Hi Martha,

you said:
>Hi Tracy from what I have learned through years of experimentation with diet
>is that it is very hard to build up muscular strength and endurance on raw
>food.

For clarification: do you speak about raw vegan or vegetarian diets here?

>There are many people who are more Yin in constitution and hence a raw
>food diet does not suit them in the least. As they lack the necessary
>internal fire in themselves they need to get it from the food they eat. A
>raw food diet is too cold for their digestive systems to handle and they get
>sick.

Nuts, meat and fish are considered to be "warming" in this system, AFAIK.
If people include these in their raw diet there should be no problem to
have a Yin-Yang balanced diet. Also they can use onions and garlic which
are increasing the digestive fire.

>What i have also found is that the foods that are most eliminating are
>the raw foods and too much elimination causes demineralisation in the body.
>The raw foods favor breakdown rather than build up of the body.

This may be true for beginners which experience a lot of detoxing and
breakdown of old bad bodymass. Afterwards new healthy mass is built.
Most raw fooders think that eating healthy alone is the solution of
their problems. They forget that it is also important to use and train
your body. So they don't do any sports and wonder why they remain to
be emaciated.

Also lots of people are eating too much fruits and only a few vegetables.
They are indeed demineralisating themselves. Fruitarian diets are very
unbalanced and tend to be impossible on the long term.
Balanced diets can be done arbitrary long: year, decades,...

A good criterion for a balanced diet: do you always feel comfortable
with it? Are you satisfied each and every day? Even after several
years with this diet?

>Some raw foods , especially in the warm summer months are a good way of
>cooling the body. Can you imagine suggesting to an eskimoo that he eat only
>raw food? He would die.

Excuse me, this is nonsense. The ancestors of today's eskimos, the inuit,
ate all of their food raw. Of course they had a lot of animal foods in
their diet, up to 95%.

>I have found that raw food is more suitable for a warmer climate. if you
>live in the colder northern hemisphere it is impossible to eat all raw food
>and keep warm and healthy.

I can agree with this only for diets with large percentages of fruits.
I live in the northern hemisphere by the way (Germany) and practice a
100% raw food diet since years.

>Saying that raw food is a must for everyone is misguided and dangerous and
>reads like adherence to religious dogma.

That is certainly true.

>Who are these people who can eat raw meat? Cooking the meat makes it easier
>for the body to digest and it tastes a lot nicer.

For me meat is an important part of my diet, especially in the long and
hard european winter. Cooking turns meat into undigestable waste which
will later give you cancer. Raw meat in my experience is much easier to
digest than cooked. And after all those years of raw I prefer the taste
of raw meat. If my body needs it it tastes like the finest steak I ever
ate in a good steakhouse. No idea why people need to cook this. Raw tastes
better.

>My advise to you lot out there is to go with the way your body feels rather
>than the way you think you should feel if you follow the raw food doctrine.

That is a wise advise which I agree with.

Best raw regards,

Stefan