Frequently Asked Questions on my Raw Diet
- What is your daily diet?
- Where do you get your protein?
- Where do you get your carbohydrates?
- Why do you use currants rather than rasins or sultanas?
- Can you recommend any books on wild foods?
- Do you own a dehydrator? Are they necessary?
- How do you recommend I transition to a raw diet?
- Where can I buy raw dairy produce?
What is your daily diet?
You can find my current diet (as at 2nd March 2011) here: My daily diet – what a raw fooder eats
Where do you get your protein?
The recommended daily amount of protein is about 50g, I’ve seen it quoted as 0.8g per kilo of body weight.
A large portion of my protein comes from hemp seeds. They are about 25% protein and include all the essential amino acids. I have about 100g of hemp seeds per day, made into hemp milk for my chocolate pudding, so thats about 25g of protein, half my daily amount!
Other daily sources of protein are nuts and seeds which I have in my chocolate pudding and other snacks and a small piece of cheese (made with unpasteurised milk).
I also love seaweed, my favourite being Sea Spaghetti which has 8.4g of protein per 100g.
Occationally I have spirulina which is an algae containing over 65% protein. I like to mash up a banana and mix in a tablespoon or two.
Where do you get your carbohydrates?
Well, the simple answer is fruit.
I’ve used nutritiondata.com to find the following amount of carbs per 100g:
Fresh fruit: bananas 23g, fresh figs 19g, apples 14g, plums 11g and strawberries 8g.
Dried fruit: dates 75g and figs 64g
And to compare, pasta has 25g and baked potatoes have 21g.
Why do you use currants rather than rasins or sultanas?
Because almost all rasins and sultanas are coated in vegetable oil (even if it’s not mentioned on the ingredients) so that they don’t clump together when then are going through the packing machinery. Currants are not quite as sticky and don’t need this treatment.
Can you recommend any books and information on wild foods?
The classic British wild food books are Food For Free by Richard Mabey and Wild Food by Roger Phillips. Food for Free comes in several versions; with colour photos, with hand drawn illustrations and a pocket version (with less plants). I have the edition with colour photos, some of the photos are good, but many are not clear. This edition also devotes a lot of space to recipes (cooked, so of no interest to me).
The new Raw Food files DVD contains a 10 minute section with me identifying wild greens.
The Neighborhood Forager by Robert K Henderson is an American book which has a lot of useful detail about a smaller number of wild foods but not great images for identification. Most of the information is relevant for the UK.
Wild Flowers of Britain by Roger Phillips is an excellent identification guide. Each plant is photographed on a plain background so you can see it clearly. This book is not specifically about edibles, although it does mention that some plants are edible. This book can be used in conjunction with the PFAF website to find out if a particular plant is edible or not.
Wild Flowers by Neil Fletcher is very good for identifying plants, but has no information on edibility, so must be used in conjunction with other books or the PFAF website. To help with identification, each plant has a photo of the plant, a photo of the plant in it’s habitat, a closeup of the leaves and a closeup of the flower plus text explaining identifying features.
Do you own a dehydrator? Are they necessary?
No, I don’t own a dehydrator. They are by no means essential for a raw diet and I personally find most dehydrated food hard to digest.
How do you recommend I transition to a raw diet?
I recommend that you take it slowly. Just keep adding new raw items to your diet. Don’t think about stopping eating cooked food, that will happen naturally as you add more and more raw. Start by adding fresh fruit to your current breakfast. Add a salad with (or before) your evening meal. Replace any unhealthy snacks with healthier ones – fresh fruit, raw chocolate, nuts or dried fruit.
Where can I buy raw dairy produce?
In the UK you can only buy unpasteurised milk direct from the farmer, either at a farm shop or farmers market. Cheese made with unpasteurised milk can be purchased in many health food shops, although some cheese is cooked during the manufacturing process (even if made with raw milk) so you need to contact the producer to confirm, or make your own if you want to be certain it is raw. I have a list of places you can get raw dairy products in the UK here.
If you have a question, email me on rob@funkyraw.com
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