution and your food and water sources.

Take pics, before and after.

Write down some journal of sorts you remember how your diet and lifestyle was.

Write down more about yourself.

[Haai]

It is generally well known among members of this forum, I believe, that too much fruit, cheese or nuts can give one problems. Raw grass-fed or wild meat and fat should be the staples of a raw paleo diet. The way I have become to regard the raw paleo diet now is a diet of meat and fat, supplemented, if one wants, with a little fruit, veg, nuts and seeds. I personally don't bother with nuts, seeds or veg (with the exception of home-made coconut milk).  If I eat fruit it's almost always berries. Remember that nuts, seeds, fruit and veg were only seasonally available to our Paleolithic ancestors that lived in a temperate climate.

As goodsamaritan pointed out, water quality is also important, probably as important as food quality.

Also, how often were you 'cheating' i.e. straying from the raw paleo diet? Do you drink coffee, tea, alcohol, smoke etc?

These are all things that could fuck things up, for lack of a better way of putting it.

[psycoconnetic]

I was eating raw grass-fed meats, including organs, bone-marrow and fat, mainly from beef and lamb, but also some wild boar, venison, pheasants etc. This was my diet at the beginning of RPD, then as I was falling apart I tried every other combination with raw veg, herbs, fruits, nuts, cheeses, adding in herbal teas, sea salt, bits of cooked food etc and then giving up on RPD entirely as nothing helped - I still just got worse. I drank spring water, as well as getting plenty of sunshine and physical activity/exercise. I tried all the combinations: more fat, less fat, more organs, different and unusual organs, fasting, etc etc, tried more fruit, less fruit, berries, etc... everything people suggest here when people are having problems, none of it helped. I was doing this for over a year so I went through everything. I did not smoke, drink alcohol or tea & coffee etc... Nor do I now, nor did I beforehand. I also didn't 'cheat', at all.

I only started to recover at all when I stopped eating RPD(and started eating traditionally prepared food)... But the recovery is slow.

[aLptHW4k4y]

I'm in some similar situation to be honest, but certainly not that bad as you describe. Just some small issues when compared to a "healthy" cooked diet. Many things get fixed, others get (tiny bit) worse. For me at least, the pros outweigh by far the cons.

What was your BMI, were you by any chance too underweight? Number one problem for me is getting enough calories / gaining weight.

Now that you're doing a cooked diet, why don't you try one by one part of it raw? For example only the meat raw for one month, if things go well just continue with it and try something else raw. This way you can figure out better what was the issue.

[goodsamaritan]

psy,

how old are you?  are you male or female? what were your problems when you decided to do rpd?

Was your rpd ZERO CARB when you started out?  For how long were you zero carb?  Meat Only?

Where did you buy your grass fed meats?

Were your meats frozen when you bought them?  Or freshly killed?

Aajonus says freezing damages meat.

[raw]

 psycoconnetic , ur experiences on raw paleo is certainly strange. The reason is simple, if my 16th months old daughter and 6 yrs old son thrive on this complete raw meat and fat diet and you must be an adult and ur immune system must be different than my children. There is certainly wrong with your system, with ur meat supply...

I know some one who is just doing raw paleo and found himself even better one meal raw paleo and other one cooked paleo for diner. I understand that particular person could do even the best on complete raw paleo, but his body has too much toxicity by consuming psychiatric drugs. I wonder, if you are on those prescribed drugs too. RPD saves my life. I belief in it so much that can't imagine living in other ways. Cooked proteins are generally harmful. Just be careful and try to monitor how many days you can live absolutely problem free. I m not wishing you the bad, but sometimes too good to be bad , specially on cook food. I also wonder about your age and the way you say that you are recovering, but how long now you are recovering? Hoping we all can hear from you soon. Thanks.

[Projectile Vomit]

To answer the question in the thread's title directly: yes, many people have developed either acute or chronic health problems from eating the Raw Paleo Diet, or both. There are many ways to approach this diet that will yield deleterious effects, and if the number of people who start posting on this forum and soon vanish is any indication it would seem that those of us who use the Raw Paleo Theology to design eating patterns that work for us are a minority. But some of us do.

Things to watch out for include (but are not limited to):
1. Eating low quality food (antibiotic or hormone-laced, grain-fed animal foods, pesticide laced vegetables and fruits)
2. Eating too much of the wrong foods
3. Not eating enough of the right foods
4. Not being attentive to our bodies for feedback on whether we're doing the above
5. Eating too much more generally
6. Not eating enough more generally
7. Not drinking/eating enough clean water
8. Maintaining other habits that do not support healing (i.e. bad relationships, smoking, being fat and lazy, etc.)
9. Lying to ourselves about how rigorously we maintain our desired eating patterns and lifestyle

Not saying you're doing any of these things, but you might be. It's also useful to realize that any substantial dietary transition will come with a transition period wherein the body adjusts to new eating patterns. You'll just need to relax through this. The result is worth it as long as you have access to high quality foods.

