Regardless of location, language or culture, I have observed hundreds of people from all walks of life touch on mental and emotional breakthroughs, creative inspiration and a renewed outlook on life just by steadily increasing the fresh foods in their diet. Witnessing and partaking in this avenue of the human experience in different cultures has shaped my humble understanding about who we are and how people can consistently heal, not to mention elucidate great ideas of what we can become.
In an era where artificiality encroaches upon the core of modern consciousness, I am grateful to consistently partake in personal aspects of peoples’ food choices and see them make conscious strides in their lives. By ‘conscious strides’ I do not only mean in terms of people achieving their very real health goals such as weight loss, luminous skin or slowing the rapid turnover of cancer cells, but also the genuine excitement and sense of authenticity that is a consequence of repairing one’s body from within.
Science proves that cooking foods destroys the nutrition and enzymes and also changes the composition of foods, turning them into free-radicals, carcinogens, and poisons that are believed to be the causes of many diseases ranging from asthma and allergies and arthritis to cancers, diabetes and heart diseases. Heating foods above 118 degrees F (40 C) is believed to destroy important enzymes necessary for proper health and digestion. Eating a diet that is at least 75% raw can help eliminate the toxins you consume from eating cooked foods. It’s also important to choose organic foods. Raw, organic whole food are grown in well maintained soil that is not depleted and stripped of it’s goodness like commercial foods you find in our grocery stores making them 80% to 300% more nutritious.
And organic foods do not contain the pesticides and chemicals which can be dangerous to our health. Also consider the Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) that pass for food. They carry huge health risks.
Most people who decide to go raw choose to go the vegan route, meaning they do not eat animal products. If you are choosing a raw food lifestyle because you are healing your body, it’s best to eliminate animal products, at least while you heal. Let’s discuss dairy. First of all, humans are the only animals in the world who consume another mammal’s milk, or continue drinking it after our younger years. More people in this world cannot handle milk than can. Between the ages of 2-5, our bodies actually stop producing the enzyme that helps break down the lactose in milk. Since that enzyme is missing, once it hits our colon, it just hangs around and ferments. This causes many problems including mucus, digestive problems and allergies, not to mention bloating and cramping.
There are so many reasons why eating meat is not good for you, but I’ll touch on the basics and leave out ethical and environmental reasons in this article. There have been studies and reports that suggest that the human body is not designed to digest meat. We haven’t always consumed meat, otherwise we would have sharp and pointed, meat-eating teeth. Instead we have flat, plant-eating teeth. Then factor in the drugs and antibiotics meat is loaded with because of the factory and farm conditions. Cows, chickens and pigs are the most medicated living, breathing creatures on earth!(Newsweek) They’re even given drugs to relieve stress due to overcrowding, and 20% of chickens die from stress or disease anyway.
Being on a raw food diet and not consuming meat does not mean you’ll be lacking protein in your diet. You do not need meat to get all the protein you need. Just look at the size of a gorilla, or a cow. Their muscles and mass come from plant based proteins and in the case of the gorilla, fruit as well. Good sources of protein are sprouts, nuts, seeds, avocados, coconuts, leafy greens like romaine, spinach, broccoli, and chard. Nutritional yeast is a powdery substance that has a cheesy taste and can be added to salads and raw soups and other recipes. It’s full of protein, B vitamins and amino acids.
Now a note on pH levels in the body. pH stands for potential hydrogen and it refers to number of hydrogen ions in the blood in reference to the body. The pH scale is numbered from 0 to 14 with 7 being neutral. The lower the number, the more acidic it is. A healthy body is more alkaline. Cooked and processed foods become acid-forming and therefore cause the body to become more acidic, which is the cause of diseases. Raw foods are alkaline forming and therefore serve your body much better.
These are the basic reasons a raw food lifestyle is embraced by many. It promotes weight loss, and encourages the body to heal from a variety of diseases and you will be amazed at how good you start to feel in a very short time, especially if you have been eating a Standard American Diet full of chemicals and processed ingredients. As the saying goes, you are what you eat, and eating raw and living foods bring your body back to life, clears the brain fog and gives you energy, lifts depression and since it’s so much more nutritionally dense, you’ll be satisfied with less food.
I’m eating raw but use also animal products. I can’t stop eating egg yolks and I’m also thinking of putting some meat in dehydrator