Most raw food, like our bodies, is very perishable. When raw foods are exposed to temperatures above 118 degrees, they start to rapidly break down, just as our bodies would if we had a fever that high. One of the constituents of foods which can break down are enzymes.

Enzymes help us digest our food. Enzymes are proteins though, and they have a very specific 3-dimensional structure in space. Once they are heated much above 118 degrees, this structure can change.

The digestion of cooked food uses valuable metabolic enzymes in order to help digest your food. Digestion of cooked food demands much more energy than the digestion of raw food. In general, raw food is so much more easily digested that it passes through the digestive tract in 1/2 to 1/3 of the time it takes for cooked food.

Eating enzyme-dead foods places a burden on your pancreas and other organs and overworks them, which eventually exhausts these organs. Many people gradually impair their pancreas and progressively lose the ability to digest their food after a lifetime of ingesting processed foods.

But you certainly can steam and blanch foods if you want your food at least warm. Use a food thermometer and cook them no higher than 118 degrees Fahrenheit. Up to this temperature, you won’t be doing too much damage to the enzymes in food.

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The buildup of these toxins can overwhelm the body’s capacity to detoxify and may lead to such problems as hormonal imbalances, nutritional deficiencies, inefficient metabolism, and digestive and respiratory disorders.

Those who utilize the detoxification process often find it can result in improved energy levels, mental capacity, skin tone and clarity, digestion, metabolism, and breathing while decreasing joint pain, body aches and headaches, constipation, anxiety, irritability, and aiding in weight loss.

Though the end results of detoxification are very beneficial, the actual process of detoxifying can be difficult. Headaches, nausea, and diarrhea can result as the toxins exit the body.

It’s important to keep in mind that, even though you’re doing a good thing for your body by detoxifying it, you may even develop a cold or flu-like symptoms as your body works to purge the germs and poisons from the cells. Skin breakouts, anxiety, irritability and lethargy can also occur.

Don’t interrupt the detoxification process by taking any type of drug to relieve these symptoms. They are a natural side effect of the process. Try instead to get some rest and focus on the end result. Try treating yourself extra special during this time.

Sit down and enjoy a good book, meditate, or even write in your journal about your detoxification experiences, so that during your next one, you can reflect back and remind yourself that what you went through was a natural occurrence, and also how wonderful you felt when the detoxification process was complete.

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Because cooking takes so many nutrients and vitamins OUT of food, you automatically start feeding your body what it needs when you stop cooking food and start eating uncooked, nutrient-rich foods.

A raw carrot has exponentially more nutrition than a cooked carrot.

Cooking also alters the chemistry of foods, often making them harder to digest. Why do we have so many digestive problems in this country? Because we’re putting foods into our bodies in a form that we weren’t designed to absorb.

Enhanced blood flow is significant for two reasons: as mentioned above, blood delivers nutrients and oxygen to living cells, and carries away their toxic metabolites.

Obesity is endemic in this country. The diet industry is more profitable than the oil companies. Why? Because the way we eat and prepare our food practically guarantees that we’ll overeat. Psychologists tell us that we overeat because our souls are hungry. But in reality, our bodies are hungry, even though we may feel full. When you start giving your body the nutrients it craves, overeating will cease.

Eating raw foods is a boost to your metabolism as well. It takes a little more energy to digest raw foods, but it’s a healthy process. Rather than spending energy to rid itself of toxins produced by cooking food, the body uses its energy to feed every cell, sending vitamins, fluids, enzymes and oxygen to make your body the efficient machine it was intended to be.

You’ll naturally stop overeating, because your body and brain will no longer be starving for the nutrients they need. A starving brain will trigger the thoughts that make you overeat. The brain and the rest of your body don’t need quantity; they need quality.

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Even if you’re at a good weight and pretty healthy, take a tip from dieters: go shopping with a list and don’t go to the grocery store hungry. Make sure this shopping trip you can resist those Oreos and potato chips.

Clean out your refrigerator and your cabinets. Throw out the half-empty bags of snack foods. Put any microwaveable foods in a dark bag and stash them somewhere in the back of the freezer. Out of sight, out of mind.

