The Fresh Network Blog: Dairy didn't work for me, says Debbie Took

2010 has been a year of fierce debate among raw food fans about whether or not our optimal diet is a vegan one. We first chimed in on this topic in January with our article Why the shift away from veganism in the raw world?, and again in February when Doug Graham and Thomas Billings debated the topic in the article Is 100% raw vegan our optimal diet? Later that month we revisited it in Are YOU getting enough vitamin D?

Popular raw food blogger Debbie Took contributed interesting material to the debate in March and April when she announced that she had tested below the normal range in vitamin B12 - B12 being one of the biggest deficiency risks among vegans.

A raw vegan for around three and a half years at the time, she was forced to choose between taking supplements - something she didn't believe in - and compromising on the vegan part - something else she was dead set against doing. She tells the full story around this tough decision in her articles Debbie Does B12 Part 1 and Part 2.

She eventually decided that compromising on the vegan part was the lesser of two evils - largely because it was the more natural solution of the two - and she added a little soft cheese to her diet. However, she found raw cheese near impossible to source, and as for ethically produced - that unfortunately does not exist at this time. So she was forced to compromise not only on (1) her vegan diet but also on (2) her raw diet and (3) her strong desire not to cause suffering to other sentient beings. Nonetheless, for a while this decision still seemed to be the best option available to her.

However, Debbie privately emailed me an update recently, and I asked her permission to share this information with you, as it is written with such honesty and openness. At a time when there is still so much we don't know about optimum nutrition, all such accounts have something to teach us, and I know this one will resonate with many of you. Debbie kindly agreed to have her comments made public, and you can read them by clicking below. Thank you, Debbie, for sharing your experiences with me, and with our readers.

Hi Sarah,

I'm saying goodbye to my foray into the occasional bit of soft cheese! Which had become a little bit more than occasional - found myself doing sums occasionally to check raw percentage, but for around six weeks I'd say it had dropped to 90-95%, and this has made a HUGE difference (see later).

I'd been trying to convince myself that a bit of dairy was was better than a supplement, trying to put out of my mind the fact that it's been a) (mostly) cooked, b) taken from animals fixed to milking machines and probably kept perpetually pregnant, and c) taken from animals whose male offspring have been taken from them and killed. "Humanely", of course.

Just like any cooked-food eater, I found the taste of the cooked cheese addictive and the devil in me demanded more of the poison, coming up with all sorts of justifications to convince me it was good.

Raw food never does that. I can be in seventh heaven slurping a ripe melon, but it doesn't set up a craving.

Initially, I prayed for an answer to my "conflict" between raw vegan and B12 supplement, and mostly raw vegetarian and no supplement.

I had thought at one point that I was not going to get one.

Then I got one!

On my recent trip to the US I got bitten by mozzies. Last year in Thailand (99% raw vegan) I got bitten, but virtually no inflammation (whereas Leigh suffered a lot). This time, huge red itchy blotches.

Last week, I had a one-day sneezing/sore throat thing. Luckily, Wikipedia doesn't define "one day" symptoms as a "cold", so I can still (just about) show off with my "haven't had a cold for years", BUT it was awful, I'd never had anything like that when raw vegan, and in the days after, I felt down, low on energy and mucusy.

I have been feeling generally tired and sleeping longer.

My resting heart rate has increased.

I have felt very far away from my "Higher Power".

The only thing that's changed in the last two months was my "relaxation" from the "virtually 100%" raw vegan diet.

So I am returning to raw vegan. It's the diet I've thrived on for nearly four years now and the diet that opened my eyes to many things - the one that brought revelations.

When I had been eating dairy, I felt "like other people" again, and I didn't like feeling like that. It felt like my eyes, having been opened, were closing again.

I thank the Lord that, at this stage of my journey, I've been plonked in the UK in 2010, where, if I choose not to eat food that involves great suffering in its production, and is damaged through heat (pasteurisation), I can take a supplement instead.

I believe the optimal diet is either raw vegan in a natural environment (e.g. eating all our food from the tree/ground) where supplementation is unnecessary, OR very low-dairy raw vegetarian, where the dairy is truly raw and obtained without suffering. As neither of these options are available to me, I'll go for the next best thing.

I'm back with Tonya, Durianrider and the crew. I even have a "rawvegan" vest!

Love,

Debbie

To read more articles by Debbie, visit her blog.

2 Comments

And I hope it's OK that I can be the first to comment :-)

I'd just like to stress that I had no history of digestive problems, and it was not an 'absorption' issue (corroborated by the fact that after taking the supplement (tablet my level went up). It was simply down to not ingesting enough B12.

I'd be VERY grateful if anyone commenting on my e-mail to Sarah could check out the full articles on my B12 experience first, as it is easy to make assumptions without the full information...

Part 1 is here:

http://debbietookrawforlife.blogspot.com/2010/03/debbie-does-b12-pt-1-do-i-care.html

Part 2 is here:

http://debbietookrawforlife.blogspot.com/2010/04/debbie-does-b12-pt-2-dilemmas.html

Thank you.

Posted by: Debbie Took | September 25, 2010 at 03:00 PM