YouTube and social media ‘star’ Leanne Ratcliffe AKA Freelee the Banana Girl is no stranger to controversy. As a passionate vegan activist, her videos regularly stimulate heated debate and she also made headlines last year over her rather bizarre legal dispute with fellow fitness blogger Kayla Itsines.
Now the Adelaide-based Ratcliffe has released a vegan 30 day cleanse called “Raw til 4” to her almost half a million subscribers, which involves eating raw fruits and greens until 4pm every day then a high carb cooked dinner of plant foods such as organic potatoes or gluten free pasta and salads.
Participants are encouraged to eat at least five bananas for breakfast in a smoothie (Ratcliffe herself claims to sometimes eat up to 50 a day) and a “mono” plate of fruit for lunch, with one suggestion being six mangoes. Avocados, nuts and tofu labelled “fatty vegan foods” and limited to just twice a week maximum. Chocolate? Ha ha, good one. (Watch: Ratcliffe explains her Raw til 4 cleanse. Post continues after video.)
Raw til 4 is not her first diet e-book either, Radcliffe released Go Fruit Yourself, an account of her raw, vegan lifestyle in 2011.
Radcliffe’s new ebook reportedly sold over 3,000 copies in the first 24 hours – but experts aren’t convinced.
“I think it’s really dangerous as participants are missing out on key nutrients,” says Melanie McGrice, a Melbourne-based dietitian.
“I’m happy to encourage a vegan diet, but you still need to get all the nutrition and just fruit doesn’t give you that. Fruit is really low in protein, calcium, zinc and iron. People aren’t just going to be losing body fat, they’re also going to be losing muscle mass which will slow down their metabolism.”
And in the absence of vital nutrients, you may experience some nasty side effects.
“After a while this can cause hair to fall out, brittle skin and nails and just have people not feeling themselves. An iron deficiency which is a concern for women in particular can cause fatigue,” says dietitian at Changing Shape, Gabrielle Maston. (Post continues after gallery.)
Foods for a healthy gut
One major concern with the cleanse is the lack of protein.
“If you’re eating vegan, complementary protein is really important. Our body relies on getting essential amino acids from animal foods, so with plants foods you need to eat a combination of proteins such as legumes and rice at the same time to get them. Nuts are a large source of these so it’s concerning that these are limited to once or twice a week,” says McGrice.
While the cleanse may encourage the consumption of more calories than most weight loss programs, that doesn’t necessarily guarantee satisfaction.
"The recommended calorie intake is also quite high for a weight loss diet, and even then is not giving you all the nutrients you need. I think you'd also find a lot of people would be unable to eat 2,500 calories of fruit and would naturally self-correct," says McGrice.
In the age of quitting sugar, the cleanse goes the opposite way.
"It's high in carbs and natural sugar from the fruits, which is healthy but not in such large quanitites. People who are suffer from or are at risk of diabetes should certainly stay away," advises Maston.
While health inspiration can certainly be found on social media, both dietitians advise seeking advice from qualified experts before embarking on a drastic diet change.
Have you tried the Raw til 4 cleanse?
