Raw Vegan Diet: What You Need to Know
Diet & NutritionPlant-Based Diets

Raw Vegan Diet: What You Need to Know

Raw Vegan Diet: What You Need to Know
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Updated on February 3, 2026
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This eating plan is considered a fad diet. Fad diets often promote quick weight loss that is unsustainable and may severely restrict what you eat. They may be harmful and generally do not have long-lasting health benefits. Talk to your healthcare provider before making any major changes to how you eat.

A raw vegan diet is a cross between a raw diet and veganism. Instead of meat, animal products, and processed foods, the diet is filled with fruit, vegetables, sprouted grains, sprouted legumes, raw nuts, and seeds, says Summer Yule, RDN, a nutritionist in Hartford, Connecticut.

A regular vegan diet can seem restrictive enough, so why might someone decide to make it even more extreme? “They may be motivated by varying health, spiritual, or environmental concerns,” Yule says.

How Does a Raw Vegan Diet Claim to Work?

To get a raw vegan diet, you take a vegan diet — meaning no animal products, like meat, dairy, fish, eggs, and cheese — and then consume only foods that haven’t been cooked or heated above 118 degrees F.

Raw vegan diets tend to involve consuming raw foods at least 75 percent of the time, while sometimes raw foods make up an even higher percentage of the diet.

The idea behind eating raw is to preserve as many nutrients in your food as possible. “Some micronutrients are lessened or destroyed through cooking,” Yule says. For instance, research has found high temperature cooking methods like steaming can significantly reduce the vitamin C in many vegetables.

By prioritizing fresh fruits and vegetables, the diet aims to provide ample amounts of vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients that could help prevent conditions like heart disease, obesity, and some types of cancer.

What Can You Eat on a Raw Vegan Diet?

Because no steaming, roasting, or sautéing is allowed on a raw vegan diet, keep in mind all the foods you’ll consume will be either cold, room temperature, or lukewarm.

Foods to Include

  • Raw fruits
  • Raw vegetables
  • Soaked, sprouted, and uncooked grains like quinoa and wheat berries
  • Sprouted legumes, such as lentils
  • Raw (not roasted) nuts and seeds
  • Almond milk made with raw almonds
  • Raw nut and seed butters
  • Certain cold-pressed oils, as some are heated above 118 degrees F
  • Sweeteners like raw agave syrup and stevia

Foods to Avoid

  • Coffee
  • Cooked grains, such as rice
  • Meat
  • Cheese
  • Eggs
  • Dairy products, including yogurt and milk
  • Pasta
  • Ultraprocessed and prepackaged foods such as chips, cookies, and cake
  • Honey

Potential Benefits of a Raw Vegan Diet

Raw vegan diets come with a few potential upsides, although they may not be all that sustainable. While more research on standard vegan diets exists, there isn’t as much evidence to confirm the benefits of a primarily raw vegan diet.

Take weight loss, for example. If you’ve been eating a traditional Western diet, you’ll probably see the number on the scale drop when you go raw vegan.

 But if you stop following the diet, it’s likely that you’ll regain that weight.
Limited research also suggests that some raw vegan foods contain high amounts of polyphenols, vitamin C, carotenoids, and other antioxidants that may reduce your risk of chronic disease.

In addition, a review of research on the effects of raw vegan diets connected the diet to lower cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood pressure, meaning it could help lower some risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

Potential Risks of a Raw Vegan Diet

Despite how it may seem at first glance, raw vegan diets can come with some health setbacks:

  • Excessive Weight Loss Raw vegan diets are linked to underweight body mass index in some adherents. Amenorrhea, or loss of one’s menstrual period, can also occur as a result of malnourishment or losing too much weight on the diet.

  • Missing Nutrients Boosted by Cooking Although cooking depletes certain nutrients, it can actually make others, such as lycopene (commonly found in tomatoes), easier for your body to absorb.

     Heat may also boost antioxidant activity in vegetables like spinach and leeks.

  • Potential for Disordered Eating The diet is so restrictive that you may end up eating significantly fewer calories and less food, including some good-for-you cooked foods like roasted vegetables. Diets with this level of restriction may increase your risk of developing an eating disorder.

