Rachel,
I am very interested in the question you posed for health reasons. Have you read Food is Your Best Medicine by Dr. Henry Bieler? Or, have you heard of and read anything by Paul Bragg and Dr. Norman Walker? Dr. Walker ate raw salads with small amount of dairy cheeses and drank vegetable juices. He lived to be 113 years, at least -- I've heard he lived even longer than that. Paul Bragg ate mostly fruits and vegetables. He allowed small amounts of flesh protein foods. I have heard that he lived into his ninties and died of an accident -- but I do not know for sure.

Dr. Bieler was a famous physician who treated many movie stars. He designed an individual diet for each person on the basis of the condition of their bodies. So he put some on a meat and low-carb vegetable diet, some on diets with no meats, etc. He taught that the low-carb vegetables are the healers of the body. I don't follow the Bieler "diet" because there is none to follow. It has to be an individualized way of eating. But when we have a serious health problem in our family we start eating more low-carbohydrate vegetables. And it has worked.

Right now, because of a health problem my husband has we are eating broccoli and a hard-cooked (no steroids, no hormones, etc) egg for breakfast. For lunch we have a large raw vegetable salad and a medley of cooked vegetables and a protein: usually fish or nuts or seeds. If we want red meat occasionally, we will have lamb because I think it is still raised free range and without hormones, etc. If anyone knows any differently, I'd like to know. We have the same for dinner as we had at lunch, just having a different protein. When we get hungry for a snack, we split a large organic apple between us. (And they are large). We walk 2-3 miles each day. And we are both losing weight really fast. I've lost 9 pounds this month so far which amazes me. It also amazes us that we are losing this fast and yet our energy is staying up.

This is a low-carbohydrate WOE. And it pretty much fits the type of vegetarian eating you have been doing. We eat no grain or dairy products at all and that is what makes us feel so much better.

Dandi