Review: The Raw Food Detox Diet

In the tradition of my of my favorite personal finance blogs, every other Sunday, Eat with Integrity reviews a book about food.

I picked up Natalia Rose's book, The Raw Food Detox Diet: The Five-step Plan for Vibrant Health and Maximum Weight Loss, because I wanted to learn more about eating raw. Instead of finding motivational research or scientific facts, I found a lot of misinformation and an unfortunate attitude towards food.

What is the raw food detox diet?

Rose is stridently against "waste" in this book. According to her, "waste=weight". If you get rid of waste, then you get rid of weight. Rose's diet focuses on removing as much "waste" as possible from the diet (basically, everything that is not fruit or vegetable) and eliminating the toxins that have built up in your cells from birth, toxins that come from eating anything other than fruits and vegetables.

To that end, her diet encourages you to eat "quick exit foods in quick exit combinations,"that is, eating food that leaves your body quickly. Practically speaking, this means eating only fresh fruits, starches, meat-proteins or nuts/seeds/dried fruits (fat-proteins) together. Rose offers no scientific explanation for why a longer digestion time might be harmful to the body.

Questionable suggestions in the book

The sad thing is that she advocates using the artificial sweetener Splenda for sweetness. While Rose does not advocate completely eliminating all processed foods from one's diet until one is ready to be 100% raw, Splenda is a sugar-free chemical whose safety many question. The fact that Rose recommends the chemical Splenda as a white sugar replacement suggests that she is not concerned with completely eliminating processed foods nor with safe foods.

Moreover, the diet is only one part of her detox plan. The other half entails "waste elimination specialists" to help you get rid of current and past toxins. Among activities like sweating and deep breathing, which I'm all for, colonics and enemas are what she most recommends. In Rose's interview with her colonics therapist, they both agree that certain people may not need help to "eliminate" at first, but eventually everyone reaches a point where they come up against "post-putrefaction", waste that has been lodged in the body for so long that it needs professional help to leave the body.

For starters, no one needs a monthly or weekly professional treatment to eat healthy. I sincerely think each individual can heal her- or himself. Second, colonics has been debunked! Even by the raw food community! One of the supplements Rose's colonics therapist advises is psyllium. I found out through rawveg.info that psyllium becomes a gel that conforms to the shape of whatever container it is in, so that once you ingest it, it creates a gel that is in the shape of your intestine! Add clay for color and herbs for gunkiness, then your poop looks really like shit, like post-putrefaction.

While I didn't research into any other of Rose's claims, the fact that she recommends Splenda and psyllium as part of her detox plans made me less inclined to believe her other claims.

Meal planning ideas

After Rose explains her diet philosophies, she gives a quiz to diagnose your detox transition level. If you have been eating unhealthy for a while, you are a level 5, whereas if you are ready to go 100% raw, you are a level 1.

I was on the low side of a level 3, so I read both level 3 and level 2 weekly menu plans. A level 3 was basically 80% raw for breakfast and lunch with dinner open to almost anything as long as it was "well-combined." She mostly advocates a "green lemonade" vegetable juice first thing in the morning, then fruits for breakfast and snacks before and after a raw vegetable salad lunch. A level 2 was someone who incorporated more creative raw dinners into her diet.

I am ready to try gourmet raw recipes for dinner, but one thing made me hesitate: Rose asks Level 2 to stick to mono-fruit meals, that is, eating one type of fruit for a meal. I cannot ever imagine enjoying a meal of 16 bananas or an entire watermelon. I crave variety and diversity in every one of my meals, and this type of mono-fruit meals will never be something that appeals to my instincts of eating with joy and abundance.

Good ideas from Rose

Helpfully, Rose advocates planning ahead to avoid temptations in real-life scenarios, like at the office or at other people's parties. I really appreciated the extra motivation she offered about changing habits at the office, which is one of my weak areas. I really need to replenish my healthy snacks at the office, such as nuts, dried fruits, and chocolate with over 70% cocoa content.

I appreciated a few of Rose's philosophies. Rose is not concerned with making anyone 100% raw. In fact, she is against anyone "transitioning" too fast to a 100% raw diet. She also wrote about not labeling herself as even an "aspiring raw foodist." If she felt like eating something mainstream, she does without worrying. She recognizes that as long as we mostly eat healthy, indulging in meat or raw cheese is ok. She just eats what she eats when she wants to. And that is something I agree with: find liberation and joy in your meals rather than be limited by an identity label like vegan or raw.

Is The Raw Food Detox Diet worth reading?

Because Rose presents her diet along a continuum, there are a few good ideas and recipes you may find useful in this book. In fact, I did see a few recipes I wanted to try and may share on the blog later.

Nonetheless, I found her book filled with misinformation and a weird distrust in the joy of food that I would not recommend it. Also, Rose recommends a lot of brands of food to buy. While these specific kinds of recommendations may take the thinking out of eating, what if the manufacturers change their recipes? Her book is not a resource for people who want to become more conscious about what they eat, but for people looking for a specific program about which they don't have to think too much about.