Fruitarian or vegan?

[Cognitive Heart]

Change in diet is good but not everyone can handle these changes at first. Wait another week or two and see how you feel. Chances are your body will inform you either way by that time. My view of consistent diet is with each selected meal, not the food I am actually eating.. although this also plays a crucial role to maintaining good health. Overindulgence is never good on the body.. but neither is starving the body. So 3 meals a day works, ime. I change up exactly what I'm putting into my body so I can both enjoy the taste and enjoy the nutrient value each food has with my body. Moderated diet goals are good teacher principles.

Considering your new diet plan is rather weak in terms of fullness, the actual amount you'll need to complete your satisfaction / nutrient / mineral needs will be tough. Rice and peanuts are excellent foods for fullness and nutrient value. I highly recommend you incorporate those two! Black berries are a solid choice of berry due to their fiber content and nutrient levels. Make sure to eat the seeds inside them so you are getting at least some omegas.

See how it pans out and let us know. Everyone is different.

 

[Auxin]

:lol:
First thing I can say, after reading the above posts, is that whatever you do you should NOT blindly accept diet advice on a psychedelics forum.
Seriously, medical literature is there for a reason and Google Scholar is your friend.

Fat. I always find it odd how much people insist that massive quantities of fat be consumed, usually ranging from 30 to 50% of the diet (on a caloric basis). Clinical studies show that an ideal range is more like 6-12% and surprise surprise, thats the exact range you fall in to if eating nothing but plants, fruit included.
Essential fats. Ignore everything about essential fats. If you eat plants (fruit included) you will get enough linoleic and linolenic acid. Your body can use those to make all other required fats. The very concept of an essential fat is a purely theoretical construct borne out of human experiments in hospitals. Patients were given nothing but IV nutrition totally free of fats for a prolonged period of time in order to manifest an 'essential fat deficiency'. That is the only time in the history of man that such a deficiency was observed. In those experiments the deficiency was cured just by rubbing a few drops of vegetable oil on to the arms of the patients. A tiny, miniscule, quantity made it into their blood and they were cured. Essential fatty acid deficiency does not exist in the real world.
The human capacity for denovo lipogenesis, making fat from sugars or protein, is quite limited. If your diet is 6-8% calories from fat (fruititarian) expect to loose body fat. Its not unhealthy, it just makes you skinny eventually.

Vitamins. I'm glad cronometer was mentioned previously. Its very useful. It also makes it abundantly clear that plants supply basically perfect nutrition. There are a few drawbacks, for instance in vitamin E they dont count the gamma-E vitamer even tho it does count toward vitamin E status. Thats just strange and skews the numbers. They also use the largely irrational recommendations for calcium and protein. Its very well established that most people dont need so much of either. But, over all, cronometer is great.
Vitamin B12, the bane of vegans :lol: Actually most B12 deficient/insufficient people are omnis. The requirement is very small tho, and theres a trick to make supplementation damn near free. Buy cheap B12 pills, cheap usually means big and chalky which for this is good. Powder them. Put the tiniest bit of powder in your food. I mix it down with white rice flour just so the tiny quantity is more managable. The lowest dose pills are like 400µg, 80-100 times what you need in a day. I got a bottle of 100 for $5

"Oh my god, you didnt eat meat today, you'll DIEEEEE" Fruititarians have been around for at least 3000 years. They have been studied in modern and near modern medicine since the dawn of modern medicine. No case report exists relating an incident where a patient exploded due to bacon deficiency.

"You didnt get 9,000 Calories and a pound of lard today, you'll DIEEEEE!!!" From the very beginning of modern medical literature straight up to the present day at least some doctors have always been around who used prolonged fasts in treating patients, most often in a clinical setting. It is very rare for anyone to starve to death after consuming nothing but water for a month. Sure, the possibility of electrolyte imbalances slowly increases after day 10 or so and a few rare genetic mutants have to stop at day 3 due to a missing protein metabolizing enzyme, but the point is if you inadvertently get too few calories its not as if you'll just suddenly flop down dead.

"The carb-free lard and bacon diet will make you loose weight" Seriously, just take a look at anyone whos been on such a diet for any length of time. Either theyre fat and horribly constipated or sickly and horribly constipated. Diabetes is often right around the corner and theres a 1 in 3 chance their first heart attack will be the one that kills them.

 

[dreamer042]

"Oh my god, you didnt eat meat today, you'll DIEEEEE" Fruititarians have been around for at least 3000 years. They have been studied in modern and near modern medicine since the dawn of modern medicine. No case report exists relating an incident where a patient exploded due to bacon deficiency.

Can you provide more information on this?

 

[Auxin]

"Oh my god, you didnt eat meat today, you'll DIEEEEE" Fruititarians have been around for at least 3000 years. They have been studied in modern and near modern medicine since the dawn of modern medicine. No case report exists relating an incident where a patient exploded due to bacon deficiency.

