Confessions of a Raw Foodist

I am a raw-foodist, of the RVAF category. My diet includes the following:
Mainly, raw ground beef
Raw fish
Raw vegetables
Raw complex carbohydrates (roots)
Raw fruits
Raw nuts
Raw milk
Dried fruits
PLENTY of water

Now it wasn't always this way…

The story of how I got here?
When I was young(1-2yrs) we were vegetarians; until my mom decided to give me a chicken drum one day…I was reportedly on my haunches, ripping at it with my teeth, my face covered in chicken grease.
I finished it within minutes, and looked up at my parents and shouted “MORE!” It was then that my parents realized my body must need meat.
From (2-14yrs) we ate meat twice to three times a week because my mom read that meat clogs your colon(which it does, but only cooked meat).
The rest of the week we ate large amounts of carbs; lentils, wheat bread, brown rice, even brown tortillas, beans, legumes etc.
For breakfast my family ate oatmeal, cornmeal, bulgur, millet, amaranth, cream of rice, every kind of hot morning cereal imaginable.
We ate salads with our carb dishes (which is probably the only thing that kept us alive).

Our family was allergic to pasteurized milk, so we switched to Soy
Milk, and Rice milk. Now I'm sure a lot of you are thinking; well all
those things are whole grains, so they must not be bad for you? In
truth; grains and carbs, are pretty much completely toxic to the human
body.

We have canines for a reason; because we eat meat.
You don't see tigers baking bread and cooking their gazelles over a
blazing hot fire. Not because they are "less advanced than us" but
because they are natural, and they are eating what their bodies tell
them to eat. We kill our food; cooking destroys all of the natural
things that make it good for us.
We are like vampires eating blood after it has been boiled; it will make us unhealthy and sick.

Most of society has grown used to the reality of having health problems;
So much so, that society is taught to believe it is a normal part of
life to be unhealthy and sick.
In my teens(14-17) I was so frustrated by my inability to gain weight,
that my best friend recommended I eat junk food and don't exercise. I
followed her advice; and ate the complete opposite of my family's diet.
I used to be like a lot of you, munching on Doritos, Hot Cheetos and
bean dip, greasy bake in your oven pizza, soda-pop, starburst and Twix.
I would drink homogenized pasteurized milk, and go w/ my friends
families to Old Country Buffet.

I'd look forward to my nightly visit w/ my cousin to the corner store,
so I could buy my ham n' cheese hot-pockets and sit outside on the water
bottle cases munching on micro-waved heaven. I loved Starbucks and visited
daily to get my fix of Veinte Carmel Mocha triple shot extra Carmel Frappachino.

I loved convenience stores and junk-food isles, tub ice-cream with
cardboard and lard, added chocolate flavoring and the almighty MSG and
corn syrup.
Lets not forget take-out Panda Express and midnight Jack in the Box monster tacos. But all that wonderful chemicalized artificial crap was the worst thing that ever happened to me. Add to the cocktail of aluminum filled products, some cheap sulfated beer, and whatever alcohol I could get a hold of, and you've got yourself a typical lower-class American teenager.

Through this diet of junk-food I had gained stubborn belly fat on my
abdomen, and stretch marks on my butt. I had no firmness in my body; I
was all cottage cheese and soft fat, but there was no weight to me.
I was really skinny, but not firm.
I thought that eating junk food was the only way to gain weight, but it was in ALL the wrong places.
Mostly my stomach, and lower half, I had chub, but not curve. My face lost its
shape and definition, I still had a chin, but it was just a round bubble face.

I had severe acne, not just on my face. I was constantly tired; I never
had any energy, and I felt like I was living in some cloudy haze. My
thoughts were never clear and I was a complete klutz.
I had frequent, almost daily migraine headaches (We will talk about migraines in another blog).
I remember going to school, and coming home every day so exhausted I would just sleep for the rest of the day.
I was at an all-time low in myself, and it seemed I was forever sinking lower.

My family ended up moving from Arizona to Washington, and it got even
worse then. I became so depressed I refused to leave my house, and I
slept for days, hardly moving, and vegging on the computer.
This went on for months, until my aunt needed me to assist in helping my dying Great
Grandmother, in Arizona.
It was when I moved back to Arizona that I started to become a bit more health conscious, but only in the sense of using band-aids.
I cleared up the majority of my acne by using over the
counter products. Because I was a live-in house-maid,
I started to get plenty of circulation and exercise, my health improved
much, but not everything was perfect.

I was getting knee and joint problems so severe I would get
knee dislocation; the joint would literally completely pop out of
socket, and then back in again.
My aunt had convinced me that I needed special knee surgery, a process in which surgeons would literally shave off some of my ligament and re-sew it together.
My mom was horrified by the idea of pointless surgery, and tried explaining to me it was my diet causing these problems.
I refused to listen to my mother's advice, or believe her.

