69 
 
 
 
This discrepancy results from the fact that I equate health with f itness and athleticism, essentially viewing the two as 
inseparable. In contrast, government, fitness, and medical “expert s” distinguish the athlete from the healthy individual, giving th em 
separate classifications, as if it were possible to be healthy and not athletic. Although we can indeed feel good and live free of 
symptoms for several years as a sedentary individual, this strategy  is sure to fail over time. We should not fool ourselves into 
believing that anything resembling true health is possible withou t regular, vigorous exercise. Strategies for Increasing Muscle Mass 
Increasing muscle mass is one way to decrease overall body fat percent age. As the percentage of lean tissue increases, the 
percentage of fat tissue automatically decreases. If you are thin bu t still carry a higher-than-healthful body fat percentage, this i s an excellent way to achieve your ideal body composition, because increasing  muscle mass has the secondary effect of facilitating fat 
loss. How does this occur? When we add muscle, we increase our body’s calori c requirements. For many of us, there is a time 
lapse while we become accustomed to eating more food. During this lag time , our bodies commonly utilize stored fats to make up 
for the deficit in calories, reducing our body-fat percentage. Unfortunately , muscle mass is easily lost. The phrase “use it or l ose it” definitely applies, as muscles must be used on an 
ongoing basis in order to grow and maintain size. Day to day, muscle loss rare ly accounts for even one-hundredth of one percent of 
our body-weight fluctuations. Muscle loss can account for a fair amount  of weight loss, however, if an active person becomes totally 
sedentary, as in the case of the extended bed rest that is required in ins tances of extreme sickness or recovery from a debilitating 
accident. We can measure muscle atrophy within twenty-four hours of  the initiation of complete rest. Fortunately, muscles regain 
their prior size with relative ease when we resume normal activi ties, even after months of convalescence or weeks of water fasting. Of course, if we are active and then become unexpectedly sedentary and c ontinue eating as much or more than we did before, we 
will gain fat, as the body stores excess calories as fat, not muscle. Gaining muscle is the only truly healthful way to gain weight an d increase size without running the risk of creating hormonal 
imbalances that result from harboring excess body fat. The only wa y to gain muscle weight is by “asking” your body to build through 
the demands of strength-training activities. Pure strength tra ining is technically defined as “one repetition maximum,” or “1RM,” 
meaning you can lift that particular weight a maximum of one time be fore muscular fatigue results. More often, people train for 
strength by lifting weights in not more than four sets of one to five re petitions each. Strength training a few times per week is all that 
is necessary to develop your new, lean body. Losing or Gaining Fat … the Right and Wrong Way 
The simplest method of losing fat is to consume fewer total calories eac h day than the amount you use. Estimating calories 
consumed versus calories used can provide a very good assessment of your pote ntial overall rate of weight loss. (See Appendix D. 
Resources for Diet Analysis) Given that a pound of fat contains 3,500 calor ies, if you expend 115 calories per day more than you 
consume, you will fairly reliably lose one pound per month. Such calculati ons are not necessary on an ongoing basis; typically you 
only need to figure calories in versus calories out to develop an understa nding and a routine. Once you establish healthful daily 
habits, tracking your diet and exercise will become a thing of the past. Another way to achieve a net loss of calories for weight reduction is to m ake a commitment to add regular exercise into your 
daily routine. You must be patient about it, however, as briskly walking a mi le per day only yields on average about a one-pound 
weight loss over the course of a month. This assumes, of course, that all ot her factors, including total calorie intake, remain relatively 
constant during that time. The Truth Behind Detoxification 
The tendency among raw fooders to attribute magical powers, such as “ cleansing” properties, to foods is nothing short of 
misguided. Raw foods do not cleanse; they are simply the foods we are designed f or. Consuming them provides the body the 
necessary energy to relieve itself of toxins that have been held in  suspension with water. The body does this through its normal 
mechanisms—the organs of elimination and detoxification. Our liver and kidneys are always working to detoxify us. When we consume t he standard American diet, these organs work 
overtime just to keep up, because we are constantly ingesting as many t oxins as we eliminate (or more). When we switch to raw 
food, the liver and kidneys have a chance to catch up. They can finally make  progress in detoxifying the body, reducing its toxic 
load. One pint of water weighs one pound, so weight loss can be dramatic when we ar e losing water as a result of reducing the 
body’s toxic load. I have seen people lose twenty-five and even as muc h as forty pounds in the first week of switching to an all-raw 
diet. Rarely does more than a pound or so of this weight loss actually represe nt a loss of fat. As a rule, rapid weight changes always 
represent water weight losses or gains. Under no circumstances can anybody lose a pound of fat per day, on any diet. Programs that promise we will “lose up to 10 pounds in the first 48 hours”  are deceptive. It is possible to lose ten pounds of water 
in just a few hours, but only an extremely active person could realisti cally lose much more than a pound of fat per week. Sudden Weight Loss in New Raw Fooders 
Several notable experiences are quite common when people start eating  raw foods, especially when they switch to a diet that is 
exclusively raw from one that was primarily cooked. The first dramatic  change that people frequently notice is a rapid and dramatic 
loss of weight. This does not always happen, but it happens more often than not. U sually, people perceive this as a good thing, 
because they have excess weight to lose. After they lose the initi al water weight in the first week or two on the raw diet, many 
people find that they continue to lose weight, though much more slowly. It i s likely that this subsequent weight loss represents a loss 
of fat. Of course, at some point, even these losses must be brought to a stop, or the  person will simply fade away. “I Thought I Had More Muscle!” 
Most folks, after a few weeks or months of raw eating, are certain that th eir diet is causing them to lose muscle. They have never 
seen themselves so thin. What actually happens during weight loss i s that we lose much of the padding (fat) around our muscles and 
also the fat marbled within our muscles. In addition, on a raw diet, we begin t o lose the water that we once retained to dilute toxins. This water also added to the appearance of inflated muscles. Many people mis take this excess fat and water as part of their muscle. Often, people tell me that in a week or two on a raw diet they lost all their m uscle. This is an absolute physiological 
impossibility . In spite of what we have all heard, no diet of any kind resu lts in (any detectible) muscle loss—or muscle gain, for that 
matter. If there were a diet that resulted in muscle gain, bodybuilders  would be found in the kitchen, instead of the gym. We lose or 
gain muscle due to variations in our physical fitness programs, not thr ough dietary shifts. In spite of what we have all been told, 
consuming protein (or any other nutrient) will not assist in the mus cle-building process. 70  If you believe such hype, you have been 
sold a bill of goods. If they understood body composition, and were honest with themselves, the se people would more accurately say , “I thought I 
had much more muscle than I actually do. Then when I lost the excess wa ter that was inflating my muscles, I was forced to accept 
the reality that I am not as well muscled as I thought I was.”  
 
Dehydration and Body Weight 
Dehydration is considered a contributor to more diseases of lifestyle tha n any other single factor except fat. When our toxin- 
to-water ratio is skewed in the direction of toxins, cellular function i s compromised. This toxicity affects virtually every function in th e 
body. Correcting dehydration oftentimes remedies weight-loss difficul ty, as organ function and energy levels greatly improve. The dehydration coin has two sides: is it literally a state of “not enoug h water” or is it a condition of “too much toxin”? The 
correct answer is, “both.” When a man is about to die from dehydration, the t oxins within his body have become too concentrated 
for his body to cope with. The amount of toxins do not increase; they are simply l ess diluted, and therefore, more concentrated. Few people would argue that dry-cooked foods (those not steamed or boiled) are low in w ater. After all, if we put toast 
through a juicer, no liquid comes out. If we put a pot of water in the oven at 400 degr ees for an hour, most if not all of the water 
evaporates off. The same thing happens to the water in food when it is dry-c ooked (and to a lesser extent when wet-cooked). The 
oven works just like a dehydrator. Most of us just don’t realize how critic al this issue is for our health. Four Ways We Become Dehydrated 
Hydration is an important factor in all aspects of our health, and even our  weight. When using a bioimpedance scale to 
measure body fat, we must consider our level of hydration to obtain accurate  readings. Both dehydration and water retention skew 
our readings. Hydration also goes beyond the amount of water we consume, sinc e dehydration occurs for a variety of reasons. Increased Toxic Load 
The most common way that we become dehydrated is when our toxin intake rise s relative to our intake of water. Cooking produces 
many toxins that cause the body to require additional water. Among the mos t virulent of these are the acrolein produced by deep 
frying and the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons released during barbecu ing and other cooking methods that blacken or char our 
foods. Two common products found in most households may in fact, be the most toxic substa nces popularly consumed. Plain table 
salt is so toxic that even when extremely diluted, as it is in sea wat er, it is still deadly. All sailors know that if they drink seawater the y 
will die of dehydration. Salt must be greatly diluted with water before th e body can tolerate it. Alcohol, the second deadly household 
poison, has a similar toxicity. It acts as a diuretic and causes substan tial water loss. Few substances dehydrate and impair us as 
effectively as alcohol. Low Water Intake vs. Toxic Load 
The second way that we can become dehydrated is when water intake is low r elative to toxin intake. If we are to (correctly) assume 
that the necessary amount of water is in our fresh plant foods before we c ook them, we can be certain that an insufficient quantity is 
left after we cook them. Cooking removes water from food. This explains why a baked potato weighs so much l ess than the same potato when it was 
raw. (Granted, cooking can be utilized as a method of hydrating dry foods, as is th e case when we boil rice or lentils,  but this is the 
exception, not the rule.) By driving off water, cooking effectively chan ges the water-to-toxin ratio in food to favor toxins, while also 
raising the level of toxins in the food. So cooking food results in a double wham my—not only does it remove water, but a great 
many toxins are created in the process, increasing our need for water. Unfortunately, it is not part of human nature to drink water; we must le arn to do so. Let me explain. In nature, at various times 
throughout the day , many animals will visit the “water hole” to drink. S ome animals, especially the grazers, are notorious for drinking 
huge quantities of water. The anthropoid apes, however, (biologically, huma ns are classed as anthropoid apes) are rarely observed to drink water, but they can do so if necessary. Their tongues are not design ed to lap water the way carnivores do, so they have to 
suck water if they must drink. Imagine the position they would have to ass ume in order to drink: essentially, they would be blinded to 
enemies as they held down their heads and shoulders while vulnerably e xposing their private parts. Drinking water is simply not necessary for the anthropoids. Except for hu mans, they do not cause their own thirst. They do not 
participate in the activities, nor do they eat the foods, that result in t hirst. Remember, these animals live in the tropics, often in intense
heat, where we would expect that they would need to drink copious quantities of  water. It is certain that the anthropoids get plenty 
of exercise and are quite fit; we have all seen films of them climbin g straight up and down trees and vines effortlessly. In fact, pound 
for pound, they are about five times stronger than humans. They spend most of  their day in the shade. They rest during the midday 
heat. They eat a low-fat raw diet composed primarily of whole, fresh, ripe, org anic, fruits and vegetables. (About 1% of the 
anthropoid diet is composed of insects, small reptiles, and other flesh foods.) Increased Endogenous Toxin Production 
The third way we become dehydrated is when our “endogenous” toxin produc tion rises relative to our water intake. Every cell in the 
body produces toxic waste products as a result of its own metabolism, and many ti ssues, glands, and organs also produce toxins as 
a result of their metabolism. These internally produced toxins are ref erred to as endogenous toxins. (In contrast, toxins that come 
from outside the body are referred to as exogenous toxins. These are the ones  that come from our food, the air, and other aspects 
of our environment.) As our levels of physical activity or stress rise, so does the quantity of  endogenous toxins we produce, as cellular output 
increases. This is one of the reasons that we are told to drink water bef ore, during, and after exercise and other physical pursuits— 
to dilute the toxins we produce. High Water Output 
When we lose water more rapidly than we replace it, we can also become dehy drated. Altitude, heat, sunshine, wind, humidity, and 
exercise are among the primary factors that can cause us to lose wat er. Sometimes, these water losses are not obvious to us. For 
instance, in conditions of high heat and low humidity, especially if the  wind is blowing, our perspiration can evaporate as rapidly as 
we produce it (compared to conditions of high humidity, where dripping sweat gr abs our attention). In low humidity, our skin and 
clothing remain cool and dry, even though we are perspiring freely. We can lose far more water than we realize in an airplane, where the  air is pressurized  to an altitude of 6,000 feet and 
incredibly dry. Such insidious water loss is sometimes considered more dan gerous than the overt sweating incurred with exercise in 
conditions of high humidity. 71  In both instances, however, we must replace the water that we lose. We do not have a high tolerance for variations in our ratio of water to toxin s. The average American experiences symptoms of 
dehydration after losing just 1% of body weight as water (about 2% of normal wa ter volume). 72  For a two-hundred-pound man, 
that equates to just two pounds, or one quart, of water. Medically diagnosable mi ld dehydration begins at the level of 5% fluid loss, 
and 15% is considered severe. 73 
In many major fitness competitions, contestants are weighed periodica lly throughout the event. Since all rapid weight changes 
almost exclusively represent water weight, fairly accurate le vels of dehydration can be assessed simply through the weighing process . Should an athlete show a 5% loss of weight, he or she is considered to be so danger ously dehydrated as to be removed from the 
competition. For the one-hundred-pound female triathlete, a five-percen t weight loss amounts to only five pounds (equal to five 
pints, or ten cups) of water. The medical community tells us that we should drink 8 to 12 eight-ounce gla sses of water daily . Although they don’t express it 
as such, this recommendation is necessary to make up for the dehydration c aused by the toxins in our foods. Interestingly, the 
example above shows us that an athlete will be removed from competition for  being as dehydrated as the average American! If this 
degree of dehydration is so hazardous to conditioned athletes (people who spend mu ch of their lives adapting to extremes), imagine 
how dangerous it is to the less-fit individual. It makes much more sense to remove the cause of the problem, rather than t o continue the cause and introduce a remedy. Drinking huge quantities of water after causing extreme dehydrat ion is not the healthiest option. It does not matter whether the cause 
is the consumption of cooked, salted, or dehydrated foods or exogenous toxins. Althou gh “the solution to pollution is dilution,”  it is 
far better to avoid the pollution in the first place. People can become dehydrated when making dietary changes if they are not  aware that such a problem could arise. Troublingly, some dietary programs include such dehydrating practices  as consuming a lot of salt and drinking minimal water. It 
should be stressed that dehydration is dangerous,  and it impairs all other functions in the body. Avoid any dietary regimen  that 
induces a state of dehydration, at all costs. Are You Dehydrated? Approximately 75% of the population is chronically dehydrated and simp ly doesn’t know it, because their symptoms seem normal to them. 74  Having lived with their symptoms for so long, they do not even know what a hea lthful level of hydration would feel 
like. When they finally achieve normal, healthy levels of hydration  as a result of improvements in lifestyle, people sometimes think 
there is a problem; they have never before experienced proper hydration. Although dehydration has many symptoms, one of the most common is fatigue. O f course, many factors can result in fatigue, 
but if you are fatigued, consider whether dehydration might be the cause . Other clear indicators of dehydration include the following: 
 