Can you provide more information on this?

Fruitarianism was a practice known to the early vedic traditions. Later, 2600 years ago, it was known to early buddhism and jaina traditions and is in the scriptures from both. Its not advocated nor dis-advised by the buddhist scriptures, its just in the tripitica. It is advocated and continues to be practiced by certain jain traditions who are morally opposed to killing seeds and roots. Its also been known to other cultures. Known on this forum are fruitarian shaman diets, usually part of a training but one that can last years. I remember reading here about one guy who lived on plantains and hallucinogens for 3 years while in training. That would be wild :lol:
As for medical literature I've encountered it in passing many times (admittedly I've never been particularly interested so I cant cite much off-hand). It pops up sporadically all throughout the literature from 1900 to now. As well as in the proto-modern medicine of the 1800's where sanitoriums were trying all kinds of stuff to combat things like appendicitis and tuberculosis which were both routinely fatal. Also, the first 'clinical trial' (actually a volume of case reports, since clinical trials as we know them didnt exist yet) successful in reversing diabetes and hypertension, on about 1930, put people on a diet of nothing but fruit juice and white rice. This was done in a hospital setting and almost invariably either improved or cured diabetes and hypertension (antihypertensive drugs hadnt been invented yet so this was major). The lead doctor then progressively phased in tomatoes and then vegetables. He took his inspiration from the grain, fruit, and vegetable diets of 'primitive peoples' who were seemingly immune to diabetes and heart disease. That hospital actually kept the fruit and rice diet treatment option going for 80 years, and it was consistently effective.

 

[jamie]

"Seriously, just take a look at anyone whos been on such a diet for any length of time. Either theyre fat and horribly constipated or sickly and horribly constipated. Diabetes is often right around the corner and theres a 1 in 3 chance their first heart attack will be the one that kills them."

Interesting....

I was mostly Paleo for over a year and during that time when I went to the doctor I was told I was pretty healthy, and my dentist told me that my teeth even remineralized from damage he said was done during the years I was fruitarian and raw vegan. My stomach is flat and I have energy to landscape 50 hours a week. When I was raw vegan I could hardly manage to crawl out of bed, had constant vertigo at the end of that time and developed constant pulsatile tinnitus, which thank god, has dissappeared.

Oh I also was diagnosed with both colitis and spondylitis..and have seen multiple doctors. Im not just some guy on a psychedelic forum making stuff up. Higher fat/ lots of greens and protein and low carb is the only diet that has really improved my state of being to a degree that I have been satisfied with.

I actually have spent some time trying to live as a fruitarian..how many of you can say that? I know what the benefits and limits of that are for my body. I have spent the better part of a decade tracking what I eat and observing the outcomes trying to find any sort of relief from the nightmare of chronic dis-ease. That, is far more meaninful to me than what Jains do to avoid causing suffering.

There is no evidence to support fruitarianism as a balanced diet choice, and a lot of evidence to suggest that deficiencies will manifest. There is a reason why ayurveda is not a fruitarian approach. Jaina traditions choose to follow that path for idealist reasons that have nothing to do with physical health.

 

[amandanita]

I actually have spent some time trying to live as a fruitarian..how many of you can say that? I know what the benefits and limits of that are for my body. I have spent the better part of a decade tracking what I eat and observing the outcomes trying to find any sort of relief from the nightmare of chronic dis-ease. That, is far more meaninful to me than what Jains do to avoid causing suffering.

There is no evidence to support fruitarianism as a balanced diet choice, and a lot of evidence to suggest that deficiencies will manifest. There is a reason why ayurveda is not a fruitarian approach. Jaina traditions choose to follow that path for idealist reasons that have nothing to do with physical health.

Different approaches work for different people No one can say "this diet will work for 100% of people." I'm sorry you're suffering from chronic disease :/ I'm not suffering from anything like that, that will probably make a difference. Depending on the severity, colitis can affect the absorption of B12, or if it's bad enough, it can affect the absorption of all nutrients. It's possible that your fruitarian/vegan diet didn't work for you either because of your genetics or for some other reason that's not universal.

One thing is for sure: there's no proof humans need to eat meat to be healthy! Your body doesn't need meet, it needs some amino acids, and you can get all of them from plant sources, which is what I intend to do. I accept veganism/fruitarianism didn't work for you, but I think it will work for me.

I'm happy to be completely rid of meat and mostly rid of processed foods (I'm not done, I'll take more steps). If it makes me feel good on every level, it can't be bad, can it?

I feel physically better already. I was eating so horribly and it wasn't healthy. The few times I ate meat, fish or eggs it felt like a heavy load on my body. Fruits are easy to digest, I like it

If I start feeling unwell later, I'll see if I should change up my diet a bit. I won't start eating meat again but maybe switching up what kind of fruits/berries/plants I eat will make a difference. I won't make any changes yet though, I'll have to wait and see for at least a couple of weeks, give my body a chance to get used to the new diet.

