The raw food diet is an easy and cheap option for overall great health. Raw foods are any organic foods that are uncooked, unprocessed, free from preservatives, additives, sugar, salt or colorings.
Raw food is food in its original state, before it has been cooked or processed and robbed of its essential enzymes, which help the body digest food and provide nutrition. Raw food is the most nutrient dense food available.
Humans have been on earth many thousands of years; for most of that time humans ate a raw food diet. But when we found fire, we started to experiment. To justify why a raw food diet is highly beneficial compared to a meat based diet, raw foodists remember their past and cite the fact that no other animals on earth cook or process their food.
Raw foods are fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and sprouts eaten in their natural state. Besides overall well being, eating raw foods increases energy, reduces weight, detoxifies the body of deadly toxins that can lead to serious illness and boosts the immune system. Raw foodists normally require less sleep and as a general rule, feel better.
Cooking food destroys fifty percent of the protein in foods and between fifty and eighty percent of the vitamins and minerals found in the natural state. Also, there is some evidence to suggest that the human digestive system is not in its prime digesting meat, which could explain high rates of diseases like cancer and heart disease. As well, meat is not a highly nutrient dense food as fruits and vegetables are.
Here's a great way to look at the food you put into your body. Food is our body's fuel. You wouldn't put low quality fuel in your car, would you? So why do people put low quality food, devoid of nutrients, in their body? Each or the cells in your body requires nutrition and the only way that is going to happen is from the food you eat. Doesn't your body deserve the best fuel you can give it?
Salads can be a big source of nutrition and fuel for the raw foodist. Since you can add nearly any kind of vegetable to a salad, you can get a very well balanced diet just eating salads. A normal salad for us consists of leaf lettuce, tomatoes, onions, zucchini, raisins, almonds, sprouts and sometimes strawberries. We then add our own dressing or an organic or natural dressing found at our favorite health food store.
Don't worry about a raw food diet taking more time to prepare. If you prepared a cooked dish with all or most of those ingredients mentioned above, you still have to cook them instead of just throwing them in a salad.
Did you know that humans are the only animals on earth which readily die prematurely from disease, as opposed to old age. That is some raw food for thought.
