Meet the extreme vegans who think eating clean will stop women menstruating and clear their bodies of ‘toxins’

Look, I’m not saying that eating a vegetarian or vegan diet will actually make you unhealthy and mentally unsound (although that’s what some of the research says…) but there are some extreme clean-eaters out here who believe that eating a raw vegan diet will ‘clean’ the body of ‘toxins’ and stop women menstruating, and you’ve gotta admit that’s pretty weird.

I first came across the bizarre concept in a raw vegan and fruitarian Facebook group, where a man had started a controversial thread asking thoughts on menstruation disappearing when the body is perfectly “clean”.

In among the “are u cereal” and “you’re an idiot” comments underneath though, there were people defending it as a concept. One woman posted: “The cleaner your blood, the less you bleed. That is why it’s called a “period” because only a dot if you do bleed. I was fully raw for three months and my period completely disappeared. I was completely healthy and my doctors were blown away.”

I reached out to Marek, the man who made the original post, and he admitted to not being an “expert on menstruation”. In the course of some confusing replies he said: “I’m no MD or something. People should interpret it as is it true or false and share the opinions and experiences on that particular subject.”

“In the raw vegan community I’ve read some articles and books that say when the menstruation stops, its actually part of getting really healthy! I was wondering myself – could it be really true? If you got no menstruation – its good, you are finally clean no sick as some one could say. Same it goes with food – if you got any problem on that diet – let’s say you crave COOKED (evil !) food or you got gold hands – it’s not because you getting out of your natural state – its because you should do more cold showers, or its just matter of time, while your body will [get] used to it.”

He later sent another confusing message adding: “One will not loose [sic] the period from eating vegan, one can loose the period while eating bad – it can happen on ANY diet, its not about veganism.”

The post isn’t a one off though. A quick search of raw and vegan communities shows this sort of chat, about “expelling the body of toxins” is popular enough in some clean eating circles. A post on a blog called “Raw For Life”, entitled “Periods – They May Be Normal, But Are They Healthy?” talks about it in detail. Blogger Debbie Took says: “Menstruation is the body’s desperate attempt to cleanse itself from toxins.”

“Perhaps periods – the pain, the blood flow, PMT – were rightly named a ‘curse’ – a curse on us for falling short of living how we are meant to live – physically and psychologically. But, as Proverbs 26:2 says ‘as the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come.’ Curses have causes. Remove the causes and the curse goes.

“When we go raw, we are going out of step with what 99 per cent of the world says on diet. In this article, I’ve taken the same path on menstruation. I hope I have, at least, provided food for thought.”

And another post in a raw food forum reads: “This is s-o-o interesting!! We women were never MEANT to bleed each month!! This is simply a consequence of not eating what we were designed to eat and becoming so toxic our body HAVE to drasticly [sic] cleanse the uterus by ‘bleeding’ out the toxins to keep the womb clean enough to maintain life in case that great event should occur.

“If you are eating a TRULY clean raw diet and not consuming micotoxic foods, raw chocolate, tomatoes fermented foods etc…, you can expect your body to be clean enough within six months that you never need ‘bother’ with a menstrual period again! I have been 100 per cent raw and teaching raw food with a passion for four and a half  years and have never had a menstrual cycle the entire time.”

Just in case you’re reading this and thinking this is mad, official medical advice says: “See your GP if you’re not pregnant – you’ve had a negative pregnancy test – and you’ve missed more than three periods in a row”. So yes it’s obviously insane.

@rosielanners