Your urine is deep yellow or dark, rather than almost clear. You urinate fewer than six times in twenty-four hours. Eight to twe lve times per day is considered a healthy frequency. Y ou would describe the volume of urine that you void as “scanty” rather t han “satisfactory .” 
 
If you are curious about the effects of chronic dehydration, the table below  outlines some of the consequences of fluid loss on 
the body: 75  
 
 
 
 
  
 
Chapter 10. Overcoming the Challenges of Going Raw 
 
Only a few people have continually maintained a completely raw diet ove r a period of years or decades. For many folks, the 
raw diet is an experiment that fails rapidly. Initial results are de emed positive, when a person has weight to lose, but for those who 
are already thin, the first response tends to be very negative, due to rapi d weight loss and subsequent fatigue. Of course, everyone 
blames the diet, ignoring how they actually applied it. The old adage “pr actice makes perfect” rings true, but it should be amended to 
say , “perfect practice makes perfect,” for those who fail early t end to give up rather than persist and pull through. Calories Per Bite 
A crucial stepping stone for success in a healthy raw diet is unders tanding the concept of “calories per bite,” or caloric density . Raw fruits and vegetables yield far fewer calories per bite than cooked f oods or fatty foods, so we must eat more bites in order to 
consume sufficient calories. Just as a bodybuilder trains to lift more w eight or a runner trains to run longer races, in order to succeed 
on the 80/10/10  diet, we must train our bodies and minds, over time, to eat the kind of volume we wou ld eat in our natural 
environment. Every once in a while, we hear an isolated fact about what an animal in  the wild eats. The volume is always staggering to our 
imagination. Animals such as sea otters eat 30% of their weight in f ood each day. 76  Lions have been known to eat eighty pounds of 
meat in one meal. 77  I have watched little capuchin monkeys (the type that organ grinders  used to train) eat banana after banana after 
banana. Our perspective of “normal” volume has been skewed by th e low-water, low-fiber, high-fat meals we have been eating all 
our lives. Cooking Reduces Volume 
Due to the reduced water and fiber found in cooked foods, we are accustomed to eatin g small-volume meals. By eating cooked 
foods our whole lives, our stomachs never developed their potential elastic ity. 78  However, it is not too late. For the new fruit eater, 
the unnaturally poor flexibility of the stomach muscle causes a fee ling of fullness after eating a relatively small volume of fruit  and 
calories. Upon adopting a raw program, many people attempt to solve this problem by a dding fat in order to make a meal more 
sustaining and more calorically dense. They add oil to their fruit smooth ies, nuts and seeds to their fruit desserts, and avocados and 
other fats to their vegetable salads. To give you a sense of the magnitude of the divergence in calories per  bite between cooked and raw foods, let’s take an 
extreme example. A slice of a large pan crust Round Table “Montag ue’s All Meat Marvel” pizza contains 350 calories. At an 
estimated six bites per slice, that’s about 60 calories per bit e, the same number of calories as a 12-ounce head of lettuce. If four 
slices of pizza filled you up, it would take about the same (very small) volu me of lettuce to also fill you up, in terms of sheer bulk. But 
the lettuce wouldn’t be satiating, because it would have provide d only perhaps one hundredth of the calories. To actually eat the 
same number of calories from lettuce that you got from eating the four s lices of pizza, you would have to eat six heads of lettuce per 
slice of pizza, or one head of lettuce per bite! When we do the math on this exa mple, we get a staggering result: we would have to 
eat 24 heads of lettuce to consume the same number of calories in four slic es of pizza! Dehydrated Foods 
One of the reasons that people like cooked food is that cooking intensifies flav ors. Many people new to the raw food diet gravitate 
toward dehydrated foods, because the dehydrator functions quite similarly t o the oven and produces dishes reminiscent of those 
cooked in an oven. Water deficient, these foods are more condensed calorically , and in terms of flavor, than their raw counterparts. Dehydrated foods take up less space than the same foods eaten whole. As with  cooked foods, their compact size disrupts our 
natural satiety triggers, which respond (in part) to volume. Dehydrat ed foods also take longer to digest because of their complexity 
and dryness. For both of these reasons, we tend to overeat dehydrated or cooked foods befor e we realize we are full. A similar 
thing happens with dried fruits, which, in addition to being low in volume, al so release their sugars more slowly. These two factors 
contribute to our tendency to overeat them, a phenomenon not common among people w ho eat whole, fresh fruit. We compound these problems when we add the various fats (oils, avocados, nuts, se eds, olives, coconut meat, and the like) 
used freely among raw foodists to make their dehydrated dishes look and taste s imilar to their cooked food counterparts. Added to 
low-calorie vegetable recipes, fat becomes the overwhelming ca loronutrient in the entire dish. Many dehydrated raw entrées such as
lasagna, pizza, and chili offer 50 to 80% of their calories from fat, sometimes  even more. Dishes of this sort slow digestion, forcing foods to be delayed in the stomac h and giving us that “stuffed” feeling we have come 
to associate with satiation, even though they do not contain the volume t hat our stomachs are designed to handle. The fact is that 
most people consume their food in an extremely condensed form—cooked, dehydr ated, and fatty—and are eating a far smaller volume of food than is truly healthy. This concentration of our food is part of t he reason we tend to overeat in terms of total 
calories. Contrary to popular mythology , there is no reason to think of dehydrated fr uits or vegetables as “super” or “special” in terms 
of nutrition. Certainly they are not as nutritious as their fresh c ounterparts, in any quantity. Supplement vendors publish convincing 
literature to convince you that their green powders or “whole-food-ba sed” supplements supply concentrated nutrition in amounts 
you could not get from fresh fruits and vegetables. But taking them can s erve only to imbalance you, as even in deficiency conditions, 
we do not need more of any nutrient than we can get in a variety of whole, fresh, ripe, raw plants eaten in suff icient 
quantity to maintain our body weight. Of course, low-temperature dehydration causes less nutrient damage  than cooking, but dehydrated foods are nutritionally far 
inferior to fresh food, regardless of processing method. Not only that, but eati ng them dehydrates us,  increasing relative bodily 
toxicity, and requiring yet more water to be consumed to maintain proper hydr ation. The eight to twelve glasses of water we are told 
to drink every day are a good indicator of how low in water—or if you prefer, how t oxic—our diets really are. More Bites and Raw Success! The challenge of eating more bites is often one that people are not prepare d for, as evidenced by the considerable weight loss 
common among new raw fooders. After initial water weight losses, if a pe rson still loses weight regularly, he or she is very likely 
undereating in terms of total calories. (Digestive, absorptive, or assi milative problems could also contribute to the problem, but these 
must be considered the exception, not the rule.) While a huge perce ntage of the W estern world’s population is suffering from 
impaired digestion and compromised absorption, 79  these conditions tend to self-correct when the causes (high-fat, cooke d, 
processed, toxic foods unsuited to our physiological design) are eliminated. Eventually, most people agree that eating more food per day is not a hardship, bu t one of the many rewards of healthful eating. The 80/10/10  diet is among just a handful of healthful  plans that allows you to eat as much of the recommended foods as you care 
for. How Do I Eat That Much Fruit? With 80/10/10  firmly in mind, we return to the question of how to obtain the calories we ne ed, now that high-fat, low-fiber, low- 
water foods are removed from the diet. To get 80% of your calories from the carbohy drates in fruit, you will have to create some 
dramatic new eating habits, perhaps more dramatic than any dietary ch ange you have ever made. As you drop the fat from your 
diet, you must significantly  increase your daily fruit consumption, a habit that takes practice to dev elop. The good news is that your 
health and your waistline will show you immediate results to let you kn ow you are heading in the desired direction. One tactic to achieve more bites, and to support our caloric needs, is to start  with several fruit meals per day, approximately 
four. Over time, depending on your exercise program and other healthful ha bits, you will be able to reduce this number of meals 
down to three and then possibly even two. Also, make a practice of eating just  one or two bites more at each meal than you 
otherwise would. The elasticity of your stomach will promptly accommodate  the extra bites, just as all of your other muscles would 
elongate if you were to adopt a yoga practice. I must stress: the goal here  is not to eat until you hurt but to gently encourage your 
digestive system to regain its flexibility. Y ou don’t have to make this transition all at once, either. If you are not re ady to eat just fruit for your breakfast and lunch 
meals, it is perfectly acceptable to simply begin your meals with frui t. You can eat all the fruit you care for at the start of the meal, 
and then follow the fruit with other foods. Over time, the amount of fruit y ou desire at the beginning of the meal will increase. Eventually, you will be able to eat a satiating and calorie-sufficie nt meal from fruit that will hold you all the way until the next meal time 
comes around. Satiation—Satisfying Hunger and Appetite 
Hunger is a sensation we are all familiar with, but it is often confu sed with other aspects of eating. The goal of hunger is to 
satisfy a nutritional requirement for carbohydrates, fats, proteins, v itamins, minerals, enzymes, coenzymes, and all other nutrients. We 
are driven to eat to fill this need and rewarded by the pleasure of it. Becau se hunger is the general  desire for food, when one is truly 
hungry, any food will be acceptable. Appetite, on the other hand, is specific—we desire a specific food or foods. A ppetite is also the socially acceptable word for 
craving,  which in turn is the socially acceptable word for addiction. An example of the difference between appetite and hunger 
goes as follows: When a person says, “I am hungry” and you offer him let tuce, he is likely to say , “I am not hungry for lettuce, but I 
do have an appetite for chocolate. Do you have any chocolate?” If this per son were truly hungry , the lettuce would have been 
perfectly acceptable. Their wording is accurate: what they rea lly have is appetite … or I might suggest, addiction. Malnutrition is also a powerful appetite trigger. 80  When we lack essential nutrients, we crave food. Unfortunately, 
malnourished individuals often eat more of the wrong foods in a vain attem pt to control their appetites. For example, obese people, 
who are always malnourished due to eating unhealthful foods, generall y seek to satisfy their cravings with the same foods that caused their malady, and they do this over and over again. The nutritional densit y of fruit is yet another factor that makes it so satiating and 
all but impossible to overeat. Satiation, defined as full satisfaction, is what we truly desire from  our food. To fully satisfy yourself at mealtime is a more 
challenging task than you might think, for there are many aspects to t his issue. Are we simply talking nutrition, or do we consider 
emotional facets as well? Is satiation simply about quantity (bulk), or i s quality also a factor? W e know one thing for certain: whether you eat in a restaurant, at a fr iend’s house, or at home, typically a dessert is offered as 
the last course of any meal. Desserts are known to be satiating; the ca rbohydrates ensure this effect. 81  We can avoid appetite 
triggers by choosing the right foods, for the right reasons, for true hung er. Can Fats Ever Satisfy? Fat is a very difficult nutrient to digest. It passes through the stom ach and intestinal tract more slowly than other nutrients. Becaus e of 
this, it is easy to overeat fat, and in the process, stress your digestive  capacities beyond their limits. A stuffed feeling results, if you 
are lucky. The less fortunate end up with digestive ailments of varyi ng severity. Almost every digestive disorder is related to the 
overconsumption of fat. Emotional Eating 
One of the primary ways we handle painful emotions is to literall y “eat ourselves numb,” with dense, hard-to-digest foods— 
the so-called “comfort foods.” This is effective because of the natur e of our nervous systems. Our bodies have a finite amount of 
nerve energy at any given time. The digestion of food and the conduction of e motions each demand so much energy that they cannot 
be performed simultaneously. A classic example to demonstrate this property of our nervous system is a  funeral, where some people are grieving so 
intensely they cannot eat at all, while others cannot stop eating. As we lighten our diets to vegetarian, vegan and eventually raw, we qu ite commonly become more aware of our emotional 
selves. When we commit to eating a raw diet, we gravitate toward fatty  foods to provide emotional numbing, as most fresh fruits are 
not sufficient sedatives to overcome emotional distress. Usually thi s leads to the consumption of exorbitant amounts of nuts or seeds, 
which are easy to overeat, because they do not quickly trigger satiation . Digestive distress and undue suffering result from this 
behavior. The answer to all this lies not in consuming food at all, but in maintain ing emotional poise and developing the ability to fully feel 
our emotions. Fats have several factors working against them when it comes to sat iety. First, fats pack many calories into tiny packages. Because volume is one of the key factors in experiencing satiation, it  is difficult to eat enough volume of a fatty food to feel satiated, 
without feeling sick first. Second, the brain monitors blood-sugar levels constantly as a method of deter mining hunger. As blood-sugar levels rise, 
hunger decreases. No corollary rapid hunger reaction occurs in the cas e of blood fat, and even if it did, dietary fat takes a relatively 
long time to reach the bloodstream, often requiring twelve to twenty-fou r hours from the time it is eaten. If you eat an entire meal of 
fatty foods, you still won’t be satiated. Y ou will very likely resort to e ating a sweet dessert at the end of the meal to finally satisfy 
your appetite. The idea that eating fat keeps you satiated is simply untr ue. Sweet Fruits Win Every Time! When we eat sweet fruits, which are rich in simple sugars, the blood-s ugar level rises gently, almost immediately, as we discussed in 
Chapter 2. The sweetness of these highly nutritious foods makes them dif ficult to overeat. And because of their copious water and 
fiber content, fruits supply relatively high volume in a low-calorie  package, further making it difficult to eat too much of them. We 
have all been taught that sweets will satiate us, and we have come t o rely upon this fact by choosing to eat our sweet desserts at the 
end of our meals. When we eat sweet desserts at the end of our meals, it indicates two thi ngs: 
 
