Funny enough, justrivals.com asked a question the other day that sparked this next blog. The question was: what do you like better - raw or cooked, paleo or vegan, and in fact do you like raw or paleo or vegan?
The one thing I was thinking about when I read this was: are any of these diets somewhat compatible? In fact, they are very compatible! You can do a raw/vegan diet, you can do a raw/paleo diet, the only diet that you can't do raw is a cooked diet - obviously! You can also do a vegan diet that is raw, and paleo/vegan.
Then I started to think about when I did my first book on the raw diet, 'Eating in the Raw' - that was in 2004 when I wrote it - there was no paleo diet, no gluten-free, no vegan. Yet raw is the grandmama of all of these diets. Because every diet can be raw. You can do raw/gluten-free as well. Oh, and don't forget the Mediterranean diet. You can do the raw Mediterranean diet as well. You can do a vegan Mediterranean diet; even a raw/vegan/Mediterranean/paleo diet if you are so inclined.
My first book, which I mentioned above, was really blasted by the vegans. They tried to claim that raw can only be vegan. But I totally disagreed. I think raw can be whatever you want it to be for you. And I also think you don't have to be 100% raw. Even 75-95% raw may help with any kind of inflammatory disease.
So the question is not, "Are all these lifestyles compatible?" Not, "Do they intersect or cancel each other out?" The question is: "Are you ready to change your lifestyle and choose your own designer diet?"
So go ahead, mix-and-match. Find your way of life that is healthy and changes you. You don't have to stick with raw just for the sake of raw, or paleo just for the sake of paleo. You could do a raw/vegan/paleo diet if that suits you.
So think about it, and then make your move!