[aLptHW4k4y]

1. Eating low quality food (antibiotic or hormone-laced, grain-fed animal foods, pesticide laced vegetables and fruits)

This could not be the case -- it's not like you would have been eating better than the above low-quality food before going into raw paleo diet, and then suddenly start eating it once you start raw paleo. It's much more likely that you'd continue eating the same, or more likely higher quality food. So any issues arising after going into a raw paleo diet are unlikely to be caused by the quality of the food. Unless low-quality food becomes higher-quality when cooked.

[jessica]

eric, great post and list.  with the exception of the use of the word "theology" I agree with you %100

[raw]

One problem was striking for the 1st 2 yrs straight on RPD and that was muscle cramps. Now for the past one year, I don't have that any more. I also had an issue of undigestion of raw cow fat... but not any more. I mean it also takes time to adopt for some of us. I also think mentally ill people, this diet also act little different than others. These population still need supplements and sun therapy on top of RPD. Cooked food just can't be the best one, specially cooked protein and fats. I do understand about eating cooked vegetables than raw one...

[Johan August]

One problem was striking for the 1st 2 yrs straight on RPD and that was muscle cramps.

Did you have any thoughts about what caused your muscle cramps and what made them better? Lex Rooker had some muscle cramps on his ZC RPD and thought that adding sea salt was helping  him. I have begun getting muscle cramps in my legs and I am wondering if it is shortage of calcium. I don't do dairy.

[raw]

I heard that American soil  has lack of selenium. So eventually animals are also suffering from low selenium. We also have other mineral deficiencies in general. I eat lots of fruits like extremely riped organic bananas. I just recently started drinking bio-photonic water. But absolutely no muscle cramps. Before my paleo diet, when I got pregnant for the 1st time, I also experienced severe crumps.

[psycoconnetic]

aLptHW4k4y, I have no interest in going back to eating any kind of raw food diet, I've flogged that experiment to death.

GS, I'm male aged 20. I was zero carb for ~6 months, for my start of RPD, but then afterwards I tried ZC again several times for shorter periods... I got grass-fed meats from the local butcher, and sometimes ordered from a farm. Aside from a few exceptions it was always fresh. When I ate frozen meat I ate it without thawing, so the damage to the meat would not matter.

Oh yes, I also tried hang aging, jar aging, raw honey/honey comb, raw milk and raw cheese. I tried everything.

I came to RPD with mild acne and getting inflammation too easily in my muscles/joints during sport, mild hyper-inflammatory reaction you could say. But, this was eating a very unhealthy version of cooked paleo diet(burnt 20% fat mince meat cooked in the oven, fruit, canned corned beef/spam etc - I basically had mild gout), and before that whole grains un-soaked, with fat-free canned tuna etc, no vegetables, maybe just tomato sauce or something, and wholegrain muesli with dried fruits/nuts(with which I had mild IBS and slightly worse inflammation elsewhere), I never tried regular healthy eating because I didn't know what it was. Eating RPD cured me of inflammation, but at the sake of giving me many more new problems that were much(infinitely) worse than the inflammation. I got on fine before RPD, just not optimally... If I'd just eaten a regular healthy diet/healthy paleo diet I could've cured my inflammation without getting the other problems...

Before RPD I was on a college boxing program, I did well in college, did well in boxing, did OK socially, but I wasn't performing the best I could because of the inflammation, so I just wanted to do something to improve that. After eating RPD I fell out of college and became a recluse because of my new maladies... I didn't just go back to eating how I did before when things started going wrong because I didn't want to go back to getting inflammation, I wanted to move forward, and I was sure RPD was the way so I stuck with it, and like a good captain I went down with my RPD ship. I really had to exhaust every possibility before I could accept RPD was no good for me.

Another thing that happened on RPD was that I stopped growing, and my facial/body hair stopped spreading. Both of these processes have now resumed since adopting a healthy cooked diet.

I also had very poor circulation on RPD, and I developed varicoceles... One of those had now healed/disappeared, but unfortunately the other has not yet - hopefully that will follow in time.

[ys]

Yuri also got screwed up after doing zero-carb and intermittent fasting.  Check his journal.

[goodsamaritan]

Seems It was ZERO CARB that messed you up.

The longest I did zero carb myself is only 4 days.
Zero carb is not for everyone.

Question: What on earth gave you the idea that to be "Raw Paleo Diet" was to do Zero Carb?  Is this forum mis-informing newbies that Raw Paleo Diet is zero carb?