 

[jamie]

I never said you need meat, or that you need animal protein.

You do however need B12, vitamin k2 and more than just fruit to be healthy.

 

[amandanita]

[/quote]

:lol:
First thing I can say, after reading the above posts, is that whatever you do you should NOT blindly accept diet advice on a psychedelics forum.
Seriously, medical literature is there for a reason and Google Scholar is your friend.

Fat. I always find it odd how much people insist that massive quantities of fat be consumed, usually ranging from 30 to 50% of the diet (on a caloric basis). Clinical studies show that an ideal range is more like 6-12% and surprise surprise, thats the exact range you fall in to if eating nothing but plants, fruit included.

certain fats are important for the myelin sheaths of neurons and it's true the liver's ability to generate lipids from glucose/glycerol is limited, but I believe you are right to say that we don't really need that much fat from our diet. And think about it: if a meat eater eats red meat and gets all their fat from the fat of the animal, where are the important fats? omega fat ratios and amounts in red meat? not so healthy. So just eating fat on its own doesn't make you any healthier if it's nutritionally void fat or fat with the wrong ratio of lipids. then it will make you sick, not healthy. (red meat has been linked to heart disease and vascular disease and cancer by countless studies.)

Essential fats. Ignore everything about essential fats. If you eat plants (fruit included) you will get enough linoleic and linolenic acid. Your body can use those to make all other required fats. The very concept of an essential fat is a purely theoretical construct borne out of human experiments in hospitals. Patients were given nothing but IV nutrition totally free of fats for a prolonged period of time in order to manifest an 'essential fat deficiency'. That is the only time in the history of man that such a deficiency was observed. In those experiments the deficiency was cured just by rubbing a few drops of vegetable oil on to the arms of the patients. A tiny, miniscule, quantity made it into their blood and they were cured. Essential fatty acid deficiency does not exist in the real world.
The human capacity for denovo lipogenesis, making fat from sugars or protein, is quite limited. If your diet is 6-8% calories from fat (fruititarian) expect to loose body fat. Its not unhealthy, it just makes you skinny eventually.

I don't mind it making me skinny, not that i'm fat to begin with i think 6-12% is plenty of lipids from diet and they're more likely to be healthier lipids when they come from plant sources. there's plenty of plant sources for healthy lipids, including omegas. it's silly when people claim you can't get enough essential fats from plant sources.

Vitamins. I'm glad cronometer was mentioned previously. Its very useful. It also makes it abundantly clear that plants supply basically perfect nutrition. There are a few drawbacks, for instance in vitamin E they dont count the gamma-E vitamer even tho it does count toward vitamin E status. Thats just strange and skews the numbers. They also use the largely irrational recommendations for calcium and protein. Its very well established that most people dont need so much of either. But, over all, cronometer is great.
Vitamin B12, the bane of vegans :lol: Actually most B12 deficient/insufficient people are omnis.

I have vitamin B supplements that includes vitamin B12! and they're the cheap kind :lol:

The requirement is very small tho, and theres a trick to make supplementation damn near free. Buy cheap B12 pills, cheap usually means big and chalky which for this is good.

Money isn't really a huge issue when it comes to food/vitamins. I also have spirulina, I just always forget to take it.

Powder them. Put the tiniest bit of powder in your food. I mix it down with white rice flour just so the tiny quantity is more managable. The lowest dose pills are like 400µg, 80-100 times what you need in a day. I got a bottle of 100 for $5

My pills said 100-100% of the RDA for all of the different B vitamins, I took 2 just now! Thank you for reminding me

"Oh my god, you didnt eat meat today, you'll DIEEEEE" Fruititarians have been around for at least 3000 years. They have been studied in modern and near modern medicine since the dawn of modern medicine. No case report exists relating an incident where a patient exploded due to bacon deficiency.

"Exploded due to bacon deficiency" :lol: :lol: :lol:

On a serious note, it's interesting how people go right back to eating meat if they feel like their vegetarian/fruitarian/vegan diet isn't working, even if they were feeling unwell on their meat diet before. I wonder if they first try to change the kinds of fruits/vegetables they eat, if they find out which fruits/vegetables contain which vitamins and minerals and in what quantities and so on. If there's a plant that can give you the same amount of amino acids and minerals as meat, why wouldn't you switch to it rather than go back to meat? I feel like sometimes people have other reasons and then they make up excuses. I say this because I did this years ago when I stopped being a vegetarian. I made excuses to stop but it wasn't really about my health, it was about short-term pleasure.

