Why The Raw Food?
Because cooking takes so
many nutrients and vitamins OUT of food, you automatically start feeding your
body what it needs when you stop cooking food and start eating uncooked,
nutrient-rich foods. A raw carrot has exponentially more nutrition than a cooked
carrot.
Cooking also alters the
chemistry of foods, often making them harder to digest. Why do we have so many
digestive problems in this country? Because we're putting foods into our bodies
in a form that we weren't designed to absorb. High fibre, high water content
fresh produce abolishes constipation of the bowels, cells and circulatory
system. Obstructions are cleared and blood flow increases to each and every cell
in the body. Enhanced blood flow is significant for two reasons: as mentioned
above, blood delivers nutrients and oxygen to living cells, and carries away
their toxic metabolites.
Obesity is endemic in this country. The diet industry is more profitable than
the oil companies. Why? Because the way we eat and prepare our food practically
guarantees that we'll overeat. Psychologists tell us that we overeat because our
souls are hungry. But in reality, our bodies are hungry, even though we may feel
full. When you start giving your body the nutrients it craves, overeating will
cease.
Eating raw foods is a boost to your metabolism as well. It takes a little more
energy to digest raw foods, but it's a healthy process. Rather than spending
energy to rid itself of toxins produced by cooking food, the body uses its
energy to feed every cell, sending vitamins, fluids, enzymes and oxygen to make
your body the efficient machine it was intended to be.
You'll naturally stop overeating, because your body and brain will no longer be
starving for the nutrients they need. A starving brain will trigger the thoughts
that make you overeat. The brain and the rest of your body don't need quantity;
they need quality.
Have you started hearing about the
Raw Food Diet? It's gaining popularity and buzz, not just as a diet to lose
weight, but a diet for a long and healthy life. We eat so much in the way of
processed food that we don't even stop to think about what we're putting into
our bodies, and how far we've come nutritionally from our ancestral, agrarian
roots.
A raw food diet means
consuming food in its natural, unprocessed form. There are several common-sense
rationales for why this is a good idea. Processing and cooking food can take so
much of the basic nutritional value away. Think of some of the conventional
wisdom you've heard about for years, such as: If you cook pasta just to the al
dente (or medium) stage, it will have more calories, yes, but it will have more
the nutritional value in it than if you cooked it to a well-done stage. Or you
probably remember hearing not to peel carrots or potatoes too deeply, because
most of the nutrients and values are just under the surface.
The raw food diet means eating unprocessed, uncooked, organic, whole foods, such
as fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, dried fruits, seaweeds, etc. It
means a diet that is at least 75% uncooked! Cooking takes out flavour and
nutrition from vegetables and fruits. A raw food diet means eating more the way
our ancient ancestors did. Our healthier, more fit ancestors. They cooked very
little, and certainly didn't cook or process fruits and vegetables. They ate
them RAW. Their water wasn't from a tap; it was natural, spring water. Maybe
they drank some coconut milk on occasion.
Doesn't it just make sense that this is how our bodies were meant to eat? It's a
way of eating that's in harmony with the planet and in harmony with our own
metabolisms. Our bodies were meant to work, and need to work to be efficient.
That means exercise, certainly, but it also means eating natural, raw foods that
require more energy to digest them.
Interesting facts:
Funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the
American Cancer Society, and the American Institute for Cancer Research,
Campbell and others have spent the last twenty years studying cancer and
nutrition. This is what they found:
Protein creates the conditions for the germination of the cancer seeds by
increasing enzyme activity that allows carcinogens to bind to and mutate DNA.
Campbell and his associates found that low protein diets protected against
cancer growth by allowing fewer carcinogens into cells. Furthermore, low protein
diets actually reduced tumors. Cell clusters that are precursors to tumor
development, called foci, are entirely dependent upon protein to grow. Even the
consumption of carcinogens did not result in tumors unless there was sufficient
protein. In their tests with rats, carcinogenic foci did not develop until
protein levels reached 10 percent. Above that level tumor development took off.
Below that level not one rat developed cancer. Further studies showed that not
all proteins had the same effect on cancerous cells. Plant protein, even at high
levels, did not promote growth. Protein from cow's milk, however, was the worst.
Why have we not heard of this until now? I would suspect that the cattle and
dairy lobbyists are doing their job.
Fats and Cancer
We consume more than 35 percent of our calories from fat. Scientists have been
saying that this is too much. But they haven't pushed to go much below the 30
percent figure. It is also interesting that the Chinese in the study,
consuming a plant-based diet, were ingesting more calories per pound of body
weight than us- and they are slimmer. Why? Because a plant-based diet allows the
body to burn calories as body heat instead of storing them as body fat as do the
calories from an animal-based diet from plants provide more energy fuel than a
more heavy and fatty food animals. It is no wonder that when you read about
people turning to a more live food way of eating they proclaim they have so much
more energy, need less sleep, have fewer aches and pains-the human body likes
the lightness of a plant-based diet.