No matter how much food we ate, it likely did not satisfy our appetite, or else we  would not have been tempted by a sweet 
dessert. We ate insufficient simple carbohydrates during the meal, leaving  us craving those very carbohydrates at the end of the meal. This is evidence of our natural and substantial need for simple carbohydr ates. Had we eaten sufficiently of fruit at the start of the meal, it is li kely that we would not have desired other foods. No other food group matches the ability of fruit to satiate us. Monomeals: Eating One Food at a Time 
Eating a single-ingredient “monomeal” of fruit is an extremely pleasurable experience quite simply because it is so satiati ng and 
yet, so uncomplicated. The minimalism of the meal runs counter to our habi tual multiple-food approach, with its accompanying 
titillation of the tastebuds, thereby allowing us to avoid addiction to stim ulation and overeating. Judging from the way most people eat, I feel safe in saying that addiction  stems from variety. Because the mono-fruit meal 
does not excite the body, and is easily digested, it does not leave us dulled and fa tigued after eating, but rather engaged and clear of 
mind. We are left both perfectly satisfied and mentally poised. At first attempt, the monomeal may seem “boring,” because we are s o accustomed to the stimulation of eating multi-ingredient 
meals. Over time, the simplicity of mono-fruit meals improves digesti on and heightens your senses, so that you can pick up the 
nuances of every bite of raw plant foods. As an added benefit, you will be able to better recognize when you are actually satisfied. Am I Supposed to Feel Full? Given that the key to eating for fullness while simultaneously con suming the right number of calories for our bodies is to eat high- 
volume, nutrient-rich, simple-carbohydrate foods, then which foods should pr edominate? The truth is, the human body has only a 
certain capacity. While it is possible to get adequate nutrition from a v ariety of different food sources, it is more easily obtained from 
some foods than from others. For instance, lettuce is highly nutritious  in terms of nutrients per calorie, but it would be extremely 
difficult—essentially impossible due to the finite nature of our di gestive capacity—to consume sufficient lettuce to meet our calor ic 
requirements. (At 50 calories for a 10-ounce head, we would have to eat 40 heads a da y to consume 2,000 calories). At the opposite end of the spectrum, it is possible to put the micronutrients r equired to meet our total daily nutrient 
requirements into a single small pill. (Of course, our macronutrie nt needs—water, fiber, carbohydrate, protein, and fat—do not lend 
themselves to consumption in pill form.) Were you to eat such a pill, howeve r, the lack of volume or bulk would result in a 
tremendous and unyielding sense of hunger that could only be satisfied by  the consumption of more volume. How do we get volume, nutrients, and simple sugars, all at the same time? We eat sweet fruit. Because of its high water and 
fiber content, fruit provides more volume with fewer calories than any  food category except vegetables. Hence, we can meet our 
caloric needs without exceeding them, while fulfilling our innate  desire to consume foods in large volume. Because of its high volume, 
low calories, and abundance of nutrients including simple sugars, eati ng a sweet meal predominated by fruit is bound to be satiating 
every time. Chapter 11. 80/10/10 in Practice 
 
How does your daily diet differ when you learn to eat the low-fat raw vegan  way? On most days, you will eat juicy fruit for 
breakfast, sweeter fruit for lunch, and all the acid fruit you care for be fore a vegetable-based dinner. It is really that simple. Most raw fooders, and anyone else who has been taught to avoid fruit or to eat it  in somewhat limited quantities, are initially 
dumbfounded by this formula. Responses range from “I could never do that”  to the full range of nutritional questions that have 
already been covered in this text. For people transitioning from a more mainstream diet, the concept of eatin g fruits and vegetables makes a lot of sense. After 
all, fruits and vegetables are the true health foods. With the state  of human health at its absolute all time lowest, isn’t it time that  we 
started eating fruits and vegetables as if our very lives depended upon t hem? While people also tend to intuitively sense the wisdom of a low-fat diet, th e idea of committing to a completely vegan diet may 
seem a bit mentally or emotionally challenging at first. But it make s more sense all the time, and the number of vegans is rising every 
day. Slow and Steady 
Once people educate themselves about a new positive behavior and become conv inced that they desire to incorporate it into 
their lives, I always encourage them to do so as quickly as possible. Yet, you  can be easy on yourself when adopting the 80/10/10 
way of life. A gradual transition may be the best that you can hope for if you  have amassed a collection of mental, emotional, or 
habitual blocks that would make a sudden and total switchover difficult. Direction is more important than speed for most people when it comes to succe ssful transition. Imposing upon yourself the 
unnecessary pressure to make “all or nothing” changes often leads  to frustrating failure. When people stretch themselves too quic kly , 
they often “snap back” into their prior habits. By decreasing the fat percentage in your diet even one point per week, you c an achieve the full benefits of 80/10/10  in less 
than a year. After that, you have the rest of your life to reap the harv est of health that you have sown. This is not a diet program to 
be used temporarily, but a healthful eating program for life. I wrote this book to guide people to a low-fat plant-based raw foods  diet. No other program exists for this purpose. However, many other low(er)-fat plant-based diet programs exist. Some peopl e choose to transition more gradually by consuming 
fruit for breakfast and lunch, with a simple low-fat cooked meal plus a raw s alad at night. Over a period of months, the salad and 
other raw dishes nudge out the cooked components, until 100% raw is achieved. If y ou are interested in such a path, don't feel guilty 
about it. Give yourself permission to take advantage of the myriad of resour ces available to support your health in the most 
appropriate way for you right now. For some folks, there is a greater sense of urgency than for others, as he alth issues can impose themselves powerfully. If that is 
the case, feel free to transition your diet as rapidly as you can. There i s no danger in converting to 80/10/10  immediately. One 89- 
year-old man I worked with went from standard eating to 80/10/10  overnight, and never looked back. You do not have to think of yourself as becoming a vegetarian, vegan, or raw foode r to be an 80/10/10  fan. Just keep 
decreasing the fat and increasing the amount of fruits and vegetabl es you add into your already-existing program. Actual Stories of Transition to 80/10/10 
The following are actual posts (slightly edited for space) from my VegSource discussion board. From:  turtle (dialup-4.243.137.125.dial1.sanfrancisco1.level3.net) 
Subject:  transition from high fat raw to low fat raw 
Date: December 17, 2004 at 8:40 am PST 
I have been doing the high fat … nuts, seeds, and oils raw food way of eating a nd would like to transition over to the low-fat 
fruit-based 811 . Is there a good way to transition? I would like to hear people’s experie nces with this … so if any of you have any 
suggestions, I am all ears! I know that I am eating way too many nuts and seeds and that this has not su pported my well being. I have found it difficult to 
let go of the nuts and seeds on an every meal basis. Thanks for your help. From: Janie (66.180.141.217) Subject: Re: transition from high fat raw to low fat raw 
Date: December 17, 2004 at 7:39 pm PST 
Since it seems that you have already been attempting to go cold turke y and it hasn’t been working out, it seems that 
transitioning may be the way for you. I did a low-fat transition myself a t first by keeping my overt fats to 10% of my calories or less, 
which translated to about 20% or less of the amount of calories I was eating  at the time. Later I brought it down to 10% or less 
overall. The way I would approach transitioning from where you are to a lower fat wa y would be to try to do two adjustments: 
 
