Raw Food Haven

At New Years, I gave up sugar. Of course, this does not mean that I never have sugar but I make a conscious choice to not eat sugar or sugary stuff. If you had told me a year before that I would no longer be driving up to the Right Bite for an incredible cinnamon roll (or two). It was a short leap from no sugar to Raw Food.

Leap might not describe it best because the journey begins with short steps. I stopped sugar by avoiding the cinnamon rolls and the candy and sweets and desserts that were a large part of my life. Then I began extending my sugar free journey by cutting out other sources of sugar.

I knew I had it the sugar addiction over and done with when I went to my friend’s house for a meal. She served home made beans, rolls, red wine, and fruit cocktail. It sounds healthy enough. Lentils, fruit, and a glass of wine now and then is good for you. After I ate, my heart began to pound. It was literally knocking against my chest the sugar rush was so bad.

Her beans were made with brown sugar and molasses, and the fruit cocktail was canned and she had added pumpkin preserved in a heavy liquid. The wine was a sweet wine. There was more sugar in that meal than in three cookies. I was sugar sensitive and the journey had been almost invisible. Just one step at a time.
Raw food transition would be about the same procedure.

At least for me. I plan to begin slowly by trying vegetable juicing and cold vegetable soups.

If you want to know more about raw foods, check out her Raw Food Living. Joanne Reid studied nutrition at Mount Allison University years ago and has always known the rules of healthy eating. (Now she just has to learn how to follow the rules.)

Digestion is among the most critical functions our body performs. When digestion is poor, and substantial levels of food remain undigested, these food residues can become toxic and seep into the bloodstream.

Digestive enzymes are proteins specially tailored to break down foods into nutrients that your body can then readily digest. The human body produces some 22 different digestive enzymes. Digestive enzymes release valuable nutrients from your food which are absorbed into the blood and used by your body to build and repair vital organs and tissue, to produce energy and to maintain a strong immune defense. Digestive enzymes, secreted along the upper gastrointestinal tract, help break down food so nutrients can be absorbed into the bloodstream.

Enzymes are proteins that are a component in digestion and in every chemical reaction in your body. These enzymes are energized protein molecules found in all living cells. The breakdown of large carbohydrate molecules begins in the mouth. In addition, they are protein catalysts, or specific substances that allow biologic processes to occur in the body.

Enzymes are a fundamental element of the digestive process. Enzymes can also be extremely sensitive and many can only exert their effects within narrow environmental conditions, especially to heat. Enzymes are an crucial factor in converting the food we eat into a form our bodies can use for nourishment and energy.

Enzymes and digestion problems are similar in many people no matter which behavioral, physical, or medical diagnosis you face. Enzymes are highly specific, both in the substrate they affect, and in the reactions they catalyze. Living foods retain their abundance of enzymes and nutrients. Living foods are the key to our health and longevity. In their book, Living Health, Harvey and Marilyn Diamond emphasize: “It is physiologically impossible for your body to use an inorganic mineral.”

The role raw food enzymes play in aiding weight loss cannot, and should not, be ignored. They can be integrated into a diet easily and have ample essential vitamins and minerals. Without these raw food enzymes your body is forced to create and use its own enzymes too survive. All raw food enzymes are destroyed by heat. Most raw food, like our body, is quite perishable.

Health care practitioners and others have used enzyme therapy for more than half a century. Raw food diets are also extremely high in fiber, and which is necessary for the body to perform detoxification. Today, there are many resources to help people into a Raw Food Diet: cook books, online courses, raw food restaurants and more.

Ron Russell is the owner of SunCafe Organic, a Raw Food and cooked vegan cuisine restaurant. He has lived a vegetarian lifestyle for more than 35 years.

What I’m about to say goes against much of the conventional conventional thinking about diet, especially in health-food and natural health circles, but here goes: Eating raw food might not be better for your health, and in fact IT COULD EVEN BE MAKING YOU WORSE!

Now wait, before you start writing to me telling me why I’m wrong, let me explain…

I’m not saying that raw food is a bad thing, or that we should never eat it, just that it doesn’t suit everyone. Raw Food has a specific effect on the body, and if you don’t understand that effect, you can easily make the wrong decisions about your diet, in the mistaken belief that raw is always better.

To decide whether raw food is a good thing for you to be eating or not, you first need to understand what the effects of eating a lot of raw food is, and then you need to know something about your own state of health of well-being to see if the two match up.

Let Me Explain…

One of the most detailed and advanced ways of understanding food ever created comes from China. Over thousands of years, the Chinese came up with a way of classifying foods according to the holistic principles of Chinese medicine.

This incredible system allows Chinese Nutritional Therapists to exactly match specific foods to specific people, depending on their own unique imbalances or health issues.

