Raw food controversies : how to avoid common mistakes that may sabotage your health : a personal journey

366 Pages·2011·1.55 MB·English

by  Patenaude

Copyright Information

Cover art: Martin Mailloux
Copyright © 2011 by Frédéric Patenaude
All rights reserved
First Edition, January 2011
Published by:
Raw Vegan
Montreal, Canada
www.fredericpatenaude.com
Customer support: www.replytofred.com

To get the DVD “Raw Food Nutrition Explained” that completes the
information in this book, go to:
www.rawcontroversies.com/dvds
Important Medical Disclaimer

The information in this book does not constitute medical or health advice, but is
presented simply with the intention of sharing the personal experiences of
Frederic Patenaude with healthful living.
Frederic Patenaude does not provide any medical opinions or health advice. If
you have questions regarding specific medical or healthcare matters, you should
speak directly with your doctor or licensed healthcare provider.
The information contained in this book is not intended to replace the advice of a
licensed healthcare provider.
Raw Food Controversies

Copyright © 2011 by Frederic Patenaude
Except for brief quotations, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system (such as an Internet server), or transmitted in any form or by
any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without
the prior permission of the publisher.
Acknowledgements

It never ceases to amaze me how certain seemingly insignificant moments have
the potential to define our existence. In writing this book, I realized how my
thinking has been shaped by all the experiences that I have had, and all the
people I have met.
Several people contributed to this book, including all the characters you will
meet in it. They are all real people, who were part of this “raw” journey along
with me. I’d like to thank all of them, because they all had something to
contribute to this book.
I have changed some of the names and sometimes altered the chronology of
some of the events I relate, only to make the story easier to tell and to protect the
privacy of certain people who would prefer not to be recognized.
I’d like to thank all the raw food “gurus” that I have featured in this book. I
know some of my writings will appear as harsh criticism of their philosophies,
but in reality, I have no one to blame but myself for some of the mistakes I have
made. I wanted to tell my raw food story without hiding behind obscure
references to “some well-known people in the raw-food movement,” and so I
have chosen to name all the people I feature, who have themselves decided to be
public personalities by writing their own books.
I’d like to thank my wonderful wife Veronica, who gave me the idea for this
book. I thought I had already written my “raw story” in my book The Raw
Secrets, but she knew I had much more to say. Our conversation in downtown
Vancouver sparked the idea for Raw Food Controversies, and she contributed
key parts to this book.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places
An Inexact Science
Some Americans, Fed Up With Conflicting Diet and Nutrition Messages,
Respond With Less Healthful Eating Habits
From Poutine to Tofu Hot Dogs
The Story of How I Became Vegetarian
How a Piano Tuner Got Me to Go (Mostly) Vegan
From Dog Food to Live Food
Food Combining Simplified
About Shelton’s Diet
How an Old Frenchman Would Transform My Assumptions About Diet
and Health
Nature’s First Law: The Raw Food Diet
How to Deal with the Winter on a Raw Food Diet
Finding Raw Foods on the Internet
California’s Raw Food Superheroes
San Diego, Here I Come
Guac Around the Clock
Discovering the Avocado
How Much Sleep Do We Really Need?
Advice for Sound Sleep
A Wrong Turn Down Raw Meat Street
Heading to San Francisco
The Death of T.C. Fry
Instinctive Eating
The Flaws of Instinctotherapy
The Truth About Detox
My First Bite of Raw Flesh
You Eat Chicken. You Eat Bread. Everything You Eat Is Dead!
Behind The Scenes at Nature’s First Law
My Diet Came Full Circle
Stimulants & Detox
Just Eat an Apple, What’s So Hard About That?
Raw Cuisine Gone Mad!
The Legendary Appetite of Mad Mango Seb
The Truth About Raw Food Recipes
Raw Love is in the Air
The Mysterious Raw Sickness
Why You Should Never Eat Raw Beans
The Mysterious Illness
The Danger of Dogma
Cravings and the Raw Food Diet
The Truth About Cravings
How I Became a Gourmet Raw Food Chef
What’s Wrong with Raw Food Recipes?
My Meeting with a Breatharian
Don’t Be in a Rush to Flush
The Truth About Liver Flushes
Back to the Land of Snow, and Cooked Food
Rediscovering Cooked Foods
The Reward of Raw: A Mouthful of Cavities
Going Back to Natural Hygiene
More Dental Troubles, and Going Back to Meat
Why Raw Foodists Have Problems with Their Teeth and What to Do
About It
The Raw Curse
The Raw Curse
My Fast in Costa Rica
My Fasting Journal
Vulnerability During the Fast
What I Ate After the Fast
Back Home After the Fast
My Conclusions on the Fast
Fasting for Health
What Happened After
Is Low-Fat, Cooked Better Than High-Fat, Raw?
Why Do People Get Results?
What About “Moderate Fat, Moderate Fruit?”
What I Eat Now
What About 100% Raw?
100% Raw or 80% Raw: Which One Is Best?
Pros and Cons of Eating 100% Raw
PROS of 100% Raw
CONS of 100% Raw
Pros and Cons of Eating Mostly Raw
PROS of Mostly Raw
CONS of “Mostly Raw”
The Benefits I Have Experience From Eating This Way
What About You?
Tips for Success on the Raw Food Diet
What About Organic Food?
The Supplements Controversy
Vitamin B12
What Are the Symptoms of Vitamin B12 Deficiency?
Vitamin B12 Content of Animal Foods
Vitamin D
Selenium
Sodium
Is Sea Salt Any Better?
DHA
DHA
Fat: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
The Problems with Fat
Fat and Blood Sugar
Even Low-Carb Pundits Get It
Saturated Fat
Too Much Fat is Too Much Fat
Can Fruit Sugar Make You Fat?
Too Much Fruit Sugar?
Conclusion: The Ideal Diet
Could Humans Live on a Chimpanzee Diet?
Teeth Show Fruit Was the Staple, No Exception Found
A Little Update
What Happened to the Characters in this Book?
Ready for the Next Step?
Other Products By Frederic Patenaude
The Raw Vegan Mentor Club
Low Fat Raw Vegan Cuisine DVD Set
The Raw Secrets
Instant Raw Sensations
Perfect Health Program
How to Heal and Prevent Dental Disasters in 21 Days or Less
Toothsoap
Do What You Love Products
Want to Keep In Touch?
Introduction

