Day Thirty-Eight on the Road to Recovery – the Surprising Results of my Raw Diet

I got some good news again today, my eye is healing and the scar tissue has remained stable so I can wait for the operation to remove this tissue or membrane a bit later instead of right away.  I can therefore return to work but I will continue to go to the doctors at least 1-2 times a week for the next four weeks.

I did want to write a bit more about the unusual diet that I started 16 days ago and some surprising results.  When I started a raw food diet to help my body heal faster, I assumed that eating lots of raw beef, raw beef fat, raw fertilized duck egg yolks along with raw fish (mostly sashimi tuna) would dramatically raise my cholesterol.  While I had read the book We Want To Live by Aajonus Vonderplanitz and had been guided by a friend in the Philippines and my sister in the US, I was still a bit skeptical about whether eating large amounts of raw food with plenty of raw fat would be good for me, I could not have been more impressed with the results both outside and inside my body in just two weeks.  Within days of strictly following the diet, my skin, which had been dry and itchy from the medication I was taking, felt smooth and soft.  The acne on my back cleared up, sores that had developed on my chest from lying face down for over two weeks healed and my hemorrhoids completely disappeared.  The wrinkles on my brow also disappeared as if I had had botox.  But the biggest surprise came when I got my blood work done.  I was careful to test my blood chemistry levels on the first day I began the diet and then two weeks later.  My cholesterol had always been a bit on the borderline (usual over 200) along with high triglycerides, high LDL and high VLDL levels.  I had dieted in the past to keep these down but never got them to change too much, until this new raw diet.

What surprised me were the fairly dramatic results. Here is the comparison of my Oct 29 and Nov 12 Lipid Profile results:

Blood work Oct 29, 2010

Blood work Nov 12, 2010

• Time Line         Oct 29    Nov 12
• Cholesterol       219.30   167.57
• Triglycerides    238.07  152.22
• HDL                     37.45     35.14
• LDL                    133.98  101.93
• VLDL                   47.69    30.38
• Chol/HDL Ratio  5.66       4.77

In the book We Want To Live, by Aajonus Vonderplanitz, cholesterol problems are usually associated with “eating cooked fat” and that a diet with “plenty of raw fats, like unsalted raw butter, raw fertile eggs, stone-pressed olive oil, raw cream, no-salt-added raw cheeses, fresh coconuts, avocados, raw meat, and fresh pineapple quickly corrects blood cholesterol” by helping the body remove cooked (toxic cholesterol).  According to research by Aajonus, raw fats “can and will clean, fuel, lubricate, and protect the body properly.”  When I first read this, I could not believe that high raw fat consumption would actually bind with toxic fat in the body and bring down cholesterol levels but my blood cholesterol levels actually proves this along with tests from my sister which have demonstrated the significant benefits of a raw diet that includes raw meat, fish, eggs, and fat.  Note that I also consume up to 5-6 glasses of fresh juiced vegetables and drank as many as 5 fresh coconuts a day during this diet along with other fresh fruit and nuts. I also cut out all salt, sugar, additives, sauces, and cooked oils.  I did have cold pressed oil and apple cider vinegar (for salad dressing) and did eat some organic brown rice and quinoa in small amounts once a day.

The only thing that increased a bit too much in my blood test was my uric acid levels so I am reducing my consumption of raw meat and nuts and consuming more fish and eggs. As I mentioned before, I started this diet to help my body and my eye to heal much faster since I was getting concerned about repeated laser treatment first to treat a tear in my retina, then to treat a retinal detachment and then another tear.  I just could not go through another operation and wanted to try anything to strengthen my body.  I actually got more than I bargained for, now the problem is to keep the diet up in the outside world since so much food is processed, high in salt, and generally cooked!