The Green Diet: Vegetarians, vegans, and raw vegans

CEBU, Philippines – The human population of the planet has been shaken to its senses by recent events. Global warming, in particular, has been blamed for the many natural catastrophes in these past years. And humans are held responsible for bringing on this climate change.

So, now, people are a little more careful. We are more conscious of how our ways affect the environment, are using renewable energy more and more, are going for energy-efficient machineries and tools, and are beginning to turn up lesser waste.

Side by side with this new awakening is the resurgence of popular interest in the so-called "green diet." The need to maintain physical health and fitness has become all the more pronounced in the light of present conditions, fast urbanization and matching modern lifestyles, wherein people no longer grow their own food and the supermarket has become the surrogate provider. 

The quick, pick-up-and-go pace of our generation seems to be causing our bodily functions to skew. New ailments are surfacing. Obesity is already a major health problem. Many are alarmed and are trying to correct their ways.   

A growing number of people go for food that has no meat, no fish, no poultry, no eggs, no dairy, and even no honey. Further, they are very careful about using non-food products that are derived from animals, especially if the product had to cost the animal's life. Common examples are snake and crocodile skins used in bags and footwear.

The people with this kind of attitude are called vegans, because they basically limit their food options to fruits and vegetables. Often, this is not mere faddish habit, but a lasting lifestyle. The philosophy behind the preference ranges from health to moral values.

Needless to say, veganism is not an easy choice. It is a big challenge especially for people who don't have either the time or the facility to prepare their own food. Rarely does one find in the city a restaurant that caters particularly - although not exclusively - to the food needs of vegans.

Yet if going vegan is already hard enough to do, there are people who even take veganism to the next level, to a further restrictive version of the green diet. They are the so-called raw vegans. They are careful not to heat their vegetarian food above a certain temperature, limiting the heat within an ideal 104-to-118 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature at which enzymes in foods supposedly begin to deteriorate.

Many raw vegans even choose to simply chop, or massage, or squeeze, or use a food processor, juicer or blender, instead. They believe that enzymes in raw food are essential for health and that foods abundant in enzymes are easiest to digest. There has emerged recently an advanced version of raw veganism called fruitarianism, a diet consisting mostly of fruit, some leafy greens and very little fat.

Some people mistake organic diet with veganism. The two are different from each other. "Organic diet" means food that was produced in a natural way, without the aid of chemical fertilizers and pesticides; or synthetic nutritional supplements and vaccines, in the case of animals. Organic food is not processed using irradiation, industrial solvents, or chemical food additives to clear it of bacteria and prolong shelf life.

For its part, "veganism" is a preference for a diet consisting mainly, even strictly, of fruits and vegetables, which may not necessarily be organic, although vegans are also known for choosing organic fruits and vegetables. This lifestyle differs from "vegetarianism" in the sense that vegetarians still eat animal dairy products and eggs and only avoid meat, poultry and fish.

All of these people - the vegetarians, the vegans, the raw vegans - claim great benefits from their lifestyle. It not only brings good health, they claim, but a certain serenity as well. The equanimity probably comes from the fact that the body is more at ease, as it does not have to struggle to digest food that it is not meant to handle.

There a biblical instruction that says, "And God said, 'Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.' And it was so. " (Genesis 1:29-30) The "green diet" is not a new thing, after all.