ADVANTAGES OF EATING RAW

The human race learned long ago that cooking meat before eating it would protect them from certain diseases. Since then this practice of cooking has grown to include all types of foods and is now considered an art. Very few meals are eaten which include raw elements, except for the leafy green salad.

One advantage of eating raw is that it brings Nature’s intentions into focus. When I speak of eating raw I am referring to fruit, nuts, and vegetables, which taste good to the majority of humankind in their basic simplicity direct from tree, bush or vine.

I realize it isn’t easy to simply abandon thousands of years of tradition and revert back to 100% raw food. Margaret Mead once said, “It is easier to change a man’s religion than to change his diet.” So to the point, there are 10 advantages to a diet of fresh, whole raw fruits, vegetables, and nuts, which may lead you to find a greater place for them in your diet.

1. Raw foods are better quality, therefore you eat less to satisfy your nutritional needs. The heat of cooking depletes vitamins, damages proteins and fats, and destroys enzymes which benefit digestion. As your percentage of raw foods increases you feel satisfied and have more energy on smaller meals because raw food has the best balance of water, nutrients, and fiber to meet your body’s needs.

2. 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 over stimulate other organs.

3. 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.

4. When you are eating 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 tongues, the roof of your mouth, or fingers, and many fewer house fires.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. A raw food diet can protect you from acute diseases such as colds, flu, measles, etc. Raw foods maintain a healthy body and a healthy body will not become diseased.

8. As long as you combine raw food properly according to the rules of Natural Hygiene, you will soon reach a level where you no longer suffer from heartburn, gas, indigestion or constipation.

9. It 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 less carbon dioxide released in to the atmosphere when all the cooking stopped and more oxygen produced from all the new orchards and gardens, thus helping to reverse the Greenhouse Effect.

10. 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.


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TYPES OF RAW FOOD DIETS: A BRIEF SURVEY

There are many types of raw food diets. A list, with descriptions, follows.

* Sproutarian - one whose diet is predominantly sprouts. Those eating only sprouts are extremely rare; most sproutarians have a varied raw food diet.

* Living Fooder - version of sproutarianism. The Ann Wigmore-style living fooder has a vegan diet centered on sprouts, raw fermented foods, and raw blended foods. Hippocrates Institute (Brian Clement) and Gabriel Cousens teach similar, yet slightly different, versions of living foods diets.

* Natural Hygiene - natural hygienists disagree sharply among themselves regarding the details of natural hygiene. A diet of raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds. The diet is usually vegan, but Tilden (co-founder of natural hygiene in modern times) encouraged use of non-vegetarian foods. Following high (%) fruit diets is discouraged by most hygienists. However, some who consider themselves to be hygienists, do advocate high fruit diets. There is very wide variation in diet and health practices among hygienists; e.g. Disagreements on the use of sprouts, seaweeds, dried fruit, etc. Some otherwise "orthodox" hygienists make occasional use of raw milk/cheese/eggs in their diet (this is discussed by Ward Nicholson in the January 1997 issue of the "Health & Beyond" newsletter). The American Natural Hygiene Society reportedly promotes a predominantly raw diet, but advocates a place for cooked grains and steamed vegetables in the diet. (Note: the preceding remarks are intended to show the wide diversity of hygienic views; it is not meant as criticism.)

* Instinctive Eating (Anopsology) - sequential mono-eating, guided by the senses (smell, and taste change = signal to stop eating). In practice, instincto diet often centers on raw fruit, seafood, meat, with some vegetables, and excludes dairy and grains. Some instinctos eat very little seafood/meat. A similar diet, the Paleolithic diet, has recently become more popular in raw food circles.

* Essene - one whose diet is based on the Essene Gospels of Peace, which claims that Jesus was a member of the Essene sect, and a raw food vegetarian. Diet consists of raw sprouts, wheatgrass, vegetables, and fruit. Use of raw dairy is explicitly authorized by the Essene gospels, so the diet is often lacto-vegetarian rather than vegan. Many Essenes use fermented dairy products, specifically yogurt.

* Fruitarian - one whose diet is predominantly fruit. As a standard, suggest using 75+% fruit as the marker for using the term fruitarian. Here 'fruit' usually conforms to the common usage of the term - the reproductive product of trees, vines, bushes, rather than the botanical definition. Some fruitarians do eat small amounts of sprouts, and many fruitarians (but not all) do eat leafy greens.

* Liquidarian - one who consumes only liquids/juices. Usually a short-term cleansing diet, extremely rare as a long term diet.

* Breatharian. Not really a diet; one who does not eat but gets energy from the air. A rare practice of an obscure Tantric sect. If you want to be a breatharian, you should go to India and try to find a genuine teacher. (This is a difficult/dangerous path - not to be pursued for frivolous reasons!)

* (Generic) Raw Fooder - one whose diet is raw foods but who doesn't fit so neatly into a category, or prefers to not be categorized. Generally a vegan diet, but can be lacto-vegetarian (those who consume raw dairy), or non- vegetarian. Suggest that the diet should be 75+% raw before using the term 'raw fooder'.

Other raw diets. Johnny Lovewisdom (of Ecuador) promotes Vitarianism, a diet that includes raw yogurt, vegetables, and a high % of raw fruit. Also, I have heard that one can follow a raw version of the currently popular "Zone diet".