What's so great about Raw?

Raw food, by definition is - un-cooked, un-processed, and should be organic. Raw foodist sometimes consume meat, and dairy in raw-forms, though I do not promote this type of eating. When I eat Raw food, it is Raw Vegan food. I do not promote eating animal flesh or animal by-products, though my family does eat Raw Honey, we do not drink any animal milk. Raw foodist get calories from fruits, veggies, nut's, seeds, sprouted grains, and Raw treats (honey, cacao, dried fruits, ect.).

Here's a great trailer for a movie about Raw-Food if you want to know a little more about it... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3xOU2tLl7g

When first on Raw, you have to eat often, sometimes snack more throughout the day. We ate 6 meals/day for the first two months on Raw Food. Then, slowly our stomachs shrank down in size. Really, our bodies aren't designed to take in large hunks of animal flesh and massive amounts of cooked grains, and our body adjusts to a natural way of eating, once on Raw Food. You may wonder "Where do you get your calories?", and the truth is that nuts, seeds, avocado's, fruit all are calorie dense foods. Vegetables are not high in calories, but they are high in protein so all are important to include in the RawFood diet. You can calculate what you eat in foods at http://www.fitday.com/ . This site gave me a great idea of how many calories I was consuming and helped me to make sure I was in taking enough for a breastfeeding mother.

Raw food can bring you to a new level of health, it can heal your ailments and diseases and bring vitality to your life like you never knew. What is it about Raw Food that does this???

For starters, when food is un-heated and un-processed it retains it's valuable nutrition and does not lose up to 85% (which cooking does to food). When you un-heat your food you assure the most power-packed foods full of phyto-nutrients, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and enzymes. These things are packed into fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds to keep us healthy and well. To prevent diseases (like cancer) and keep us away from the Doctor. When we cook foods, we are eating so little nutrients that we over-eat and we fill our bellies up just to have a satiated feeling, yet we fail to provide our body the proper nourishment in the process. That is why I eat so much less now, and yet I can maintain my weight and not feel hunger. My food is PACKED with nutrition and supports all my organs. My body is getting fed proper vitamins and minerals and i don't need to worry about deficiencies.

Enzymes
These components found in foods help to digest and break down the foods we eat. According to Dr. Gabriel Cousens, M.D., "Enzymes can even help repair our DNA and RNA." One enzyme called Lipase, is a fat-burner inside the body and found in Raw foods. Enzymes are destroyed when heated above 118 degrees. When you cook your food you are destroying the Enzymes, which would help your digestion -- causing your body to do a lot more work to break down the foods -- AND you are destroying more than 3/4 of the nutrients.

And that is what most of us feed our body and live on!

Proteins
Most people worry about protein consumption when they hear about a raw-vegan diet. They are usually rest-assured when they realise that nuts/seeds are consumed. But did you know that nuts/seeds are actually a 'fatty' food, and not an ideal protein source. Did you know that Vegetables have WAY higher protein levels than nuts? I didn't either... until now!

Where do I get my protein? The same food source that Cows get theirs. From green foods! I also get protein and amino acids (building blocks of protein) from fruits and other veggies. Plant-based proteins are easy for our bodies to digest and absorb, and are very high quality protein sources. Some of the largest mammals on the planet get all their protein needs met from plants and greens, and none of them are wasting away and becoming paper thin. Gorillas eat almost entirely a diet made of leafy greens. They are strong, vibrant, tough animals! I won't list all the other animals that eat plant-based diets..... cause I'm sure you can already picture dozens of them that are larger and stronger than Gorillas. Greens also have the highest percentage of minerals per calorie than ANY OTHER FOOD. Eat those greens!

Fats
Raw food contains many good fats. Walnuts, flax-seeds, Avocado, Coconut and Coconut-oil, hemp, ect. All nuts contain fats and too much fat (even of good fats) are not a good thing. To eat the most natural way possible is to remember that in nature we wouldn't consume large handfuls of nuts at one time. It would take many minutes to crack open just one nut and eat it.... so nuts and fats are best consumed in moderation. There is also the acid/alkaline balance to keep in mind. Nuts are acid-forming, which is another reason to make sure your diet consist of MOSTLY alkaline foods, and place the acid-forming foods in a smaller category.

To your health,
Kristi