On the High Intensity Training page of this website, I made reference to Dr. Darden's new book, The New High Intensity Training, and how we differed in our opinions on diet. I will credit Dr. Darden with the fact that he has studied nutrition and is convinced that a high protein diet is not required for bodybuilding. It's just that I've gone one step further on the the raw food diet. And I don't blame Dr. Darden at all, because after all, the raw food diet is known about at the current time by so very few people, he's probably never heard of or studied it. Given the time and presented with the research and facts, I'm sure Dr. Darden would come to the same conclusions I have, for I'm sure he's a very intelligent man judging from the books he has authored.

      Consider what Dr. Darden wrote on page 229 of his book. He spent several years working with a Dr. Harold Schendel who worked with starving children in Africa. His story is that initially, in an effort to provide good nutrition and save starving children, doctors would force feed these children high protein diets. The children got worse. The doctors quickly realized that what these children needed were calories, and that by eating simple, not complex carbohydrates - their condition improved. They used a mush mixture of water, sugar, fatty acids, with small amounts of protein, vitamins, and minerals.

     Now I ask you, after reading this passage, the answer is perfectly clear to me, is it to you? What they really fed these children is a food that is quite similar to fruit, the food that humans are designed to eat. Wouldn't it have been interesting to see how these starving children would have improved if given a raw food diet consisting mostly of fresh fruits?

Where do you get your protein?

     That's the question I'm continually asked, "Where do you get your protein?" It's as if all one has to do is eat protein and muscles grow on you automatically. My opinion is that there are several factors besides protein that affect how big you can grow your muscles.

     The first is your parents. You've got to pick parents with good genes for big muscles, and then you do the best with what you're given. All bodybuilders are never happy with the size of their muscles - they always want bigger muscles. Even Arnold, after seeing Tom Platz's thighs said something to the effect of "I trained so hard to get thighs like that, but never got them." And I'm sure Tom Platz would've liked an upper body like Arnold's too.

     The second factor is age. All bodybuilders reach their maximum size from their late teens to early thirties, from then on they have age group bodybuilding competitions and all bodybuilders that enter look smaller as they get into their 40's, 50's and beyond. You don't see Arnold competing anymore in his fifties do you?

     The third factor is just plain old hard work. If all you had to do was eat protein to grow muscles you wouldn't find bodybuilders in gyms - they'd be in all-you-can-eat restaurants. Instead of worrying about getting enough protein, I'd be researching the most efficient methods of working out and finding a good training partner to push you hard.

My typical daily diet

     Ok, so here's what a typical day's diet is for me, and you can try to figure out where I get my protein.

7 a.m. - 2 oranges or fruit in season

8 a.m. - 5 to 8 or so rambutans, a tropical fruit here in Hawaii

9 a.m. - 5 bananas with 10-12 Kale leaves (the bananas in Hawaii are finger bananas, about 5" long)

10:30 a.m. - 12 bananas with a rib of celery

12 noon - 12 bananas with  celery ribs

2:00 p.m. -12 bananas with 2-3 celery rib

4:00 p.m. - 4-5 pieces of other fruit in season such as peaches, apricots, etc

6:00 p.m. - Large salad comprised of 1 head of lettuce, some kale, broccoli, cauliflower, sweet red bell pepper, cabbage and 1 oz. of one variety of nuts each night. I soak the nuts in water for 24 hours first. I eat different nut each night for variety. My favorites are: almonds, pistachios, walnuts, brazil nuts, hemp seeds, macadamia nuts, or about 1/4 of a large avocado, as the avocados here in Hawaii can be up to 2 to 3 lb.

8:00 p.m. more bananas if still hungry

     My opinion is that if you get enough calories, you get enough protein - it's automatic.

