Raw Foods

You can’t help but notice the glow and energy that exudes from people that are healthy. They simply radiate! In a world that is hyper-conscious of aging, weight, and depleted energy, it makes perfect sense that raw food is becoming mainstream. Living foods literally address every aspect of what we struggle with and what’s more….it heals.

Everyone has their own definition of what “raw” means. In summary, it is whole food (unprocessed and unrefined) that has not been heated above 112 degrees. It is based on foods that consist of vegetables, nuts, seeds, sprouted grains, grasses, “superfoods”, ”superherbs”, fermented beverages & vegetables, sprouted legumes and sea vegetables. Sounds dull doesn’t it? Think again. Raw food is so high on the flavor scale that the larger grocery store chains are trying to find raw food chefs to place on site in their own kitchens! We are already seeing raw granolas and kale chips becoming mainstream and being sold nation-wide. People are now paying over $1,200 a week for raw-based cleanses.

The science behind the raw food craze is simple enough. When food isn’t cooked above a certain temperature, all of its enzymes are still present in the foods when you eat them. Keeping in line with the ethos of living food, the reason raw foodists sprout their grains before using them in their foods is because the grain is protected with phytic acid. The phytic acid is what allows the grain not to ferment and rot, but once you soak it, as rain would in nature, it releases the acid barrier and sprouts with new life. It is this energy of life burgeoning from food that raw foodists capture when they eat food. It allows all the phtyonutrients and minerals to be bio-available to the body and that energy is delivered to each one of our cells…..both feeding our energy needs and replenishing the cells that have been depleted for so long. Additionally, because acidity has been linked with chronic diseases, a raw food diet is ideal for those hoping to improve or heal a medical condition because raw foods promote alkalinity in the body.

When we eat food that has been cooked, we kill the nutritional value of that food. Consuming foods that are processed and have little nutritional value eventually leads us to an internal environment of dis- ease. Our food has become so far from whole, that many of us now struggle with lack of energy, mood swings and chronic diseases. Our bodies are literally starved for nourishment.

The math is simple when it comes to food. If you are eating foods that have been sprayed with chemicals, stripped of nutrients, bleached, radiated, and preserved so that they can sit on a shelf for months or years, where then are the nutrients in that food that will feed your body? Eating these foods every now and again, isn’t the issue. The real issue is that non-foods are the common foods of today and the results are obviousl We aren’t a disease preventative society. We are a country in the midst of an epidemic that has shortened the life span of children raised on these modern foods by 10 years. In the words of my raw food teacher and friend, Andrea McNinch, “Better health is not a science problem, it is an information problem.” Education here goes a LONG way.

If you suffer from ailments, or are battling emotions, weight gain, or simply want to wake up feeling better, consider how incorporating raw foods might work for you. It is possible to regenerate cells and to re-align yourself with health, but it is an “inside job”. It’s been said a million times, “You are what you eat”. So, my suggestion is simply this…. You are REAL, so eat REAL food.