"You didnt get 9,000 Calories and a pound of lard today, you'll DIEEEEE!!!" From the very beginning of modern medical literature straight up to the present day at least some doctors have always been around who used prolonged fasts in treating patients, most often in a clinical setting. It is very rare for anyone to starve to death after consuming nothing but water for a month. Sure, the possibility of electrolyte imbalances slowly increases after day 10 or so and a few rare genetic mutants have to stop at day 3 due to a missing protein metabolizing enzyme, but the point is if you inadvertently get too few calories its not as if you'll just suddenly flop down dead.

Oh I know, I've done water fasting for much longer than a few days and other kind of fasts too. Unless you're already dying or have a rare genetic defect like you said, you're not going to die from fasting for a few weeks. What's more interesting is there's more and more evidence that most mammals (likely including humans) live longer on a lower calorie diet! There's also evidence that fasting every other day can extend your life

"The carb-free lard and bacon diet will make you loose weight" Seriously, just take a look at anyone whos been on such a diet for any length of time. Either theyre fat and horribly constipated or sickly and horribly constipated. Diabetes is often right around the corner and theres a 1 in 3 chance their first heart attack will be the one that kills them.

I mostly agree. It's true that if someone eats nothing but fish and avoids carbs and takes supplements, they can lose weight and be relatively healthy. If they do it with red meat or other kind of animal meat, they're likely to get less lean and less healthy. I had a friend who went paleo and I watched her lose weight at first, then plateau at what I would call "the cave woman body type." She wasn't thin, she was normal (looked like upper limit of normal bmi) with a somehow solid build. I've never known anyone to get thin on a diet like that but I've known overweight people to get to a normal weight range so I think it's possible to lose weight on it. You still get the plaque in your arteries and so on, as far as I know. Eliminating carbs completely will diminish some of the cardiovascular risks, but eating a vegetarian/vegan/fruitarian diet allows you to eat carbs, fat and protein and still not die of clogged/exploded arteries. Of course it's everyone's choice, I'm just typing out my own thoughts (I'm still in the process of mentally processing this change but I have no doubts or regrets! I think it's the best thing I've done for myself in a long time.)


Thank you for your support and advice. It was welcome after the initial "you'll shrivel and die eating like that" :lol: "That's a bad idea" kind of comments really won't help me at this point! But I'm determined to stick to this! It would be nice if people didn't assume that 1) this isn't much healthier than the way I was eating before, 2) that I can (or want to) just go back to the way I was eating, 3) that I will just adopt their diet that they think is the best, or 4) that I won't listen to my body and tweak the amounts of protein/vitamins/minerals I get from my diet if I start feeling unwell somehow. But I'm very glad that people are concerned for my health and offering good advice.

in terms of fullness

I have no desire to feel full. I don't find the feeling satisfying or pleasant. It's an awful feeling. But thank you for your consideration

 

[amandanita]

I never said you need meat, or that you need animal protein.

You do however need B12, vitamin k2 and more than just fruit to be healthy.

Then I'm sorry for misinterpreting. I have vitamin b12 as a supplement. I'll look into the K vitamins. And I am eating more than just fruit, I'm also eating berries. And supplements (when I remember to take them ) and after a couple of weeks i'll see how i feel and what I can change thank you for your concern.

 

[amandanita]

It is advocated and continues to be practiced by certain jain traditions who are morally opposed to killing seeds and roots.

I resonate with this somewhat. My thinking is shifting towards this direction more and more, I don't know why. It's not a conscious desire, it's just happening. My first though about collecting mushrooms is to collect them gently so i don't damage the myocelium (the fungi, or the underground "roots" of the mushroom, the living organism. I just want to pick the fruit.) Also, if the fruiting body has its cap spread, I'll make sure to spread the spores before taking it with me.

The network of life is becoming more and more a real thing for me and in that light I just can't justify partaking in unnecessary killing anymore. I don't need to kill to live my life, I really don't.

That shaman initiation/training sounds pretty intense I might have a period like that ahead of me too. I think the mushrooms will be out of the ground before I'll change my diet from fruitarian to include other vegetables so I might very well end up on a fruits-and-psychoactive-mushrooms-only-diet for a while :lol:

 

[amandanita]

a few words...

1. get sprouting. sprouted lentils are complete source of protein. if you want to eat light, sprouts are the way. also affordable. mix it up! this way you also save a lot of energy not having to cook your legumes and it is much much more nutrient dense and of course, alive.

2. not all soy is good for you (especially if not organic, it matters!)-- unless eating tofu in moderation, or fermented. something you may want to consider. that soy milk may eventually shut down thyroid function.

3. peanuts can be dirty (aflatoxins) and hard to digest (heavy). consider raw sunflower seeds instead. sesame seed is also a good addition. a bit of natural halite salt is good to help your body digest raw seeds and nuts more efficiently, as is a nice glass of water sipped when eating. chewing well is also sometimes overlooked! liquefy.

4. if you want to eat lots of fruit, have greens with every time you choose to eat more than a few handfuls. if you are going to live off bananas you need at least an equal amount of lettuce or other greens with a little bitter to go with it.