Top Comments
In reference to 'Concerned Parent' ... this. Myself, I follow a semi-paleo diet, and came across Freelee/Leanne (& her crayon box short of a couple of colours boyfriend, Harley) on IG while looking for some vegetarian recipes. So I fell into the vegan world of instagrammers, with Freelee popping up as a link or a hashtag in most of their posts. My first instinct about this girl was that she seemed amateur, disingenuous, attention seeking and full of s**t. However, that is not my issue with this girl. Looking at her devoted follower's feeds was an utter education. To say I was shocked was an understatement. It literally began to take the breath from me as I looked at bowl after bowl of fruit, seeds and 'nice cream' (frozen blended bananas), and fruit, fruit, fruit. Then all the bikini shots, food shots, waist shots, food prep shots, butt shots, leg shots, tummy shots - every photo in their feed demonstrating a clear obsession with food, body image and controlling what they eat and how much. As far as I know, from much reading, this is classic eating disorder behaviour. Reading the comments in these girls feeds gets worse - they're all normalising and backing one anothers' views up. They ask one another (and worse, ask these seeming celebrity IGers with no quals or responsibility, such as Freelee) about how to convince parents of their lifestyle, how to convince and convert friends, how to hide what you're doing if your friends/family don't support you, etc. Freelee and her ilk provide all sorts of advice on not trusting parents, doctors, nutritionists, science, studies, evidence - apparently all of this is simply a conspiracy devised by the dairy and beef industries. Freelee states this is all about 'the animals', and for her that may be true (I doubt it, she is obsessed with her image and posts it everywhere she's found a medium in which to do so - YouTube, IG, Facebook, Twitter. It much easier to find posts on her self-created dramas with other YouTubers, or her discussing weight loss or tantric sex, than it is finding her posts about animals). But I got the distinct sense that for most of these impressionable young girls obsessed with Freelee and her 'diet', the welfare of animals is a very handy ruse to justify controlled and restrictive eating habits, as food, exercise and weight seems to be their focus of discussion, not the food industry or our society's treatment of animals. I'm not a mother, but I can only imagine the panic and hopelessness that parents must feel when they realise what they're up against, especially when people like Freelee are EVERYwhere their kids are. Its not reasonable or practical for parents to keep teens away from the internet and the reach of these people, who are only interested in clicks and followers (and anything that polarises and increases views of their medias) as it pays for their 'do nothing' lifestyles, where they can flit back and forth between the Gold Coast and Thailand eating fruit, riding their bikes and posting bikini shots. I am sad to say I don't know what the answer is. The genie is out of the bottle with social medias themselves, run by 20 something blokes who have zero interest in women's health or welfare), there is no incentive for them to restrict this content. Asking a government of ageing men who don't understand the internet, let alone women, is a total waste of time. Its not the realm of police. So what do we do? These self-interested, narcissistic, aggressive, cult leaders need to be stopped somehow.
I do battle with Freelee every day but I've never engaged in any form of conversation with her.
My battle with Freelee is through my teenage daughter who has an eating disorder and is now taking everything Freelee says as gospel.
What Freelee has to say is extremely dangerous for teenagers who are often vulnerable to this type of messaging, delivered in the format she delivers it in.
For example, Freelee has criticised the use of chemo treatment and says that menstruation is unnecessary.
Freelee's extreme form of eating is all about elimination. This latest idea of reducing avocado, tofu and nuts for vegans (especially when you encourage people to take things to the extreme) is incredibly irresponsible, especially as these are foods that can really help vegans reach the levels of nutrition they need to - especially when they are in growing bodies.
Being a vegan is an honourable position but being vegan properly is hard work. All of the responsible literature focuses on the need for vegans to focus on what needs to be in their diet to maintain their health.
I suspect there are many parents out there struggling with this and have come to this page as I'm searching for answers as to how to deal with this problem.
I worry that in 10 years time we will be dealing with the consequences of this diet. It has to be taking a toll on my daughter's growing body.
Freelee is also, quite frankly, a plain bully. She is a really poor role model with the forms of intimidation she uses against people who question her.
I think it's also important that she is referred to both by her stage name (and yes, it absolutely is a stage name) and her real name, which is Leanne Ratcliffe.
Have you seen freelee she looks amazing and has no issues and has been doing this diet for more then 10 years. FTR Chemo kills every cell in the body and only has a 2% survival rate if they don't die from the cancer they die from the chemo, this is proven scientific data. Don't worry to much we are closely related to the Bonobo Monkey like 98.9% its just the way we look that keeps us apart this is our closest ancestor and it is a fruit eating beast. as long as she follows Freelee to the letter she will be fine.
I really feel for you CP. I have many acquaintances in common with the banana bully and her BF and know full well how nasty and dishonest they are, and how detrimental to the cause of wellness. I've been vegan for well over 20 years now, long before these two nit wits caught wind of it, and it is no reason to cast aspersions or judge another. What we put in our body is as personal as it gets, and none of anyone's business. I sincerely hope your daughter extricates herself from their maniacal grip. They don't care about her health. They care about their pockets and the envy they think people have for Leanne's snooze fest bikini porn videos. It's B School Marketing BS at its worst.
There is no way in hell Freelee is eating what she claims.
You need to wake up and get some knowledge about biology...among other things.