Why Raw Food?

What is Raw Food (also called "living food")?

Plant-based foods in their original, un-heated state are considered raw & alive. Raw food includes fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds in their natural state, grains and legumes in sprout form, seaweeds, microalgae, and fresh juices. People who get 75% or more of their diet from raw plant foods are generally called "raw foodists" or "raw vegans."

What's So Great About Raw Food?

Some of the benefits of eating raw include:

• Increased energy and vitality.
• Fewer illnesses and a stronger immune system.
• Raw food provides the maximum amount of energy with the least bodily effort. The body digests and metabolizes raw food easier and faster than cooked food. This means increased energy and vitality for you, since less effort is required for digestion and elimination.
• When eating a diet composed entirely of raw foods, most people obtain (and maintain!) their ideal weight. Many people are initially attracted to eating raw, because of its ability to assist in weight loss.
• Most raw foods are alkalinizing (they create an alkaline state inside the body, instead of an acid state). Healthy, normal PH of the human body is 7.4 – 7.5 which is alkaline, and the body goes through ENORMOUS lengths to maintain this PH level. Acid build-up in the body from over-eating meat, sugar, and processed, refined carbohydrates suppresses the body's energy production and immunity, and ultimately leads to disease. An internal enviornment that is too acidic can cause clogged arteries, heart disease, and cancer, among other illnesses. (Learn more about the PH of the body and its effect on health.)
• Many raw foodists claim they require less sleep at night. The blood goes through dialysis (purification) at night, and normally, the cleaner your blood, the less sleep is required.
• Research shows that living foods have healing qualities that can alleviate many illnesses including low energy, allergies, digestive disorders, weak immune system, high cholestrol, candida, arthritis, and obesity.

What's Wrong With Cooked Food?

Cooking changes the chemical composition of food. Once cooked, food can lose up to 85 percent of its nutritional value. Cooked food is usually denatured, demineralized, and devoid of live enzymes. (Learn more about the importance of enzymes.)

Foods that have been heated have lost most of their life force, (this can be seen with Kirlian photography) and their beneficial enzymes are depleted or destroyed. The digestive system has to work harder and longer to process cooked food to get nutrition & energy from it.

Learn More About the Effect Cooking Has on Food

• American Holistic Health Association comments on cooked food.
• Dr. Emily Kane writes about the differences between raw versus cooked food.
• An earlier blog post about the effects of cooked food and your body's response.
• Important differences between cooked food & raw food

For more information about raw food, be sure to read Raw Food 101 and David Wolfe's article Why Raw Foods. You can also explore Recommended Raw Food Books.

Another excellent resource is Raw Food Explained, which discusses eating, nutrition, sleep, digestion, food combining, and the health of the blood. This site is extremely comprehensive, and includes well-researched information on nutrition and holistic health.

How to Get Started

You can start improving your health today by incorporating more raw fruits and vegetables into your diet. Eliminating refined sugar, alcohol, caffeine, processed foods, and foods containing artificial coloring, flavoring and preservatives will also greatly improve your health.

Try to eat as naturally as possible. This means avoiding packaged and processed foods, and instead, eating fresh, living food harvested from the earth.