     How much protein is in lettuce? If you go to the USDA nutrient database at www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search you'll see that lettuce is 29% protein. Try it - go to the website, for the key word on the first page type in "Lettuce." On the next screen, select "lettuce, cos or ramain, raw", click submit. On the next screen 100 grams is already selected for you. On the next screen it shows that 100 grams of lettuce contains 17 calories. We want to find out how many calories for each 100 calories of lettuce are protein calories, giving us the percentage of protein per 100 calories, so take 100, divide by 17, this gives us 5.88. Now for each 100 grams of lettuce there are 1.23 grams of protein, and if each gram of protein is 4 calories, multiply 1.23 times 4 and you get 4.92. Multiply this by 5.88 and we get 28.92, rounded off to 29 and we have out of every 100 calories of lettuce there are 29 calories provided by protein. So we see that lettuce is very high in protein - but we really don't eat that much of it, so it is a source, but not our complete source.

     Bananas, figured the same way, come it at 4.88% protein, which may actually add up to a greater protein source because I eat so many of them. I've heard that mother's milk is less than 10% protein, and that most fruits fall into this category as far as protein.

     My opinion is that we really don't need a lot of protein. Perhaps your protein needs would increase dramatically if you were adding a lot of muscle very quickly - are you? Are your upper arms increasing at a rate of 1/2" per week? Most likely no, for at such a rate you wouldn't have to maintain it for very long.

     I remember reading about Casey Viator during the Colorado experiment, or perhaps my friend Ron and I asked him when we saw him in Florida in 1979, I don't remember which, but he said that during the Colorado Experiment he "really had to shovel the food down." And all the years that Arthur Jones built muscles via his Nautilus machines, he always maintained the policy that nothing special in the way of diet was required for building muscles, meaning no protein, vitamin, or supplements were required.

     My own experience is that I was exactly the same whether I took lots of supplements or not. I even experimented with creatine supplements like Dr. Darden suggests in his book (this was before I got into raw foods) and NOTHING happened, which is why I recommend you not use creatine and ignore this section of Dr. Darden's book (in one of his other books he has a subject who gained even more muscle using no creatine, so the use of creatine, to me is dubious at best.)

Actual Daily Intake July 10, 2005

     So you can see that I eat a fruit meal along with lettuce, celery, or cucumber every hour and a half or so. Here's the total food intake from another day:

Kale: 10 oz.

Cucumber: 12 oz.

Litchi (a tropical fruit): 11 oz.

Grapefruit: 12 oz.

Strawberries: 2 oz.

Bananas: 62 oz.

Nectarines: 10 oz.

Peaches: 12 oz.

Broccoli: 4 oz.

Cauliflower: 4 oz.

Sweet Red Pepper: 4 oz.

Tomatoes: 16 oz.

Lettuce: 6 oz.

Raw Hemp Seeds: 4 oz.

Honey dates: 6 oz.

Celery: 4 oz.

     The above is my total food intake for the day. I then entered the information into nutridiary.com and it figured out my nutritional breakdown as follows:

Calories: 3589

Total fat: 50 grams

Cholesterol: 0 grams

Sodium 405 mg

Carbohydrate: 811 grams

Fiber: 102 grams

Protein: 84 grams

Vitamins are listed as a percentage of the RDA for a 2000 calories diet:

Vitamin A: 1431%

Vitamin C: 2374%

Calcium: 99%

Iron 114%

Calorie Distribution by percentage:

Protein 8%

Fat 11%

Carbohydrates 81%

High Fat Error

     A common mistake amongst people on the raw food diet is to eat lots of nuts, avocados, and high fat foods. They essential go from a 30 - 40% fat diet on the Standard American Diet to an even higher fat percentage diet on raw foods. My fat percentage on the above diet is very low, below 10%, and urge you to eat the same. Try it, experiement on yourself, and see if you agree. I've tried eating lots of nuts and fats and it resulted in no weight gain. I've found that in the four hours or so it takes to digest a high fat meal of nuts, I can get a lot more calories of easy to digest foods in my system by eating fruits, and even semi dried fruits like dates. By eating fruits, I can eat a lot of calories in an easy to digest meal, avoiding that groggy feeling when the body labors to digest a high fat meal (how do people feel after stuffing themselves at Thanksgiving - certainly not like getting up and working out!)

Amino Acid Recycling

     Do you know about amino acid recycling, have you heard of the topic? The article "Where do you get your protein?" at www.healthpromoting.com  (go to articles) explains how the body recycles used proteins so that some of our daily protein needs come from re-using proteins, and the rest comes from new proteins we eat. This is a must read because I'm trying to teach you to read the sources I studied myself, not to listen to just what I recommend, so that you can read, think for yourself, experiment on yourself, and come to your own conclusions.