Do stock up on dried fruits and nuts for snacking. Transform your kitchen from a processed food haven to a healthy kitchen. Invest in a good juicer. Clean out those crisper drawers to get them ready for an influx of new organic and raw foods.

Load up on fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains. If you can’t give up meat and fish, consider getting super fresh tuna that you can just sear and serve with sesame seeds and a small amount of soy sauce. (I’m getting hungry just thinking about this!)

And getting new white dishes will be symbolic of this new, purer way of eating. Get some good chopsticks so you can take your time eating. This is really fun!

Go to a bookstore and get a cookbook or a food book so you can learn about eating raw foods. Buy a big vase and a bunch of sunflowers to symbolize letting the sun into your diet.

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By introducing raw foods into your diet you will be able to attain your ideal weight, feel better, have more energy, and purge the toxins from your system. You will also rediscover the wonderful flavors that raw foods possess, as well as learn about the benefits the raw enzymes have on your health.

Summer provides the perfect opportunity to expand your taste buds and try all sorts of wonderful new produce options you’d never dared explore before.

Sunflower Seed Sour Cream

1 cup sunflower seeds
1 cup water
4 tbsp. lemon juice
1 garlic clove, pressed
¾ tsp onion powder
¾ tsp salt

Blend all ingredients together in a food processor or blender until smooth. If consistency is too thick, you can simply add a bit more water. (Adding a bit more lemon juice will give it an added zing.) Garlic and onion powder can be increased for your taste preferences.

Portobello Sandwich

1 Portobello mushroom, sliced about ½ inch thick
1 cup vegetable broth
Dijon mustard
2 slices sprouted multi-grain bread
1 Holland Tomato, sliced
¼ avocado, sliced
¼ cup baby lettuce

Cook the sliced mushrooms in the vegetable broth until they are semi soft and cooked through. Place the desired amount of mustard on 1 slice of bread. Layer the tomato slices, mushrooms, avocado, and lettuce. Top with the mushrooms and the other slice of bread. Cut in half and enjoy! See some raw foods are barely cooked.

Raw Curry Cantaloupe Soup

1 cantaloupe
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon garam masala
½ teaspoon curry powder

Combine and blend all ingredients until smooth. Serve well chilled.

So hit your local farmer’s markets, visit those roadside produce stands, or maybe even enjoy the fruits of your own hard labors and raid the garden and spice up the summer with some cool new twists on some of your favorite produce.

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Add to that the surplus of convenient diet foods that are out there that are chock-full of preservatives and additives that we choose when we’re tired from a busy day and don’t have the energy or time to prepare a nutritious meal, and we’re headed down a wrong-way street trying to navigate our way through our weight-loss journey.

The best part? You can eat as many fruits and vegetables as you like….and you will lose weight.

In addition, the natural high fiber content of most raw foods will help you feel fuller, thereby reducing your food intake. They’ll assist in turning up the thermostat in your body, helping to melt away that excess weight and nourishing your body’s cells to continue with the fat-burning process.

Most raw foods are naturally low in calories, and obviously much lower in calories, fats, sugars, and carbohydrates than the dieting convenience foods we’d been reaching for in the past.

The added bonus of increased energy, regulated blood sugar and blood pressure levels, sharper vision and improved mental functionality, and you’ll wonder why you didn’t become a ‘raw foodie’ earlier in the weight loss and dieting game.

And, once you reach your weight loss goals, you’ll realize how healthy you’ve become in the process, and the raw food lifestyle will then be your way of life.

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For the computer-savvy, cleaning is even an every day process in order to maintain an optimally-running, reliable and safe system.

We even clean the outside of our bodies in some form or fashion on a daily basis, from showering to teeth brushing. So, if cleaning is such a healthy part of our every day lives, logic would dictate we should do the same for the inside of our body as well.

Detoxification and tissue cleansing is the process of purging environmental and chemical toxins from your body. Such toxins can disrupt every system in your body.

If our body is polluted with such toxins, its own detoxification system – namely the liver, lungs, skin, kidneys and lymphatic system – cannot work properly, and these unruly poisons set up shop in every cell of our body, and soon begin to wreak havoc with our physical, mental and emotional well-being.