5. you are going to need a source of omega 3 fatty acids. large quantities of sprouted flax may work but your body will take time to adjust to convert the alpha-linolenic acid to longer chain EPA and DHA (crucial for nervous system function and lots of other things) more efficiently. some greens, such as perilla seed and leaf, are also high in ALA. algae is also another source of longer chain omega-3 but must be gathered or cultivated from heavy metal and toxin free water source. however, note that flax contains quite a bit of cyanogenic glycosides and phytoestrogen so you may want to be moderate or avoid.

6. start learning what greens are good forage around you; one of the best ways along with mushroom gathering to get closer to nature and cultivate sense of place...dandelions, nettles, purslane, pigweed, there are many many more. most wild greens are very high in iron and pro-vitamin A, carotenes, and flavonoids! always have some fats with your greens as vitamin A and carotenes are fat-soluble and your body needs the fat to really make the most of the nutrients in raw greens as well as stimulating liver activity.

7. b12...if you are already anemic it may very well be you are low in methyl-folate and b12 both of which are critical in iron metabolism. find some sublingual methylcobalamin (pretty much anyone can benefit from more b12 esp. if taking 5ht psychedelics often). avoid taking folic acid supplements as it is toxic and prevents full metabolism of other b-vitamins and enzymatic cofactors....for B9, it is essential you take the form 5-MTHF if you are going to supplement. many people don't realize that most B vitamin supplements are actually the wrong form, which end up being rejected by the body and doing more harm than good.

8. there is nothing wrong with good slow carbs (if it's not wheat...). try having some scottish milled oatmeal, or steel cut oats soaked (not cooked) for a few hours for your first meal of the day...it will stabilize your blood sugar and prevent insulin spikes from eating lots of fruit. if you really want to avoid grains you are going to need a lot of cinnamon to balance out your pancreatic response curve and keep insulin in healthy range. licorice root can also help in this regard.

9. atlantic kelp for your thyroid. thyroid hormone is made from iodine. iodine from the sea is essential...iodine from land is a different isotope. be careful where you source your seaweeds from.

as for vitamin D...get lots of sunshine as it is what holds it all together. in the fall and winter if you are far from the equator, lichen and mushrooms will give you enough vitamin D2 (the pro-vitamin D2 is called ergosterol and D2 is called ergocalciferol), which is converted from ingested fungi and plants to cholecalciferol D3 in the body by the liver) to get through to spring.
there is actually a lichen species (Cladina sp.) that produces vitamin D3! pine pollen is also a great source of free vitamin D3.

All of this information is so, so valuable! I tend to think I know a lot about nutrition but this showed me I still have so much to learn! That part about pine pollen is especially interesting. Can I eat pine needles? I like to eat them I also like nettles and I can collect them easily nearby (I live close to nature so everything nature has to offer is easily accessible to me.) The mushroom idea is also good I think I'll add (non psychoactive) mushrooms to my diet at some point! But personally I need to start simple so I can (mentally) adjust. Also if there are any problems, it's easier to tell if I just eat one or two foods than if I eat more. If I ate many, many different foods all at the same time it would be impossible to tell which of them is causing the problem. I'm already eating several kinds of fruit so it's better I get used to this first.

I'm really drawn to a raw food diet. If I add the nettles and the mushrooms I'll be eating them raw that way no nutrients are destroyed by cooking. I'll be sure to pick mushrooms that can be eaten raw without the need to remove toxins first.

My supplement contains folic acid, I'm not surprised, it's a cheap supplement. I don't have kelp now but I don't know if I'm iodine deficient, I ate a lot of kelp at one point. Isn't iodine stored in the thyroid for a long time?

I'll look into a different vitamin b supplement.

In the mean while, I have spirulina

I have iron pills for my anaemia but I always forget to take them But reading your reply reminded me that I should take my iron so I just did

Since I forget to take my supplements, it would be good if I got as many of the necessary nutrients from my food as possible. I'll have to read more on the natural sources for them. Your post helped so much, thank you.

 

[jamie]

"I mostly agree. It's true that if someone eats nothing but fish and avoids carbs and takes supplements, they can lose weight and be relatively healthy. If they do it with red meat or other kind of animal meat, they're likely to get less lean and less healthy. I had a friend who went paleo and I watched her lose weight at first, then plateau at what I would call "the cave woman body type." She wasn't thin, she was normal (looked like upper limit of normal bmi) with a somehow solid build. I've never known anyone to get thin on a diet like that but I've known overweight people to get to a normal weight range so I think it's possible to lose weight on it. You still get the plaque in your arteries and so on, as far as I know. Eliminating carbs completely will diminish some of the cardiovascular risks, but eating a vegetarian/vegan/fruitarian diet allows you to eat carbs, fat and protein and still not die of clogged/exploded arteries. Of course it's everyone's choice, I'm just typing out my own thoughts (I'm still in the process of mentally processing this change but I have no doubts or regrets! I think it's the best thing I've done for myself in a long time.)"