Also, while you're at this website, get their new book, "The Pleasure Trap." Again it's a must read because if will help you to understand why the body prefers foods rich in processed sugars, fats, and salt - critical to your success at changing to a raw food diet.

What about protein deficiency?

     So when I get people who never studied nutrition, but they give me this big lecture on why I need to get meat in my diet for adequate protein, I'll ask them "What exactly are the signs and symptoms of protein deficiency?" So far no one has given me a proper response, for if they were educated in nutrition, they wouldn't be concerned that I'm not getting enough protein.

     The answer is that early symptoms of protein deficiency are weight loss, listlessness, apathy, slow healing of wounds, edema, skin and hair changes, decreased endurance, and an easily irritated personality. Next, the enamel will dissolve off the teeth due to insufficient high quality saliva to re-enamel the teeth after eating acid fruits, very dry skin, loss of hair, extreme sleepiness, and weakness. Also diminished secretion of the glandular part of the pituitary gland causing a low basal metabolic rate. Low grade, long standing cases develop "flaky-paint" areas of hyperpigmentation. These are like large dark brown spots that do not shine like healthy skin and are slightly rough.

     This information is from Dr. Vetrano's book "Errors in Hygiene!?" Again, a must read to educate yourself about raw foods and protein.

Questions:

"Do you get constipated from eating all those bananas?"

"Do you drink much water?"

     No, after switching to a raw diet constipation has never been a problem. Often people also ask if I get diarrhea after eating all that fruit. Actually, I don't have a problem, as elimination is usually effortless due to soft, but firm stools. I also don't drink water as a rule. The reason for this is that I'm consuming what is know as a water sufficient diet. That is, my water needs are supplied by my diet. Most fruit and vegetables are anywhere from 70 to 95% or more water. The exception would be if I was sweating profusely due to physical exertion and my urine output was very small and extremely yellow, then additonal water would be needed. I once measured my urine output on a typical day at 84 oz. The other reason no water is necessary is because I don't eat any table salt or Celtic sea salt or any other "natural" salt. All these salts are really inorganic minerals, (dissolved rocks) that are unusable by the body and thus really poisons that must be eliminated by the body requiring extra water. So yes, if you eat salt, which you shouldn't, then drink extra water to help your body get it out. My sodium needs are supplied by organic sodium from the plant foods I eat.

     Bananas are really a great food, click here to read some interesting facts about bananas: http://www.karinya.com/bananas.htm

"Why on earth do you eat so many Bananas?"

     Because I can maintain my weight on bananas since they average about 400 calories per pound. I've lost weight eating other fruits such as peaches and apricots so I can only conclude that they don't have the caloric density that bananas do. Yes, it's good to eat a wide variety, and I will have a meal or two or three of other fruits each day such as oranges, grapefruits, sapotes, star apples, etc., but my mainstay is always bananas.

"I read your website and what you eat. Tell me the truth now, where do you get your protein!"

     Believe it or not, this is what one lady asked me. She thought I was holding out on her and not telling where I really got my protein. Right now I don't even answer the protein question anymore, instead I ask a question: What makes you think nutrition is all about protein only? What about all the other nutrients? The truth is that the body requires everything - vitamins, minerals, fats, proteins, carbohydrates. If one essential nutrient is missing, then everything is compromised. What about all the other non-food conditions that must be met? Emotional poise, love, rest and sleep? Imagine having the best diet in the world but not getting enough sleep, you wouldn't last long. Diet is the food you eat, nutrition is the sum total of everything that a healthy human needs - the whole scope of the picture is much bigger than protein.

What about calcuim?

     We can answer the same question about calcium. People are concerned that they're not getting enough calcium for strong bones. First, let's eliminate all the bad habits that rob the body of calcium: white sugar, white flour, cola drinks, caffeine, processed foods, high animal protein diet, alcohol, prescription meds, birth control pills, tobacco. Then let's be sure we're eating a diet of fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. Include plenty of dark leafy greens like lettuce and kale. Then, realize that bones are more than just calcuim, they're a symphony of minerals. Where do we ingest a symphony of minerals in their absorbable forms in the correct amounts and ratios? That's right, we're back to whole, fresh, raw, ripe, organic plant foods.

