Challenges Of Eating A Raw Food Diet And Tips To Deal With Them

Whether you choose to go on a diet that fully or mainly comprises of raw foods, and whether you do it for a certain period or permanently, you will face some challenges.

This article, which I first wrote and published on another website in 2008, discusses some of these challenges and suggests some tips you could use to deal with them.

Eating a Raw Foods Diet – challenges & tips

Going on a raw foods diet comes with certain challenges.

Availability and freshness of food

Depending on your location, availability of raw foods may be limited. The variety of foods would sometimes also be restricted by season.

Freshness of foods may be a problem if they are shipped in from faraway locations. A good way to deal with this problem is to eat produce that is locally grown and in-season.

Raw food also does not keep as long as dried or processed foods. To make sure you have a good supply of fresh raw foods, you would thus have to do your food shopping more often than if you ate mostly cooked foods. Buying local would also help you get fresher foods.

Commitment, determination and willpower are needed to stave off temptation

All in all, going raw requires commitment, determination and willpower. One main reason for this is that raw foodists are in the extreme minority. The higher the proportion of raw food eaten, the more of these qualities are needed.

One will face temptations all the time, especially when the vast majority of people eat cooked food. When I was going raw, it was extremely challenging when the aroma from my neighbors’ cooked recipes drifted in through the window. Aaargh!

All in all, eating a raw foods diet is a lot easier and more convenient when you stock up on a large variety of fresh and delicious raw food in the house.

It is also important to have available ready-to-eat raw foods which you can munch as snacks, with little or no preparation. This could include apples, bananas, carrots, cucumbers and tomatoes. Or else, when you are hungry, lazy, or short on time, that’s it, you are going to succumb!

On the flip side, make sure that there are no junk foods in the house, or else, you are increasing the chances of you giving in to a dose of it.

Personally, I’ve found that a good way to get rid of temptation for cooked foods is to drink freshly prepared fruit or vegetable juices. They are packed with wholesome nutrition and they are just yum!

Pages: 1 2 3 4