811 Wannabe

Hello Everyone,Thanks to duiranrider and Freelea for starting this group.My name is Peter Berquist and I first tried the raw diet back in the early 90s. At that time there was no Internet and not much information available, so my wife and I were following Natural Hygiene.Somehow we did not get the message that we needed to consume sufficient quantities of both fruit and greens in order to be successful. We lost too much weight, felt weak and finally gave up, going back to a cooked vegan diet.Then about two years ago a friend told us a bout Brendan Braizier, the triathelete who is mostly raw. I started doing some online research and somehow ended up with Vicotria Boutenko's book "Green for Life". So we got a high speed blender and started in with the green smoothies, while still eating some cooked vegan.Finally, about two months ago, we decided to go raw, and so far so good.Then I got Dr. Graham's 811 book, and much of it is familiar from our Natural Hygiene days. However, I am just now getting mentally adjusted to the idea of eating so much fruit. Yesterday I increased my fruit intake, and was able to reduce total fat for the day to 22%.My big question for those more experienced is this: what about the cost? It seems that we would have to spend at least twice as much on food as we do now to have that much organic fruit on hand every day. Any comments?Thank you

Hey Peter! I'm glad you and your wife are giving this a try again. I have a few tips for keeping the cost down. Buy fruit in bulk. Get to know your grocers and purchase bananas by the case. Most grocers will give you a discount. Eat what's in season, buy local from farmers markets when you can, and grow what you can when weather permits. Purchase discounted fruit or seconds. Quite often I will purchase apples that are considered seconds and use them for making applesauce. I've been able to get organic apples for less than $0.50 a pound this way. I purchase my dates from The Date People in bulk. Even with Shipping and Handling the cost is still cheaper than buying them in the store. We also receive free produce from neighbors, friends, and coworkers when they end up with more than they can eat. People are always giving us spotted bananas because they won't eat them that way. In the summer we get bags and bags of squash, cukes, etc given to us from over abundant gardens. Eating this way is doable economically. Sometimes you just have to think outside of the box.

Replies

Sarah January 9, 2009 at 8:42am

Hey Peter! I'm glad you and your wife are giving this a try again. I have a few tips for keeping the cost down. Buy fruit in bulk. Get to know your grocers and purchase bananas by the case. Most grocers will give you a discount. Eat what's in season, buy local from farmers markets when you can, and grow what you can when weather permits. Purchase discounted fruit or seconds. Quite often I will purchase apples that are considered seconds and use them for making applesauce. I've been able to get organic apples for less than $0.50 a pound this way. I purchase my dates from The Date People in bulk. Even with Shipping and Handling the cost is still cheaper than buying them in the store. We also receive free produce from neighbors, friends, and coworkers when they end up with more than they can eat. People are always giving us spotted bananas because they won't eat them that way. In the summer we get bags and bags of squash, cukes, etc given to us from over abundant gardens. Eating this way is doable economically. Sometimes you just have to think outside of the box.
Crabby Cancer January 8, 2009 at 5:17am

Why don't you guys get a garden going? Lots of savings there. Plus, if you can't grow something, maybe you can trade from your garden to add variety. I find really good deals at the local flea market and farmer's market. Plus, here in Albuquerque, there's a lot of farms. Farmers will work out all kinds of deals with you personally. And then there's sites like Craigslist. You can list in the "Community/Wanted" section that you're looking for other rawfooders, raw growers and farmers. Soon you'll have everything worked out and you'll be saving a ton. Plus it's a lot of fun:)
Rosalie Esther January 8, 2009 at 5:02am

Good for you going this together! I find that mono eating is not more expensive than the way that we ate when we ate cooked vegan. However, it is hard to determine these things. My husband is a CPA and he says that with the decrease in gas (for the stove) and the food that we get from our garden and the disappearance of items such as coffee, coffee filters, antacids, dandruff shampoo etc., we have about the same or a better budget. Frederic Patenaude says that we should buy bananas in bulk - we never seem to make it through a box without having to freeze some. That's ok. Some people are going the CSA route, but as we don't want the potatoes . . . . and there is little fruit . .. . we haven't done that.

Hope this helps.

Lynn
Frugivore Freelee January 8, 2009 at 3:56am

hello Peter! Welcome im so glad you shared your story it was a pleasure to read and really inspiring, I can imagine how challenging going raw would've been without any info or community/internet, natural hygiene is where its at for sure.

That's a good question for the forum...im going to start a thread in general discussion for 811 questions...

This reply was deleted.