Raw-Foodists promote the ‘Raw Is Good’ mantra, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s common sense that what suits one person doesn not always suit the next, and Chinese medicine gives us the tools to easily work out exactly what kind of people will benefit from a raw-food diet, and which won’t.

Why Soup is a Super-Food

Take a second to picture the digestive system in a simple form. The food you put in your mouth gets chewed up into a pulp, then goes down into the stomach, where the digestive juices continue to break it down into a kind of a thick soupy consistency. Your body then extracts all the nutrients and goodness it needs, and the bit that’s no use is discarded.

So, it follows that the more like thick warm soup your food is when it goes in the less work your digestive system has to do, and the easier it is to get the goodness from the food. This is why soups are traditionally given to invalids, or people recovering from illness.

At the opposite end of the scale is raw food, which takes a lot of processing by the body before it’s in a useable state. The Chinese would say that we get Qi (energy) from our food, but we also use Qi in the process of digestion. The more Qi we have to use to digest food, the less net gain we have at the end.

There’s no denying that cooking vegetables destroys some of their nutrients. HOWEVER, what we’re talking about here is how available are the nutrients to the body? Although a raw carrot may have higher vitamin levels than carrot soup, it’s possible that the body extracts more from the soup than the raw carrot, because they are much more accessible.

So What Does All This Mean?

Raw food has its place. It is considered Cooling and cleansing in Chinese medicine. On the other hand cooked food is easier to digest, and is more nourishing and Warming.

So, if you have a strong physique, and good energy levels, with a strong digestion, and you tend to be more Warm than Cool, then raw food will help to you to cool down and detox.

On the other hand, if your digestion is poor, or if you are frail or weak, or feel more Cold than Warm, then too much raw food will strain your system, and on balance more cooked and warm food will probably suit you better.

As always, a balance is key, and it’s important that we eat a wide range of foods within the context of a balanced diet. But next time you reach for a salad as ‘the healthy option’ it’s worth considering whether or not it’s the right thing for you considering your personal constitution.

The author is an experienced practitioner of Nutritional Therapy and Chinese medicine, based in Bristol & South Wales (UK). For more information and Online Nutritional Therapy consultations visit his website.

In this day and age many people are experiencing the ill health of body, mind,and planet. Commercialism, fad diets, and rampant consumerism reign supreme and finding simple, clear, and affordable solutions can seem difficult to achieve. However, this is really not the case. As time goes on, an increasing number of people are gravitating to time honored methods such as consuming organic food, growing food locally, and utilizing medicinal herbs. Theses methods which our ancestors used for ages worked well at healing the human body without causing the kind of environmental degradation we see today. This modern industrial schism that has occurred between our minds and the physical world has resulted in a great deal of mental/spiritual degradation. Mental health has at its root physical health.

In recent years there has been a growing popularity of raw and living foods. In the past, and especially the distant past people largely ate a diet of raw greens, herbs, nuts, and seeds. Cooked meats, in the diets of our ancestors where an augmentation of the diet and the exception, not the rule. Often times pre-industrial or indigenous cultures would eat meat raw. Sushi, jerky, or straight raw meat are some historical examples of raw meat consumption. The scientific theory propounded by raw food activists is that by cooking, food enzymes are destroyed, nutrients and water content are diminished, as well as the vital life forces, or scientifically measurable bio photons within the food.

Today’s diets are largely comprised of non organic, highly processed, highly cooked or fried foods with very little vegetables included in the meal. Obesity, heart disease, cancer, and diabetes are the pernicious and “conventionally” incurable angels of death that plague our society. Ill mental health is also on the rise and no doubt connected to one’s physical health. For example, Niacin (vitamin B3) is a natural neurotransmitter regulator. By simply eating a handful or two of raw cashews or another niacin rich food regularly one could be rid of the need for antidepressants. Artificially synthesized antidepressants offer the same function of regulating serotonin levels but are toxic, expensive,and to some unobtainable. While some find buying organic food to be expensive, it is far cheaper than paying for exorbitant hospital bills and expensive pharmaceuticals for extended periods of time. A diet of locally grown, organic Raw Food is a form of health insurance, paid in full, on the front end. One that helps the body, ecology, and local economy.

There is, within us, the need to heal the wounds of separation from our earth-mother. By purchasing organic food from the grocery store or farmers market one can help heal our body/mind/ planet. This simple act leverages dollars into sound agricultural practices and local economies. Even better still is the act of gardening and wild crafting as it connects one directly with nature. Organic, locally available foods are higher in nutrient content because they have not lost their nutrients by being picked green, sitting in warehouses, on trucks, and on store shelves for extended periods. Organic. fresh raw food often tastes better and is also light and easy to digest. If you grow your own, or forage for wild foods it is the best of all possible worlds. Then your food is fresh, organic and free. By engaging in these acts, one can see the direct relationship we have with our earth-mother, and that though our efforts, we can re-engage with the community of nature and heal our physical and psychic wounds.