Have Been Trying 80/10/10 Diet With Success

[BRUMI1968]

Hi all. I just wanted to say that I've been trying the 80/10/10 diet with some success. The premise is to eat at least 80% carbs every day; less than 10% fat, and less than 10% protein. The carbs are raw fruits and greens - mostly fruits.

I know the general response to such an idea of eating so much fruit - the blood sugar and the candida and the like. But as a mostly raw vegan who was struggling, I thought I would be a guinea pig - and so far I have to say, at the very least, my digestive system is getting a much needed rest. My meals do not stick around in my stomach giving me trouble; I don't have much in the way in C or D or even gas. I also have way more energy than I did on the regular raw food diet (which can be up to 75% fat) or a healthy cooked diet (veggies and such; or veggies and chicken and such, depending on the time.)

As to long term, I am unsure. But it seems like a viable approach to at least resting the system. The lack of fat really rests the liver and pancreas, and helps elimination issues (though you have to drink enough water, or you can get C even on all this fruit). The lack of fat I think is the most profound part of the diet - at least as far as it "feels" to me...though the massive vitamins from the fruit and minerals from the greens are nice too. Long term challenges: B12 (as in all vegan diets) and zinc are two I can think of.

On this diet you don't eat any: spice, salt, extracted oils, vinegars, dried fruit, dehydrated things, grains, beans (including sprouted), insoluble dominated veggies (really the veggies you are eating are gentle greens that one might imagine a gorilla gnawing on), alcohol, caffeine, superfoods, powders, bars, etc.

You do eat lots of fruit - massive poundage of it - and at least 20% of your day spent on greens. No extracted oil means no olive oil or coconut or anything - you could eat the olive or the coconut, but not the extracted oil. Some folks eat several pounds of bananas. Avocados have to be minimized, as do nuts. Nuts are often thought of as protein foods, but are actually fat foods. As to protein, I'm working right now with the idea that "protein" consumed is a bit of a simplification of digestion: it is amino acids we need to consume, and I'm getting those with the raw fruits and veggies. I would keep my eye on the protein thing long term.

Anyway, it is interesting, and I'm seeing how it goes. There have been several blogs on others doing it for longer, and they seem to have good results, including their blood sugar tests and candida struggles. I've put those links below. I'll keep you posted. Oh, and I can tell you right away that it's expensive to buy so much fruit - but now that I'm not buying walnut butter and goji berries, hopefully I'll be able to afford it.

Links:

Open Original Shared Link

Open Original Shared Link

[AliB]

Hi 'Bully'. I have adjusted my diet to try and included more raw foods - quite often I tend to make a big jug of smoothie with fruit and veg and that will last me for breakfast and sometimes lunch too!

I did have an experimental 2 or 3 days where I just had raw food with a little protein in the form of gravlax salmon and I have to say that for the first time in ages I was not getting the 'pounding/throbbing' thing going on all over my body, so I can only assume from that that my digestion was far less stressed than normal.

I do cheat a bit on the SCD and eat some carbs that I shouldn't and that definitely impacts on the problem - and my Blood Sugar!

I did the Alkalizing diet a couple years back and had good results with some health issues - particularly Candida and IBS - that was before I realised about the Gluten issue, but then I was eating little if any of that at the time - but I did get a very sore stomach. I think it may well have been the 'Green' drink and pH drops - probably was just too much alkalizing (or the fact that the green powder may have had gluten in it)!

I seem to be ok with the fruit and veg on its own - certainly the smoothies are good, so if I do end up doing it again I will pass on the 'Green' drink and just stick to the fruit and veg.

I know that Brenda (feelingbetter) moved from the SCD on to raw, and she is doing really well on it. The SCD helped her gut to heal to the point where she could tolerate the raw food, and moving on to that seems to really have stepped her up apace.

I am just longing for the Spring to start here so that warmer weather will be more conducive to cold food!

[BRUMI1968]

I can't wait for something other than banana and orange, that's for sure. Thanks for the response. I'm always excited when folks here are experimenting with ideas for deeper health.

