Don't you feel hungry?

I get this question quite often when I mention that I eat Raw Food diet. And that was my fear as well before I started to eat more raw food. In the past I've always been feeling constantly "hungry" when I've been on any restricting diets - low fat or portion restrictions or calorie counting diets. But I must say that I do not feel at all hungry now when eating so much fresh, live foods. My body gets the nutrients it has been craving for, and I can eat as much raw food as I want - no calorie counting or portion control here!

So what is hunger? If you haven't eaten for a while you start to feel something you identify as hunger - abdominal cramping, weakness and feeling ill or dizzy. But according to Dr Joel Furhman this is not hunger. He writes in his book Eat to Live: "Our dietary habits, especially eating animal-protein rich foods three times a day, are so stressful to the detoxification system in our liver and kidneys that we start to get withdrawal, or detoxification, symptoms the minute we aren't processing such food. Real hunger is not uncomfortable. True hunger is mediated by the hypothalamus in the brain. The hunger-related activity of the hypothalamus correlates best with increased sensation of need in mouth and throat area."

So eating animal protein puts lots of stress on your liver and generates nitrogenous waste which is toxic. These toxins rise the uric acid in your blood stream and withdrawal of these toxins can cause uncomfortable symptoms that many call hypoglycemia. Hypoglycemia means "low glucose in the blood stream". Furhman says that most people who have been (self-) diagnosed with hypoglycemia have normal glucose levels, reason they feel ill is when their stomach empties the detoxification begins. As with any withdrawal or detoxification, you get the symptoms I mentioned above. To get better means stopping eating animal protein, feeling bad for a week, and then feel great. That's exactly how I felt first week after I stopped eating meat - proper withdrawal symptoms with headache and all. I still have a bit of chicken now and then, but I'll probably never go back eating so much meat as I did before, definitely no red and processed meat. And if you now ask where do I get my protein, I'll say: vegetables, nuts, seeds, beans and legumes. And occasional fish. I will write more about the Protein Myth another day. For now, time for bed!