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As you improve what you are eating, and find yourself eating more of living, raw, electrical foods, just keep in mind that you have been conditioned your whole life eating a certain way. You will probably find yourself leaning heavily onto the types of flavors, textures, and nutrients which are so common in a regular diet — salty, savory, protein-rich, fatty, sumptuous types of foods. This is typical of the Standard American Diet and of many diets around the world.
Nuts and seeds are sort of this type of food — high in protein and fat, and complex for the body to digest as you can see from other segments about how food gets digested. Ultimately, your body’s response to having to break down these complex protein structures is one where acidic by-products are created, which creates basically extra acidity throughout the body. It also creates a lot more digestive work for your stomach, liver, pancreas and intestines as compared with eating simple sugars from fruits or vegetables.
Rapid Regeneration is all about creating an alkaline environment which is the environment needed for your body to activate its self-healing process and truly detoxify, repair and regenerate. Eating nuts and seeds in a way runs contrary to this chemical purpose. However, sometimes we zig and sometimes we zag, and sometimes in order to get somewhere, you have to backtrack a bit and take two steps forward and one step back. These little delicious fatty protein foods have their role to play and still can be considered one of the good guys and on your side.
After all, if you are trying to transition into a more healthful lifestyle, what better choice of a high-fat food is there to consume? If it is protein and/or fat that you are craving, then what are you supposed to eat? A ribeye steak? A chicken thigh? A pork chop? Sushimi? An omelette? A hunk of butter? A glass of cow’s milk? A wedge of cheese? Better than eating these options by far would be to eat some nuts or seeds, spread some nut/seed butter, or drink nut/seed milk.
You could also eat avocado, coconut and olives instead of nuts and seeds. These foods do also have a liability in that they are an extra digestive burden and can slow down detox, although my experience is that these fruits do not have as severe an acidic affect as nuts and seeds. This is a nuanced approach however — all things considered, I feel better eating a small serving of chia, hemp or flax seeds than I would eating avocado, coconut or olives.
Important to consider when eating these nuts and seeds would be portion size, the type of nut/seed consumed, and food combining. You could eat a handful of nuts at the same time as a big bowl of fruit and it would be poor food combining activity and lead to acidity and a lack of nutrient digestion and absorption. Or, you could eat the same handful of nuts by themselves and the experience for your body would be completely different. In terms of portion size and the acidic blowback for the body, eating a big handful or small bowl of nuts is an entirely different experience than eating an entire one-pound bag of nuts — you can overload your body with too much and feel the tipping point.
Different nuts and seeds have different properties. While all have carbs, proteins and fats, the ratios are different depending on the nut/seed. Nuts that are lower in protein can be considered logically as less acidic-forming. There is also the question of the Omega 6 / 3 ratio in the fatty complex of a nut or seed, with the most favorable ratio being close to 1 / 1. Many nuts though are far higher in Omega 6s than Omega 3s, which can lead to an imbalance and even bodily inflammation. You can compare different nuts in how they rank in this calculation — you would actually notice that the hemp, chia, and flax seeds have a very favorable ratio, and walnuts are not bad either (more on this in an upcoming chapter).
This segment is not about never eating nuts and in fact it’s quite the contrary. I typically eat a small serving daily of both chia and hemp seeds, blended up in a seed grinder, and added to a smoothie or bowl of fruit. This is not a big serving and probably accounts for 5-10% of my calories for the day if I were to guess. But what this does is it helps to take the edge off in terms of my hunger. I find that if I consume hardly any fat or protein and eat mostly fruits, then I’ll get all hungry and be a bit on edge and unable to really focus and perform. If I have a small dose of the blended up seeds during the day, then it completely takes the edge off, keeps me feeling balanced, and at the same time I still feel a very high level of energy.
If I were, on the other hand, let’s say to eat a big bowl of almonds, or pistachios, or pecans, or even walnuts for dinner. In this instance, I would personally feel a drop in energy. I would feel more sluggish that evening, and that my body was a bit tied up with all the digestive tasks. The following morning, I would awaken not having as much energy or zest or pep in my step. I would still feel okay, but not as thriving as I otherwise would be.
Now that the molecular and digestive qualities are considered with nuts and seeds, let’s look at things practically. As mentioned before, if you are transitioning into a healthier lifestyle of eating more vibrant and/or raw foods, then nuts and seeds are your friends. They’ll help you still feed those cravings for unhealthy fatty and protein-rich junk foods, while actually eating foods which are at least less acidic and mucus-forming than animal products, grains or beans. Although this changed over the years, personally, when I was first transitioning, I was eating anywhere from four to six 12-ounce jars of almond butter weekly!