I know the guy I read (I think his name is Douglas Graham) frowns on any superfoods of any kind, since they are dehydrated and such. My smoothies have been banana, orange (though I think you're not doing the BEST thing combining sweet fruit with acid fruit), handful of spinach, stalk of celery (peeling the stringy side first, and probably not a whole stick), and then other fruits as avail. I have not even had frozen fruit in there lately. I usually use about 3 bananas. I was using spirulina, and just bought a jar. But it's sitting unused now for a while, just to check it out.

Anyway, thanks for the reply, and the note of who else might be doing raw. It's sure been going well for me. Today's salad of greens, nectarine, orange, and handful of walnuts (chopped up) sure was good. I just squeezed two parts of the orange onto the salad, and didn't miss the oil.

Take care!

[UnhappyCoeliac]

Change the 80% cards to protein and you may be right.... Bber here

[BRUMI1968]

Tried that. Trying this. Nothing beats mixing "science" with experience. It'll never cease to amaze me how in 2009, the medical profession can't agree on what is "good for us" and "bad for us". The "evidence" abounds on all sides: high protein, high carb, high good fat, etc. To be honest, what I liked about this diet is that philosophically speaking, or even just common-sensically speaking, it makes sense to eat stuff that is readily available for our species to eat - like walking down the street. Rather than relying on tools and cooking and powders and supplements and premade food and the like. Anyway, we'll see how it goes. I'm open to success and failure, because it all contains experience and information that educate me and help me grow. (Sounds mushy.)

At the very least, this is giving my system the rest it needs - I need the extra energy to heal myself, and this seems to be working great. Thanks for the input.

[AliB]

When I started to look into Raw I joined a forum and quite a few on there advised against the 80/10/10. I do believe that the fat and protein ratio needs to be higher than that, but the carbs in fruit and veg are nothing like as problematic as the carbs from grains and starches.

I find that the smoothies do put my blood sugar up a bit, but nothing like the other types of carb. This morning my smoothie consisted of a small banana, an avocado, 2 apples, cored but not peeled, 2 peeled carrots, a celery heart, a chunk of cucumber, a good handful of salad greens, a good handful of grapes, a little dribble of lemon juice and two heaped tablespoonfuls of live yogurt.

I topped it up with about 3/4ltr mineral water and have been quaffing it on and off all day! It made a huge jugful.

I don't usually add citrus to it but half a lemon was on the side so I gave it a little squeeze - I feel that lemon is good for combating calcification in the body but there was not too much in there.

It's one good way of getting a great deal more than the recommended '5 portions a day'. I do find that I need to drink more with it otherwise the fiber binds me up, but that may adjust as my body gets used to it.

Having things like avocado along with other fruits and veg will supply quite a bit of good fat anyway, but I am not vegan or anything so am quite happy to supplement with meat, fish and poultry.

I get quite cross when I see reports like the one I cut out of the paper the other day that said that scientists have found a causal link between an over-supply of Omega 6 fatty acids found in red meat, poultry, cereals, eggs, nuts and most vegetable oils, and Alzheimer's Disease.

Judging by the amount of processed margarines, spreads, and vegetable oils that people generally use because they think they are 'good for you'; that most processed food, chips, fries, burgers, sausages, junk in general is cooked in the stuff; and the amount of cereal-based carbs that people consume, I am not surprised as they supply huge amounts of it which radically upsets the balance between the 6 and the 3, but including the meat, poultry, eggs and nuts in with them is suggesting that they are ALL to blame!!!

Although fish supplies a high amount of 3, fresh fish is expensive and most tinned fish is packed in vegetable oil which completely negates any Omega 3 benefit! Yes, we tend to tip the oil away, but then the valuable fish oil goes with it!

So a proportion of people who read that will have gone away thinking that they should cut out meat, poultry, eggs and nuts just in case they get Alzheimer's! Don't you just hate the Media sometimes!