Expert: RawPalaeoGuy - 5/24/2008

Question
Gday i have a question concerning raw meat causing fatigue symptoms. I started eating raw meat a few weeks ago and there are days i wake up feeling very weak and fatigued. Someone told me its cleansing but i think its more a bacterial problem. Does this happen to you and should i expect this for the rest of my life if i continue with this type of diet?

Answer
There are various possibilities:- The first is that you're experiencing a genuine detox.  A lot of people tend to experience some form of detox while transitioning to raw - in my own case, I experienced very green diarrhea constantly for the first two or three days when I switched quickly to raw, but then it stopped. Other people can experience that initial detox lasting for weeks. I have heard it claimed by some that fasting before the transition makes things easier re detox, if that's any help.

Another possibility is that you might be experiencing a food-intolerance/allergy to a particular raw food. In my own case, c. 1 month or so after going rawpalaeo, I went in for raw dairy as well - it took 6 months of severe, chronic fatigue and a resurgence of previous symptoms I'd had pre-raw diet,  before I realised that I was allergic to raw dairy(I'd also developed strong cravings to the raw dairy, and a loss of taste for raw meats).  Other people may experience problems with raw eggs or the veggie-juice or simply eating too much raw animal food every day(raw-animal-food  is more nutrient-dense than cooked-animal-food so you need less of it each day, by comparison). You might also consider having a few raw organ-meats in place of some of  the muscle-meats  as organ-meats are more nutrient-dense, so you can eat smaller quantities.

The issue might even be bacterial in origin. The usual recommendation is to use either EM("Effective Microorganisms") products or "high-meat". The latter, being aged, aerated  raw meat, is usually only recommended for those who've been on the diet for at least a year.

As for your last question:- You should not experience recovery-detox for the rest of your life. My own definition of a recovery-detox is that it should only be temporary in effect, that it should be random in occurrence except at the start of the diet, and detox-episodes should gradually be reduced in terms of severity, duration and frequency until you don't experience them, any more(for example,after my unfortunate raw-dairy experiment, my detoxes lasted anywhere from 2 to 7 days(usually closer to 2), were relatively mild in nature(ie warm forehead, slight fatigue) occurred once every 2 to 4 months completely at random, and, after becoming gradually reduced in terms of effect etc. over time,  these detoxes stopped completely after 2 years. So, if a "detox" never stops, and just gets worse and worse in effect, then it can't be a detox and must be something else.  These days, I only experience detox-symptoms shortly after eating the very occasional cooked-food meal  but this is just because my body is getting rid of the toxins from that particular cooked-food, it's not a "recovery-detox", if you see what I mean.

You might consider consuming edible clay(usually french green clay) - it's supposed to be quite effective re binding with the body's toxins and getting rid of them - just an idea.

HTH,

RPG