This is a guest post by my mother, Prudence Tippins.

 Nicholas asked recently why I’m no longer a raw vegan.  It’s a complicated subject for me, and one I’m hesitant to summarize simply.  I loved eating raw food.  I did it exclusively for almost ten years.  There were so many benefits, which I feel compelled to list here again:

• a hugely improved immune system
• lowered cholesterol for my husband, Steve (95 points, which kept him off Lipitor)
• brighter eyes, shinier hair, clearer skin
• automatic weight control (not too fat, not too thin)
• a feeling of being close to God
• a consistent feeling of happiness and good will

But, as it turns out, it stopped working for me right around the decade mark.

I’ll freely admit that it could have been my own fault. There are certainly people who have been raw vegans for longer than that without experiencing problems. In my case, a certain amount of stress probably contributed to the downgrading of my health, which I’d gotten so used to being excellent.  (Again, my own responsibility.)  And, yes, even laziness was a factor. For instance, we didn’t vary our morning smoothie ingredients enough, which is likely what caused Steve’s kidney stones (blueberries and spinach almost invariably = too much oxalic acid). And we didn’t take B12 tablets consistently enough.

There are problems, though, that any raw vegan — possibly any vegan — could very well face, especially at a certain age, and these are things I hadn’t read about on any of the raw food sites. The first is the likelihood of copper overload.  Zinc and copper oppose one another in the body, so when one is high, the other is low. The balance is important for a lot of reasons, I suppose, but for me, the copper dominance arising from the vegan diet (zinc is found mostly in animal foods, and fresh fruits and vegetables are high in copper) has resulted in “estrogen dominance,” a condition that has been aggravated in peri-menopause, when the progesterone-estrogen balance is naturally leaning in the estrogen direction anyway.  This is aggravated by the xenoestrogens we’re exposed to in the environment — yes, even those of us who are aware of them and try to avoid them.

Estrogen dominance can be a factor in several health issues, the worst of which is cancer (endometrial, breast, ovarian). I have a family history of breast cancer.  Some other symptoms are weight gain around the hips and thighs, hair loss, fatigue, fibroids and fibrocystic breasts, anxiety, heavy periods, adrenal and thyroid dysfunction, dry eyes, osteoporosis and migraines, to name a few (that can admittedly also point to other issues, which can be confusing).  Soy, flax, and chia are phytoestrogens, and can arguably aggravate the issue, and though you know I’ve not been a soy eater (most raw foodists aren’t), flax and chia are often a big part of a raw food diet.

Once I discovered the estrogen dominance (which took far longer than I would have preferred, since it’s not a generally recognized condition in mainstream medicine, nor a popular topic in the raw food world, probably because most of the raw foodists are still young and resilient to these hormonal fluctuations), I set about clearing it out of my system, but I discovered that my liver was having a difficult time clearing it. I was shocked, assuming that my raw food diet would have resulted in a very healthy liver, but apparently that isn’t necessarily the case. In fact, to restore the liver, alternative practitioners (like Dr. Lawrence Wilson) recommend eating a lot of cooked vegetables and very little raw food.

Another factor for me has been adrenal fatigue, and though there’s no evidence that the raw food diet caused the fatigue, it may have aggravated it in a few ways. First (and again, mea culpa), we were eating a lot of fruit. My mantra had been, “There are no foods with more minerals than vegetables; no foods with more vitamins than fruit.”  So rather than take supplements, we just ate a whole lot of fruits and veggies. Nuts and seeds gave us the fat we needed (which we assumed was not much). What happened for me was that my blood sugar got out of whack. By the time I discovered all this, I was in the pre-diabetic range. (I’ve got it under control now.)  I gave up processed sugar even before going raw vegan. I had maple syrup only once or twice in ten years!  I was an 80-10-10 raw foodist for a while: eating 80% fruit, 10% greens, and 10% fat. I felt good on that diet but couldn’t sustain it. If I had it to do over again, I would follow Gabriel Cousens’ recommendations to eat a raw food diet high in greens and low in fruit sugars, but there are few other raw food advocates out there warning people about fruit sugar. Most of them say you don’t have to worry about your health at all if you eat 100% raw.

