Amazing Example Of A Raw Food Vegan!

Discussion in 'Health & Wellness' started by Yvonne Smith, Apr 6, 2018.

  1. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    When I was browsing gardening tutorial videos on youtube, I stumbled across one that was an interview with a 73 year old vegan lady.
    This lady grows most, if not all of her foods, and she only eats a raw food diet, and has done so for years. She in no way looks her age, which is 73 years old, and she looks not only healthy and happy; but also looks like someone who gets all of the nutrition that they need.

    Her husband, who still eats a “regular” diet, certainly looks his age in the pictures that I have seen of the both of them together.
    You would have thought that he would have at least tried to change his way of eating after seeing what wonderful benefits it was having for his wife.
    She has written books about her lifestyle and what foods she eats, and there are quite a few youtube interviews about Annette Larkin ; but I just wanted to post a short one that shows everyone how amazing and young she still looks.

    I think that I am eating less and less meat and animal products; but I am not ready to give up eggs or dairy foods , even if I stopped eating meat altogether.
    I do try to eat either fish or poultry, but do still eat other meats as well, and I am also trying to include more raw foods in my eating plan.
    Obviously, someone who is already in their senior years is not going to look as healthy and youthful as Annette, because she has lived this way most of her life; but even so, I think that implementing more of these healthy fruits and vegetables will still help our health (and maybe even our appearance ?) and makes it worth trying.

     
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  2. Chrissy Cross

    Chrissy Cross Supreme Member
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    I'm not vegan but getting there not on purpose but just because I'm not so fond of meat anymore. Only eat chicken in fresno and even that I'm tired of.

    At the Easter Brunch....everyone was piling ham, lamb and prime rib on their plates....not me...ugh.

    I do eat lots of veggies but not so much raw...
     
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  3. Don Alaska

    Don Alaska Supreme Member
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    We were ovo-lacto vegetarian early in our married life, but gave it up when my wife got pregnant as we determined that a balanced diet for a pregnant woman was too difficult to achieve without meat. We bought a side of beef that was organically raised and that was the end of our vegetarianism. We were never vegan, but, despite the hype, I don't think a vegan diet is all that healthy for a human unless you take massive supplementation. Few cultures are vegan except for a few in India, and the followers of that regimen are not that healthy looking. The video does not say whether the lady had children or not, and I didn't search for more info. She claimed not to have had surgery, but her face had a bit of an "artificial" look to it, so maybe she has some skin regimen she follows. I listened to an interview with a NASA nutritional scientist years ago on developing diets for space travel, and he said they didn't go with a vegan type diet because vegans (despite the claims) usually die fairly young of cancer or related illnesses. He used Linda McCartney and a number of other celebrity vegans as examples. He said they were unable to determine why that was so, but it was believed that they didn't take it enough fat in their diet to process fat-soluble nutrients and that affected their immune systems adversely. We DO, however, raise much of our own food and believe that a large quantity of healthy vegetables and fruits are essential to human well-being. Steve Solomon calls it "vegetabletarianism" and claims that he is a "vegetabletarian", one whose diet consists primarily of vegetable matter. He claims to eat about 80% plant-based food (both cooked and raw). Humans are not able to digest many raw vegetables also. That is why we need ruminants of some kind.
     
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  4. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    I think that you have a very valid point, @Don Alaska , and it is the nutritional quality of a person’s diet that is the key to success with health and longevity, and not necessarily the specific type of diet that a person follows.
    Theoretically, you could live on rice , bread (no eggs) and soda pop, with chocolate candy for dessert, and that would be vegan from the point of not containing any animal products; but it would not be a very healthy diet.
    To my way of thinking, the important thing is to eat foods that help the body to get the vitamins and minerals that we need , as well as providing the proper amount of the important food groups.
    By eating coconuts and avocados , a vegan can get good healthy fats, most greens are very high protein, and of an easily digestable type of protein, and fruits and vegetables will supply all of the necessary carbs for a balanced diet; so I think that a person could be a vegan and be healthy.
    We have all seen example of people who eat plenty of meat, and are totally unhealthy; so just eating lots of animal protein doesn’t equate with good health either.
     
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  5. Don Alaska

    Don Alaska Supreme Member
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    All very true. The problem with raw greens is that we cannot digest the cellulose that surrounds much of the nutrition. Even slight cooking, i.e., blanching in either water or oil, will assist in breaking down the cell walls to give us access to the nutrients inside the cells. That is not an issue with animal cell, as we have the ability to digest the proteins and such that are the cell membrane. As you said, a diet type does not make a healthy lifestyle. Some people who are vegans eat only junk food, and some carnivores and omnivores (which is what I think we are supposed to be) eat too much meat, fat and processed food. We have raised just about everything that can be raised for food here--both animal and vegetable--and even that leaves some deficiencies. We know that Alaskan soils are deficient in selenium and boron, and probably other micronutrients as well, so that if we don't supplement our soils, even the plants and animals we grow will not thrive as they should. Fortunately for us, we have access to a wide variety of ocean byproducts, such as fish bone meal and kelp, that serve us well in adding everything needed. Avocados and coconuts are the fats that my wife uses to provide her healthy fats. I take fish oil and a balanced omega mixture that helps. Vitamins A, D, E, and K all require fat to process, and Americans in their low-fat, high carb dietary makeup often don't get enough healthy fat.
     
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  6. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    The inability of our digestive systems to break down cell walls is one of the things that was addressed really well by Victoria Boutenko in her book called “Green For Life”.
    She developed the Green Smoothie, and when you put the greens through a good blender, it does a great job of breaking down the cell walls so that we can easily digest most (if not all) greens.
    Of course, not everyone wants to drink thick green (sometimes ugly) smoothie drinks; so this solution only works for people who are willing to blend up their greens and drink them . Steaming them lightly, as you mentioned is a good way to get our greens also.
    While I also believe that we are probably meant to be omnivores, if I still had to raise and kill my own meat sources; I think that I would very like just be a vegetarian. I have done this before, and I just do not want to have to kill animals (or even a fish) anymore.
    I also use coconut oil, some for cooking and the virgin coconut oil added to coffee, as in Bulletproof Coffee, or just by adding it to some kind of food or even swallowing some now and then.
     
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  7. Kitty Carmel

    Kitty Carmel Veteran Member
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    I eat plant based but not for my health. I think I've seen a video on this lady before. I'm not planning on living without bread and some other things that have to be cooked. But good for her if it's what works for her.
     
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  8. Yvonne Smith

    Yvonne Smith Senior Staff
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    I think that we each choose our diets, and our lifestyle, by whatever is important to us; so each person will have their own opinions of what they want from life.
    Her husband chose to live the same lifestyle that he always had, so he eats cooked foods, meat, and whatever else he wants.
    It seems to work for them, and that is what is important.
    When you look at the pictures of the two of them, he really looks a lot older than she does, and he said that he is often mistaken for her father, or sometimes even her grandfather.

    I didn’t worry so much about what kind of diet I ate when I was younger and healthy and could do whatever I wanted to do.
    After I had the serious heart problems, and was almost bedridden (and thought I would spend whatever was left of my life that way), it really made me start caring about eating differently, and taking as good of care of my body as I can do, for as long as I live.
    I know that even if I were to start eating the exact same diet that this lady eats, it would probably not make a lot of changes since I am already so old; but I definitely want to add more of those kinds of food into my diet from now on.
     
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