The Proof is in the Raw Pudding

“To a great extent, when you take up the raw food
diet, you become a new and different person. You
don’t just stay the old person, only a little
healthier...You become a person who is more a part of
the one great life of Nature and less of the confused
human world.”

Joe Alexander,
Blatant Raw Foodist Propaganda
This is my raw food story.
Again, I find myself writing a book about the raw food diet, meant for raw food
newbies and rookies or simply anyone who wants to avoid common mistakes
most raw foodists make.
Amazon.com is filled with books on the raw food diet, many of which are meant
to introduce the concept to a broad audience. Those books have already done the
job of explaining what exactly a raw food diet is. So why in the world would
someone pick up another book with the unlikely title Raw Food Controversies?
I’ve been asked by my graphic artist Martin (my old high-school friend, who has
done the cover design for all of my books, and has followed my raw food
experiments of the past 14 years as an outsider), “What exactly is a raw food
controversy?
“I get it. Raw foodists like to eat raw foods. They’re vegetarians who prefer not
to cook their food. That part is clear.”
“But what controversies could there be within this bunch of health-food
enthusiasts?”
When Martin asked me what kind of controversies I was talking about, so that he
could get an idea for what to put on the cover of this book, he envisioned that
perhaps some raw foodists said we should eat more apples, while others
preferred pineapple.
I explained to him that it’s a little bit more complicated than that.
“For example, in the raw food movement, there’s the fat camp and the fruit
camp. Some people think we should eat mostly fruit, while the rest think fruit is
bad.
“There are also people who believe we should take supplements and superfoods,
while others say that we can get everything we need from bananas and lettuce.”
“Let’s keep it simple,” Martin said. “How about we feature a banana and an
avocado on the cover? That should be a symbolic representation of those
mysterious raw food controversies.”
It would be so much easier if one raw food guru thought we should eat mango,
and another said that no, oranges are the way to go!