January 27, 2008

New look and fruitarianism

I just selected custom colors for Return of the Sasquatch, replacing the popular green theme it used to have. I feel like making a lot of changes. New subjects, new directions in my life.

For instance, this year I've already tried two extreme diets, though only for a few days each strictly: First, I tried a very low carb diet, meat and eggs only, except one serving of greens I had in three days. So my diet was the no carb, meat-only diet the other two days. Then with a headache from that, I wanted to try a fruit and nuts only diet, which is pretty close to what I was tending to eat for snacks last year anyway, so the argument that it's the instinctive natural diet for hominids agrees with my taste.

Some people say a fruitarian diet causes too much weight loss and some fruitarians seem to believe that and try to justify becoming unusually thin as healthier. I don't need to lose weight, I just want more energy. Nuts are 2/3 fat by weight, and dried fruit is over 3/4 carbohydrates by weight, so calorie density can be higher than any other diet, for convenient cheap fruitarian snacks.

Nuts are botanically fruit and generally understood as part of a what's meant by a fruitarian diet. A lot of fruitarians define their diet as about eating raw, living food and so might not consider unsprouted, processed nuts and dried fruit and fruit juice and canned fruit really fruitarian. I don't want to be like the ovo-lacto-pesco-pollo-vegetarians who have ruined the word vegetarian, so I don't want to corrupt the word fruitarianism with whatever is convenient to eat. I think it's reasonable to limit what sort of food is considered fruitarian to fruit that can be eaten raw, not to include wheat as some who call themselves fruitarians do just because it's botanically a fruit-like seed of grass, although no one eats it raw like a fruit. However, there are important distinctions between fruitarian and raw fruitarian and raw vegan which get confusing when those terms are treated as equivalent. Many who call themselves fruitarians actually advocate a sort of raw veganism, including almost every vegetable that can be eaten raw.

Is a fruitarian diet survivable long-term? Apparently, according to modern science, fruit and nuts are enough only if they have a lot of insects and bacteria on them to provide the required vitamin B12, which some monkeys probably get that way. The needed amount of vitamin D would be provided by sunlight. I still take vitamins, the fruit of civilization, so to speak, and I've only tried fruitarianism for a day or two at a time between eating other food, so long-term survivability isn't an issue with it for me yet.