Luckily, I did not get the surgery….because years later after I had
switched to an RVAF diet, I met a girl on a Grayhound bus when I was on
my way from Illinois to Washington; she had received the same surgery I
would have gone through for my joint problems. She could no longer run
or swim, and her knee made squeaking noises whenever she moved it…she
was in pain constantly.
I was so relieved I did not let some doctor butcher me; but instead changed my way of living. I had realized that w/e health problems I had, were only because of the way I was eating and living life.

I was a light drinker, no longer an alcoholic like I had been
previously.
Even so, every morning after I would drink I would get
heart-palpitations; these would last all throughout the day, until
night. By then, I would get really scared, and we would end up in the
emergency room.

I thought my health was the best it would ever be, and I accepted these
problems as if they were irreversible. My belief at the time was that;
as long as you are happy, your health will reflect it(I'm not saying
that this isn't true, being happy is definitely a large part of diet).

I took care of things at my aunts, surviving off of coffee, and working
a part time job at a pizza place. I eventually met some guy and moved in
with him; that relationship broke off, and I moved back home to Washington
with my family in the summer of 06.

Life went on for me, living w/ health problems I claimed had nothing to
do with diet. I got a part time job at JC Penney's that summer. I decided to go back to school after summer was over.

How did I find out about this diet?

My mother had a life-threatening debilitating disease, she was on her
deathbed at 38 years old. This disease is called Grave's Disease; it is
a disease of a hyperactive thyroid. It can cause inability to gain
weight, hair loss, accelerated aging, gray hair, weak joints and
muscles, weakened ligaments, blindness, weak retinas, acne, clubbed feet,

flat feet, lethargy, blindness, insomnia, depression etc. All of these
symptoms are accelerated by any kind of stress, or overworking. This
disease runs in my family, my brother and I both have it, w/ varying
degrees of severity.
Grave’s Disease can remain dormant even until your thirties, or occur in young childhood.

My mother had tried everything to combat her Grave’s Disease; supplements, less
meat, more whole grains, Kombucha, EM(Effective Microbes), Blue-green
Algae, de-toxing enemas. She did Yoga, and Qi Gong; along with meditation.

Her search for answers led her on a path to raw meat; her instincts told
her that she should eat raw meat.
So she did large amounts of research, and all her research only led her to information on feeding raw meat to animals.
The recipes for the animal food were all these elaborate complicated
ways of eating raw meat.
So, desperate to find a solution, she tried the recipes, and the very preparation made the meat taste horrid.
So she moved on, in search of the cure to all her health problems, but not
forgetting that urge to eat raw meat.

Later, she came upon a Raw Meat and Animal Foods group, on Yahoo!
Groups, ran by Vinnie Pinto, inspired by the RVAF diet discovered by
Aajonus Vonderplanitz.
This diet contained NO grains, legumes, beans, breads, or cereals.
The diet focused mainly on the consumption of raw beef, and raw fish, and raw milk;
as well as juicing, vegetables, and low amounts of fruits, raw nuts, and dried fruits.

She switched to this diet immediately, excited to have finally found a
cure!
A little over three years later and still on her RVAF diet, her
Grave's Disease is completely cured, and she's getting younger every
day.
My mom had tried many times convincing me that my health problems
would be solved if I just stopped eating carbs, and cooked food.

To be perfectly honest, I thought she was crazy, I mean I was RAISED by
her, to eat whole grains and hardly any meat.
I thought; she's just being a hypocrite, changing her mind again.
From my perspective, being that of a selfish uncaring teenager,
I had hardly paid any heed to my mother's disease.
I was hardly ever home long enough to know that these
were serious realities, I was in a state of denial.
All I had seen was my mom taking miracle cures that never seemed to work, and in my mind, it was all as simple as ignoring there was a problem.

Throughout the whole summer, my mother and I slowly resolved our issues.
I learned of her diet, and improved my own diet, although; I still
refused to switch to her way of eating.

After summer was over; I went back to high-school, I was in 12th grade.
That year, all the kids in the school caught a nasty flu, and I hadn't
had a flu in about 4 years. It was terrible; I had body aches and
nausea, horrible sinus problems, all the bad things that go with a typical
flu.

It was because of that flu that I made a vow to myself, that I never
wanted to be sick again; so I quit all carbs. I completely withdrew from
all forms of grains, breaking down only ONCE, to try a Newman-o's Oreo
cookie; and realized it wasn't what it was all was cracked up to be.

As my diet of salad, medium rare steak, and fruit progressed, I noticed
many benefits, but it still wasn't enough.
I watched my mom prepare her raw ground beef,
not able to bring myself to take that last step.
I began to get so health conscious that I started to jog every day, along
w/ yoga and dancing.
My health improved; but I was losing a lot of weight.
Then one day after a morning jog, I went to into the kitchen,
and saw my mom preparing raw meat sushi rolls.
I took a deep breath; I knew this was it…I asked my mom if I could try a bite!
I popped it in my mouth, and damn, it was pretty good! That was the beginning of my raw meat diet, and I haven't looked back since.
In this series of blogs we will learn how cutting out the carbs, and
eating plenty of raw fat and protein, can cure ANY health problem,
disease, symptom, and even mental illness!