I ate raw food for a week

When dieting, most people turn to vegetarianism as a way to cut the calories in hope of a better body, but I took it beyond that. Scrolling through an article on dieting I ended up reading about some of the most bullshit fads you’d ever believe.

One said to eat nothing but cabbage soup in aid of weight loss. Another advised me to drink only water with lemon, maple syrup and cayenne pepper because that’s what Beyoncé does.

Then I came across “Raw Foodism” – “the dietary practice of eating only uncooked, unprocessed foods”. I decided to try it for a week.

Day 1 – Friday

Starting after a night out was the first of many mistakes as a banana and egg smoothie at 2 in the afternoon was not the hangover cure I so deeply desired.

I retched as I took my first sip and then downed it. It wasn’t like drinking phlegm as I previously thought it would be, just a mildly egg flavoured banana smoothie which got rid of my jäger sickness completely.

It took no less than 1 hour for me to regret the decision to do this for a week and nearly pass out on my way home from the shops feeling, for lack of a better word, “wavey”.

Since most of the day had been wasted in bed, day 1 only consisted of two meals, the second being a cold cucumber and avocado soup. This was exactly like consuming phlegm.

I don’t know what I expected it to taste of, except it was basically mushed up cucumber mixed with tap water. I didn’t finish more than a few mouthfuls before I was nearly sick. I would not recommend.

Day 2 – Saturday

Another smoothie to start the day, this time with two raw eggs because what’s the point if I am not risking salmonella on a daily basis?

Lunch was a scavenge of whatever raw foods I could find around the Student’s Union. There was little choice. I didn’t even get to eat the Babybels I had convinced myself to buy because I thought cheese was raw. It was a depressing afternoon.

Dinner was no less disappointing. A pepper, raw broccoli, carrot sticks and an onion are in fact not the ingredients for fun. The broccoli tasted like feet but that didn’t matter once I ate some onion because that was then the only thing I could taste for about 3 days.

Day 3 – Sunday

I had minus energy and spent the entire day in bed. The only thing I ate was an orange and 2 almonds which I found in my bag while looking for a Domino’s menu.

The call didn’t get through.

Day 4 – Monday

This was probably the most normal of all of the days. After sleeping for nearly an entire day I felt brand new and started the day with a raspberry and egg smoothie. It didn’t taste great.

Lunch was a salad, boring.

Dinner was a salad, boring.

Day 5 – Tuesday

I was running late for my seminars so I didn’t have time to make a smoothie, first world problems. I just grabbed a handful of almonds and ran out the door.

Lunch was a bowl of cut up peppers when I got home, and another handful of almonds.

This was probably the day when temptation started to kick in but after binge eating another 37 almonds the pangs subsided and I returned to my boring diet.

Dinner was, you guessed it, a salad. With an avocado in for some fun.

 Day 6 – Wednesday

 Breakfast was my final banana and egg concoction of the week and probably my life, as I don’t see food poisoning as something worth taking the risk for some extra gains.

Lunch was a punnet of grapes because if I had another salad I didn’t think I would make it another hour, let alone through pre drinks in the evening.

Dinner was a bottle of wine at pre drinks because it was a tough week and I needed some “me-time”.

Day 7 – Thursday

Waking from my Ocean hangover at around 12pm I the thought of only a few more hours on this diet was almost exciting enough to take my mind off the terrible things I had done the night before.

I skipped breakfast and just had a salad before my afternoon seminar. I may as well have ate nothing because my stomach could not be silenced.

Saving the scariest meal of the week for last in case I contracted foot and mouth disease or died before I completed the week, I ate a raw steak.

I researched the dangers all week long hoping to find anything online that would actually tell me how to prepare a raw steak to eat so that I wouldn’t die but I found nothing.

Going on anecdotal evidence alone, the fact that I was neither; pregnant, a child, an old man or prone to contracting illness and that I grow strong on the blood of animals I just got stuck in. It actually tasted nice.

Cutting the slab of cow on my plate was reminiscent of dissecting a heart in GCSE Science, and my constant questioning of my vegetarian house mate “can I eat this bit?” as she looked on in horror were part of what made this my favourite meal of the week.

If I die in the next two days I wouldn’t recommend that you try this diet.