"I'm not convinced of the benfits of a raw food diet."

     Hey, no problem, you have a great learning experience ahead of you. Just eat nothing but well cooked foods for a month or two or three. Document the decline of your health, I'd be curious to see how you do. What happened to the sailors from the old world who were months at sea headed for the Americas? Scurvy, Beri-Beri - they had vitamin deficiencies. Then introduce raw foods to your diet for the next couple months and see your health improve.

     The truth is everyone eats raw foods. Some people eat 1% of their diet raw, others 9%. I believe that everyone can benefit from increasing the percentage of raw foods in their diet, and most people will achieve a very good level of health on 80% raw foods. Cooked foods do provide one very important nutrient, and that's calories. They may be empty calories, but calories do maintain our weight.

     Due to one reason or another, many people will never achieve a 100% raw diet. Do the best you can, and any increase in your intake in raw foods is an improvement. Realize also that it takes time to switch to a raw food diet, it doesn't happen overnight. Gradually increase your intake over 6 months or even a year or two.

"What about vitamin B-12, do you take it to supplement?"

     No, I don't take any supplements, including B-12. Vitamin pills are highly processed foods, and isolated nutrients. I avoid processed foods. Vitamins never come isolated in nature, they come in the proper ratios of vitamins and minerals.

     I've attended many talks about the B-12 issue from many health authorities. None of their stories agree. One says B-12 is made and absorbed in your intestines, another says it's not. Some people get B-12 deficient in 2 years, while others take 24 years to show symptoms. I know of 2 people who eat raw with no supplements for 20 and 25 plus years and they have no problem going without B-12 supplments. So until the experts agree, I'll play it safe and eat whole, fresh, raw, ripe, organic plant foods from my garden grown with humanure.

     What sounds plausible on this issue is that in commerical farming, the synthetic fertilizers and pesticides have killed the bacteria in the soil to a large extent. By growing my own on nutrient rich soil, that is soil where I have returned the nutrients I have taken out by recyling humanure, I'm hoping that I have plenty of bacteria to produce B-12.

     When people think of B-12, they ususally say it comes from animal foods. Fine, where does the cow get its B-12 then? And if the only place we can get B-12 is from a vitamin pill, then how did the human race ever survive hundreds and thousands of years ago when there were no vitamin pills? The answer to me is that modern farming has depleted our soil, the answer is to grow your own food which contains B-12.

     And here's a thought. If cooking kills all vitamins due to the high heat, then how do people get B-12 eating animal products which are all cooked at high heat? This argument doesn't hold up well in my mind.

     So, while we're waiting for the experts to agree on B-12, I'll be conservative in my approach to health and B-12. To take foods and highly process them into isolated vitamins and minerals and then ingest them is really a radical approach and no other animal in nature does this. To ingest whole, fresh, raw, ripe, organic plant foods as nature created them is really a conservative approach.

"I eat whole foods. I had steamed rice and potates, with steamed kale."

     When you expose foods to heat, you expose the nutrients to heat, and it changes them. Water evaporates from the food. Flavors leave the food, that's why you smell them and have to add seasonings to make the food palatable again. When you expose foods to heat it is no longer a whole food.

"I know a raw food diet is good for me, and I've tried it for a little while, but I just can't do it . . .  I've got a new job, no one else in my house wants to do it with me, it takes time to buy all that fruit . . .

     Instead of looking for reasons not to do it, look for reasons why you can do it. Forget about what other people think and do, you do what you know is right, and others will respect you for it. You must decide whether you're going to walk blindly like the masses or be a leader and do what you know is right.

"My personal trainer says that he/she won't work with me unless I eat meat."

     That's easy, tell your personal trainer that all you need is to be trained in the gym, and that you don't need nutritional advice. If they don't or can't accept that then find another trainer. After seeing your superior performance on a raw food diet they just might get curious about your diet, then you will be in a position to tell them a thing or two about diet.

