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Emotional & Physical Reason Why It's Hard to Stay Fruitarian

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CK:
Hi all!
I recently found two great resources that I'm using to stay in the land of fruitarians.  The first is a series of YouTube vids by Rozalind Gruber. She discusses how our coping mechanisms make it difficult to transition to higher diets. She never speaks about being a frugivore but the info is still quite helpful.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBQaoxGi2VA&feature=related

The other resource is Karl Loren. Here's a link to his sometimes very technical paper on how food--particularly meats, grains & dairy--addicts us. http://www.karlloren.com/diet/p18.htm He does mention the fruit diet as very compatible for humans.  I've not finished the entire article but it's been really eye opening.

Here's a quote from his paper:

--- Quote ---In THE STAFF OF LIFE by Edwin S. Douglas, Founder of the American Living Foods Institute, he says:

    Unfortunately, people who eat predominately fruit diets often suffer from progressive nutritional deficiencies which may not become evident for months or years. They also often experience severe cravings for pasta, bread, pastry or chips. These cravings frequently lead to binges, followed by unpleasant periods of detoxification and withdrawal. The body has a natural longing for starch foods, and to ignore this instinctive hunger is pure folly.

Douglas repeats the usual invectives, as with many nutritionists who also disapprove of the fruitarian diet. As usual he offers no strong scientific or logical reasons to support his theories. However I can confirm from personal experiences that I have suffered severe cravings, binges, detoxification and withdrawal from eating the foods he mentions. Any foods that have such potent associated dependency effects are obviously best avoided, and certainly these cravings and associated illness are unnatural. Pasta, breads, pastry and chips do not occur in nature, are of mans creation and are not natural what so ever. They are products of agriculture, with no history beyond 10-20,000 years, and true natural sources of starch such as roots and wild grains are unpleasant to taste, usually bitter, inedible or poisonous. How could it be that we are naturally intended to eat such foods? Our closest genetic relative, the chimp, eats no grains or roots, yet gives us a true glimpse of what natural diet for humans may be like. The orang, which has a similar digestive tract to humans, is 100% frugivorous, only eating bark and other plant foods when fruit is unavailable.
--- End quote ---

I hope these are helpful and/or inspiring to you as they've been for me! And I hope I have not duplicated information already posted elsewhere on the site. :)

CK

Elena:
Thank you so much CK for posting the links.
I found Gruber's talk really inspiring and useful.
I haven't read the article yet, but I will soon.
I feel emotional addiction to foods is what really makes transitioning to a raw or fruitarian diet very hard, rather than physical detox, at least in my experience, and there is still not so much information circulating on this.
For me, working on my emotions is a priority if I want to have a chance to stay frutarian and later increase the purity of my diet.
Thanks for sharing.
Elena

SuperInfinity:
I agree, after a few weeks (if you're not losing weight at that point) the only thing that could bring you back are emotional reasons or superstitious ones - superstitious as in as if there is something magical in other foods you can't find in fruit. Or how people start to blame their troubles on their diet, looking for a quick fix to their problems.   
 
Years ago when I used to foolishly eat biscuits and cakes etc., I guess I actually believed there was some quick "energy" in them, or they would make me feel good, or they were some sort of "guilty pleasure". And that is why I repeatedly went back to them even after I initially broke the physical addiction. I had no idea that I could replace all of them with fruit and do a million times better in every way, of course fruit can be a lot more expensive unfortunately.
 

Frugivorous being:
Hi everybody,
This is my first post so understand it's importance to make sense to somebody who is trying to be a fruitarian.  The hard facts keep coming back of almost 100% fruitarian attempts are indeed hampered by deficiencies which should not be ignored.  I was recently fruitarian for 22 months.  I couldn't do it any longer as I got feeling really not right, getting sick and that just plain sucks.  My resistence got so low I was extremely hot and this feeling was not like me at all.  I mean it wasn't the quality of the fruit either because it happened in Thailand where the fruit is good.  So what was it?  I'm not going to venture to know exactly what deficiencies I was experiencing but I started eating greens again and after a short while I was feeling as good as ever.  I believe if I would have kept up the fruitarian diet I wouldn't have felt this good ever again because the soil has been degraded so badly fruits aren't enough for frugivorous beings.  We do need some greens but let me stress this point, certain greens are preferred for us to eat and the others should be avoided.  I could go on and on about the diet of frugivorous beings if you like to know more but I won't post it here because I wrote what needed writing.  If I start saying this is good and the other choices are not then some might find it rude and out of place so this kind of information I have is for the inquiring mind only.  I won't charge you to get this information from me, and I believe nobody on earth has exactly what I have for a simple yet most efficient digestive system.  It does work best in a certain way and your body will know it.  The only thing is can you do it right and stick with it for life?  Yes we can.  At least I will.
John

Mado:
Also the social reasons. I always found it was hard to live on fruit when I needed a boyfriend. And that men always around me were meat eaters. I always felt something was missing. I was always fighting, arguing, preaching and teaching, then watching them eat meat in guilt. The only thing I need on this planet is myself in good health. Also social reasons. Its hard to be fruitarian when you want meat eaters attention. All they do is drink beer and eat meat and I want to be liked by them? Folly. It may be isolating at times. But what I didnt know, is that a whole world, thanks to the internet, opened up to me and I started making fruitarian friends.
Also winter climates people say is hard. You just cant sunbathe nude or pick fruit or go down the street and see a fruit truck. Also lack of faith. Belief. Disapointment. Transitioning. Look at cooked food, its heavy and thick. Fruit is all water. When you pee all the water out, very little roughage is left. So at first, I do believe one must overeat fruit to feel full- for many hours and not have cravings. Smoothies help. I envy people who are successful at it. Its like the mind is an ant and the body is the elephant. If the ant wants fruit and the elephant wants a donut, the elephant will get eventually get the donut. One has to align the body with the mind.

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