The First Supper Raw Food Teaching Kitchen and BEST WEIGH FITNESS Facility

# ! Hot Weather Raw Food Diet Mistake

Working outside in ninety-plus-degree heat for twelve hours a day is never a pleasure, but it is never a pain either. That is if you eat right! Most people on the raw food diet notice significant relief from heat compared to when they ate cooked food, and everyone knows how even the smallest amount of animal food will make you sweat, as it requires so much energy to digest and attempt to assimilate. As your diet improves you will see the same effect with even a tiny amount of cooked food, especially bread or pasta (even if it is cold pasta). As you improve your diet closer to a proper diet you will notice that even nuts and seeds have a heating-up effect, which is tolerable in winter, but in summer it is not comfortable or desirable nutritionally at all. That is why I hardly eat nuts and seeds in the summer; certainly not every day, making sure to blend them into a pate or a dressing no more than a few times a week if that. I may add the seed spread to a collard wrap, or just have some avocado for my fat requirement. 

Most raw-foodists miss one very important point. They consume dehydrated crackers and cookies, which take so much water to assimilate, literally sucking water right out of your system. Too many nuts and seeds and dried fruit does the same. The "stress-test" of summer heat, extreme cold, super physical demands or high emotional stress will all tell you whether you are on the best diet or not.  Most diets fail, but it takes stresses like these to really see them break. You should always be able to do your daily tasks in any kind of whether (on a regular basis, using common sense) without any dire suffering. You should be able to deal with all kinds of stress no matter what. Remember that health usually skyrockets in wartime, when heavy foods are cut off from supply. Only fruits and vegetables are available. Stress is an excuse most of the time, like hot weather. That is not to say that you should expect to do your hardest work at times that are chock full of stressors, but if you had to then it should at least be tolerable. Many people blame the weather when in fact their diets are the culprit.

I have dug almost a hundred holes for large-scale plantings outside in full sun in the middle of the summer with no bad effects. I can also shovel snow with a tee-shirt and no coat, and unless it is in the middle of a heavy blizzard, I am comfortable if I stay relatively dry. It was not always that way. I used to complain about the heat or cold when I was not eating right. Interestingly, the same diet allows you to feel best in summer, winter, and during heavy physical exertion. Of course you may want slightly more fat (slightly is the definitive word) when resting in the cold weather. You certainly want to cut down your fats and super-increase your juicy fruits in summer, for many reasons, such as not to foil the cholesterol-removal process from your cells to your skin, which the sun helps with. I'll bet you didn't know that a few hours in the sun on your full skin reduces overall total cholesterol almost 30%.

The point is that eating dehydrated foods if you are on the raw food diet trip will severely limit your health and performance; summer heat is a fast and forced way to experience this. But they are never good for you in any kind of weather. If you are satisfying your nutritional needs with the proper raw diet then you will not crave dehydrated crackers and concoctions anyway, but they do have their uses in the first week or so of going raw. Just do not abuse them. The same goes for nut butters. If you must eat them at least increase your water-based foods and drink more water than usual. 

Drinking water on a regular basis all day long works like a charm to prevent dehydration but only if your food intake does not sabotage your hydration efforts.