Why is Raw Food the best for you?
Raw Food Deserts photo
A raw food diet involves eating mainly unprocessed whole, plant-based, and preferably organic foods. Some sources say that when following this diet, raw food should make up three-quarters of the diet.
People who follow the raw food diet believe that eating raw foods can improve their health, well-being, and possibly reduce the risk of medical conditions.
Weight loss is not usually the main aim of the raw food diet, but switching to raw food can lead to weight loss.
Most people who follow the raw food diet eat only plant-based foods, making it a type of vegan diet. However, some people eat raw animal products or raw or dried meat, too.
There are three broad types of a raw food diet:
a raw vegan diet excludes all animal products, focusing only on plant-based foods
a raw vegetarian diet includes plant-based foods plus raw eggs and unprocessed dairy products
a raw omnivorous diet includes plant-based foods, raw animal products, and raw or dried meat
The Benefits of Eating Raw
Raw foods are of better quality, therefore you eat less to satisfy your nutritional needs. The heat of cooking depletes vitamins, damages proteins, and fats, and destroys enzymes that benefit digestion. As your daily intake of raw foods increases, you will feel satisfied quicker and have more energy while consuming smaller meals because raw food has the optimal balance of water, nutrients, and fiber to meet your body’s needs.
Raw foods have more flavor than cooked foods so there is no need to add salt, sugar, spices, or other condiments that can irritate your digestion system or overstimulate your nervous system.
Raw foods take very little preparation so you spend less time in the kitchen. Even a child of 5 or 6 can prepare most items for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. This gives children a sense of self-esteem and independence, not to mention the break it gives Mom or Dad.
When you eat raw there’s little chance of burns, unless you’re in the middle of a forest fire or out in the sun too long. Just think! No burns to your tongue, the roof of your mouth, or fingers, and many fewer house fires.
Cleaning up after a raw meal is a snap. No baked-on oils or crusty messes. And any inedible parts go directly to the compost pile.
Eating a diet of raw foods can reverse or stop the advance of many chronic diseases, including heart disease and cancer. Remember, cooking creates free radicals, which are the major cause of cancer. When you lower the number of free radicals your cells are bombarded with, you lower your risk of cancer.
A raw food diet can protect you from acute diseases such as colds, flu, measles, etc. Raw foods maintain a healthy body with better defenses to prevent the intrusion of disease.
Heartburn, gas, indigestion, and constipation can become things of the past. As long as you combine raw food properly, you will soon reach a level where you no longer suffer from heartburn, gas, indigestion, or constipation.
Eating raw is environmentally sound. With humanity on a diet of raw foods, the food industry would close up shop and take up organic gardening. This would save us enormous amounts of natural resources used to produce power for these industries. Nuclear power would be clearly unnecessary. And think of how many trees and oil reserves could be saved without the need for the paper and plastics used in packaging our processed foods. There would also be fewer pollutants released into the atmosphere when all the cooking stopped and more oxygen produced from all the new orchards and gardens, thus helping to slow global warming.
Eating raw saves you money — on food, vitamins, pots and pans, appliances, doctor bills, drugs, and health insurance. So don’t waste your food, yourself, and our planet by cooking what you eat. Fruits, nuts, and vegetables which are whole, fresh and raw are brimming with life and have the ability to transmit their life force directly to you.