I would try to eat more calorie-dense fruits 
I would also try to move my nuts or seeds eating to my evening meal only 
 
Then after that, I would work on decreasing the fat from the nuts and seeds  overall so that I approach 10% or less, more and 
more often, until I’m doing it all the time (on average). I would approach it as a transition, and be easy on yourself psychologically w ith your slip-ups (if you have them) by just letting 
them go and realizing that you have another opportunity to get going agai n towards your goals coming up as early as your next meal 
choice. You may find as I did with going 100% raw again, that the transition  period ends up being shorter than you thought it would 
be. ;-) 
Aloha! From: Jaime (ip68-4-209-131.oc.oc.cox.net) 
Subject:  Re: transition from high fat raw to low fat raw 
Date: December 17, 2004 at 12:20 pm PST 
I found that my ideal was to go cold turkey, but I ended up transitioning, as 811  involves more than just diet, in my opinion. My transition began months before, if not years. I read the posts of others on t his board, took note of how my body reacted 
to particular foods, noted what worked and what didn’t, and then practiced wh at worked more and more. I cut out supplements, 
gourmet raw food and dehydrated food, frozen food, spices and salt, onions and garlic, ra w dairy, and juice (even raw juice). I used to think raw juice wasn’t so bad, then I’d have it and would feel so i mbalanced I’d eat some raw vegan sushi or raw 
cheese, then I’d be off 811 completely . I’d say I played this back-and-forth game for a year or mor e. I would think 811  doesn’t 
work, but really I was not doing it completely. So I decided to incorporate everyth ing I knew that worked. For me what works is: getting loads of sleep (up to 12 hours a night) as this he lps with 811 immensely, exercising before 
eating (I used to exercise after), eating one or two meals per day, waiti ng until 11 a.m. or noon to eat, having only one type of fruit 
per meal, and following that with one type of green such as celery or lett uce, no raw juice, raw vegan food only, no dates or 
bananas unless they are ripe and fresh picked, and eating whole foods. I did not add all of these things at once. It took me about a month to add them and I stil l consider myself in transition. So I 
guess what I am saying is 811 is more than just percentages and involves whole foods, rest, exercise, f resh air, sunlight, etc. Once I 
set my intention for how I was going to follow 811  it took time to actually put it into practice. Also, I am constantly learn ing what is 
useful and what is not and make adjustments accordingly . So I think this  whole thing is a process, and intentions of “cold turkey” do 
not manifest, at least not for me. From: Dr. Doug Graham (DrGraham.vegsource.com) 
Subject: Another way 
Date: December 17, 2004 at 1:17 pm PST 
(Author’ s note: I posted this message to offer another perspective to J aime’ s message above, which emphasizes 
giving up certain foods. Approaching 80/10/10  with a focus toward the foods and other practices to add  into your life, 
rather than those to eliminate , can make all the difference in your success with—and enjoyment of—the 80/10/10  plan.) I recommend that the transition from standard American raw to 811  be done as follows: 
 
Increase the percentage of whole, fresh, ripe, raw, organic plants in you r diet, at each meal. Increase the percentage of fruit in your diet, at the beginning of eac h meal. Increase the total carbs in your diet, at each meal. Increase the quantity of fresh whole ripe raw organic greens in your  diet until you reach close to 3% of total daily calories or 
slightly more. Increase the amount of sleep you get until you can honestly say that  you are getting “enough” each night. Increase the amount of physical activity you perform until it accoun ts for a minimum of 2/5 (40%) of your total calories used. Hope this helps, 
Dr. D. 
 
The Formula 
So, what are we talking about in terms of foods? 80/10/10  works out easily and naturally if your calories break down 
approximately as follows: 
 
90 to 97% from sweet and nonsweet fruits. 2 to 6% from tender, leafy greens and celery. 0 to 8% from everything else (other vegetables like cabbage and broccoli, plus  fatty fruits, nuts, and seeds). You can generally accomplish this with two or three large fruit mea ls during the day, plus a large salad in the evening. Fruit 
predominates heavily, yet you consume as many greens as you like. Average Caloronutrient Ratios by Food Category 
Here is a rough estimate of the average caloronutrient ratio for var ious whole raw food categories, expressed in terms of 
percentage of calories from carbohydrates, protein, and fat (C/P/F): 
 
Fruits average 90/5/5 
Vegetables average 70/20/10 
Nuts average 10/10/80 
Seeds average 18/12/70 
Avocados average 20/5/75 
 
How Much Overt Fat? When contemplating reducing your fat consumption to 10% or less of total cal ories consumed, you must remember that 
somewhere around 5% of your calories will likely come from fat even if you e at only  fruits and vegetables. Thus, as a rule of thumb, 
you should plan on having about 5% of your calories in the form of nuts, seeds, avoc ados, nut butters, and the like. On a 2,000- 
calorie diet, you should be shooting for overt fat consumption in the neighborh ood of 100 calories (5% of 2,000 = 100). What does this mean in terms of food? It means that in a single day, an ave rage person endeavoring to follow the 80/10/10 
plan would consume in the neighborhood of: 
 
1/3 of a medium-sized avocado (6-ounces edible portion), or 
0.6 ounces of almonds (about 15 nuts), or 
20 medium olives, or 
less than 1 tablespoon of oil. There is another option, however. You could choose to eat no overt fats at all f or a day or two, or longer, relying exclusively 
upon eating a sufficient quantity of fruits and vegetables to meet  your calorie need. By doing so, you will have effectively “saved up” 
for a day when you could eat a moderate quantity of fatty food without feeling  guilt or that you had gone off of the program. If you 
average your caloronutrient intake for the week you should still be able t o achieve 80/10/10  in this fashion. Of course, if you really overdo it on fatty foods, you will notice it right awa y and likely again the next morning. The tiredness, 
foul mouth, slowed digestion and elimination, and other sensations are too pron ounced to ignore. They are great motivating factors 
to bring you right back to the joys of the straight and narrow 80/10/10 . How Many Calories? In the beginning, most people do not eat enough raw foods to obtain their necessa ry daily calories, because they are used to 
eating concentrated cooked foods. As I described in Chapter 10, you will have to ea t a much  larger volume of whole fresh fruits 
and vegetables to obtain the same number of calories that you would from cooked m eats and starches, because raw fruits and 
vegetables are not as calorically dense. They contain a large amoun t of water and fiber—essential nutrients to be sure, but these t wo 
items add a great deal of volume to our food. Another obstacle most people must overcome in order to succeed with the 80/10/10  raw diet, is the fear of consuming fruit 
for the major portion of their calories. In general, fruits are considera bly higher in calories than vegetables and leafy greens. So it 
makes sense that most of the raw food diet be made up of fruit, complemented by lar ge salads to provide essential minerals such as 
sodium, potassium, calcium, and magnesium. Determining caloric needs is not an exact science. There is room for a  fair amount of flexibility, especially on a day-to-day 
basis. Averaged over a year’s time, we will likely find that peopl e who maintain their weight consume a predictable range of calori es 
based upon their size, muscularity, and activity level. 10 Times Body Weight = BMR 
Below I offer two guidelines for estimating the number of calories you s hould consider eating each day. Both of them begin by 
multiplying your body weight (or your ideal/desired body weight) by 10. This provi des a very rough estimate of your resting basal 
metabolic rate (BMR)—the number of calories required to operate you r brain, organs, and all essential functions. For example, if you weigh 150 pounds, you can estimate that you need somewhere a round 1,500 calories per day, plus or 
minus about 10%, just to maintain your basic metabolism at rest. Then, dependi ng on your activity level, I offer the following 
calculations. Calorie Guidelines for Healthy (Athletic) People 
My optimal calorie-consumption guideline is likely to be different than  the advice you may find elsewhere, and somewhat higher than 
the American average. This is because I base my recommendati on upon a healthful (high) level of physical activity—the leve l that 
humans would have to maintain in order to obtain sufficient food in a more na tural setting. Nature intended humans to have to cover large expanses of ground on foot, to cl imb trees, and even to swim when necessary 
in order to obtain food and warmth. The resulting fitness level would be consi derably higher than that of the average American, as 
would the average calorie output. As more food would be consumed, so would a greate r number of nutrients be available. Good 
nutrition literally hinges upon us being fit enough to be healthy. With the above in mind, I suggest that a healthy athletic person shoul d utilize at least as many calories in physical endeavors as 
they use for their resting BMR. (Resting BMR is equivalent to 10 time s your ideal body weight). This means, for instance, that a 
150-pound man who uses 1,500 calories as his baseline should also use at least another 1,500 calories in his activities for the day, 
on average, for a total of 3,000 calories. Using the 80/10/10  diet, nutritional intake would be vastly better than the American av erage for all nutrients. Fitness levels 
would need to be increased, of course, in order to achieve that level of activi ty, but this can be done gradually. Calorie Guidelines for Less-Active People 
To be abundantly clear, I would like to reiterate: Good nutrition literally hinges upon us being fit enough to be healthy. By this 
I mean to say that even the most “perfect” diet will never result i n true health unless it is accompanied by high-level fitness a nd all of 
the other essential elements of healthful living (see sidebar e ntitled “Fundamental Elements of Health”). I cannot recommend high ly 
enough that you exert at least as much attention and effort into uplev eling your level of fitness as you do into learning about and 
achieving optimal nutrition. That said, if you are a less-active person wending your way toward fitne ss and health, here are some guidelines for caloric 
intake. If your work and the rest of your day is relatively sedentary, add another 200 ca lories to the BMR estimate described above. Then add calories for exercise, perhaps 300–600 calories per session. It  could be more or less, depending upon the frequency , 
intensity, and duration of your fitness sessions. If you also have a physi cally demanding job, you might require another 800 to 1,600 
additional calories or more. Thus, a sedentary woman who weighs 130 pounds must eat about 1,300 calories simply t o maintain her body weight. Let us 
suppose that she needs another 260 calories (an additional 20%) per day to meet he r physical needs such as puttering around the 
house, going up stairs, or to the mailbox, etc. This hypothetical woman would ne ed to eat food that supplied about 1,560 calories 
per day. A large man of 280 pounds, who is fit and not fat, who participates in sports and works i n construction, would require roughly 
2,800 calories for basal metabolism. Add to that the 1,500 calories he expends at work ea ch day and the 2,000 he needs for his daily sports training. This active man needs to eat sufficient food to su pply him with approximately 6,250 calories per day. He has to 
consume four times as many calories as the sedentary woman in our fir st example. Calorie Comparison: 8 Ounces of Selected Foods 
This chart demonstrates the tremendous range of caloric density amon g high-water versus high-fat whole foods in the 
80/10/10  program. In each case, the food item weighs eight ounces. (Note that you wou ld have to eat 42 servings of 8 ounces of 
lettuce, or 21 large heads, to get the same number of calories as one 8-ounce por tion of macadamia nuts!) Lettuce:                   39 calories  (1 small head romaine) 
Cucumber:            27 calories  (½ medium) 
Tomato:                   41 calories  (2 medium) 
Peach:                   89 calories  (2 medium) 
Apple:                   109 calories  (2 small) 
Mango:                   147 calories (1 medium) 
Banana:                   202 calories (2 medium) 
Avocado:             362 calories  (1 large) 
Cashews:             1,254 calories  (1.7 cups) 
Sunflower seeds:       1,293 calories  (1.5 + cups) 
Almonds:             1,318 calories (1.7 cups or 200 nuts) 
Walnuts:             1,483 calories (2 + cups, or 57 nuts) 
Macadamias:       1,628 calories  (1.8 cups, or 88 nuts) 
 