Humans are OMNIVORES... eats fruits, some vegs, some root crops, some animals... and the ratio will depend on your age, state of health, your part of the world, what is available and in today's mixed up genetics and amazing logistics... what you are comfortable with, what works and what you can afford.

[cherimoya_kid]

Did you have any thoughts about what caused your muscle cramps and what made them better? Lex Rooker had some muscle cramps on his ZC RPD and thought that adding sea salt was helping  him. I have begun getting muscle cramps in my legs and I am wondering if it is shortage of calcium. I don't do dairy.

Cramps are rarely a calcium shortage.  If anything, it's the opposite, you need to reduce calcium, and get more magnesium.

[cherimoya_kid]

Question: What on earth gave you the idea that to be "Raw Paleo Diet" was to do Zero Carb?  Is this forum mis-informing newbies that Raw Paleo Diet is zero carb?

I wish we'd quit with the ZC versus high-carb wars, and just admit that our bodies change over time.  In 5 or 10 years, even Lex may find that he needs to add some carbs back in.  And of course, nearly everyone needs more carbs than Lex does.  Low-carb is fine for a while, but eventually, unless you're living in or near the Arctic circle, you probably need to eat some carbs.

[Ferocious]

Edit: It's me, Suiren. I forgot my husband was logged in..

I wish we'd quit with the ZC versus high-carb wars, and just admit that our bodies change over time.  In 5 or 10 years, even Lex may find that he needs to add some carbs back in.  And of course, nearly everyone needs more carbs than Lex does.  Low-carb is fine for a while, but eventually, unless you're living in or near the Arctic circle, you probably need to eat some carbs.

That is what I found to be true for me.

psy

I developed new health issues and old issues came back on a cooked paleo diet that was too low in carbs. It really was an accident, I simply left out carb sources without knowing I am only eating about 60g of carbs a day, shared with my son due to breastfeeding.

I had inflammatory pains, digestive issues whenever a carb crossed my way, my thyroid problem returned, I had pms and acne, hair loss...lots of hormone related problems, also chest pain and heart palpitations, fatigue, the list goes on...

Low carb can affect your hormones, which might explain why your growth and  maturing stalled. Too much meat and not much else can also cause your body to be too acidic I believe.

I fixed my problem by adding carbs back and actually do best with more veggies and fruits and not so much meat. And I helped my hormones adjust using herbs. Then I was on an all cooked diet.

I don't think it is the raw diet that caused the problem. It was how much you ate of certain things.

[LePatron7]

Raw paleo for me was the kind of thing that I needed to eat a certain way before I really got the benefits.

When I first started I was eating low fat, high protein, high carb (like so many newbies do). I wasn't really eating any fat except for what was in muscle meat and fish. I lost a lot of weight. Not to mention I stopped my supplements, terrible idea.

However my second attempt I added lots of beef fat, success! I also restarted my supplements (which being schizophrenic are necessary for normal functioning). Nonetheless it still wasn't optimal. I wasn't getting any iodine really, so I started taking Lugol's. I wasn't getting any sodium/salt really. So I ended up adding in salt (Real Salt - highly recommended).  I realized I wasn't getting enough potassium with my small amount of fruit consumption, and I made the connection when I ate like 5 bananas in one day. And last but not least I recently added a magnesium supplement.

Any way. Point is, raw paleo is the kind of diet that you really need to make sure you're covering all the bases. It can work really well if you do it right. But the trick is doing it right. If you don't you might end up thinking raw paleo is a bad diet, it's not nourishing, it's unhealthy, etc. But really it's that you didn't follow the diet in a way that works long term. Not saying there aren't people it just doesn't work for, but it's more likely there was something missing in the equation.

There really are a lot of ways you can go wrong on raw paleo.

1) low fat raw paleo. Eating nothing but muscle meat without an added source of fat. Typically in this situation you end up binge eating on muscle meat and fruit to get calories, both of which are a bad idea because of excess protein and carbs. This category could also fall under low calorie raw paleo, where a lot of newbies experience rapid weight loss to the point of looking sick.

2) no iodine raw paleo. Lots of land animals, very little sea food or seaweed. I've actually seen this be the case with a lot of cooked paleo dieters. They do great for a while, but eventually the lack of iodine catches up with them.

3) no sodium raw paleo. People assume salt is bad, it's a processed food, etc. They don't consume any salt. This is especially a problem when you go VLC or ZC.

4) no magnesium raw paleo. Very easy to do this as there aren't many magnesium rich foods that you'd eat frequently.

Cramps are rarely a calcium shortage.  If anything, it's the opposite, you need to reduce calcium, and get more magnesium.