Sorry, but this is nonsense. I believed many of the same ideas for a number of years until I stopped listening to propaganda and began to look at the actual research.

Im sorry if I sound dismissive. I just believed many of these things when I was younger in my mid to late 20's etc, dedicated a number of years to those ideas, avoiding all cooked food thinking there was any evidence that was healthier, thinking being 100% vegan is necessarily better than vegetarian or some other whole foods diets..I had a lot of ideas I believed in, that proved to never have been true as absolutes. There is a lot of bs in the raw food community and a lot of wannabe gurus that are making up lies(like the enzymes in raw food making a difference, which is proven false as stomach acid destroys the foreign enzymes anyway except in rare cases) and telling to masses of people..this is especially true among fruitarians. These are some of the biggest flakes and liars I have encountered. I know for a fact many of them are supplementing with animal products such as deer antler and even deer placenta to fulfill nutritional requirements..and there is nothing wrong with needing to do that.

Diet is important, and there is a lot of merit in following a diet of whole foods and clean water. You are new here, otherwise you would already know my stance on this and had heard 100x over. I am a food nutcase. I have not drunk tap water in over 6 years and collect my own spring water. I eat as much wild harvested foods/herbs as I can and everything else I is the highest quality sourced whole foods I can source. Mono diets, and extremely restricted dietary ideas like fruitarianism etc might sound nice at first, and the people pushing them might sound like they know something, but in time most people who have been around the block once or twice learn that life is far, far more diverse than that.

A fruitarian diet is going to be a highly domesticated diet indeed...do you want to eat a high % of wild foods, that are actually rich in nutrients with complex plant phytochemistry, herbs with potent alelochemicals to tone the system etc?...how do you suggest that we went about as fruitarians in some past time? Most of the fruit we eat today is hybridized/cultivars bread for high sugar content, and much of the medicine of the food is lost. Some of the original wild strains produce fruit that is not even really edible. The problems with the absolutist fruitarian paradigm are many.

 

[amandanita]

chewing pine needles, sure. eating them (as well as other conifer foliage), not so much. the oils in the needles are very irritating to insides, and they contain lots of bitter tannins that will shut down digestion.
good luck eating raw nettles. if you steam them for a minute it will be much more palatable and less stingy. many other wild greens can be eaten raw; gonna have to experiment yourself maybe.
mushrooms are best in quick simmered broth...the cell walls in fungi consist of chitin, which is largely indigestible unless you can produce a lot of chitinase (the enzyme which breaks down chitin) which might take years of adaptive pain slowly inoculating insides with bacteria which produce relatively higher amounts of chitinase. chitin can induce inflammatory response in humans...some people equate the immune stimulating response of powdered mushrooms to be due to this. nothing quite like eating a few fresh psilocybe cyanescens though! perhaps you have to build up to that a little.
not all fungi are the same preparation-wise...amanitas, for example, you shouldn't really eat raw. toasting at 160-170*F until totally dry will decarboxylate the ibotenic acid to muscimol and make the experience much better.

I'm used to eating chitin, lots of it, I never had a problem with it?

The nettles would have to be washed first but I don't find touching them irritating. i also like nettle tea so maybe nettles would be something i'd cook! the idea of going for a completely raw diet juts appeals to me but maybe mostly raw is just as good! i wasn't going to eat amanitas raw, i know how to prepare them and from what I know, a better temperature is 194-204'F. Close to the boiling point of water but not quite so high that's the temperature I'll use.

 

[amandanita]

"I mostly agree. It's true that if someone eats nothing but fish and avoids carbs and takes supplements, they can lose weight and be relatively healthy. If they do it with red meat or other kind of animal meat, they're likely to get less lean and less healthy. I had a friend who went paleo and I watched her lose weight at first, then plateau at what I would call "the cave woman body type." She wasn't thin, she was normal (looked like upper limit of normal bmi) with a somehow solid build. I've never known anyone to get thin on a diet like that but I've known overweight people to get to a normal weight range so I think it's possible to lose weight on it. You still get the plaque in your arteries and so on, as far as I know. Eliminating carbs completely will diminish some of the cardiovascular risks, but eating a vegetarian/vegan/fruitarian diet allows you to eat carbs, fat and protein and still not die of clogged/exploded arteries. Of course it's everyone's choice, I'm just typing out my own thoughts (I'm still in the process of mentally processing this change but I have no doubts or regrets! I think it's the best thing I've done for myself in a long time.)"


Sorry, but this is nonsense. I believed many of the same ideas for a number of years until I stopped listening to propaganda and began to look at the actual research.