How Much to Eat 
To give you an example of the volume of fruits and vegetables required, l et’s say you need about 2,000 calories per day . A 
medium-sized banana has 105 calories; a large honeydew melon has 461 calorie s; a medium peach has 39 calories; and a large 
simple salad may have 175 calories (a large 20-oz. head of lettuce runs about 96 c alories, and a pound of nonsweet fruits has about 
75 calories). To consume 2,000 calories from raw foods, you would need to eat something like a large  honeydew melon for breakfast (461 
calories), a 12-banana smoothie for lunch (1,260 calories), 4 peaches before dinne r (153), and a large salad for dinner (175). This 
would provide 2,026 calories, with a 90/6/4 caloronutrient ratio (90% carbohydrate s, 6% protein, and 4% fat). If you didn’t have 
any physical activity that day, you might eliminate two bananas and on e of the peaches. If it was a physical day, you could add half of a 6-oz. California avocado to the sal ad. It would provide about 145 more 
calories, 111 of which would be from fat. The caloronutrient ratio for the day  would then be 86/6/9. Adding a whole avocado 
would take the fat percentage for the day up to 13% … not a big deal, but it w ould be better to add a few pieces of fruit to meet the 
extra caloric requirements of your exercise routine. The Diet for a Lifetime 
Just like the rings on a tree, life is about growth, which often requires  change. The 80/10/10 diet may seem like a huge shift in your 
lifestyle in the beginning, but as the rewards for taking care of your body  unfold, you will come to see that the benefits of living this 
way far outweigh the cost. Developing 80/10/10 as a lifestyle will enhance every moment of your life to come. I applaud y ou for 
taking the first step to the new you. Appendix A. Sample Menu Plans 
 
This appendix contains four seasonal sample menus for the 80/10/10  lifestyle, broken into one-week sections (seven days of 
meals for summer, autumn, winter, and spring). Each two-page spread i ncludes a day’s worth of recipes on the left-hand side and a 
corresponding caloronutrient analysis chart on the right. Each day’s menu plan includes a breakfast, lunch, and three-cours e dinner, hand-selected for seasonal freshness and designed 
to total approximately 2,000 calories. You can easily increase or decrease t he quantity of any ingredient, to adjust the recipes in the 
direction of your desired caloric intake. The smoothies, fruit salads, soups, dressings, vegetable salads, and slaws  in this section demonstrate the abundance of whole 
fruit and vegetable meals available on the 80/10/10  plan. This guide emphasizes fruits in season, when they are freshes t and least 
expensive. The 80/10/10  motto is, “simplicity at mealtime, variety throughout the year.” A s you become accustomed to this lifestyle, 
you will discover the joy of eating seasonally and anticipating the ta ste sensations each new bounty of fruits brings. Feel free to 
experiment! Use this guide as an inspirational tool to help you discover y our own favorite combinations. Some recipes contain additional information, indicated by a dagger sym bol (†), to help answer your questions and smooth 
your transition to this way of eating. These include helpful tidbits abou t fruit varieties and their availability, ideas for recipe variati ons, 
and tips on buying, preparing, and eating the foods. Don’t worry about your caloronutrient ratio at each meal, or even each da y . The 80/10/10  guideline (at least 80% of calories 
from carbohydrates and at most 10% fat and protein) is intended as an aver age—something to strive for over time. Thus, as you 
page through the menu plan, you will see higher-fat days and lower- fat days … but by the end of the week, the numbers all come 
out to 80/10/10 , more or less. The best way to really understand the caloronutrient ratio and get a tr ue sense of the level of fat in your own diet, is to weigh 
your food and enter numbers in an online diet-analysis program for about a we ek. We used Nutridiary.com as a basis for creating 
this recipe guide. Note that no two fruits are nutritionally identical. Each crop of produce ( sometimes even each piece) differs in caloronutrient 
ratio from the next, depending on such factors as ripeness, soil quality, sh ipping environment, and time since harvest. In addition, any attempt to standardize measures like “one apple” or “one h ead of lettuce” (although we do so in the upcoming 
ingredient conversion charts) is subjective at best, given the reg ional variability of produce. Thus, the only way to accurately 
compare food quantities is to list ingredients by weight, rather than by t he piece. All weights refer to edible portions only,  so be 
sure to remove peels, stems, cores, seeds, and pits before you weigh your food. Remember that each individual’s digestive capacity is differen t, as is their level of exercise. Both of these factors affect our 
ability to absorb nutrients efficiently . As you mature in this l ifestyle, your natural digestive “fire” will increase. For these reasons and others, the numbers in these charts are rough appr oximations at best. Use them to steer your diet in a 
low-fat direction, but track your numbers in the aggregate, and don’t g et too hung up on the details . Seasonal Availability of Produce 
The following table offers an overview of domestic availability for comm on fruits and vegetable fruits. It is a broad, general list, 
showing the greatest number of months these foods are commonly obtainable  at market nationwide, regardless of variety or where 
they are grown. For example, the papaya, shown to be available all year, includes several v arieties, from Florida, California, Hawaii, Mexico, 
and Central America—each of which produces papayas at differe nt times. Modern distribution and storage technologies allow us 
access to many of these foods throughout the year (sometimes at great c ost to our pocketbooks, our health, and our natural 
resources). In the following table, the dark-gray boxes represent a food’s peak dome stic seasonal distribution. The light-gray boxes 
represent the onset and decline of the season. During this time, you may  be able to find these foods domestically grown, but they 
tend to come at a higher price and reduced quality. To achieve maximum fre shness, I strongly encourage you to choose locally 
grown, organic produce in season whenever possible. If Y ou Don’t Own a Scale…
We have listed the ingredients in the menu plan in terms of ounces an d pounds, in order to provide an accurate caloronutrient 
breakdown. If you do not have a scale at home, the charts below can help you measu re out the quantities called for. Eventually you 
will become proficient in estimating weights and average caloric c ontent of various foods, a skill that will pay dividends in saved 
kitchen time. Summer Menu Plan: Day One 
 
BREAKFAST 
Watermelon 
4 lbs. watermelon 
Directions: Slice melon in half and sit outside and bask in summer’s  glory while you spoon this delightful fruit! LUNCH 
Peachy Keen 
1 lb. bananas 
1 lb. peaches 
Directions: Blend with 16 oz. water. Adjust water for desired consistenc y. DINNER 
Course One: Mango Lime Delight! 1 lb. mangos 
Juice of ½ a lime 
Directions: Peel and slice mangos into a bowl. Drizzle with lime juic e. 
† 300 varieties of mangos are cultivated and studied in Florida alone. The U.S. m arket sees roughly six varieties widely 
distributed: Haden, Tommy Atkins, kent, keitt, ataulfo (also called honey, ch ampagne, Manila, Asian, or yellow), and Haitian 
mangos. Course Two: Sweet Tomatoes 
8 oz. mango 
8 oz. heirloom tomatoes 
Directions: Blend ¾ of the mango with ¾ of the tomato. Cut the remaining ma ngo and tomato into small chunks, toss in and 
stir. Course Three: Mango Red-Pepper Salad 
1 lb. romaine lettuce 
8 oz. each: cucumbers, mangos, and red peppers 
4 oz. tomatoes 
Directions: Chop the lettuce into a large bowl. Peel the cucumber if you  prefer. Thinly slice the cucumber and slice tomato into 
wedges; toss with salad greens. Peel and pit the mango, core the pepper, and ble nd together as a dressing. Summer Menu Plan: Day Two 
 
BREAKFAST 
Watermelon 
4 lbs. watermelon 
Directions: The other half of the large watermelon awaits you! Spoon t he fruit into a blender for a refreshing morning drink! Seeds can be avoided, as they will sink to the bottom of the glass. LUNCH 
Just Bananas! 2 lbs. bananas 
Directions: Blend into a smoothie with 16 oz. water, or enjoy them as they ar e. 
† If you have a hard time eating very many bananas, it is likely they  are not at peak ripeness. The common variety of banana, 
the cavendish, is ripe when it is generously speckled with brown spots and s mells sweet. Prior to this state, they contain more starch 
and are harder to digest. Proper fruit ripeness is essential to adequate n utrition and assimilation. DINNER 
Course One: Summer Berry Salad 
4 oz. blueberries 
4 oz. raspberries 
8 oz. peaches 
Directions: Mix in a bowl and enjoy! Course Two: Peach Heirloom Tomato Soup 
8 oz. peaches 
8 oz.
80_10_10_Diet_-_Douglas_Graham.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        69 
 
 
 
