Turn Off Your Stove

You may have heard the terms "live food", "living food", or "raw food". The question is, do you know what they mean? Eating all raw food is exactly as it sounds – it is eating food that has not been heated or altered in any way. This way of eating is not a diet, not a temporary means of accomplishing a specific goal such as weight loss. This way of eating is a lifestyle and it is a lifestyle that is gaining momentum and scientific support all over the world.

Why living foods? Think about it this way. Why do we eat? If you answered to feed your body, you are right. We eat to nourish the cells in our bodies so that they can perform the functions needed to keep our bodies alive. These cells are living things and we need to feed living things with living food. However, when we cook food, we kill it. The heating process of cooking chemically alters the food and destroys the enzymes needed by our bodies to aid in the digestion of the food. How can our cells live off of this?

When the enzymes in our food are destroyed, our bodies must compensate by using its own enzymes to help in the digestion process, taking up energy and vital resources that are needed elsewhere. The concentration of enzymes in an elderly person’s body is approximately 30% less than that of a young adult. This means, we are depleting our resources. The body has a more difficult time handling the cooked food and the digestion process slows down. What should ideally take 4 hours, can take up to 4 days. When our bodies are working so hard to constantly process and rid itself of the cooked food, it has fewer resources and less energy to focus on ridding the body of other foreign material such as the viruses and bacteria that make us sick.

When we cook food we also kill the vitamins and alter the minerals that our bodies need to function properly. While it is easy to think that you might feel hungry eating only living food, once you begin the cleansing process within your body, it will be better able to absorb the readily available nutrients from the raw food. Also, because living food is so nutritionally dense, we need to eat far less of it to get the same nutritional value that we get from cooked food. Eating living foods leaves a person feeling more satisfied and far more energetic.

No other animal on earth cooks its food. This is really a profound concept. There is no other animal, no other creature on earth that is as ill, out of shape, and overweight as humans are. Even the ones who live in the city environment, breathes the same polluted air as we do, and suffers the stresses created by humans do not suffer ill health the way humans do. Humans tend to want to improve upon nature, but nature was doing a fine job long before humans entered the scene. When eating all living foods, it is like saying, "I trust that nature has provided what my body needs in its entirety." In other words, nature knows what it is doing.

What about cravings? Many people believe we have cravings because there is something in the food our bodies are lacking. While this is true some of the time, much of our cravings for cooked foods comes from the fact that cooked foods are an addiction. Many people are physically and psychologically addicted to it and, as with any other addiction, it is hard to quit. There are many resources available that can help you get through the cravings and withdrawal from cooked food. A primary resource is Victoria Boutenko’s 12 Steps to Raw Foods. And if you think you’ll have to give up chocolate when eating living foods, you will be pleasantly surprised. Raw chocolate is not only delicious, it’s healthy too.

There is mounting evidence to suggest that eating raw food diet, which will detoxify and purify the system, can eradicate many diseases, cure obesity, slow the aging process, and extend the lifespan of humans. Two wonderful resources on the living food diet are David Wolfe’s books The Sunfood Diet Success System and Eating for Beauty. You may be sitting there saying, "But I have eaten cooked food all of my life and I’m perfectly healthy." The question you need to ask yourself is, "What am I comparing my level of health to?" After all, nearly everyone around you eats cooked food too and just because something is the norm, that doesn’t mean it is healthy.