People are turning to eating their diet food raw.
Eating only raw food is becoming increasingly popular, and could be considered the latest diet craze. People who follow this diet claim that benefits include increased energy, weight loss (or gain if you are too thin), improved skin, better digestion, diseases prevented and even disappearing, and happiness! Many people are turning to raw food as an answer to their health problems.
People on a raw food diet eat 100% raw, uncooked food. There are many people who find this a little difficult (often due to social constraints), so they choose a 75-99% raw food diet.
The diet is strictly vegan, meaning dairy products and meat products are avoided. Wild or organic food is generally consumed since advocates say it has a higher nutrient content than conventional food.
Why Eat A Raw Food Diet?
The idea behind the raw food phenomenon is that Cooking causes major chemical changes to the food, so cooked food contains new and unrecognizable chemicals. According to raw food proponents, a cooked potato contains over 400 more chemicals than when it is raw.
Raw Food eaters claim that the body doesn’t recognize these chemicals and treats them as toxins. It creates an immune response, and produces many white blood cells to fight the invaders. It also has to find safe places to put the chemicals that it doesn’t have time to remove. This long term storage of toxins accounts for many of the diseases prevalent in society.
Since the body is constantly attacking the food as an enemy as well as defending and storing toxins, it becomes depleted.
Heating food above 116 degrees F is also believed to destroy enzymes in food that can assist in the digestion and absorption of food. Furthermore, raw food advocates say that cooking is thought to diminish the nutritional value and "life force" of food.
What Do You Eat On A Raw Food Diet?
The bulk of the food eaten is fresh fruit, vegetables, sprouts, nuts, dried fruit, seaweed, and seeds. Juicing is also a major component of the raw food diet. These can be juices made out of fresh fruit or vegetables. Super foods are also considered an essential part of this diet. These are foods that are considered to have an extremely high nutritional value. There are hundreds of them, and include, broccoli, blueberries, goji berries, and blue green algae.
There are loads of cookbooks and websites filled with recipes that made with only these ingredients. People who eat raw food say that these are the only foods needed to thoroughly nourish the body.