These contaminants can create such problems as lethargy, foggy thinking, unhealthy skin, decreased vision, mood swings, and digestive disorders.

However, by adopting a lifestyle including eating healthy raw foods, our body can conduct its own ‘spring cleaning.’ And contrary to what most might think, raw foods are actually more easily digestible than cooked foods are.

In addition, since raw foods are so nutrient-dense, they also simultaneously provide the body with much-needed and missed nutrients, vitamins and minerals it needs in order to continually perform on an ongoing basis.

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A raw food diet means consuming food in its natural, unprocessed form. There are several common-sense rationales for why this is a good idea. Processing and cooking food can take so much of the basic nutritional value away. Think of some of the conventional wisdom you’ve heard about for years, such as: If you cook pasta just to the al dente (or medium) stage, it will have more calories, yes, but it will have more the nutritional value in it than if you cooked it to a well-done stage.

Or you probably remember hearing not to peel carrots or potatoes too deeply, because most of the nutrients and values are just under the surface.

The raw food diet means eating unprocessed, uncooked, organic, whole foods, such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, dried fruits, seaweeds, etc. It means a diet that is at least 75% uncooked!

Cooking takes out flavor and nutrition from vegetables and fruits. A raw food diet means eating more the way our ancient ancestors did. Our healthier, more fit ancestors. They cooked very little, and certainly didn’t cook or process fruits and vegetables. They ate them RAW. Their water wasn’t from a tap; it was natural, spring water. Maybe they drank some coconut milk on occasion.

Doesn’t it just make sense that this is how our bodies were meant to eat? It’s a way of eating that’s in harmony with the planet and in harmony with our own metabolisms. Our bodies were meant to work, and need to work to be efficient. That means exercise, certainly, but it also means eating natural, raw foods that require more energy to digest them.

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People spend thousands of dollars on skin preparations to make your skin look vibrant and glowing. They’re all topical products – products that we put on top of our skin. But if we spent just a fraction of the money we spend on these preparations on RAW FOODS, we’d begin to see an immediate change in the texture of our skin.

When you eat raw foods, you put more of the essential vitamins and amino acids your body needs into it. You’re also adding moisture – naturally. Raw foods have a much higher moisture content than cooked foods, simply because the cooking process takes out so much essential moisture.

Your skin is a mirror of what’s going on in the rest of your body. And when your organs and blood are fed the nutrition they need to function properly, that shows in your skin. Get your vitamins and moisture from foods like apples and carrots. When you do, then phrases like “inner beauty” and “inner glow” will be applied to YOU. Your skin is what’s presented to the rest of the world and healthy, glowing skin makes the best first impression.

You’ll have so much more energy for your work, your friends, and your family. And this kind of energy is a self-perpetuating thing.

You don’t need self-help books and expensive moisturizers and plastic surgery. When your body and skin are getting their essential nutrition with raw, uncooked foods, you’ll look and feel your best, NATURALLY!

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Nutrition is about what the food is all about, the amount we need, its function, and the basic materials we need for our body in order for it to continue on with its daily activities. By knowing how to take care of our body through nutrition, we can maintain its high performance levels instead of being unable to because of the low levels.

When we eat meals, it is important to understand that we should not mix raw food with cooked food, as this will produce acid in the stomach. This acid does not mix well with the raw food and will create indigestion.

Another thing to think about is when eating raw fruits and vegetables, we should try to stay with organic foods due to the amount of pesticides that are usually on the non-organic foods.

Foods in different categories that are mixed together can cause an imbalance in the body. For example: when we eat a meal high in both fats and simple carbohydrates, we become tired and exhausted while we develop muddled thinking.

The reason is our tissue is not receiving enough oxygen. Carbohydrates are simple and complex: simple carbohydrates should be totally eliminated while complex ones are very beneficial for us. Fresh fruits and vegetables produce elimination while vitamin D milk and cheese counter it.

When we send mixed messages to our body because of our lack of knowledge about its nutrition, it causes disorder and disease.

When we go for periods of time in-between meals, the body becomes very active and more alert when food is not consumed. It is believed that three hours or more is adequate between meals before another meal should be eaten.

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