I actually noticed the leg cramps I used to get have completely disappeared since adding in sea salt, potassium, and magnesium. Usually after intense bouts of exercise I'd be awoken by horribly painful leg cramps. Now even after exercising intensely I never get leg cramps.

[raw]

Very good point deboss

[Johan August]

Cramps are rarely a calcium shortage.  If anything, it's the opposite, you need to reduce calcium, and get more magnesium.

This is not my  personal experience. At the moment my consumption of calcium is minimal while I have been supplementing magnesium and potassium for years. My average intake of magnesium per day is between 200 and 300% RDA, my average intake of calcium is below 50% a day, and my intake of potassium is about 80% RDA a day. I avoid dairy.  I find it difficult to get more magnesium and potassium from food sources than I actually do, about 50% RDA in each case. I over supplement magnesium because it helps control my atrial fibrillation.I do not place all that much importance on RDA as the values established were based on populations eating refined carbohydrates which cause the wasting of magnesium and potassium and the retention of sodium. The leg cramps appeared after I switched to eating below 50g of carbohydrates a day. If the leg cramps do not improve I think I will have to increase my carbs and potassium rich carbohydrates in particular.

[PaleoPhil]

Psycoconnetic, thanks for sharing your experience. We can learn from failures as well as successes.

I'm curious, like GS, where you got the idea to do ZC? I can't think of anyone currently very active on this forum who's avidly promoting ZC or extremely LC, and there seems to have been plenty of warning from numerous reports of failures on ZC over the years, though I don't read most of the threads these days, so maybe I'm missing something. Even one of our most successful (though not recently very active) near-ZC dieters, Lex Rooker, frequently warns people to not emulate him and instead find what works for them. I even called the ZC term an abomination in the past. The ZC following here and elsewhere on the Internet seems to have dwindled down to nearly nothing.

I didn't develop any new health problems on raw Paleo (I'm not saying it's a cure-all; it didn't cure everything 100% for me). Maybe it's because I don't do either of the two extreme variations that seem to produce the most failures:

1) zero- or extremely-low carb
2) very high fruit/honey

As with ZC, high-fruit versions of raw vegan diets also appear to be declining in popularity, as indicated by the steady decline in web traffic to the 30BAD forum. Many of the failures on both of these dietary extremes also appeared to involve undereating and/or nutrient deficiencies and advocates of both ZC and high-fruit diets (such as ZC coctivore Charles Washington and 80-10-10er DurianRider) tend to remind their followers to eat plenty of calories. Eating lots of calories on extreme diets can theoretically help reduce the chronic stress the diets would otherwise create and improve the chances of getting enough nutrients. Better still would be to avoid these extreme diets and eat a more nutritionally balanced diet, if one can tolerate it.

Both of those high-failure approaches also tend to eschew "starchy" foods like roots, tubers, corms, bulbs and rhizomes. In recent years, certain "starchy" foods have made a bit of a comeback in dietary circles (see Paul Jaminet).

I did try near-ZC for a few months, out of curiosity after someone challenged me to try it and I noticed several people doing well with it, with the idea that it would likely be a temporary experiment, and I ended the experiment when it became clear that it was causing worsening of pre-existing constipation. I never bought the notion that it made sense to avoid or minimize eggs, liver or brains merely because they contain carbs.

[24isours]

I am thriving on a RZC Diet. A lot of care and attention must go toward such a diet for it to work correctly. Through trial and error it can be very successful approach. Like Boss mentioned, too much protein can be a big problem on RZC as it will cause negative reactions. You have to find your sweet spot with protein and fat intake. I've noticed with my body, too much protein will cause nausea, dizziness, and joint pain while not enough fat will give me headaches.  Not enough salt and I will find myself getting groggy (most likely low blood pressure) and fatigued. Organ meat is very important if you are eating only meat - without organ meat you will run into deficiencies.

[LePatron7]

I am thriving on a RZC Diet. A lot of care and attention must go toward such a diet for it to work correctly. Through trial and error it can be very successful approach. Like Boss mentioned, too much protein can be a big problem on RZC as it will cause negative reactions. You have to find your sweet spot with protein and fat intake. I've noticed with my body, too much protein will cause nausea, dizziness, and joint pain while not enough fat will give me headaches.  Not enough salt and I will find myself getting groggy (most likely low blood pressure) and fatigued. Organ meat is very important if you are eating only meat - without organ meat you will run into deficiencies.

What's your diet like? It would help other members considering RZC. I still eat some carbs (90-120 grams daily, some times more) but I'm interested in how you often you eat organ meats too. I eat muscle meat regularly, and once weekly I'll eat 4 oz of liver, brain, and heart. Do you eat more organ meats than muscle meat?

How is your salt intake? How much fat and what type do you use?