This discrepancy results from the fact that I equate health with f itness and athleticism, essentially viewing the two as 
inseparable. In contrast, government, fitness, and medical “expert s” distinguish the athlete from the healthy individual, giving th em 
separate classifications, as if it were possible to be healthy and not athletic. Although we can indeed feel good and live free of 
symptoms for several years as a sedentary individual, this strategy  is sure to fail over time. We should not fool ourselves into 
believing that anything resembling true health is possible withou t regular, vigorous exercise. Strategies for Increasing Muscle Mass 
Increasing muscle mass is one way to decrease overall body fat percent age. As the percentage of lean tissue increases, the 
percentage of fat tissue automatically decreases. If you are thin bu t still carry a higher-than-healthful body fat percentage, this i s an excellent way to achieve your ideal body composition, because increasing  muscle mass has the secondary effect of facilitating fat 
loss. How does this occur. When we add muscle, we increase our body’s calori c requirements. For many of us, there is a time 
lapse while we become accustomed to eating more food. During this lag time, our bodies commonly utilize stored fats to make up 
for the deficit in calories, reducing our body-fat percentage. Unfortunately, muscle mass is easily lost. The phrase “use it or l ose it” definitely applies, as muscles must be used on an 
ongoing basis in order to grow and maintain size. Day to day, muscle loss rare ly accounts for even one-hundredth of one percent of 
our body-weight fluctuations. Muscle loss can account for a fair amount  of weight loss, however, if an active person becomes totally 
sedentary, as in the case of the extended bed rest that is required in ins tances of extreme sickness or recovery from a debilitating 
accident. We can measure muscle atrophy within twenty-four hours of  the initiation of complete rest. Fortunately, muscles regain 
their prior size with relative ease when we resume normal activi ties, even after months of convalescence or weeks of water fasting. Of course, if we are active and then become unexpectedly sedentary and c ontinue eating as much or more than we did before, we 
will gain fat, as the body stores excess calories as fat, not muscle. Gaining muscle is the only truly healthful way to gain weight an d increase size without running the risk of creating hormonal 
imbalances that result from harboring excess body fat. The only wa y to gain muscle weight is by “asking” your body to build through 
the demands of strength-training activities. Pure strength tra ining is technically defined as “one repetition maximum,” or “1RM,” 
meaning you can lift that particular weight a maximum of one time be fore muscular fatigue results. More often, people train for 
strength by lifting weights in not more than four sets of one to five re petitions each. Strength training a few times per week is all that 
is necessary to develop your new, lean body. Losing or Gaining Fat … the Right and Wrong Way 
The simplest method of losing fat is to consume fewer total calories eac h day than the amount you use. Estimating calories 
consumed versus calories used can provide a very good assessment of your pote ntial overall rate of weight loss. (See Appendix D. Resources for Diet Analysis) Given that a pound of fat contains 3,500 calor ies, if you expend 115 calories per day more than you 
consume, you will fairly reliably lose one pound per month. Such calculati ons are not necessary on an ongoing basis; typically you 
only need to figure calories in versus calories out to develop an understa nding and a routine. Once you establish healthful daily 
habits, tracking your diet and exercise will become a thing of the past. Another way to achieve a net loss of calories for weight reduction is to m ake a commitment to add regular exercise into your 
daily routine. You must be patient about it, however, as briskly walking a mi le per day only yields on average about a one-pound 
weight loss over the course of a month. This assumes, of course, that all ot her factors, including total calorie intake, remain relatively 
constant during that time. The Truth Behind Detoxification 
The tendency among raw fooders to attribute magical powers, such as “ cleansing” properties, to foods is nothing short of 
misguided. Raw foods do not cleanse; they are simply the foods we are designed f or. Consuming them provides the body the 
necessary energy to relieve itself of toxins that have been held in  suspension with water. The body does this through its normal 
mechanisms—the organs of elimination and detoxification. Our liver and kidneys are always working to detoxify us. When we consume t he standard American diet, these organs work 
overtime just to keep up, because we are constantly ingesting as many t oxins as we eliminate (or more). When we switch to raw 
food, the liver and kidneys have a chance to catch up. They can finally make  progress in detoxifying the body, reducing its toxic 
load. One pint of water weighs one pound, so weight loss can be dramatic when we ar e losing water as a result of reducing the 
body’s toxic load. I have seen people lose twenty-five and even as muc h as forty pounds in the first week of switching to an all-raw 
diet. Rarely does more than a pound or so of this weight loss actually represe nt a loss of fat. As a rule, rapid weight changes always 
represent water weight losses or gains. Under no circumstances can anybody lose a pound of fat per day, on any diet. Programs that promise we will “lose up to 10 pounds in the first 48 hours”  are deceptive. It is possible to lose ten pounds of water 
in just a few hours, but only an extremely active person could realisti cally lose much more than a pound of fat per week. Sudden Weight Loss in New Raw Fooders 
Several notable experiences are quite common when people start eating  raw foods, especially when they switch to a diet that is 
exclusively raw from one that was primarily cooked. The first dramatic  change that people frequently notice is a rapid and dramatic 
loss of weight. This does not always happen, but it happens more often than not. U sually, people perceive this as a good thing, 
because they have excess weight to lose. After they lose the initi al water weight in the first week or two on the raw diet, many 
people find that they continue to lose weight, though much more slowly. It i s likely that this subsequent weight loss represents a loss 
of fat. Of course, at some point, even these losses must be brought to a stop, or the  person will simply fade away. “I Thought I Had More Muscle. ” 
Most folks, after a few weeks or months of raw eating, are certain that th eir diet is causing them to lose muscle. They have never 
seen themselves so thin. What actually happens during weight loss i s that we lose much of the padding (fat) around our muscles and 
also the fat marbled within our muscles. In addition, on a raw diet, we begin t o lose the water that we once retained to dilute toxins. This water also added to the appearance of inflated muscles. Many people mis take this excess fat and water as part of their muscle. Often, people tell me that in a week or two on a raw diet they lost all their m uscle. This is an absolute physiological 
impossibility. In spite of what we have all heard, no diet of any kind resu lts in (any detectible) muscle loss—or muscle gain, for that 
matter. If there were a diet that resulted in muscle gain, bodybuilders  would be found in the kitchen, instead of the gym. We lose or 
gain muscle due to variations in our physical fitness programs, not thr ough dietary shifts. In spite of what we have all been told, 
consuming protein (or any other nutrient) will not assist in the mus cle-building process. 70  If you believe such hype, you have been 
sold a bill of goods. If they understood body composition, and were honest with themselves, the se people would more accurately say, “I thought I 
had much more muscle than I actually do. Then when I lost the excess wa ter that was inflating my muscles, I was forced to accept 
the reality that I am not as well muscled as I thought I was. ”  
 
Dehydration and Body Weight 
Dehydration is considered a contributor to more diseases of lifestyle tha n any other single factor except fat. When our toxin- 
to-water ratio is skewed in the direction of toxins, cellular function i s compromised. This toxicity affects virtually every function in th e 
body. Correcting dehydration oftentimes remedies weight-loss difficul ty, as organ function and energy levels greatly improve. The dehydration coin has two sides: is it literally a state of “not enoug h water” or is it a condition of “too much toxin”. The 
correct answer is, “both. ” When a man is about to die from dehydration, the t oxins within his body have become too concentrated 
for his body to cope with. The amount of toxins do not increase; they are simply l ess diluted, and therefore, more concentrated. Few people would argue that dry-cooked foods (those not steamed or boiled) are low in w ater. After all, if we put toast 
through a juicer, no liquid comes out. If we put a pot of water in the oven at 400 degr ees for an hour, most if not all of the water 
evaporates off. The same thing happens to the water in food when it is dry-c ooked (and to a lesser extent when wet-cooked). The 
oven works just like a dehydrator. Most of us just don’t realize how critic al this issue is for our health. Four Ways We Become Dehydrated 
Hydration is an important factor in all aspects of our health, and even our  weight. When using a bioimpedance scale to 
measure body fat, we must consider our level of hydration to obtain accurate  readings. Both dehydration and water retention skew 
our readings. Hydration also goes beyond the amount of water we consume, sinc e dehydration occurs for a variety of reasons. Increased Toxic Load 
The most common way that we become dehydrated is when our toxin intake rise s relative to our intake of water. Cooking produces 
many toxins that cause the body to require additional water. Among the mos t virulent of these are the acrolein produced by deep 
frying and the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons released during barbecu ing and other cooking methods that blacken or char our 
foods. Two common products found in most households may in fact, be the most toxic substa nces popularly consumed. Plain table 
salt is so toxic that even when extremely diluted, as it is in sea wat er, it is still deadly. All sailors know that if they drink seawater the y 
will die of dehydration. Salt must be greatly diluted with water before th e body can tolerate it. Alcohol, the second deadly household 
poison, has a similar toxicity. It acts as a diuretic and causes substan tial water loss. Few substances dehydrate and impair us as 
effectively as alcohol. Low Water Intake vs. Toxic Load 
The second way that we can become dehydrated is when water intake is low r elative to toxin intake. If we are to (correctly) assume 
that the necessary amount of water is in our fresh plant foods before we c ook them, we can be certain that an insufficient quantity is 
left after we cook them. Cooking removes water from food. This explains why a baked potato weighs so much l ess than the same potato when it was 
raw. (Granted, cooking can be utilized as a method of hydrating dry foods, as is th e case when we boil rice or lentils,  but this is the 
exception, not the rule. ) By driving off water, cooking effectively chan ges the water-to-toxin ratio in food to favor toxins, while also 
raising the level of toxins in the food. So cooking food results in a double wham my—not only does it remove water, but a great 
many toxins are created in the process, increasing our need for water. Unfortunately, it is not part of human nature to drink water; we must le arn to do so. Let me explain. In nature, at various times 
throughout the day, many animals will visit the “water hole” to drink. S ome animals, especially the grazers, are notorious for drinking 
huge quantities of water. The anthropoid apes, however, (biologically, huma ns are classed as anthropoid apes) are rarely observed to drink water, but they can do so if necessary. Their tongues are not design ed to lap water the way carnivores do, so they have to 
suck water if they must drink. Imagine the position they would have to ass ume in order to drink: essentially, they would be blinded to 
enemies as they held down their heads and shoulders while vulnerably e xposing their private parts. Drinking water is simply not necessary for the anthropoids. Except for hu mans, they do not cause their own thirst. They do not 
participate in the activities, nor do they eat the foods, that result in t hirst. Remember, these animals live in the tropics, often in intense
heat, where we would expect that they would need to drink copious quantities of  water. It is certain that the anthropoids get plenty 
of exercise and are quite fit; we have all seen films of them climbin g straight up and down trees and vines effortlessly. In fact, pound 
for pound, they are about five times stronger than humans. They spend most of  their day in the shade. They rest during the midday 
heat. They eat a low-fat raw diet composed primarily of whole, fresh, ripe, org anic, fruits and vegetables. (About 1% of the 
anthropoid diet is composed of insects, small reptiles, and other flesh foods. ) Increased Endogenous Toxin Production 
The third way we become dehydrated is when our “endogenous” toxin produc tion rises relative to our water intake. Every cell in the 
body produces toxic waste products as a result of its own metabolism, and many ti ssues, glands, and organs also produce toxins as 
a result of their metabolism. These internally produced toxins are ref erred to as endogenous toxins. (In contrast, toxins that come 
from outside the body are referred to as exogenous toxins. These are the ones  that come from our food, the air, and other aspects 
of our environment. ) As our levels of physical activity or stress rise, so does the quantity of  endogenous toxins we produce, as cellular output 
increases. This is one of the reasons that we are told to drink water bef ore, during, and after exercise and other physical pursuits— 
to dilute the toxins we produce. High Water Output 
When we lose water more rapidly than we replace it, we can also become dehy drated. Altitude, heat, sunshine, wind, humidity, and 
exercise are among the primary factors that can cause us to lose wat er. Sometimes, these water losses are not obvious to us. For 
instance, in conditions of high heat and low humidity, especially if the  wind is blowing, our perspiration can evaporate as rapidly as 
we produce it (compared to conditions of high humidity, where dripping sweat gr abs our attention). In low humidity, our skin and 
clothing remain cool and dry, even though we are perspiring freely. We can lose far more water than we realize in an airplane, where the  air is pressurized  to an altitude of 6,000 feet and 
incredibly dry. Such insidious water loss is sometimes considered more dan gerous than the overt sweating incurred with exercise in 
conditions of high humidity. 71  In both instances, however, we must replace the water that we lose. We do not have a high tolerance for variations in our ratio of water to toxin s. The average American experiences symptoms of 
dehydration after losing just 1% of body weight as water (about 2% of normal wa ter volume). 72  For a two-hundred-pound man, 
that equates to just two pounds, or one quart, of water. Medically diagnosable mi ld dehydration begins at the level of 5% fluid loss, 
and 15% is considered severe. 73 
In many major fitness competitions, contestants are weighed periodica lly throughout the event. Since all rapid weight changes 
almost exclusively represent water weight, fairly accurate le vels of dehydration can be assessed simply through the weighing process. Should an athlete show a 5% loss of weight, he or she is considered to be so danger ously dehydrated as to be removed from the 
competition. For the one-hundred-pound female triathlete, a five-percen t weight loss amounts to only five pounds (equal to five 
pints, or ten cups) of water. The medical community tells us that we should drink 8 to 12 eight-ounce gla sses of water daily. Although they don’t express it 
as such, this recommendation is necessary to make up for the dehydration c aused by the toxins in our foods. Interestingly, the 
example above shows us that an athlete will be removed from competition for  being as dehydrated as the average American. If this 
degree of dehydration is so hazardous to conditioned athletes (people who spend mu ch of their lives adapting to extremes), imagine 
how dangerous it is to the less-fit individual. It makes much more sense to remove the cause of the problem, rather than t o continue the cause and introduce a remedy. Drinking huge quantities of water after causing extreme dehydrat ion is not the healthiest option. It does not matter whether the cause 
is the consumption of cooked, salted, or dehydrated foods or exogenous toxins. Althou gh “the solution to pollution is dilution,”  it is 
far better to avoid the pollution in the first place. People can become dehydrated when making dietary changes if they are not  aware that such a problem could arise. Troublingly, some dietary programs include such dehydrating practices  as consuming a lot of salt and drinking minimal water. It 
should be stressed that dehydration is dangerous,  and it impairs all other functions in the body. Avoid any dietary regimen  that 
induces a state of dehydration, at all costs. Are You Dehydrated. Approximately 75% of the population is chronically dehydrated and simp ly doesn’t know it, because their symptoms seem normal to them. 74  Having lived with their symptoms for so long, they do not even know what a hea lthful level of hydration would feel 
like. When they finally achieve normal, healthy levels of hydration  as a result of improvements in lifestyle, people sometimes think 
there is a problem; they have never before experienced proper hydration. Although dehydration has many symptoms, one of the most common is fatigue. O f course, many factors can result in fatigue, 
but if you are fatigued, consider whether dehydration might be the cause. Other clear indicators of dehydration include the following: 
 
