Hello! Welcome to my journal. After reading through so many other journals I have decided to start my own as I found the information in the others to be very useful and encouraging and hope my experiences will one day benefit someone else.

I grew up on a sad diet. My mom loves to cook and tends to make everything homemade. I never at out much of a kid or had too much processed boxed crap. I do not think my diet through the years was very good however I believe it could have been worse. Since changing my dogs and cats diet over a year ago to a strict raw prey model diet I have since then started to reevaluate my own diet.

I remember coming across the raw paleo diet at the time and was interested but not convinced. I decided to start adding in more raw fruits and veggies at the time and get rid of a lot of the junk food I was eating. I believed at the time that raw was superior to cooked. I started to eat my steaks rare as well. I still incorporated a lot of sad eating in my diet but my grocery shopping consisted of mainly fresh foods.

What really opened my mind was a lady that was buying some meat and elk antler off of me for her dog. She laughed as she told me how her dog eats better than her family. Here they are eating boxed noodles and the dog was getting huge chunks of meat every day. I just smiled and nodded my head but it really got me thinking. Here I am feeding my pets the perfect diet for them while my diet is hardly perfect.

So I set out on trying to find the 'perfect diet' for a human. Finding this forum has really helped clear a lot of things up for me. I completely stand by a raw meat, fat and organ diet for humans now. I am still a bit stuck on veggies and fruit. I do not feel the veggies and fruit in the stores today are close to what are ancestors would have eaten. I like the comparison of a dandelion to a head of lettuce etc. I feel dairy does not sit right for me at all and intend to stay away from it.

I have so far tried a three day period on strictly raw meat, fat and organ. The results were great. My face cleared up and my digestion felt better. On day three I felt horrible and believe I was going through a detox. Since then I have not been so good with eating right. I thought I would be able to do a gradual change but when it comes down to it that is just not my personality or style. When I make a decision in my head I tend to go forward with it without looking back. The problem too is that I find I am a emotional eater and when I allow myself the room to cheat I cheat a lot.

After pondering what to do for a bit now I have come up with a plan:

For feeding dogs when you have a dog that seems to be having problems digesting certain foods or may be allergic to something the best thing to do is put them on a elimination diet. Feed them chicken, chicken and chicken (whole pieces raw with bone) for a few weeks or until they seem to be digesting good. Then try feeding lamb for example to see if there is any reaction at all. Dog breaks out in hives then conclusion would be the dog is allergic to lamb. Then repeat the process and change lamb to something else. Slowly add in different foods and track how each different changes the overall appearance, health and activity of the dog.

I think our bodies are equipped with the means to allow us to know what foods work well with us. The problem is on sad you are mixing so many things together you can never tell what is causing problems if there are any. My plan is to eat meat, fat, marrow and organs. Once I can get those working well in my system I will try adding other things in and see how my body reacts. Sort of an experiment I guess. For example one afternoon I will eat a half a cup of blueberries and observe what happens. Then repeat again in a week or so and observe again. If needed I will repeat again and then move on to the next food item.

Now going cold turkey into this diet is going to be hard on my body and mind. If I am having trouble I will allow myself to cheat but only in the form of berries and eggs (I am not limiting myself to these two however I do not know of what else I will allow at this time).

I finish work in three days and I am spending the rest of summer working on getting my house ready to sell. After 4 and a half years of living independently I am moving back in with my parents. Sigh. I plan on leaving in a year with my parents to move back to Africa. We have bought land and are in the first stages of building a bed and breakfast there. I grew up there for three years when I was younger and look forward to returning! I want to enjoy my last year in Canada and spend it with friends and family and focus on research and my health a bit more.

I figure with not working it will allow me the time to rest for when I do detox as I know it is bound to happen. I want to try and stick to the diet as much as possible however will try not to beat myself up when I do slip as I know that is bound to happen as well. That is another main reason I have decided to start a journal. Too keep track of my eating habits and how they are affecting me. I will try and keep posting on my progress and how I am doing. Hopefully one day I can look at a cheesecake and not drool
 

I was just talking to a natural farmer and mentioned I was looking for maybe getting some beef for raw meat eating and she went into a sprawl about how we as humans cook meats to get rid of parasites and that we do not have the digestive enzymes to digest it as our digestive systems have adapted to that of a cooked diet. I kept my mouth shut and just listened. No way have we changed our digestive systems in such a short time period! She even feeds her dogs raw too. I never had a problem getting meat for my dogs when I said it was for dog food. No one ever questioned me. What I want to know from you guys is if you all disclose what the meat you are buying is for and what the reactions are when you tell them. Do any of you say its for something else... if so what do you tell your farmers. I am a bit scared they might not end up selling to me in fear of me getting sick from it . The chances of me finding a farmer here that eats raw meat too is going to be far from impossible. When I do get a butchering done too I will want all the fat as well which will be a new request for them I am sure so they may question what I want it for. Should I lie or be upfront?

