I'm a vegan but definitely not a raw vegan, and it's not something I'm currently considering. However, it still interests me a lot.

I was wondering if anybody has any ethical reasons for transitioning to raw veganism, or if it's purely for health reasons. I am very passionate about ethics when it comes to all life, and I'd be very interested to hear the opinions of anybody who believes that raw veganism is in any way more ethical than normal veganism.

I don't believe the temperature of one's food is an ethical consideration.

Excuse me in advance for being pretty clueless about raw veganism, but am I correct in thinking that raw vegans tend to believe in not buying processed foods, and shopping from local greengrocers or farm shops as opposed to big supermarkets or buying branded products?

Could transitioning to raw veganism perhaps have ethical motives in the sense that it reduces the amount of your money that ends up being received by big companies that also produce and sell non-vegan products?

Not necessarily. It's mostly eating unprocessed foods, but one could still buy GMO corn or soy. I can't imagine most/all raw vegans eat 100% local organic produce.

And, most raw vegans are not raw 100% of the day.

Most? That's a dubious claim. What makes you think this?

I'm not a raw vegan but I don't think farm fresh produce is as prevalent in the states as it may be in the UK. I know I'd find it difficult to attempt without supermarket produce.

My many years on this board and experiences with people in real life. Like fruitarians, raw vegans often go off percentages like 75% raw.

I live in a VERY local organic friendly place, and very vegan friendly area. Not one block up the street from me is a organic farm where I buy direct. Even then, it's hard to deny the international foods easily available in markets. To eat a well balanced raw vegan diet, it would be hard if not impossible to live 100% off organic local raw foods, especially in the winter. Most people don't want to spend that much effort and time on their daily menus. To make life easier and, perhaps, healthier, raw vegans tend to buy what's available even if it came from Brazil when the buyer is in Seattle.

Hi,


I'm interested in raw and plan on having one full raw day per week and gradually building that up. I very much doubt that I'll ever be fully raw as I love to cook and sit down to a big plate of warm food. I watched this documentary which explains the benefits of eating raw which I thought was very informative. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1528734/ If you have a Netflix account, it's available to stream now.


I don't doubt the benefits of eating raw and think that we should all incorporate raw meals into our day.

Being raw can mean to be, or to go toward being closer in-tune with nature, which is good association energy. There is ethics in that.
It is a real pure and healthy way of eating (especially when good food combining is utilized). One of the main reasons it is hard is because it is so much more pure energy than we have ever experienced (consciousness) or hardly anybody in our surroundings know how to relate to. It is hard being so sensitive and clear-minded (assuming other intoxicants and smokes etc have been eliminated) extreme sobriety is a good definition, we use food as a drug and raw produce is just only good energy.
It can be one the the best things and experiences that a person can do in their life. It is actually getting high on nature. And there is more growth offered in the experience than most people can handle, but those who do are rewarded with lots of growth. It can be hard though and where we are living or who we are living around can be a factor. There are raw food communities and meetings and farms and spiritual groups in some places that can help with support.
This is said with good combining practices intended, I've been around many raw food situations who don't combine well and that food is (to me) not as good food. I won't eat it. So I don't know what kind of experience would come from raw, poorly combined food.
Your question about ethics..... Processing food unnecessarily and/or overcooking degrades the life energies that life's creative process provides through evolutionary nature. So consuming them fresh is respectful adherence to greater powers of life.

I only tried fully raw for short periods. The first time I did it for about a week and included nuts/seeds, sprouted grains in raw form and sprouted lentils along with tons of fruits and vegetables. I did it in December 2011 and was freezing cold all the time and my digestion went crazy (going to the bathrom five times a day and more). I did feel very emotional and I suspect it had something to do with what Enthios said. Cooked food can be numbing and make me sleepy and raw is more energizing and has never made me sleepy. It was almost too overwhelming. I also felt uncomfortable consuming what I felt was way more fat than I was used to and I think I craved the nuts/seeds because I was not eating enough. Unfortunately I craved warm food too much and gave it up. Plus I was not in the best frame of mind or capacity to do it as I was struggling with being underweight and eating disordered. A year or so later I tried a few days here and there doing a fully raw high fruit high carb very low fat raw diet (80/10/10). I felt much more satiated and it seemed easier to follow and I was not freezing all the time even though I was still a good bit underweight but it was closer to summer. Again though, I was not 100% faithful or trusting that this was the best diet for me and I was too worried about protein, calcium etc. Again I was probably not eating enough, although I went through a ridiculous amount of fruit. My grocery haul was interesting and garnered a lot of stares lol. Eating that way required a lot of thought and planning and it just made me even more obsessive about food so it was not a good time for me.