The thing is, it really does feel that way!  When you’re raw, you feel on top of the world.  These problems that arise are very slow to develop: the lack of B12, the copper dominance, the insulin factor — all of them are quiet and subtle for a long time.  And as with any alternative lifestyle, the advocates are loathe to examine its down sides, especially if they’re making money coaching or selling products.

To regain my health, I first had to change the fruit-vegetable ratio to get my blood sugar stable.  That was relatively easy, especially since we decided to go ahead and eat cooked vegetables.  (I found it difficult to get enough veggie calories eating them only raw.  Fruit is a lot easier to eat raw!)

We also added eggs in.  It’s common in the raw food world to laugh about the question, “Where do you get your protein.”  We would confidently talk about how humans need far less protein than the average American gets, and we’d give examples of gorillas being raw foodists, getting their protein from greens.  Well, yeah, that’s true to an extent, but you have to eat a lot of greens (gorillas eat all the damned time!) — some say two pounds a day, minimum.  And we didn’t always do that.  Not only that, but eggs contain both biotin and B12, and I was having symptoms of deficiency in both — hair falling out and very dry, nervous system raw, etc.  And then, eggs provide the zinc needed to balance out the copper.

I’ve read that there’s a new breed of eaters called “veggans,” which are vegans who eat eggs.  My former raw vegan internet friends couldn’t accept this shift in me, but I feel fine about it.  We have our own chickens again, and it’s just about as fun to raise them now as it was when my son was little.  They’re completely free range and healthy and happy, and we leave them some of their eggs to eat.  (They wouldn’t eat them all themselves even if we never took any.)  So I feel fine upholding my “vegan ethics.”

That said, I know a few former raw vegans who’ve had similar problems and decided instead to remain raw but stop being vegan, including raw meat and even dairy in their regimen.  One of my favorite raw food books was written by a woman who also experienced problems with the raw food diet upon entering the menopausal phase and had to make changes.  For her, eating raw meat has helped.

There’s also a lot on the web about raw foodists becoming Paleo — so both cooking and adding meat.  I have no problem with people doing whatever they need to do to get healthy.  The Paleo diet and the raw vegan diet do seem to have some similar principles, as far as considering our evolution (what we’re meant to eat) and staying as close to natural as possible.  It’s just that Paleo focuses on what humans ate after we discovered fire and began to hunt!  Still, though, if I were ever to consider Paleo, I’d want to keep the meat at a low frequency.  Some say that’s because as a vegan with high copper dominance, I have an acquired “meat aversion.”  I don’t deny the possibility, but I will say that with my meat aversion as strong as it is, it’s hard to discern the reason!  My body just doesn’t have any desire for it, so for now I’m going to continue to avoid it.  I feel like the eggs are giving me the missing nutrients I need.

I’m working now on the estrogen dominance factor, since that one seems to be affecting my life the most over 50 (and is potentially the most dangerous).  That means doing a lot for my liver, eating raw carrots and apples, and a huge amount of cooked veggies (especially cruciferous) for breakfast and lunch.  Lots of raw foodists warn against supplements, but I’ve got a drawer full now, and I’m taking several twice a day: mercury detox (I still have mercury fillings, plus this helps with the copper too), zinc (to counteract the copper), Vitamin C (helping the liver to flush the excess estrogen), methyl B12, MSM, iodine (for adrenal support), and a liver cleansing powder (which I whir with strawberries as a dinner smoothie — so I do get some fruit, just low glycemic).  I am making nettle and oat straw tea, as my son recommended, supporting my liver and adrenals, respectively (thank you!).

So — the problems I developed on an imperfectly executed raw food diet were mostly about the copper overload and the related estrogen dominance, though the insulin factor was also a big problem (just more easily remedied, thank goodness).  Steve’s primary issue was with the excess oxalic acid.  And we’re both deficient in B12.  I think that these things can be mitigated, if people are aware of them and remain diligent, but it’s common in the culture to deny the need for supplementation because the diet is “perfect,” and as nature intended.

That said, I still have nostalgia for my bright-eyed, energetic, and happy-happy-happy raw food days!  The allure is still there.  For me, though, right now, I need to cook my kale and eat my “happy eggs” and be a little more relaxed.