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Expert: RawPalaeoGuy - 7/14/2008


Question
i am slowly transitioning to a raw food diet. so far i have achieved ; fruit for breakfast, green smoothie for lunch and cooked meat and veg for dinner. i eat 2 boiled eggs and some nuts for snacks each day.
i know that cooking denatures protein so i was looking for a raw source. ( i am not ready for raw meat yet).
i found ' nutriharmony whey'. raw whey, from grass fed cows, less than 1% lactose. i read in one of your answers that ' dairy is the worst'?! o.k, do you think i would be better off using this raw whey or continuing eating cooked meat? i hope you say the whey!!! i ordered some yesterday from the U.S.A.( i'm from the u.k.).
i'm just worried about getting enough protein, since i need to lose fat and want to gain some muscle.  

Answer
Eating any processed food such as whey is much worse than eating the authentic raw version. You'd be better off with "slightly-cooked" meat or even the raw dairy,  I'm afraid. Whey may be used a lot by body-builders as a processed supplement but it really isn't anywhere near as good a  source of utilisable protein as real food(ie raw or at worst minimally-cooked). (I should add that Schwarzenegger, in his bodybuilding autobiography, admitted that in his Austrian Army days, it was much more difficult to use the protein in the more heavily-cooked/processed  meat-meals provided by the Army canteen, so that he had to eat twice as much of it to get the necessary amount of protein he needed).

If you're having trouble adjusting to raw, the usual advice is to start off eating meats cooked, and then to gradually reduce the average cooking-temperature by 1 degree every so often, as you get used to each stage, removing a little of the processed sauces or replacing them with raw ones temporarily, until you eventually can eat the raw meats/organs etc. on their own at room-temperature. Oh, and it's a really good idea to soak nuts for 24 hours in water in order to reduce their antinutrient-levels.

HTH,
RPG

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RawPalaeoGuy

Expertise

I can answer most questions on Raw Animal and Vegetable Food Diets such as the Primal Diet, an organic, raw-meat-based diet and a number of similiar all-raw or partially raw Paleolithic diets, such as the Instincto, Weston-Price, Neanderthin, Paleo and Stefansson Diets. Can also offer advice on how to resist social pressure to eat cooked foods etc. For further info on Raw-Animal-Food diets, it's a good idea to browse through GoodSamaritan's website, http://www.rawpaleodiet.com/ , and also to join the following two forums and read their message-archives :- rawpaleoforum.com and http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/rawpaleodiet/

Experience

I have been 8 years on a 99%+ raw version of the Palaeolithic Diet and experienced numerous health benefits as a result, being fully recovered from my previous symptoms from my cooked-food days. My own individualised raw, paleolithic diet routine is mostly based on Aajonus Vonderplanitz's Primal Diet(ie 99% raw, usage of "high-meat",no processed supplements, using primarily naturally-reared, organic or wild sources of raw foods) but, for personal reasons, I have also been, to some extent, influenced by ideas from:- Instincto(ie:- taste/instinct,no raw dairy/no raw veggie juice), Weston-Price(eg: preferring grassfed meat to grainfed meat, incorporating a wide variety of raw organ-meats into my diet along with the usual muscle-meats, and Vilhjalmur Stefansson(high-fat diet, pretty high proportion of (raw) animal food), but also eating some raw carbohydrates such as raw organic/wild fruit/veg/honeycomb etc.). I'm also a firm believer in the feast-and-famine idea (ie Intermittent Fasting) as regards boosting one's energy levels, and giving my body a rest from constant digestion.

Organizations
Rawpaleodiet Community(Comprising rawpaleoforum , rawpaleodiet yahoo group and the rawpaleodiet.com website among others).

Publications
Allexperts and Rawpaleodiet.com

Education/Credentials
No nutritional qualification(I don't believe in standard(misguided) nutritionist doctrine, so I don't feel the need). I simply rely on mine and many others' long-term experiences of raw, palaeolithic diets and I've read most of the books that are vaguely relevant to a raw-meat diet.

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