It's been a while since I wrote, but thanks to fellow vegan , Inspired by his post on one of my favorite wonderful fruits, the humble yet robust Watermelon, here I am :) - I did do a post with 30 Benefits to a Raw Vegan Diet already.
Though fruit's been a major (about 50%) part of my diet for a number of years now, and I like to explain to people the health benefits of eating a lot of fruit instead of processed junk, there were some surprising facts in this post that really surprised me and gave me even more ammo to argue for my cause of eating more whole foods and less dead animal carcuses and factory made garbage that are staples of the Standard American Diet.
Enough Protein to go Around
I knew watermelon had protein. That's a simple attack the ignorant use against any vegan diet is "where do you get your protein bro?", well as a matter of fact all fruit has protein! Even something like watermelon [7% protein], and pineapple [4% protein] as two easy examples.
As you can see, just 1,400 kCalories worth of watermelon has 30g of protein! A level I think is enough for a normal person's daily consumption. These high protein recommendations (remember the FDA doesn't even have a recommended protein level) are exaggeratingly wrong, and even dangerous - decreasing the lifespan of many body builders.
Here's a vegan with much experience experimenting with diets of high fat, high protein and high carb doing more pushups than another vegan who emphasizes protein.
Below is Vegetable Police's 60 pushups contest
Still don't think 30g is enough? Watch SixPackAbs.com explain a study showing there was no difference in muscle building for people consuming 0.61g of protein per kG of body weight vs those consuming twice as much. And remember, these are body builders! If you're not a body builder do you even need to worry about protein at all?. This amount would be around 30g for a small vegan at 120lb and just 40g for someone 160lb.
See at 2 minutes for the key information
The only difference elementally (literally) between Carbohydrates, Fats and Protein is that protein has Nitrogen whereas fat/carbs only have carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Proteins are more complex and harder to digest. It's also common sense that protein needs to be broken down and restructured before it can even be made into muscle. What do you think is better for you, the original building blocks of amino acids or your body having to breakdown fully structured proteins i.e. animal protein especially? - I was glad to learn in () post that watermelons "are a complete protein--containing all of the essential amino acids necessary for human protein synthesis."
In conclusion, I'd like you to remember this one, there is no protein deficinecy. Look at human breastmilk which is less than 1% protein by weight and only 7% of calories, making it about equivalent to the amount in fruit!
No Deficiencies come from Being Raw Vegan!
In addition to getting enough protein, there is no scientific proof that you'll be deficient of anything on a raw vegan diet. I think where most people doubt it is just because they don't know anyone in their life's who are raw vegan...yeah because in the Western Lifestyle it's hard to turn down all the choices! So almost no one can be that strict until they need to be to cure a drastic health condition such as cancer.
Here is Mic the Vegan debunking the recent hubbub about Vitamin A from plants not being adequate nutrition for humans and therefore an attack to convince people to not be vegan
He also goes on to exemplify how much vitamins and minerals are actually in plants
(TL;DW - way more than animal products).
I wish we could convince all the naysaying hardcore omnivores in one fell swoop but we can't. Instead, information runs slow (but the trend is there) and we're fighting the battle of people overeating on convenient food. For those ready to take the plunge, I recommend checking out the official source of one of the most popular healthy diets these days is called the 80/10/10rv or 80-10-10 Raw Vegan Diet which stands for getting your daily calories as 80% carbs, 10% protein and 10% of fat.