Your urine is deep yellow or dark, rather than almost clear. You urinate fewer than six times in twenty-four hours. Eight to twe lve times per day is considered a healthy frequency. Y ou would describe the volume of urine that you void as “scanty” rather t han “satisfactory. ” 
 
If you are curious about the effects of chronic dehydration, the table below  outlines some of the consequences of fluid loss on 
the body: 75  
 
 
 
 
  
 
Chapter 10. Overcoming the Challenges of Going Raw 
 
Only a few people have continually maintained a completely raw diet ove r a period of years or decades. For many folks, the 
raw diet is an experiment that fails rapidly. Initial results are de emed positive, when a person has weight to lose, but for those who 
are already thin, the first response tends to be very negative, due to rapi d weight loss and subsequent fatigue. Of course, everyone 
blames the diet, ignoring how they actually applied it. The old adage “pr actice makes perfect” rings true, but it should be amended to 
say, “perfect practice makes perfect,” for those who fail early t end to give up rather than persist and pull through. Calories Per Bite 
A crucial stepping stone for success in a healthy raw diet is unders tanding the concept of “calories per bite,” or caloric density. Raw fruits and vegetables yield far fewer calories per bite than cooked f oods or fatty foods, so we must eat more bites in order to 
consume sufficient calories. Just as a bodybuilder trains to lift more w eight or a runner trains to run longer races, in order to succeed 
on the 80/10/10  diet, we must train our bodies and minds, over time, to eat the kind of volume we wou ld eat in our natural 
environment. Every once in a while, we hear an isolated fact about what an animal in  the wild eats. The volume is always staggering to our 
imagination. Animals such as sea otters eat 30% of their weight in f ood each day. 76  Lions have been known to eat eighty pounds of 
meat in one meal. 77  I have watched little capuchin monkeys (the type that organ grinders  used to train) eat banana after banana after 
banana. Our perspective of “normal” volume has been skewed by th e low-water, low-fiber, high-fat meals we have been eating all 
our lives. Cooking Reduces Volume 
Due to the reduced water and fiber found in cooked foods, we are accustomed to eatin g small-volume meals. By eating cooked 
foods our whole lives, our stomachs never developed their potential elastic ity. 78  However, it is not too late. For the new fruit eater, 
the unnaturally poor flexibility of the stomach muscle causes a fee ling of fullness after eating a relatively small volume of fruit  and 
calories. Upon adopting a raw program, many people attempt to solve this problem by a dding fat in order to make a meal more 
sustaining and more calorically dense. They add oil to their fruit smooth ies, nuts and seeds to their fruit desserts, and avocados and 
other fats to their vegetable salads. To give you a sense of the magnitude of the divergence in calories per  bite between cooked and raw foods, let’s take an 
extreme example. A slice of a large pan crust Round Table “Montag ue’s All Meat Marvel” pizza contains 350 calories. At an 
estimated six bites per slice, that’s about 60 calories per bit e, the same number of calories as a 12-ounce head of lettuce. If four 
slices of pizza filled you up, it would take about the same (very small) volu me of lettuce to also fill you up, in terms of sheer bulk. But 
the lettuce wouldn’t be satiating, because it would have provide d only perhaps one hundredth of the calories. To actually eat the 
same number of calories from lettuce that you got from eating the four s lices of pizza, you would have to eat six heads of lettuce per 
slice of pizza, or one head of lettuce per bite. When we do the math on this exa mple, we get a staggering result: we would have to 
eat 24 heads of lettuce to consume the same number of calories in four slic es of pizza. Dehydrated Foods 
One of the reasons that people like cooked food is that cooking intensifies flav ors. Many people new to the raw food diet gravitate 
toward dehydrated foods, because the dehydrator functions quite similarly t o the oven and produces dishes reminiscent of those 
cooked in an oven. Water deficient, these foods are more condensed calorically, and in terms of flavor, than their raw counterparts. Dehydrated foods take up less space than the same foods eaten whole. As with  cooked foods, their compact size disrupts our 
natural satiety triggers, which respond (in part) to volume. Dehydrat ed foods also take longer to digest because of their complexity 
and dryness. For both of these reasons, we tend to overeat dehydrated or cooked foods befor e we realize we are full. A similar 
thing happens with dried fruits, which, in addition to being low in volume, al so release their sugars more slowly. These two factors 
contribute to our tendency to overeat them, a phenomenon not common among people w ho eat whole, fresh fruit. We compound these problems when we add the various fats (oils, avocados, nuts, se eds, olives, coconut meat, and the like) 
used freely among raw foodists to make their dehydrated dishes look and taste s imilar to their cooked food counterparts. Added to 
low-calorie vegetable recipes, fat becomes the overwhelming ca loronutrient in the entire dish. Many dehydrated raw entrées such as
lasagna, pizza, and chili offer 50 to 80% of their calories from fat, sometimes  even more. Dishes of this sort slow digestion, forcing foods to be delayed in the stomac h and giving us that “stuffed” feeling we have come 
to associate with satiation, even though they do not contain the volume t hat our stomachs are designed to handle. The fact is that 
most people consume their food in an extremely condensed form—cooked, dehydr ated, and fatty—and are eating a far smaller volume of food than is truly healthy. This concentration of our food is part of t he reason we tend to overeat in terms of total 
calories. Contrary to popular mythology, there is no reason to think of dehydrated fr uits or vegetables as “super” or “special” in terms 
of nutrition. Certainly they are not as nutritious as their fresh c ounterparts, in any quantity. Supplement vendors publish convincing 
literature to convince you that their green powders or “whole-food-ba sed” supplements supply concentrated nutrition in amounts 
you could not get from fresh fruits and vegetables. But taking them can s erve only to imbalance you, as even in deficiency conditions, 
we do not need more of any nutrient than we can get in a variety of whole, fresh, ripe, raw plants eaten in suff icient 
quantity to maintain our body weight. Of course, low-temperature dehydration causes less nutrient damage  than cooking, but dehydrated foods are nutritionally far 
inferior to fresh food, regardless of processing method. Not only that, but eati ng them dehydrates us,  increasing relative bodily 
toxicity, and requiring yet more water to be consumed to maintain proper hydr ation. The eight to twelve glasses of water we are told 
to drink every day are a good indicator of how low in water—or if you prefer, how t oxic—our diets really are. More Bites and Raw Success. The challenge of eating more bites is often one that people are not prepare d for, as evidenced by the considerable weight loss 
common among new raw fooders. After initial water weight losses, if a pe rson still loses weight regularly, he or she is very likely 
undereating in terms of total calories. (Digestive, absorptive, or assi milative problems could also contribute to the problem, but these 
must be considered the exception, not the rule. ) While a huge perce ntage of the W estern world’s population is suffering from 
impaired digestion and compromised absorption, 79  these conditions tend to self-correct when the causes (high-fat, cooke d, 
processed, toxic foods unsuited to our physiological design) are eliminated. Eventually, most people agree that eating more food per day is not a hardship, bu t one of the many rewards of healthful eating. The 80/10/10  diet is among just a handful of healthful  plans that allows you to eat as much of the recommended foods as you care 
for. How Do I Eat That Much Fruit. With 80/10/10  firmly in mind, we return to the question of how to obtain the calories we ne ed, now that high-fat, low-fiber, low- 
water foods are removed from the diet. To get 80% of your calories from the carbohy drates in fruit, you will have to create some 
dramatic new eating habits, perhaps more dramatic than any dietary ch ange you have ever made. As you drop the fat from your 
diet, you must significantly  increase your daily fruit consumption, a habit that takes practice to dev elop. The good news is that your 
health and your waistline will show you immediate results to let you kn ow you are heading in the desired direction. One tactic to achieve more bites, and to support our caloric needs, is to start  with several fruit meals per day, approximately 
four. Over time, depending on your exercise program and other healthful ha bits, you will be able to reduce this number of meals 
down to three and then possibly even two. Also, make a practice of eating just  one or two bites more at each meal than you 
otherwise would. The elasticity of your stomach will promptly accommodate  the extra bites, just as all of your other muscles would 
elongate if you were to adopt a yoga practice. I must stress: the goal here  is not to eat until you hurt but to gently encourage your 
digestive system to regain its flexibility. Y ou don’t have to make this transition all at once, either. If you are not re ady to eat just fruit for your breakfast and lunch 
meals, it is perfectly acceptable to simply begin your meals with frui t. You can eat all the fruit you care for at the start of the meal, 
and then follow the fruit with other foods. Over time, the amount of fruit y ou desire at the beginning of the meal will increase. Eventually, you will be able to eat a satiating and calorie-sufficie nt meal from fruit that will hold you all the way until the next meal time 
comes around. Satiation—Satisfying Hunger and Appetite 
Hunger is a sensation we are all familiar with, but it is often confu sed with other aspects of eating. The goal of hunger is to 
satisfy a nutritional requirement for carbohydrates, fats, proteins, v itamins, minerals, enzymes, coenzymes, and all other nutrients. We 
are driven to eat to fill this need and rewarded by the pleasure of it. Becau se hunger is the general  desire for food, when one is truly 
hungry, any food will be acceptable. Appetite, on the other hand, is specific—we desire a specific food or foods. A ppetite is also the socially acceptable word for 
craving,  which in turn is the socially acceptable word for addiction. An example of the difference between appetite and hunger 
goes as follows: When a person says, “I am hungry” and you offer him let tuce, he is likely to say, “I am not hungry for lettuce, but I 
do have an appetite for chocolate. Do you have any chocolate. ” If this per son were truly hungry, the lettuce would have been 
perfectly acceptable. Their wording is accurate: what they rea lly have is appetite … or I might suggest, addiction. Malnutrition is also a powerful appetite trigger. 80  When we lack essential nutrients, we crave food. Unfortunately, 
malnourished individuals often eat more of the wrong foods in a vain attem pt to control their appetites. For example, obese people, 
who are always malnourished due to eating unhealthful foods, generall y seek to satisfy their cravings with the same foods that caused their malady, and they do this over and over again. The nutritional densit y of fruit is yet another factor that makes it so satiating and 
all but impossible to overeat. Satiation, defined as full satisfaction, is what we truly desire from  our food. To fully satisfy yourself at mealtime is a more 
challenging task than you might think, for there are many aspects to t his issue. Are we simply talking nutrition, or do we consider 
emotional facets as well. Is satiation simply about quantity (bulk), or i s quality also a factor. W e know one thing for certain: whether you eat in a restaurant, at a fr iend’s house, or at home, typically a dessert is offered as 
the last course of any meal. Desserts are known to be satiating; the ca rbohydrates ensure this effect. 81  We can avoid appetite 
triggers by choosing the right foods, for the right reasons, for true hung er. Can Fats Ever Satisfy. Fat is a very difficult nutrient to digest. It passes through the stom ach and intestinal tract more slowly than other nutrients. Becaus e of 
this, it is easy to overeat fat, and in the process, stress your digestive  capacities beyond their limits. A stuffed feeling results, if you 
are lucky. The less fortunate end up with digestive ailments of varyi ng severity. Almost every digestive disorder is related to the 
overconsumption of fat. Emotional Eating 
One of the primary ways we handle painful emotions is to literall y “eat ourselves numb,” with dense, hard-to-digest foods— 
the so-called “comfort foods. ” This is effective because of the natur e of our nervous systems. Our bodies have a finite amount of 
nerve energy at any given time. The digestion of food and the conduction of e motions each demand so much energy that they cannot 
be performed simultaneously. A classic example to demonstrate this property of our nervous system is a  funeral, where some people are grieving so 
intensely they cannot eat at all, while others cannot stop eating. As we lighten our diets to vegetarian, vegan and eventually raw, we qu ite commonly become more aware of our emotional 
selves. When we commit to eating a raw diet, we gravitate toward fatty  foods to provide emotional numbing, as most fresh fruits are 
not sufficient sedatives to overcome emotional distress. Usually thi s leads to the consumption of exorbitant amounts of nuts or seeds, 
which are easy to overeat, because they do not quickly trigger satiation. Digestive distress and undue suffering result from this 
behavior. The answer to all this lies not in consuming food at all, but in maintain ing emotional poise and developing the ability to fully feel 
our emotions. Fats have several factors working against them when it comes to sat iety. First, fats pack many calories into tiny packages. Because volume is one of the key factors in experiencing satiation, it  is difficult to eat enough volume of a fatty food to feel satiated, 
without feeling sick first. Second, the brain monitors blood-sugar levels constantly as a method of deter mining hunger. As blood-sugar levels rise, 
hunger decreases. No corollary rapid hunger reaction occurs in the cas e of blood fat, and even if it did, dietary fat takes a relatively 
long time to reach the bloodstream, often requiring twelve to twenty-fou r hours from the time it is eaten. If you eat an entire meal of 
fatty foods, you still won’t be satiated. Y ou will very likely resort to e ating a sweet dessert at the end of the meal to finally satisfy 
your appetite. The idea that eating fat keeps you satiated is simply untr ue. Sweet Fruits Win Every Time. When we eat sweet fruits, which are rich in simple sugars, the blood-s ugar level rises gently, almost immediately, as we discussed in 
Chapter 2. The sweetness of these highly nutritious foods makes them dif ficult to overeat. And because of their copious water and 
fiber content, fruits supply relatively high volume in a low-calorie  package, further making it difficult to eat too much of them. We 
have all been taught that sweets will satiate us, and we have come t o rely upon this fact by choosing to eat our sweet desserts at the 
end of our meals. When we eat sweet desserts at the end of our meals, it indicates two thi ngs: 
 