Im sorry if I sound dismissive. I just believed many of these things when I was younger in my mid to late 20's etc, dedicated a number of years to those ideas, avoiding all cooked food thinking there was any evidence that was healthier, thinking being 100% vegan is necessarily better than vegetarian or some other whole foods diets..I had a lot of ideas I believed in, that proved to never have been true as absolutes. There is a lot of bs in the raw food community and a lot of wannabe gurus that are making up lies(like the enzymes in raw food making a difference, which is proven false as stomach acid destroys the foreign enzymes anyway except in rare cases) and telling to masses of people..this is especially true among fruitarians. These are some of the biggest flakes and liars I have encountered. I know for a fact many of them are supplementing with animal products such as deer antler and even deer placenta to fulfill nutritional requirements..and there is nothing wrong with needing to do that.

Diet is important, and there is a lot of merit in following a diet of whole foods and clean water. You are new here, otherwise you would already know my stance on this and had heard 100x over. I am a food nutcase. I have not drunk tap water in over 6 years and collect my own spring water. I eat as much wild harvested foods/herbs as I can and everything else I is the highest quality sourced whole foods I can source. Mono diets, and extremely restricted dietary ideas like fruitarianism etc might sound nice at first, and the people pushing them might sound like they know something, but in time most people who have been around the block once or twice learn that life is far, far more diverse than that.

A fruitarian diet is going to be a highly domesticated diet indeed...do you want to eat a high % of wild foods, that are actually rich in nutrients with complex plant phytochemistry, herbs with potent alelochemicals to tone the system etc?...how do you suggest that we went about as fruitarians in some past time? Most of the fruit we eat today is hybridized/cultivars bread for high sugar content, and much of the medicine of the food is lost. Some of the original wild strains produce fruit that is not even really edible. The problems with the absolutist fruitarian paradigm are many.

I haven't visited any vegan/vegetarian/fruitarian communities! I just looked up the differences between vegan and vegetarian (I've avoided meat/animal products before but I was never into the animal rights cult thing) and the stuff I read made me never want to describe myself by any of those words :lol: they seem to come with too many assumptions.

I don't believe in absolutes. I temporarily believe some things completely for different reasons. One of the reasons in this case is to mentally help me stick to this and not give up on it. The beliefs are things that support my commitment to this diet which, like all things, is transient and subject to change. However, that doesn't mean that my feelings in this moment would be meaningless. They mean a lot to me! And it's not just about a diet, it is about the connectedness of life, constructive vs destructive, mindful vs mindless, it's a complex thing.

Maybe it would help you if you understood some things about me. It's not a trivial thing for me to change my diet into something healthy and stick to it. You should also know that this diet even in its current form (which will change soon enough) is healthier than the way I've eaten for a long time before this. Much healthier. I'm not going to eat just fruits forever, I've thanked many people for their help in making my diet healthier, I will read that advice many more times and use it to add things to my diet that will make it healthier. In time.

Maybe for someone else it's trivial to make any changes to their diet at any time. It's not so for me and nothing you say can magically change that. Please understand that. I'm starting simple because I don't want to fail. Speaking against this change is not really helpful because this isn't about what physically goes into my body, this is about me mentally sticking to making my diet healthier.

The key here is my struggle to even care enough about my physical body to make these changes in the first place. You should understand that that's good enough. I'll do more when I can.

Anyway, all the fruits I'm eating now I've once picked with my own hands from a field or from a tree. They might not be the original natural variants, but they let me feel a certain connection nonetheless.

But you're right, I'd rather go natural. Maybe I will eventually give up eating fruits and only eat the berries that grow around here, pine needles and nuts, nettle and mushrooms. That will probably be far less calories but more nutrients so it doesn't matter and it will get me closer to nature and less reliant on foods I have to buy.

deer antler? nutritional requirements of antler and placenta? :lol: i don't think i live in the same reality as those people. no one needs deer antler or placenta for nutrition :lol: that's... trippy!

 

[Koornut]

@amandanita
This question might be somewhat personal and I understand if you find it offensive.

Have you suffered from a chronic eating disorder such as anorexia nervosa?

 

[RAM]

Here's an interesting thread about what Nexians eat that I started before: What do you eat? - Open Discussion - Welcome to the DMT-Nexus

Honestly to survive you really just need what is in soylent, which is basically all of your needed vitamins and minerals, a little protein, a little fat, and a little salt. There is a little sugar in there for energy expenditure as well.

White sugar is poison. Bleached enriched nonorganic flour is poison. Humans should probably not eat pesticides and weird flavoring chemicals. My father is a vegan and my mother has a plethora of food allergies so I have been surrounded by this kind of stuff all my life.

I have found that moderation is key for most foods, although there are some things that are completely unnecessary (like white sugar and bleached flour) and should be avoided to remain healthy. A little salad, a little wine, a little cheese, a little meat, a couple berries for dessert, and a lot of water sounds more than acceptable to me.