I am sure you have all discussed this at one point and I am still making my way through the old topics but I wanted to get some of your thoughts on a couple things.

I have been looking to find the most natural diet for humans and what we were designed to eat.

Raw definitely makes sense to me wether it be fruit or meat but I am struggling on a few points.

1. Our teeth. Why is it that we were given the teeth structure that we have if we were meant to be carnivores? Compared to a dog or cats teeth ours are vastly different. It seems we are equipped to eat meat however is that we were designed to have as the majority of our diet or should we be consuming something in nature perhaps that is not available in grocery stores? We also seem to have a longer digestive system than most carnivores so would that suggest a diet consisting of some plant mater?

2. The hunt. To hunt a deer or other animal in this day and age is easy. We have gun power, traps and knives. What about at the beginning of humanity? Without those things how would we have been able to take these fast moving creatures down often enough to survive? Or were we scavengers and ate off the remains of carcasses from other animals such as lions and tigers? I know at one point we would have figured out how to make bow and arrows and spears but what about before that? I am not that knowledgeable on history and would love to hear other ideas out there.

thanks in advance for any insight!

Hi! My name is leah and I am from winnipeg, manitoba, canada. I first looked into the raw paleo diet over a year ago when I started switching my cats and dogs over to a raw prey model diet for them. I was very interested in it but it did not completely click for me. The other day I was reading a article on Weston A Price about Native americans and their diet long ago. It finally clicked for me.

I have seen the benefits and results in my animals and I am exited and interested what will happen to me. From what I can tell so far I will be feeding myself basically what I have been feeding my pets for over a year!

I am still reading through all the threads but I have a few questions to start.

1. Why is it that even though we as humans should be eating the same thing that a dog does that we have such different digestive systems? The dog has a very short digestive tract and humans have a very long one. Would it be because dogs would be eating more spoilt meat that humans or is their a difference in human and canine diet that I am missing?

2. I tend to get animals by the whole. A lot of the time I even do the butchering myself. For my meat I think I would prefer to get it done professionally as they have a much better setup . What I am curious about is what specifications would I butcher for? Whole chunks? Small chunks? I am assuming here that the cut of meat does not matter as it would for someone getting it to cook... or does it? Should I leave the fat attached to the meat or get it separate? Any suggestions on this would be great. I have a general idea but could use some more help.

3. When feeding dogs I feed old meat as well as fresh, I have fed them up to 20 year old meat (that has been in a freezer). It is my understanding that freezing takes away some of the nutritional value though, is there a time period that you tend to go by that you consider the meat no longer good? Also would vacuum packing it all make a difference? Is it worth it?

I am ready to go raw however I am still scared. It is a huge change to undertake and I am glad to see that there are at least discussion boards out there for help as I am not sure anyone in my city even eats raw. If you are in Winnipeg let me know as I would love to meet up and chat!

I am excited about learning much more from this site and the experience it will be to go raw. I have been trying to go natural in all aspects of my life. I have been trying the last year to cook as little as possible and my diet has been mainly fruits, vegs, eggs, meat (cooked mostly to rare or med rare), nuts and yes I often right now eat horribly wrong. I am just not one too cook so I swing by my parents sometimes too eat or my boss feeds me. It is a hard habit I will have to break. Cutting out dairy is no problem for me, my body has never agreed with it so I tend to stay away from it. Whipping cream will be one I will truly miss though. Before I first got into researching dog nutrition (an then human nutrition) I admit that I ate horribly. From fast food to packaged dinners. Now with the diet I am coming from should I switch over slowly or should I just go cold turkey. I eat twice a day right now and exercise regularly.

Thanks in advance for any help on this new process I am about to undergo and I am looking forward to the discussions to be had in the future.