Having come to the conclusion that our ideal food is fruits and vegetables, we cannot help but wonder if our natural habitat is not warm countries where fruits and vegetables grow in abundance all year round. Unfortunately, the ancestors of most of us chose to live in countries with a not very favorable climate. Most readers live in cold climates where only a meager selection of local fruits and vegetables are available for most of the year. Just a hundred years ago, a resident of Canada would hardly have been able to eat mostly raw fruits and vegetables all year round. But today we are inundated with imported food from all over the world. Why not take advantage of these modern advances? Nowadays, healthy eating is possible for everyone, despite the steady deterioration in the quality of food.

If you have the opportunity to move to warmer climes and create your own little sunny paradise there, I warmly recommend that you do so and sincerely wish you success. But not everyone has such an opportunity. I realize that most readers are unlikely to plan to move to Hawaii, Mexico, Costa Rica or Florida in the next few years.

The winter diet of raw foodists in the north does not necessarily have to be very different from the diet of residents of the south. Cold weather slightly increases our need for calories (energy), which can only be met by slightly increasing the amount of food we eat. Many people believe that in winter you need to eat more fat, but this is not true. You can get the extra calories you need from carbohydrates, such as bananas.

Preference for local products

Some philosophers, for example, macrobiotics, argue that exotic and imported foods are harmful. If we take this point of view, it turns out that oranges, bananas, avocados, papaya and mangoes are contraindicated for Canadians, and apples, pears and blueberries are contraindicated for Indians. If you think about it, there is no particular difference between the body of a Canadian and the body of an Indian - both belong to the human race. Not to mention the fact that we can easily fly to India and eat mangoes there... Will this change anything in the constitution of our body? Or will these fruits suddenly become useful for us? What if we decide to move to India completely? Our stomach, intestines and other organs will remain the same.

I understand that critics often focus on product quality and environmental issues associated with imported food. Of course, imported mangoes and those picked directly from the tree are two very different things. And yet, it is better to eat imported mangoes than cereals that have been lying in a warehouse for months, or even apples, which, before reaching the counter, are stored in huge refrigerators, sometimes for a whole year. But today, thanks to an efficient supply chain, very high quality food products are available to us. For example, here in Montreal I can get mangoes of a higher quality than those I have tasted in the countries where they are directly grown.

Regarding environmental aspects, I agree that eating imported foods is not friendly to our environment. However, if I were limited to local products, I would have to eat withered apples and shriveled carrots for months. I just couldn't eat like that! Thus, the use of imported food is another compromise. However, it is worth noting that the production and export of fruits and vegetables, in general, requires fewer resources than the production of animal products or even grain. Again, no one forces you to buy imported products from very distant lands - for example, durian or coconuts from Thailand.

Product quality

During the long northern winter, local products are scarce. Lettuce sometimes takes weeks to come to us from southern agricultural farms. In this situation, it is useful to buy or grow the freshest sunflower greens. In essence, sunflower sprouts can be considered a green vegetable. Sunflower greens are easy to grow right at home. When cut just before consumption, these sprouts are by far the freshest and tastiest of winter vegetables.

How not to freeze

Many raw foodists complain that they are cold and give strange advice to eat spicy vegetables like cayenne pepper and garlic. However, these vegetables are toxic (see Chapter 7) and create only the illusion of warmth, but in reality they produce the opposite effect. The feeling of “pleasant warmth” in the body after eating hot peppers only means that the body has activated metabolic processes to neutralize the toxic substance capsaicin contained in cayenne pepper.

A typical reason raw foodists get cold in the winter is eating cold foods. Fruits that have not had time to warm up after being refrigerated will naturally make you cold, or even catch a cold. I advise you to avoid cold foods in every possible way in winter. Remove fruits and vegetables that you will eat tomorrow from the refrigerator - they should be at room temperature when consumed. If you want to eat something straight from the refrigerator, soak it in warm water for ten minutes.

The best way to stay warm in winter is physical activity. Aerobic exercise can speed up your metabolism by 10% compared to a resting state. To put this into perspective, this means that if you were to exercise vigorously for an hour without generating any heat, your body temperature would rise to 60°! Our body radiates this excess heat through sweating, and yet you can always disperse the feeling of cold with a little morning exercise.