Also, nuts and seeds can play a role after you are already cleaned out. Fruits are certainly the best tool when detoxifying and cleaning out the body. Once the body is healed up, nuts and seeds can be a good structural and rebuilding food as well.
These foods have a reputation for being pricey — that is more true if you buy them from a retail location. If you get them online, you can get a lot better ingredients with more quality and at a lower cost per ounce, in my experience. If possible, try and get your nuts raw (un-roasted) and unsalted, for maximum nutrition and benefit to your body. They are tastier and nuttier when roasted and salted, and if you eat them like that, it’s not the end of the world, but they are healthier the other way if you don’t mind.
For recommendations of specific products offering high value, you can go to:
Part of the appeal is also to still be able to eat sort of comfort foods. A large variety of different foods can be made using nuts and seeds, including sauces, dips, butters, raw hummuses, patties, breads even, spreads, wraps, cakes, crackers, and many other creations. From a gourmet raw food chef’s point of view, nuts and seeds are dream ingredients.
In my view there is a big difference of eating lots of raw foods with high levels of fruits and maybe some vegetables versus eating lots of raw foods with high amounts of nuts and seeds.
Many healthy individuals who eat a lot of raw foods get by eating about 30% of their calories from fats and proteins, and seem to be thriving and doing well. From my point of view, this is fine as long as you are okay with it and understand the consequences. Let’s say if you have completely cleaned your body out, detoxed and regenerated yourself and are now in perfect health enjoying a healthy and vibrant lifestyle. In that case, who cares? Why not enjoy yourself?
Could eating too much protein and fat and acid-forming foods eventually cause some acid build-up in the body and create health issues in the distant future? Yes, perhaps, and that is the trade-off and something that is worth having a high level of awareness about. It’s always a personal choice — get yourself healthy and well first, and then figure out what works for you.
I think the bigger issue that I notice is that some individuals will get heavy into the nuts and seeds without ever having properly cleaned themselves out in the first place. You have somebody as an example who — after transitioning from a diet of unhealthy cooked junk foods and grains and beans — six months or a year later is now eating very healthy and lots of raw foods. At this point, the individual is eating an excessive amount of dishes which incorporate nuts and seeds, and is frequently enjoying many culinary delights of the raw food world, including those high in protein and fat. They are still hoping to keep making significant progress on their health goals and solving their health problems while doing this.
The issue is that this digestive process in and of itself will be working in contrary to the parasympathetic system of the body, which needs to be relaxed and have maximum energy for your body to really achieve results with cleansing and repair. With so much of the body’s energy devoted to digesting proteins and fats, not to mention the acidic chemistry being created, then what you have is a situation where somebody is reaching a plateau, and is no longer making significant progress towards his or her health goals, or may even be going backwards.
Personally, even after getting myself healthy and well, I operate at my highest potential and seem to be thriving the most when I am consuming minimal amounts of nuts and seeds (aside from the afore-mentioned daily chia/hemp combo). This is what works for me, and it does happen to be a lot less taxing to the digestive system and a lot less acid-forming.
This is not to say it is always easy to eat in the most optimal way. I still get the same cravings sometimes that everybody does, and I love to indulge in a satiating meal rich in protein and fat. But when I do, I seem to get thrown onto a sort of cycle of cravings. I’ll feel a drop in energy that evening or the next morning, but then the following evening the next day I’m craving something fatty or protein-rich again. It’s the same phenomenon when consuming salty or cooked foods as well, as far as I have noticed. If I can cut this chain of events, and go two days with eating mostly fruits, maybe some vegetables, with some ground up chia or hemp seeds, then I’ll be cruising again, feeling energetic, and no longer experiencing those desires.
Don’t get me wrong — I like to indulge sometimes. And sometimes, it’s just practical. If traveling or on a plane or if there’s a long working day out somewhere, a bag of nuts or seeds can pack a powerful punch in terms of all the calories they store.
In terms of a natural purpose, I think we humans would consume them in nature as a way to get in excessive amounts of calories, which would be a benefit to put on some extra weight and store that energy as excess fat to be burned off, perhaps during the wintertime when we wouldn’t have access to as many fresh fruits and vegetables.
I’m not a purist or somebody who lives a monastic existence making up a bunch of rules about things. I have a big collection of nuts and seeds in my home and I have some whenever I please. Discovering the power of hemp and chia seeds has also been a game-changer for me as well.
Nowadays, there are so many diverse options of healthy foods and dishes to choose from — if you’re transitioning, lean on your nuts and seeds heavily, and if you’re already cleaned out and healed, then indulge away. Just remember if you are still on the come-up in terms of getting your health and wellness right, that the fruits are king in terms of energy, cleansing and electricity!