Where I live in northeastern Minnesota it would be difficult to find an abundance of raw produce, especially fruit, year around locally. People just don't grow things like mangoes, bananas, pineapples, etc up here. Berries and apples are abundant though. It would be hard to eat a variety without resorting to buying a lot of food produced and shipped from very far away which can create it's own ethical dilemmas when you consider the energy and pollution to ship from afar. There are many ethical concerns surrounding foods such as bananas in regards to labor practices and environmental causes etc. A few companies seem to own most of the bananas you find in stores (at least in the U.S.). Even some organic ones are owned by larger corporations such as Dole (which is not always obvious until you do your homework) which has a less than steller reputation. I do grow some of my own produce but fruit is hard to grow up here. You can buy it frozen but it is not the same as eating it warm and fresh off the vine.

On the other hand, I know that some fruitarians only eat fruits and other plants that do not require killing the plant for harvest. I like the idea that fruit is about as natural as you can get. It is one of the few foods a human can pick right off the tree or vine or whatever and eat it as is. Most other foods have to be processed in some way or regrown or cooked to get the nutrition out of it and destroy the parts of the plant that interfere with nutrient absorption. In the summer I often pick blueberries and raspberries right off the vine and eat them when I am hiking in the woods near my home. it is nature's perfect snack.

I think for me it would be hard to sustain myself on fruit and greens alone for a number of reasons. I struggle with eating high volumes of food, struggle with psychological issues around food, struggle with finances and means to grow so many fruits, and just enjoy cooked foods too much. I try to have high raw days here and there such as yesterday. And incorporate raw foods into my diet daily. But I don't think I will ever be truly fully raw for more than a day here and there. Right now I am ok with that. I love being vegan and that is good enough for me for now. It seems that there are people who are successful with eating raw long term but so many are not. You really have to know what you are doing because it is such a different mindset and culture, and goes against what so many traditional nutritional models teach. I think you have to have faith in it on a spiritual level. IDK, just rambling.

I love the way you described this! I'm a total newbie, but as I'm learning more about raw veganism.. And eating morebraw foods.. I notice I'm getting these same feelings towards the idea of eating a raw diet.. Striving to feel more connected to nature is one of my favorite things about, and one of my main reasons for transitioning to a raw diet. It really instills a sense of gratefulness toward the Earth for giving us the food that we need to nourish our bodies. I feel more and more lately that we don't need to rely on animals or man-made products to sustain ourselves ^_^ And it's a great feeling.

There is also a practical ethical issue in the energy required to cook foodstuffs.

2-3 years ago my electricity bill crept up significantly, I just now figured out why (literally just now, when I started reading this thread). I've always had extraordinarily low electricity bills, mainly because I used common-sense behaviors (turn off lights, minimal air conditioner usage, etc.) to minimize my drain on resources. I extended that basic idea to my cooking behavior, but ...

Around the time my bill started soaring I got heavily into pizza from scratch. You have to crank your oven to the max - which on my oven was 500 degrees. Higher is better - my countertop standalone pizza oven gets near 700. It's also very efficient. My oven was not. I just put it together - THATS why my energy usage just about doubled!

Resource utilization is an ethical issue. If there's a non-metaphysical ethical reason to choose raw, that's probably it.

Farmers, laborers and more... the ecological process which leads to development of land fertility, produces the most excellent form of energy nutrition for us and we destroy that energy through processing largely because of desire for indulging in taste gratification. On the large scale of being non-parasitical - self-sustaining persons who harmonize instead of destroy this earth then raw is at least more morally purposed. Ethical in a sense.
We are what we eat and when we consume food that still contain the energies of the the sun and earth (raw) we become infused with the life process and there is more meaning in that and learning than there is in most any other occupation (possibly).
It could be beneficial to consume some foods cooked for staying healthy but if full raw is obtainable in the right way... of being a well rounded diet then that can be the better.
Artichoke, popcorn and rice can't be eaten raw, potatoes and yams (there are people who shred them) seem better cooked and it would be hard to say that we shouldn't cook popcorn and artichoke and potatoes for eating them... unless a person really wants to go all out, and some do. ...And if we are trying to heal from something by utilizing all raw it would or could be good to do so (do without popcorn artichoke etc. ) We may spent a long time doing that (all raw) and then no longer feel such need once we attain the level of health we are happy with. ...And that is why Raw food person get taken out of context as eccentric because they are encouraging that healing to attain a great level of health which practically nobody has (both physical and mental).
If the mentality of society feels frustrating, adherence to a harmony with natures truer life process can lead to solutions - answers.