Tropical fruits or temperate fruits?

The debate continues about which fruits from which climate zone are better. One theory states that tropical fruits are preferable, since our body is more adapted to them at the genetic level. That is, papaya, bananas, mangoes are supposedly healthier than apples, pears and berries. True, I have never seen convincing evidence for this idea. Personally, I think all fruits are equally good, and pears, apples, peaches and cherries are just as wonderful, delicious foods as papayas, mangoes and lychees. I love variety and happily eat all the fruits that the earth gives us, depending on where I am at the moment and what I can get. Many of the most delicious fruits are not very well known - cherimoya, lychee, jackfruit, durian. As the role of fruits in human nutrition grows, the variety of species available to us will increasingly expand.

Good afternoon, dear readers!

I have wanted to write this review for a very long time, because this topic is so close and interesting to me that it would be a sin to leave it without attention, despite the catastrophic lack of time.

For the first time, I took up a raw food diet quite spontaneously, without even imagining what it is and that there is such a certain style of eating behavior) At the age of 16, finishing school, I decided that my figure was far from ideal, since with a height of 175 I weighed 60 kg. Oh horror!!! (now I understand that this is quite the norm, but then teenage extremism required me to take decisive action to lose the hated fat).

There was no Internet then, I read my mother’s old notebooks, which contained all sorts of diets (my mother also sinned with self-examination). I started losing weight using them, but gradually removed all foods that contained protein or fat, because I was afraid that they would kill me. Using this method of exclusion, I switched completely to fruits and vegetables, especially leaning on raw beets, eating tons of them. I had no doubt about the vegetables, since everything that went in came out with a bang! By the way, before that I suffered from severe constipation, but after changing my diet I completely forgot what constipation was. As a result, in 5 months I reached a record weight of 44 kg, and then my mother began to sound the alarm and drag me to doctors, with the goal of curing me of anorexia. At that time, in addition to fruits and vegetables, I ate seeds and nuts, sometimes dried fruits and honey. I especially adored persimmons; I could eat a kilogram at a time! Despite my mother’s pitiful attempts to give me at least a piece of cutlet or white meat, I continued to eat as I was comfortable with.

The first thing I felt was that with the change in diet, I stopped getting acute respiratory infections from the word completely, although in my medical record, as thick as 3 volumes, “War and Peace” was written in large letters on the cover of FBD (frequently ill children). Before this, I consistently had a cold about once every couple of months, plus I had boils periodically. All this went away after 4 months of my raw food diet. I was simply delighted!!! No cough, snot or boils!

The second thing that struck me was the huge surge of strength and energy! Before this, I could lie down and read a book for hours, but after the transition there was so much energy that I had nowhere to put it. I ran in the morning, played sports in the section, went to lectures to prepare for college, while cooking for the family, making all sorts of preparations and pickles! And still I still had the strength to do nightly dance exercises. With all this, I was preparing for the last exams at school. It was easy to learn, everything was remembered with a bang!

The third, in my opinion, not a very positive moment, my menstruation disappeared. From the word absolutely. They recovered only by the age of 21, when I began to include fat-containing foods and milk in my diet.

Thus, despite the negative attitude of my mother and relatives towards my way of eating (SOVDEP and cutlets rule), I ate raw foods from 16 to 21 years old.

As for the climate and nutrition on a raw food diet in such a harsh climate (Chelyabinsk), I will say that YEAH, it’s COLD! It’s always cold in winter, because it still seems to me that a raw food diet is for warm countries. I was very cold, I put on a couple of sweaters, while my friends wore T-shirts.

As for variety in nutrition, it seems to me that you can always choose and buy something to your liking. We have a lot of vegetables that can be eaten in winter, and fruits can be kept in the cellar in the fall. Especially when you have your own garden, this is generally a godsend for a raw foodist!

At about 18 years old, my weight began to gradually return to normal, I grew to 178 and my weight was about 55-57 kg.