  • Nutritional Deficiencies This diet can also sometimes lead to nutritional deficiencies. Yule says that people who follow a raw vegan diet have a higher risk of developing vitamin B12 and calcium deficiencies. You may also miss out on protein, vitamin D, and iodine.

  • Social Isolation Strictly following a raw vegan diet can make it much harder to eat out and socialize, especially if you’re prioritizing a higher percentage of raw foods over cooked ones in your diet.

Is a Raw Vegan Diet Right for You?

While a raw vegan diet could provide high amounts of some nutrients and will likely result in weight loss at first, the level of restriction can make it difficult to follow long term. You may also run the risk of becoming deficient in other nutrients or losing interest in the few available meal options.

Because a raw vegan diet is so restrictive, Yule doesn’t typically recommend it. “I’d recommend checking in with a registered dietitian if you are interested in this diet,” Yule says. “Dietitians can help create a diet plan with you to ensure that you are getting all of the essential nutrients.”

The Takeaway

  • Raw vegan diets involve cutting out all animal products and eating mainly uncooked foods.
  • While high in some nutrients, a raw vegan diet can cause deficiencies in other nutrients like vitamin B12 and vitamin D.
  • Most dietitians don’t recommend a raw vegan diet because it can be difficult to follow and it significantly limits healthy food options.

FAQ

What does it mean to follow a raw vegan diet?

A raw vegan diet involves avoiding all animal products, including meat, dairy, fish, eggs, and cheese, while also consuming mostly foods that haven’t been heated — steamed, roasted, or sautéd — above 118 degrees F.

While the diet comes with plenty of fiber, thanks to the large amounts of fruits and veggies, you can still become deficient in other necessary nutrients when eating raw vegan.

You could be — eating this way is restrictive and can make it harder to get enough protein, vitamin B12, vitamin D, calcium, iron, zinc, and iodine. It’s a good idea to work with a registered dietitian to plan meals.

You risk being deficient in key nutrients. Additionally, raw vegan diets may limit your food options, make it difficult to feel full, find a dish when dining out, and stick with the diet for the long term.

Resources We Trust

EDITORIAL SOURCES
Everyday Health follows strict sourcing guidelines to ensure the accuracy of its content, outlined in our editorial policy. We use only trustworthy sources, including peer-reviewed studies, board-certified medical experts, patients with lived experience, and information from top institutions.
Resources
  1. Raw Food Diet: Is It Healthier? Cleveland Clinic. January 11, 2021.
  2. Pahlavani N et al. The Effects of a Raw Vegetarian Diet From a Clinical Perspective; Review of the Available Evidence. Clinical Nutrition Open Science. June 2023.
  3. Kosewski G et al. The Impact of Culinary Processing, Including Sous-Vide, on Polyphenols, Vitamin C Content and Antioxidant Status in Selected Vegetables — Methods and Results: A Critical Review. Foods. May 2023.
  4. Increasing Fruit and Vegetable Consumption to Reduce the Risk of Noncommunicable Diseases. World Health Organization. August 9, 2023.
  5. Dumbrava D et al. Antioxidant and Nutritional Characteristics of Some Raw Vegan Appetizers Based on Vegetables. Journal of Agroalimentary Processes and Technologies. February 2025.
  6. Zujko ME et al. Dietary Antioxidants and Chronic Diseases. Antioxidants. February 2023.
  7. Abraham K et al. Nutritional Intake and Biomarker Status in Strict Raw Food Eaters. Nutrients. April 2022.
  8. Cui W et al. Structure Changes and Carotenoids Release of Tomato During In Vitro Dynamic Digestion: Effect of Heating and Oil Addition. Food Chemistry. February 2025.
  9. Idug T et al. Investigation on the Effects of Cooking Methods on Anti-inflammatory and Antioxidant Activities of Five Mostly Consumed Vegetables in Winter. International Journal of Agriculture, Environment, and Food Sciences. March 2022.
  10. Habib A et al. Unintended Consequences of Dieting: How Restrictive Eating Habits Can Harm Your Health. International Journal of Surgery Open. November 2023.
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