There is a sizeable community of people who practice raw veganism near where I live and these folks are hard core. Needless to say, these folks love the green smoothies diet.
This is easy to understand as those who embark on raw veganism typically feel fantastic for quite some time while eating this way. Â Raw veggies are extremely detoxifying! For several months or even a year or two, increased energy, clear skin and resistance to infection may be observed.
Is this because raw veganism is the right way to eat long term? Is the vegan Netflix film What The Health really on to something big?
Far from it.Â
Raw Veganism is for Cleansing the Body, Not Nourishing It!
Raw veganism is really a cleansing diet which helps to detoxify the body. It does not optimally nourish the body long term, however.
The raw, whole foods that vegans consume are certainly a huge leap forward from conventional processed foods and anyone would initially feel better eating raw vegan if he/she had been eating the Standard American Diet previously.
Over time, as the body becomes depleted of minerals, serious health issues start to emerge if raw veganism is continued.
This is because the fat soluble activators A, D, and K2 – only found in animal foods – supercharge mineral absorption and without these critical nutrients in the diet, mineral depletion and ill health is the inevitable result.
The bottom line? You can eat loads of mineral rich foods as a raw vegan and still be mineral starved.
Nutritional Deficiencies Rapidly Occur on a Raw Vegan Diet
Watch this 3 minute video below where Maria, a former fan of raw veganism and the creator of the Green Smoothie Challenge discusses her abrupt conversion to nutrient dense animal foods due to the health and tooth challenges she experienced after two years as a raw vegan. Her vegan catharsis came after reading Rami Nagel’s book Cure Tooth Decay.
You will be shocked how rapidly her health challenges resolved after she began to consume nutrient dense animal foods such as cod liver oil, raw butter, and organ meats.
If you know any folks that practice raw veganism, please forward this video.  Folks who follow veganism are in serious denial about how this way of eating is going to eventually destroy their health if it hasn’t already and a testimonial from a former hard core vegan may be just what they need to realize that humans are not designed to subsist purely on plant foods.
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
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I agree that raw veganism, like all fad diets lacks in proper balance in nutrients. However, done properly without the extremes will provide sufficient nutrition. Beta carotene, which your body converts into vitamin A is plentiful in a variety of colorful vegetables. “Vitamin D” (not a vitamin) is synthesized by the body from cholesterol – in the presence of sunlight. Vitamin K2 can be found in fermented soy products. Gut flora plays a huge role in vitamin production and absorption. Bacteria synthesize vitamin K2 (from K1) and vitamin B12. They also help keep the intestines healthy – thereby preventing malabsorption.
That being said, I do not encourage raw veganism (or any other diet), but not for the reasons you mentioned. First, there are vegetables, nuts and grains that should NOT be eaten raw. as they contain toxins which get de-activated when cooked. There are also certain nutrients which get activated or increase potency when cooked.
Second, vegan diets (raw or not) do not necessarily take health into consideration and allow consumption of toxins.
Third, these diets are extremely limited and therefore very difficult to properly balance – if at all. People have different metabolisms, different genes, different lifestyles – just because one person can survive on a certain diet, doesn’t mean another can. Variety is very important in order to get a well balanced diet.
Bottom line – there’s more to nutrition than just diet. For optimal health the entire person needs to be considered, not just what and how much they eat.
I went raw vegan for a time to heal autoimmune symptoms and it worked. There is a lot of healing power in raw food…but now learning more about traditional cooking/eating. Lots of healing power there too! Love cooking for my family this way!
not giving up drinking fresh home made green juice every morning, but i also like meat and coconut oil.
Sorry for my ramblings!
Eveyone is different, so I think any claim should be taken as a personal claim by the person claiming it, and it stops there. Sure, apply their experience to your own experiments for yourself. It’s difficult for anyone to really Know anything because of all the different factors, and studies will both validate and trump each school of thought! How do you know which is right when they all seem well-articulated, well-researched, confident in their claims, citations, numbers, etc. And people will always share studies and anecdotes that validate their own current belief and practice. I’m not a scientist, so I can’t do perfect unbiased non-cherry-picked studies myself, so I just pay attention to My body. Many go vegan and claim feeling great, energized, clean, etc. I did, too. Many also claim plummeting health after various periods of time. After staying overweight during my one year as a vegan (eating lots of fresh veggies like kale, juicing, sourdough, quinoa, tofu, kale, broccoli, sweet potatoes, kale…), I was over-eating, craving sugar and carbs all the time, yet always Starving and hardly ever satiated by my meals. It wasn’t the right diet for me. People feeling great after going vegan can be achieved also by just eliminating over-processed food, sugar, HFCS, refined grains, etc. I suspect this is why people credit veganism to their new energy and cleaner body, often it’s a stark contrast from a diet high in processed conventional industrially produced food and their body needed more veggies, etc. I personally feel better after switching to a less processed diet with organic veggies, grass fed meats and dairy, certified humane eggs, etc. than how I felt when I initially went vegan! Imagine how insane that is for a person who went vegan for animals. I still anguish over this, actually. But I’m still learning, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt better. I can’t speak for the older vegans (like Charlotte Gerson) because I don’t know everything. But I do know vegan and vegan raw did Not suit me and I found out in a year. 30 pounds lighter thanks to eating animal products again and following Real Food rules…
Interesting….I like to see all perspectives. I too was one of the ones who started out great as a raw vegan and went south, BUT I see others who thrive with it, so I am not too quick to judge something negatively. It just makes me curious as to WHY some people do so well and others do not.
@Suzanne everyone has a different store of fat soluble vitamins .. perhaps these individuals were born to very healthy mothers who had plenty of nutrients to pass along so they were born very sturdy from the start. Also, if one has excellent gut balance the negatives of veganism will be mitigated somewhat due to good absorption of nutrients although it would not be optimal by a long shot. Also, even if someone seems fine, the key is that traditional cultures were never vegan (sometimes the celibate leaders were but never the baby producing population) as veganism cannot sustain reproduction as fertility eventually disappears.
It’s so interesting how different things work for different people. I hope that science continues to progress in this area so that we have a better understanding and a better way of determining what would work for us besides experimentation.
For example, dairy appears to be good for DH, but is horrible in me (and my family). My daughter and last son have an affinity for it and my middle son, like me, needs to stay away from it.
My brother healed cavities with daily juicing. (The correct way). He did a 2 month daily juice program so that he wouldn’t have to do his required dental work to join the AF.
The next brother, did not respond at all to either kind and had to consent to dental work.
Yes while I can understand this argument…what about people like Mimi Kirk, or Charlotte Gerson?? They have been vegan for much longer than that and are enjoying amazing health benefits in their “old” or not so old age???
Exactly. It is easy to see why folks get very bought into raw veganism as it is a very detoxifying diet and will generally really improve folks well being initially. BUT, over the long term a deficiency of the fat soluble vitamins only found in animal fats will develop and severe health problems begin to set in. This is why raw veganism should never be attempted long term.
what are you talking about. Raw vegetarianism, or vegetarianism. If someone read you response it is as if you are saying RAW vegetarianism as opposed to vegetarianism, is not healthy. What do you mean? I dont think you know anything about vegetariianism.