At the age of 21, I finished my studies and went to work for the police, and that’s when I had to say goodbye to the raw food diet for a while) There they taught me to drink, smoke and swear, but this somehow doesn’t fit in with a healthy lifestyle) I still don’t I ate meat (I haven’t liked it since childhood), but I constantly ate chips, sweets, chocolates and other chemical rubbish.

This continued until I was 25, after which, thank God, I resigned from the internal affairs bodies, and again felt like a woman, and not an employee))).

However, the woman was so-so, to put it mildly, fat, a shapeless carcass with dull hair and a gray face. Ewww, I told myself and got down to business.

I eliminated harmful foods from my diet, included sports, and within a couple of months I met my husband and became pregnant. During pregnancy I ate a lot of salads, but I also sinned with hot smoked mackerel) I could eat it at one in the morning, apparently the baby demanded it!

After the birth of the child, my diet continued to be 80% raw food, the rest dairy and cheeses (I really love cheese).

At the age of 29, when planning my second child, I completely switched to a raw food diet, which helped me conceive a much-awaited girl. (there is a lot of information on the Internet that when eating fruits and vegetables, the body reproduces female offspring). It worked for us!

During pregnancy, I ate very little, also mainly fruits and vegetables, but I ate them boiled, steamed, plus I drank a lot of yogurt (I made it myself from natural milk). Pregnancy, as the first time, was easy, the baby was born healthy and full-term.

And now, having finally moved to a warm climate (Krasnodar), I am approaching the idea of ​​switching to a 100% raw food diet! While my diet includes occasional boiled vegetables and lean muffins, with the onset of summer, I’m thinking of giving up those too. Here in the south, it’s a paradise for a raw foodist, vegetables and fruits are very cheap and incredibly tasty, and dried fruits and nuts are a separate issue! I just enjoy them, feeling my body filled with energy. I get tested regularly, despite the fact that I haven’t eaten meat, chicken or fish for about 9 years, B12 is normal, hemoglobin is 120, which is also good. I don’t take extra vitamins; I treat colds only with sea salt and propolis. I exercise regularly, 2 times a day or 1, but every day. I don't drink or smoke! At 34 years old, I look pretty good, in my opinion, at least some of my peers look much older. This, of course, is genetically predisposed to a greater extent, but I think nutrition also plays an important role)

At the same time, I have enough strength for work (I’m a lawyer remotely), a small daughter and a first-grader son) And don’t forget my husband! I cook regular meat meals for all of them, every day, and I love it! And they are happy and say it’s delicious! But they don’t refuse my raw food sweets and cakes))).

So, in my opinion, a raw food diet is a very favorable and natural nutrition system for humans, but only if there are no direct contraindications!

Thank you all for your attention, I hope my review will be useful to you)))

It is easier to join a raw food diet in the warm season, generously filled with fresh vegetables and fruits. Winter, accompanied by cold, decreased immunity and colds, requires increased attention to your diet. In winter, a raw foodist has at least a choice: you can go to warmer climes and enjoy natural plant foods there, or you can spend the winter at home, buying suitable products. In addition, you can prepare for winter in advance by making healthy food preparations.

Is a raw foodist at risk of starvation in winter?

There is a lot of debate about the diet of raw foodists. Their diet is considered by many to be meager, monotonous and even unnutritious. But this misconception is easy to refute, and raw foodists survive the winter much more safely than eaters of traditional cuisine. After all, it is not a piece of fried meat eaten during a hearty lunch that warms a person, but only normal blood circulation.

A raw foodist receives everything that the human body needs for normal functioning along with the products that make up his light and tasty diet. How do adherents of a raw food diet manage to fill their bodies with all the vital elements? Let's talk about this in more detail.

What foods serve as a source of energy in winter?

The winter diet of a raw foodist is not much different from his traditional diet. From what products can a raw foodist derive various benefits necessary for a healthy existence in the winter?

