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Hi to all!

As the lurkers on this list a called to raise their voice, I want to
share some anecdotal stuff:

In 1996, after about two and a half year on 100% raw food (ca. 70-80% fruits
including lots of avocado) I noticed that my health was not inproving
further (as it did in the beginning) but rather getting worse. I had
tooth problems, joint pains, tingling sensations in my limbs,
especially when doing yoga, weakness and problems to keep my weight
without avo bingeing (which in turn was a heavy load to my weak
digestion), bloatings and frequent, loose stools (up to five times a
day) and almost entirely lost sex drive |\.
I was tested to be B12-deficient. At that time, there was a lot
of discussion on this list about topics like problems of fruitarianism
(I never considered myself a fruitarian), B12, RAF, and experiences of
long-time rawists. So I think the symptoms above are quite well-known
to most readers. So at last I decided to change my diet and see
whether I do better. I reintroduced some cooked foods, steamed
vegetables first and later some grains. No salt or anything like that,
maybe a tablespoon of cold pressed olive oil. Boy, was steamed
broccoli good! I ate nearly 50% percent cooked the first weak and than
reincreased the raw percentage aiming to 70% raw. The cooked stuff
seemed to do me good, I feeled a bit stronger, the white "moons" on my
fingernails started to reappear together with sex drive. I bought a
low-temperature pot that "cooks" at about 70 degrees celsius (and
takes four hours). They claim leucocytosis (sp?) won't happen at low
temperatures. I was very suprised to get *taste stops* from beets and
potatoes prepared this way. With "conventionally" steamed veggies I
was overeating all the time...
So it seemed to be a good thing for me the first time BUT after three
or four weeks some old problems of mine came back which brought my to
raw food initially: Depression, mental dizziness, feeling separate
from other people and nature, difficulties to concentrate, colds all
the time. I bit later I got severe back problems. As I supposed a
vertebra dislocation in the breast spine, I went to a chiropractor who
relocated the vertebra. I feeled better for two days. Then the
vertebra was out again :-(. Has anyone else experienced a connection
between nutrition and back pains? There was a similar incidence when I
started to eat vegan, mostly raw, three years ago. A naturopath
explained to me that animal protein was *essential* for humans and I
should eat fish and cottage cheese. So I went back to a 50% cooked
diet with food combining according to Dr. Hay, including steamed fish
once or twice a week. After some weeks I got severe low back pains, I
could hardly move. X-rays showed *no* physical problem. The pains
disappeared after a few weeks.

Nevertheless, I struggled the last three months with those problems
until I finally decided to go back to all-raw (20 days ago). After
*one* day my depression was gone again! Back is much better now. It
seems I *have to* eat all-raw in order not to feel like shit.
Almost immediately after going back all-raw, my constantly sore throut
became a nice bronchitis. I expelled *huge amounts* of mucus over two
weeks (which didn't happen to me for years). I had the strong
impression that this was indeed a cleansing (the grains??)

To avoid the problems I had on my high-fruit raw diet before I made
the following changes:

- I reduced the fruit intake to 30% (without avos...)

- I increased the fresh greens (difficult to get now in winter)

- I eat a raw egg yolk daily

- Blended salads according to Dr. Bass.

A representative meal order may be:

Apples in the morning, maybe followed by some nuts.
A vegetable meal for lunch (carrots, topinambur, celery, cabbage,...)
and then some avos.
A blended salad with lots of greens (spinach, lettuce) in the evening,
then the egg yolk.

If I do not thrive on it on the long run, I think I must have a closer
look to RAFs beside eggs :-(

Hopefully I have not bored everybody with this long posting. It would
be very interesting if anybody else has this inability to eat cooked
stuff, too.

Best regards

Christian