raw foods: I want to start a Raw Food Diet to see if I can feel any benefits from it and to test my willpower. Does anyone know any good sources of protein on a raw food diet? Or any good recipe ideas? Thank you very much!|||A raw food diet is very good for you, however to just jump into eating nothing but raw can have some grave effects on your body if you are not aware of the pitfalls. Eating nothing but raw food with NO meat, will leave you vitamin B-12 deficient and since it is stored in the liver, it takes some time to see the effects of this. If you will notice, most people eating only raw food look placid and not totally healthy. You need fat and animal fat is what we were designed to eat. The problem is that the typical animal fat you get from grain fed animals is very bad for you. Grain feeding animals is much cheaper and profit is king over health in America. Grass fed dairy cows, for instance, live 4 times longer than grain fed cows. This is because cows are a big fermentation vat and feeding them grains does what it does to people, makes them inflamed and sick, so they give them antibiotics. Those drugs destroy the intestinal bacteria in cows, just like they do in humans and you get bad bacteria fermenting in the "vat" causing the cows to be sick. The fat then runs through the meat (marbling) and that is where the toxins are stored. Yes, it's more tender, but devastates your health. So there is a good arguement for eating raw. The problem is that you need that animal fat to be truly healthy. So, the best thing is to get and only eat GRASS FED ANIMALS, like the primitive people did. Eating raw food puts a burden on your kidneys and if they are strong, there is no problem, however, if you are like most Americans, your kidneys are NOT strong due to all the toxic build up in your body from eating the SAD diet (standard American diet). So you want those kidneys to be strong or you could create a very serious problem for your health. The best rule of thumb is to eat 50% raw food and the rest cooked, but not cooking it on high heat. I use water to cook grass fed hamburger in a skillet and it works great. That way, the temperature never exceeds a high temperature like you get in using oil. When cooking a grass fed steak, like New York, cook it for about an hour using 6 brickets and the steak placed to the side of the burning brickets, that way, the temperature is not too high and it cooks very tender and juicy. You only need to heat the outside of a piece of meat because that is where the bacteria are, not the inside, unless it is hamburger where it is all mixed up. The fat from grass fed animals is on the outside of the meat, not in it like grain fed animals. The fat is good for you and contains lots of omega 3 fatty acids and is balanced with more omega 3 than salmon if the grass fed cows are not "finished" before slaughter. The contain lots of CLA, vitamin E and K as well and loaded with minerals that nourish your body. Protein sources from raw food is generally done by combining foods because each food has some amino acids that others don't and by combining them, you come close to creating a "complete" protein. Many vegans and vegetarians rely on SOY as a complete protein, but when the do this, they get all kins of booby prizes and become less healthy. SOY is not a good food, unless it is fermented and the bacteria get the booby prizes. Soy will cause males to lose 1/2 of their sperm count, make man boobs from the phytoestrogens, and their metabolism will slow down due to the goitrogens in soy. Soy is loaded with the heavy metal, Aluminum that also greatly affects the thyroid gland. In fact, SOY is a nitrogen fixing plant that is good for putting nitrogen into the soil to help other plants grow better, but it also is used to remove the Aluminum and when you eat it, you get the booby prize. There are some very good books on raw foods that are excellent. A good thing to do is go to a RAW FOOD RESTAURANT and look at their menu and then get a Raw Food Cookbook and get creative. As part of that process, you will want to eat lots of fermented foods and drinks. Kombucha, homemade kefir from RAW MILK of grass fed cows, sauerkraut, fermented vegetables are all foods that will boost your immune system and help you become more healthy. EDIT: "Boreus" you are wrong about the amount of protein a person needs because it is relatively easy to calculate. There is an average amount that has been accepted as a general rule that fits most people: 40% carbs, 30% fats, and 30% proteins. The issue is not really the amount of protein, but the "completeness" of the protein. Your body has a "utilization curve" for protein based on the amount of each amino acid combination in a complete protein. Eggs are used as the standard for this. All other proteins are compared to the "curve" found in eggs. A good example of this is the combination of beans and corn. Both of these foods have different amounts of amino acids and when combined, they closely can match what is found in eggs relative to the levels of each amino acid level. So by combining these two items, you get a pretty good complete protein. A person can get very good complete protein by eating 1 whole egg per day. Eating just the whites is NOT GOOD SCIENCE. It is dumb and being promoted by ignorant people who believe the cholesterol in eggs is bad for you. If you eat just the whites, you create a protein deficiency in your body and are not getting the other 1/2 amino acid compliment found in the yolk. The yolk contains all the minerals as well. If you eat an amount of protein that your body cannot use, your body converts that protein into saturated fat that feeds your heart and is used in the body in many places. To demonize saturated fat the way it is being done comes from the dogma created by the ego maniac Ancel Keys from his now refuted and totally wrong "lipid hypothesis" that saturated fat somehow causes heart disease. good luck to you|||First off, there is no consensus on just how much protein a person needs. Basically sprouts can be a healthy option for you. Here are some references: 34 vegetables highest in protein: http://www.healthaliciousness.com/articl鈥?/a> Fruits highest in protein: http://www.healthaliciousness.com/articl鈥?/a> Seeds and nuts lowest in calories (protein amounts are listed): http://www.healthaliciousness.com/articl鈥?/a>|||Nuts Seeds Beans Legumes http://altmedicine.about.com/od/popularh鈥?/a> See article above for more information on this. This diet is typically a low protein diet anyway. Hope this helps.|||Raw meat, raw eggs, raw milk, sashimi? Nuts have a good amount of protein in them, so give that a try.|||Sushi or Steak Tartar, both are raw meat dishes with a lot of protein.