     I've been a personal trainer for 6 years now, and I can tell you that you're much better off researching and learning about a raw food diet on your own than following the nutritional advice of a personal trainer.

     Personal trainers get all sorts of wacky ideas on diet, and their educational training is very minimal as far as I'm concerned. The personal training business is very unregulated, and there are over 20 organizations that certify trainers, each one teaching what they want to. Most client just take their advice blindly, believing that a trainer knows what works and knows what they are doing. Don't do this. Compare trainers, shop around, but you're better off doing your own nutritional research.

     A good personal trainer should have a folder of many before and after photos and a thick binder of testimonial letters from clients who have achieved healthy goals.

"Can you give some quick guidelines to getting started right on eating raw foods?"

     Yes, of course. The first and most dangerous foods to avoid are red meat such as beef, then chicken, fish, eggs, and all dairy products such as milk, butter, ice cream, etc. Then strive to slowly increase the amount of raw foods you eat. There are also many "raw" foods that should be avoided that many promote as being healthful. Avoid these: most nutritional supplements; salt in its many forms such as celtic salt, Himalayan salt and any other salt; garlic, cayenne pepper and other spices such as cinnamon and black pepper; molasses, Liquid Amino supplements; tofu; processed foods; olive oil and other processed oils; herbs and herbal remedies.

     After reading this you may ask, "What is left?" Well, there are only three things you need to remember: Whole, Natural Foods. Do your grocery shopping in the produce department and skip the rest of the store. Eat simply, and be healthy.

My new book, The Raw Food Bodybuilding Training Manual will be coming out soon. It will be posted on this site and I will notify those who have contacted me and asked to be on the list.  Right now, your can help me write it by sending in your questions. You'll get free answers to your questions now, which I'll then use in the book for everyone's benefit. Here's some questions I've received so far:

What's your reasoning that condiments such as spices, salt, and oils be avoided?

     Spices are toxic substances that are used in small quantities to add flavor back into foods when the flavor has been cooked out of them. Raw foods such as fruits are so tasty on their own that they need no additional flavoring. An example would be nutmeg, commonly used as a cooking spice. It is fatal in large doses, and can cause convulsive seizures. Large doses that are non-lethal can cause prolonged hallucinations similar to psychedelic drugs.

     The general guidelines of whether it's a food or not is: can you make a meal of it? Would you eat a bowl of nutmeg? Would you eat a bowl of watermelon? Which then, is a food, and which is not?

     As for salt, ANY kind of salt, I don't care if it's the purest form of salt from underneath the purest, oldest glacier in the world, and believe me there are some wild claims for salt out there. All salt is inorganic, meaning it's basically dissolved minerals, or rocks, in water. The human body can't use it in that form. That's why when we ingest it, we retain water because the body is protecting our tissues until it can excrete all that salt which it can do only so fast. Instead, we can use organic sodium which is found in plant foods. So get your salt and minerals from plants such as celery.

     No where in nature does a pure fat "food" such as olive oil exist. Your body is designed to eat whole natural foods. Olive oil is a highly processed food. We are designed get our fats in the proper ratios within whole natural foods. When we ingest oils it throws off the bodys intricate mechanism to recognize the nutrient content in foods and can lead to ingesting more calories than the body needs to maintain optimal weight. In simpler terms, it can make you overweight. Get your oils from whole natural foods.

Do you use any nutritional supplements?

     No, none at all. The reason is that supplements are highly processed foods. My philosophy is to eat whole natural foods. Vitamins, minerals, etc. all come in the exact ratios and amounts that our body needs in whole natural foods. When we take a supplement of just one nutrient, it throws the whole nutrient balance off. Our body uses a symphony of nutrients designed to work together. There is no way we can decide that we need more of a certain nutrient. Besides, these supplements sit on a shelf in a bottle for months, they're not fresh at all. The guideline is to eat whole, fresh, raw, organic, unprocessed foods. Supplements do work very well for the people that sell them, they are a very high profit item. I recommend doing all your shopping in the produce department, walking right past the supplement bottles, you don't need them.

Update 3-2-07 A new book just came out which I feel is the best info by far on the raw food diet. It's Doug Graham's book, The 80-10-10 Diet. See the resources page for his website.