1. Fruits. The winter diet of a raw foodist is varied with both domestic and overseas fruits: apples, bananas, pomegranates, pineapples, kiwis, oranges, pomelo, grapes. Especially lean on apples - they are not only healthy, but also satisfy your hunger well.
2. Dried fruits. A product that combines energy value with taste appeal. Hearty and tasty – dried fruits are an ideal product for maintaining energy. Raisins, dried apricots, prunes and, of course, dates. When buying them, pay attention to the quality! Avoid products that are overly beautiful and shiny - they may be treated with harmful compounds.
3. Vegetables. If you don’t trust mass producers and market traders, there is only one option left - to grow your own vegetables. In any case, the winter diet of a raw foodist should be filled with vegetables. Potatoes and cabbage, carrots and beets, radishes and turnips, pumpkin, Jerusalem artichoke and other vegetables are its essential components.
4. Green. This is a real record holder for vitamin content. Green onions, parsley, dill, celery and other green crops can be purchased or grown yourself. It's not difficult at all - a little effort and care, and fresh herbs will be on your table every day.
5. Berries. Strawberries, raspberries, currants, lingonberries and other berries can be bought frozen in winter. You can also make your own berry reserves by freezing your summer harvest.
6. Nuts. Almonds, hazelnuts, peanuts and walnuts are always welcome in the diet of raw foodists, and even more so in winter. The nuts are eaten unshelled and unroasted.
7. Cereals. They, along with nuts, are a reliable and stable source of protein. Using a seed germinator, we germinate rye and oats, buckwheat and wheat. The sprouts can be eaten whole, or you can make delicious salads. Flax and pumpkin seeds will complement your winter diet.
8. Oil. You should use virgin oil. Flaxseed oil is an excellent preventative and a unique source of fatty acids and vitamin D. The oil is added to salads or drunk separately - a teaspoon.
9. Honey. As well as other bee products - bee bread, propolis. There are plenty of varieties of honey – everyone can choose one to suit their taste. Honey for raw foodists is a wonderful source of carbohydrates.
10. Clean water. And finally, a raw foodist, as a supporter of a healthy diet, cannot do without clean water. It is recommended to drink structured or melt water.

How to organize a winter menu?

By eating a nut-honey mixture in the morning, you can stock up on energy for almost the whole day. For second breakfast, a raw foodist can safely replenish his energy needs by eating apples and pineapples, persimmons and dried fruits - all these products are found in abundance on the shelves of domestic stores. At lunch, you should give preference to legumes - it is at lunchtime that they are absorbed best. It is better to devote the evening to vegetables. The winter vegetable diet pleases with variety - cabbage and carrots, celery and beets, pumpkin and Jerusalem artichoke - a wonderful end to the day.

Winter supplies

Shops and supermarkets are, of course, an indisputable achievement of civilization, but often products sold through retail outlets arouse justifiable mistrust of the consumer. A raw foodist, being a fan of a healthy diet, is unlikely to want to eat vegetables and fruits filled with nitrates and other poisons. In winter, when you don’t have much choice, the chances of purchasing a low-quality product increase many times over. Why not try to provide your own winter nutrition?

• Fruits. Apples and winter varieties of pears are perfectly stored in cellars until the summer.
• Grape. If stored properly, bunches of grapes can be stored for a couple of months.
• Vegetables. The cellar can be filled with seasonal vegetables grown independently or purchased. In winter, you can take potatoes and cabbage, pumpkin and carrots, beets and radishes, etc. from it.
• Green. By sowing parsley, dill, celery and other healthy greens in pots or wooden boxes, you will provide yourself with the necessary vitamins.
• Nuts. They are best stored in shells. Before eating, soak the nuts in water - this will give them a fresh taste.

Well, raw food diet and winter are quite compatible. Plant-based living food will warm you up in winter better than borscht or roast. And if you do not forget about the importance of hardening and physical activity, you are unlikely to have health problems in the winter.

18.02.2014 Pelagia Zuikova Save:

Hello! Many people on a raw food diet freeze even indoors, despite warm clothes and shoes. I will help you understand the reasons why raw foodists freeze, and I will give a specific solution to problems with freezing of the body.

Why does a raw foodist get cold and what to do?

1. Poor circulation.

This may be due to tight clothing (wear warm but loose clothing). When it's cold, the limbs (arms and legs) feel it first. When your hands freeze, your whole body becomes cold. Therefore, always keep your limbs warm.