 

[Ufostrahlen]

Regardless of what food dogma one believes in, there are some scientific facts:

Long version:

The Essential Guide to Nutrient Requirements:

http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/DRI/Essential_Guide/DRIEssentialGuideNutReq.pdf

Short version:

An essential nutrient is a nutrient required for normal human body function that either cannot be synthesized by the body at all, or cannot be synthesized in amounts adequate for good health (e.g. niacin, choline), and thus must be obtained from a dietary source. Essential nutrients are also defined by the collective physiological evidence for their importance in the diet, as represented in e.g. US government approved tables for Dietary Reference Intake.[1]

Nutrient - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/DRI/DRI_Tables/recommended_intakes_individuals.pdf

Vegan/Vegetarian version:

It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately
planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are
healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the
prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets
are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including
pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes.

http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/2009_ADA_position_paper.pdf

 

[amandanita]

@amandanita
This question might be somewhat personal and I understand if you find it offensive.

Have you suffered from a chronic eating disorder such as anorexia nervosa?

Why do you ask? I just eat to put energy in my body. Now I'm trying to care enough to put nutrients in there too and somewhat the right amount of energy somewhat regularly. That's all. Today i've eaten like 3-4 kg of fruit and i didn't count the calories no i don't have anorexia

 

[Koornut]

@amandanita
This question might be somewhat personal and I understand if you find it offensive.

Have you suffered from a chronic eating disorder such as anorexia nervosa?

Why do you ask? I just eat to put energy in my body. Now I'm trying to care enough to put nutrients in there too and somewhat the right amount of energy somewhat regularly. That's all. Today i've eaten like 3-4 kg of fruit and i didn't count the calories no i don't have anorexia

Because the language you are using is raising some all too familiar red flags for me. I have selected a few out of context quotes that brought me to that question. I am glad you don't suffer from anorexia, it is a horrible ordeal to live with.

I can't eat 2000 calories though, I would blow up like a balloon!

Another reason to eat fruits and berries is so that I don't have to pay attention to every calorie I eat. Maybe that will lead to a healthier way of eating overall. I hope.

I already said I see myself replacing some of the fruit with nuts in the future but for now (because nutrition isn't a physical thing, it's a psycho-physiological thing) it's best if I just stick with the fruits and berries until I'm used to them.

Sometimes you're so far to one side that you'll have to swing over to the other side to eventually end up in the middle!.

Eating in general isn't a physical thing for me, it's my mind telling me I should do something for my body because I tend to neglect my body too much.

I'm not claiming this is a great diet. I'm saying this is the diet I'm on now and for now it's working. I made this thread so I don't give up on this. No matter what anyone says, I can't give up on this. I have to stick something even remotely healthy.

anyway, i can't just eat anything without it affecting me mentally. if I had a choice, I'd take a pill once a week that would give me all the calories and vitamins and minerals for that week and cause no cravings.

You're the second person boasting about almost never getting sick. I wish I could hold that as a hallmark of my health but I can't. No matter how bad my health or eating gets or how low my weight gets, I don't really start getting sick more often, not that I can tell.

I don't mind it making me skinny, not that i'm fat to begin with.

Maybe it would help you if you understood some things about me. It's not a trivial thing for me to change my diet into something healthy and stick to it. You should also know that this diet even in its current form (which will change soon enough) is healthier than the way I've eaten for a long time before this. Much healthier. I'm not going to eat just fruits forever, I've thanked many people for their help in making my diet healthier, I will read that advice many more times and use it to add things to my diet that will make it healthier. In time.

The key here is my struggle to even care enough about my physical body to make these changes in the first place. You should understand that that's good enough. I'll do more when I can.

Please take care, I know you are smart. But sometimes it is wise to consult a professional too.

 

[amandanita]

Please take care, I know you are smart. But sometimes it is wise to consult a professional too.

I made this thread to stick to a diet, to encourage myself not to give up on positive changes, not to justify my diet to anyone else (although it seems that's what I ended up doing!)

I'm sorry you have suffered from anorexia, but please don't assume I don't eat healthy for the same reasons as you don't eat healthy. It's all too clear many people in this community don't eat in the healthiest ways or neglect their physical bodies and the reason isn't always an eating disorder. Eating disorders mean focusing all your energy on your ego and your physical body every waking moment. They ground you and bind you to this "consensus reality" like a rock tied to your ankle. If you talk to some people here who know me, you'll find out that's the opposite of my problem

I was eating badly because I didn't want to think about what I eat (I don't like making an effort to make food for myself) and now I'm trying the easiest way to eat healthy and the easiest way is to peal raw fruits because I don't like to waste any thought/effort on making myself food. Or thinking about food or eating.

Since this thread is not really serving its purpose, I will leave it alone and encourage anyone who wants updates to PM me I'll be adding vegetables to my diet, but no nuts or seeds (yet). We'll see how it goes.