Tomb

There’s a myriad of reasons why I stopped eating meat in the first place — foremost is the cruelty I believe animals face before they make it to our kitchen table, and ultimately our stomachs. If you peeked behind the closed doors of most slaughterhouses, you would find animals that have spent their entire lives in crowded feedlots, or filthy, small wire cages. Needless to say, I think about the food I eat, and in my ongoing (albeit sporadic) research into vegetarianism and nutrition, I’ve come across the raw vegan diet time and time again.

Recently I started to feel a little lethargic, somewhat bored with my regular meal plan and a bit bloated after eating. So, I decided to detox on a raw vegan diet for a month and see whether I noticed any changes in my mental and physical health.

This meant I couldn’t heat food past 140 degrees Celsius and had to stop eating all dairy products. These changes cut a lot of potential protein sources from my diet, including beans and soy-based products like tofu. It left only seeds, nuts, fruits and vegetables.

Many raw vegans believe cooking plants depletes them of nutrients, fibre and water. This makes it difficult to digest food and flush unwanted toxins from our bodies. As a result, energy normally used by our brain is wasted on digestion. If we eat raw, the theory goes, we’ll be privy to increased mental clarity and tons of energy.

Sarah Remmer, a Calgary-based registered dietician, says it is unlikely cooking depletes food of all nutrients, minerals and water. “I don’t know who’s cooking them to get all the water out… if you are cooking them for a short period of time and you retain the bright colour of the fruits and vegetables, then you’re still retaining many of the nutrients,” she says.

A major problem with this diet is that many raw vegans load up on protein through nuts and seeds and these contain a lot of fat. Even though it’s the good kind of fat, if you’re eating cups and cups of nuts each day, you’ll probably end up gaining weight.

Diana Stoevelaar, who started the raw food group Awesome Rawsome with her fiancée years ago, agrees. Many raw vegans live on a gourmet diet rich with nuts, seeds and fat-filled fruits like avocado. She says it’s not a diet she supports, adding that raw vegans should strive to limit their fat intake. So what’s the best raw source for protein? Stoevelaar suggests dark leafy greens, like kale, chard and Popeye’s perennial favourite, spinach. If done properly, she argues, a raw food diet can add years to your life and make you feel fantastic.

Meat contains high levels of protein and saturated fat, both of which are difficult to digest. As a result, eating meat requires a lot of energy better used by our brain. Raw fruits and vegetables, on the other hand, have a high water percentage and thus require much less energy to digest. Draining food of even a small amount of water (as in dehydrated fruits), says Stoevelaar, changes the water-fibre ratio, making digestion much harder. If you don’t have to work overtime digesting your food, you’ll see definite improvements in body image, mental clarity, alertness and focus. You’ll feel more content, she assures me, and overflow with energy.

During the month I experimented with the diet, I did feel more comfortable after eating, more energetic and more focused. Instead of coming home after work and watching TV, I would write, brainstorm, or do something at least mildly productive. Since returning to a normal vegetarian diet, I feel less focused and I station myself by the TV way too often. I can only imagine how much worse I’d be if I still ate meat.