2. Inactivity.

A sedentary lifestyle is clearly not for a raw foodist! Take a walk every day, walk home from work/school, do exercises, join a sports section, etc. I have been very cold since childhood, now walking in the fresh air, playing sports and massage help me a lot from freezing and fatigue.

3. Strong acidification of the body and detoxification.

When the body is cleansing itself during the transition period (the detoxification process is underway), then freezing is quite normal, since there is a release of toxins and strong acidification of the blood. Also, your organs have not yet adjusted to new conditions and new food. But freezing also depends on what’s in your diet.

If you eat a lot of nuts and dried fruits, the body becomes more acidic than alkalized. At the same time, bacteria predominate in your intestines - alcohol fermenters, which take a lot of energy from food.

The same thing happens with an abundance of grains and other protein foods - the body becomes acidic. The solution is a low-protein raw food diet, but only for raw foodists with at least 6 months of experience. You also need to drink enough water to wash away acidity and waste during cleaning.

4. Lack of sweet fruits in the diet.

In winter, eat sweet and semi-sweet fruits: bananas, sweet apples, etc. They will help keep you warm. Sour fruits slightly reduce the body's thermal protective properties. The exception is garnet, which does the opposite.

In general, sour fruits give an alkaline reaction in the body, but for a beginning raw foodist the processes have not yet been adjusted, so the reaction can often be sour, which is good for alcohol fermenters.

5. Dehydration.

The body's transition to an acidic environment is associated with dehydration. The body freezes faster if the body is dehydrated, since blood volume decreases and circulation deteriorates. Therefore, you need to drink 1.5-2 liters of liquid per day.

Just drink not tea, but herbal infusions (except mint), or better yet, clean water. A sign of a lack of water can be not only thirst, but also orange urine + dry skin on the hands.

6. Lack of potassium, iron and iodine in the diet.

If you eat little greens, then it’s not surprising that you don’t feel cold. Include greens, green sprouts (sprouts) of cereals and seeds, and green smoothies in your diet. Celery, which is rich in potassium, helps very well against the cold.

In winter, include sea kaputa (kelp) in your diet, which will provide your thyroid gland with the necessary nutrients (including iodine).

7. Lack of Omega-3 fatty acid.

In winter, do not focus on nuts, grains and seeds, but consume in moderation (no more than 60-100 grams per day): flax, hemp seed, walnuts. These foods are rich in omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, which make the blood more fluid, so it circulates better in organs and tissues.

Don't be surprised if you feel cold if you eat too many nuts, grains, legumes, and vegetable oils in your diet. All of them contain too much omega-6, therefore making your blood thicker, and the latter stagnates and circulates poorly - making you cold.

8. Using very hot spices.

Oddly enough, hot spices are extremely harmful to the body, although they warm the body during their use. I especially do not recommend using black and red pepper (hot chili). Why, you ask? The fact is that hot spices contain various poisons, which make them taste spicy. When such a product enters the body, it tries to reject it and accordingly releases heat.

But as a result, hypothermia of the body is possible, since it spends invaluable heat on neutralizing the poisons contained in very hot spices. But not all spices are poisonous. You can use onions, garlic, ginger, cinnamon and other mild (dill, parsley) or almost mild spices in small quantities.

By the way, ginger infusion with honey is very good in winter (can be heated to 40 degrees).

As for salt (of course, sea salt, not table salt): at the initial stage, it is better to leave it in the diet, because it is a natural antibiotic and kills many bacteria. But in the future it is advisable to completely abandon it.

9. Fatigue and excess body fat.

Obese people have worse blood circulation, which makes them cold. Even the fat layer does not save. And fatigue makes the situation even worse.

10. Lack of food and energy.

During the transition period, live food is poorly absorbed, which is why the beginning raw foodist lacks the energy he gets from food. This is why many raw foodists eat a lot during the transition period.

Eat as much as you want, especially things that alkalize the body (vegetables, greens). But do not eat unripe fruits or foods that have been stored for a long time - they will definitely acidify you and only cause harm.

11. Weak spirituality and distrust of raw food diet.

Increasing vibrations, spirituality, awareness of a raw food diet as an integral part of one’s life increases the tone of the body, which, in addition to peace and positivity, also freezes less.