No matter how much food we ate, it likely did not satisfy our appetite, or else we  would not have been tempted by a sweet 
dessert. We ate insufficient simple carbohydrates during the meal, leaving  us craving those very carbohydrates at the end of the meal. This is evidence of our natural and substantial need for simple carbohydr ates. Had we eaten sufficiently of fruit at the start of the meal, it is li kely that we would not have desired other foods. No other food group matches the ability of fruit to satiate us. Monomeals: Eating One Food at a Time 
Eating a single-ingredient “monomeal” of fruit is an extremely pleasurable experience quite simply because it is so satiati ng and 
yet, so uncomplicated. The minimalism of the meal runs counter to our habi tual multiple-food approach, with its accompanying 
titillation of the tastebuds, thereby allowing us to avoid addiction to stim ulation and overeating. Judging from the way most people eat, I feel safe in saying that addiction  stems from variety. Because the mono-fruit meal 
does not excite the body, and is easily digested, it does not leave us dulled and fa tigued after eating, but rather engaged and clear of 
mind. We are left both perfectly satisfied and mentally poised. At first attempt, the monomeal may seem “boring,” because we are s o accustomed to the stimulation of eating multi-ingredient 
meals. Over time, the simplicity of mono-fruit meals improves digesti on and heightens your senses, so that you can pick up the 
nuances of every bite of raw plant foods. As an added benefit, you will be able to better recognize when you are actually satisfied. Am I Supposed to Feel Full. Given that the key to eating for fullness while simultaneously con suming the right number of calories for our bodies is to eat high- 
volume, nutrient-rich, simple-carbohydrate foods, then which foods should pr edominate. The truth is, the human body has only a 
certain capacity. While it is possible to get adequate nutrition from a v ariety of different food sources, it is more easily obtained from 
some foods than from others. For instance, lettuce is highly nutritious  in terms of nutrients per calorie, but it would be extremely 
difficult—essentially impossible due to the finite nature of our di gestive capacity—to consume sufficient lettuce to meet our calor ic 
requirements. (At 50 calories for a 10-ounce head, we would have to eat 40 heads a da y to consume 2,000 calories). At the opposite end of the spectrum, it is possible to put the micronutrients r equired to meet our total daily nutrient 
requirements into a single small pill. (Of course, our macronutrie nt needs—water, fiber, carbohydrate, protein, and fat—do not lend 
themselves to consumption in pill form. ) Were you to eat such a pill, howeve r, the lack of volume or bulk would result in a 
tremendous and unyielding sense of hunger that could only be satisfied by  the consumption of more volume. How do we get volume, nutrients, and simple sugars, all at the same time. We eat sweet fruit. Because of its high water and 
fiber content, fruit provides more volume with fewer calories than any  food category except vegetables. Hence, we can meet our 
caloric needs without exceeding them, while fulfilling our innate  desire to consume foods in large volume. Because of its high volume, 
low calories, and abundance of nutrients including simple sugars, eati ng a sweet meal predominated by fruit is bound to be satiating 
every time. Chapter 11. 80/10/10 in Practice 
 
How does your daily diet differ when you learn to eat the low-fat raw vegan  way. On most days, you will eat juicy fruit for 
breakfast, sweeter fruit for lunch, and all the acid fruit you care for be fore a vegetable-based dinner. It is really that simple. Most raw fooders, and anyone else who has been taught to avoid fruit or to eat it  in somewhat limited quantities, are initially 
dumbfounded by this formula. Responses range from “I could never do that”  to the full range of nutritional questions that have 
already been covered in this text. For people transitioning from a more mainstream diet, the concept of eatin g fruits and vegetables makes a lot of sense. After 
all, fruits and vegetables are the true health foods. With the state  of human health at its absolute all time lowest, isn’t it time that  we 
started eating fruits and vegetables as if our very lives depended upon t hem. While people also tend to intuitively sense the wisdom of a low-fat diet, th e idea of committing to a completely vegan diet may 
seem a bit mentally or emotionally challenging at first. But it make s more sense all the time, and the number of vegans is rising every 
day. Slow and Steady 
Once people educate themselves about a new positive behavior and become conv inced that they desire to incorporate it into 
their lives, I always encourage them to do so as quickly as possible. Yet, you  can be easy on yourself when adopting the 80/10/10 
way of life. A gradual transition may be the best that you can hope for if you  have amassed a collection of mental, emotional, or 
habitual blocks that would make a sudden and total switchover difficult. Direction is more important than speed for most people when it comes to succe ssful transition. Imposing upon yourself the 
unnecessary pressure to make “all or nothing” changes often leads  to frustrating failure. When people stretch themselves too quic kly, 
they often “snap back” into their prior habits. By decreasing the fat percentage in your diet even one point per week, you c an achieve the full benefits of 80/10/10  in less 
than a year. After that, you have the rest of your life to reap the harv est of health that you have sown. This is not a diet program to 
be used temporarily, but a healthful eating program for life. I wrote this book to guide people to a low-fat plant-based raw foods  diet. No other program exists for this purpose. However, many other low(er)-fat plant-based diet programs exist. Some peopl e choose to transition more gradually by consuming 
fruit for breakfast and lunch, with a simple low-fat cooked meal plus a raw s alad at night. Over a period of months, the salad and 
other raw dishes nudge out the cooked components, until 100% raw is achieved. If y ou are interested in such a path, don't feel guilty 
about it. Give yourself permission to take advantage of the myriad of resour ces available to support your health in the most 
appropriate way for you right now. For some folks, there is a greater sense of urgency than for others, as he alth issues can impose themselves powerfully. If that is 
the case, feel free to transition your diet as rapidly as you can. There i s no danger in converting to 80/10/10  immediately. One 89- 
year-old man I worked with went from standard eating to 80/10/10  overnight, and never looked back. You do not have to think of yourself as becoming a vegetarian, vegan, or raw foode r to be an 80/10/10  fan. Just keep 
decreasing the fat and increasing the amount of fruits and vegetabl es you add into your already-existing program. Actual Stories of Transition to 80/10/10 
The following are actual posts (slightly edited for space) from my VegSource discussion board. From:  turtle (dialup-4. 243. 137. 125. dial1. sanfrancisco1. level3. net) 
Subject:  transition from high fat raw to low fat raw 
Date: December 17, 2004 at 8:40 am PST 
I have been doing the high fat … nuts, seeds, and oils raw food way of eating a nd would like to transition over to the low-fat 
fruit-based 811. Is there a good way to transition. I would like to hear people’s experie nces with this … so if any of you have any 
suggestions, I am all ears. I know that I am eating way too many nuts and seeds and that this has not su pported my well being. I have found it difficult to 
let go of the nuts and seeds on an every meal basis. Thanks for your help. From: Janie (66. 180. 141. 217) Subject: Re: transition from high fat raw to low fat raw 
Date: December 17, 2004 at 7:39 pm PST 
Since it seems that you have already been attempting to go cold turke y and it hasn’t been working out, it seems that 
transitioning may be the way for you. I did a low-fat transition myself a t first by keeping my overt fats to 10% of my calories or less, 
which translated to about 20% or less of the amount of calories I was eating  at the time. Later I brought it down to 10% or less 
overall. The way I would approach transitioning from where you are to a lower fat wa y would be to try to do two adjustments: 
 
I would try to eat more calorie-dense fruits 
I would also try to move my nuts or seeds eating to my evening meal only 
 
Then after that, I would work on decreasing the fat from the nuts and seeds  overall so that I approach 10% or less, more and 
more often, until I’m doing it all the time (on average). I would approach it as a transition, and be easy on yourself psychologically w ith your slip-ups (if you have them) by just letting 
them go and realizing that you have another opportunity to get going agai n towards your goals coming up as early as your next meal 
choice. You may find as I did with going 100% raw again, that the transition  period ends up being shorter than you thought it would 
be. ;-) 
Aloha. From: Jaime (ip68-4-209-131. oc.
The author views health and fitness as inseparable, while health and fitness experts separate the two and consider an individual healthy without being athletic.
What is the difference in the way health and fitness experts view the concept of health and athleticism, and how the author views it?
Increasing muscle mass increases the body's caloric requirements, which can initially lead to the loss of stored fat.
According to the text, how does increasing muscle mass affect the body?
The text mentions that common signs of dehydration include dark yellow or dark urine, urinating less than 6 times in 24 hours, and a scanty volume of urine.
What are some common signs of dehydration?
The author is critical of dehydrated foods, stating that they are nutritionally inferior to their raw counterparts and can lead to overeating and digestive issues.
What is the author's stance on dehydrated foods?
The author recommends gradually increasing the percentage of whole, fresh, and ripe fruits and vegetables in one's diet, and to avoid making drastic changes.
What is the author's advice for someone who wants to transition to the 80/10/10 diet?