That's all for freezing on a raw food diet. Share your experience in the comments, and also ask your questions - we will answer them. See you in other articles that will be published very soon! Bye-bye, friends.

Subscribe to blog updates– there are still many interesting articles ahead!

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Excessive self-reflection of healthy lifestyle people

I don't always Google my symptoms, but when I Google it, I always find cancer © Hypochondriac

It's okay to listen to your body. Even more is necessary. However, raw foodists sometimes go too far.

You've probably heard the story that raw foodists get cold? They seem to be experiencing an unusual cold. I have a question for raw foodists: In 30-degree heat, are you also cold? Are you also cold in the tropics? In the solarium, if someone walks, do you feel cold too? Of course not. And if you are now freezing in the tropics under the sun, then you probably have a temperature of about 40 and you urgently need to bring it down.

The theme with cold is very revealing. Everyone is freezing, but for some reason the raw foodists suddenly decided to bother with this. If you deliberately do not harden yourself and live in a cold country, then you simply cannot avoid freezing. Another point is that raw foodists often at the same time refuse alcohol, which “warms”. That's why they're called hot drinks. Alcohol thickens our blood, and the smart body, in response to the poison, immediately tries to remove it. We perceive this process of intoxication and subsequent detoxification as “it has become warm.” Now think about it, perhaps you have always been cold, but before your body was so busy cleaning itself that you didn’t notice it? On a raw food diet, all senses are heightened. Perhaps your body is now feeling the real ambient temperature?

In addition to this, remember those moments when you supposedly felt “cold”. What are you doing at this moment? Are you passionate about something that makes you happy? Perhaps you are in an environment that, in principle, is not interesting to you or irritates you. Let's say you're freezing right now. What if you found out that in the evening you have a plane to the Maldives (or wherever you want) and you have an hour to get ready. I think you would forget about the cold :)

The essence of the raw food diet itself is to live more efficiently to achieve goals and realize dreams. And sometimes we forget about this and start making mountains out of molehills. If we are passionate about something, remember that at these moments we may not even feel pain. And if you’re bored, then everything starts to irritate you.

Simply put, excessive self-reflection comes from idleness and boredom. And the nature of boredom is doing something other than your own business, NOT doing what you really want to do.

Excessive monitoring of your condition, searching for the causes of pseudo-disease, panic over every pimple - all these are symptoms of banal hypochondria. What is hypochondria? Hypochondriacal neurosis, as excessive concern about one’s health, can arise as a result of grief, stress, illness of a loved one or one’s own. Excessive parental care can cause a child to develop hypochondria in adulthood. Remember the movie The Aviator, which perfectly illustrates how you can intimidate a child for the rest of his life. Although, there we are talking about OCD, but in our topic, the very motive of cleansing the body while living in this society is doomed to failure.

Also, hypochondria can serve as a shift in focus from a more important problem that really worries you. Quite often, due to the inability to influence things outside, we use self-reflection as a way to control at least ourselves and our body. The world seems full of danger to a hypochondriac, so self-control is a way to calm down.

But again! It’s normal to listen to your body, get tested, and monitor your condition if you want to be healthy. We are talking specifically about the obsessive desire for cleansing. And if we look at people who advocate purity of body and mind, these are real neurotics - classic cases from psychology textbooks. By listening to neurotics, all you will earn is neurosis. Do you need it?

Future raw foodists who have come under the influence of neurotic lecturers or those predisposed to hypochondria begin to frantically google symptoms and find a long list of diseases. As a rule, this flows onto the Internet, where a person prone to hypochondria finds a bunch of like-minded people. YouTube in particular is a temple of self-reflection. Here it is customary to discuss everything and take it apart piece by piece. What practical value does this have? None, because even if you have symptoms of a real illness, no one will give you practical advice without knowing your situation.

Friends, if you feel that you are sick, get tested and save yourself from the “headache”. It doesn't matter if it's fictional or real. And sitting on forums or being guided by the subjective feelings of bloggers is fraught with real health problems.

If you don’t understand why you need a raw food diet, then you will inevitably slide into the subculture of whiners, who essentially don’t care for what reason they feel pain. So what do you want?

Do you really want to go raw?