Raw Food - Eating for Health

Real Food

The average American diet is skewed toward processed “foods” primarily comprised of cheap carbohydrates (grains) and laden with hydrogenated seed oils, sugar or artificial sweeteners and unpronounceable chemical additives. These foods are designed to encourage overindulgence and are often devoid of true nutritional value. Choosing raw nutrient dense locally produced food can help you live healthier, happier, and longer lives.

Now, I am no purist. Homemade chocolate chip cookies or banana pudding with nilla wafers are irresistibly tempting for me. But I also enjoy a mixed salad with unique ingredients like arugula, mache, mizuna, tatsoi, claytonia, cold roasted beets and so forth. My boys would ask me if we were eating weeds when they were little (they were devastated when they realized that broccoli wasn’t really a little tree). Oh well, they ate it.

 For years, nutritionists have categorized foods into groups — meats, grains, legumes, fruits, etc. — and by now we’re all familiar with the USDA’s “food pyramid.” (In my humble opinion absolute garbage that is designed to promote Big AG, but that’s another discussion). There is another way of thinking about and categorizing the foods we eat, a way that may offer much more meaning and value than our more traditional distinctions: What if we thought about foods in terms of whether they are alive and produced in a superior and fertile soil that promotes nutrient density?

This distinction between living and dead foods may be unfamiliar to most of the American public, but to many of today’s forward thinking nutritional experts, it is a very real and important one. In fact, many nutritionists have long insisted that eating a diet rich in raw and other “live” foods is the single most important thing you can do to improve and preserve your health.

 Live foods are foods that are consumed fresh in a condition as close as possible to their original, vibrant, living state. Consider the difference between crisp red apples and beige, jarred applesauce; between green, ripe avocados and grayish, reconstituted guacamole dip; between a piece of salmon sashimi and a frozen fish stick; between sweet corn on the cob and a box of cornflakes. You get the picture.

The basic idea behind all living foods is the same though: retaining the very best that natural foods have to offer, including live enzymes, antioxidants, pure water filtered by the structure of the plant and micronutrients. These constituents depend on soil health which is defined as the continued capacity of soil to function as a vital living ecosystem that sustains plants, animals, and humans.

Healthy soil:

• Is loose, friable, and well-drained
• Is approximately 45% minerals, 25% water, 25% air and 5% organic matter
• Has good structure and texture, plenty of nutrients and a pH between 5.5 and 7.5
• Has large numbers and types of organisms 

What does healthy soil do?

• Cycles nutrients, making them available to plants
• Provides a healthy rooting environment
• Creates habitat for diverse plants, animals, and microbes living in and above the soil
• Minimizes leaching of nutrients into ground and surface water
• Minimizes run-off and erosion
• Maximizes water-holding capacity so water enters the soil and is available for plant growth
• Absorbs and filters excess nutrients, and pollutants so water does not carry contaminants to groundwater or surface water
• Provides a stable foundation for structures

Do you have healthy soil? Do you have a farm source that encourages the creation and maintenance of healthy soil that produces superior produce?

There are many indicators of healthy soil:

• Productive, good-looking plants 
• Earthworms and other organisms
• Water that penetrates easily 
• Soil that is easy to work  

The living component of soil is referred to as the soil food web and includes microscopic bacteria, algae, fungi, and protozoa; more complex life forms like nematodes and micro-arthropods, and visible creatures such as earthworms, insects, and small vertebrates. 

Naturally occurring enzymes, minerals and nutrients  found in living plant cells are all vital to our health, and most experts agree they can never be sufficiently replaced by supplements and powders.

Live foods are treasure troves of living enzymes, phytonutrients, minerals and other compounds that are essential to proper digestion, absorption, elimination, immunity and health.

Unfortunately, virtually none of these delicate entities can survive temperatures greater than 116° Fahrenheit (most enzymes start to degrade at about 106°), so they are generally destroyed by the heat of cooking and most commercial processing.

People who try to include a large percentage of live foods in their diets often notice rapid and dramatic results including leaner, stronger physiques, higher energy levels and better athletic endurance.

Live foods experts say all these benefits stem from a simple synergy. Live foods naturally contain more nutrients, but they also contain enzymes and other components that naturally enable our bodies to optimally process those nutrients.

The enzymes in live foods act very much like catalytic converters for general digestion, helping our bodies to properly absorb and eliminate even the cooked and other processed, non-live foods we consume. Most live foods are also high in fiber. So, eating live foods helps your system make better use of virtually every healthy thing you eat, while also running damage control on the not-so-healthy stuff you gobble down.

Eating more live foods can help your metabolism hum along at peak efficiency while saving your system from getting bogged down in toxic waste. By the same token, a person who does not eat enough live foods is much more likely to suffer from low energy, excessive weight, skin problems, food allergies, heartburn and intestinal distress.

Without live foods to help break up and move the dead foods along, these hard-to-digest items can easily decompose and turn toxic in the intestine, causing the body all kinds of harm.

Moreover, without enzymes, no vitamins or minerals can accomplish their nutritive missions. As a result, a diet too laden with dead foods and too lacking in living ones can lead to malnutrition (regardless of how much a person eats). A nutrient rich diet is more satisfying and helps to curb hunger. Subsequently, malnutrition can cause illness, compromise immunity and hamper your life.

So, by now you are probably looking for some simple ways to incorporate more living foods into your diet (without moving to a hut in Costa Rica, freaking out your friends or scaring your children).

One way is to think green. Experts say that green, leafy vegetables such as spinach, kale, romaine lettuce, arugula, collards, turnip and mustard greens and swiss chard are great sources of living phytochemicals. They are also great complements to any meal.

 he healthiest way to enjoy these foods is as a first course. Leafy greens can be digested quickly if eaten on an empty stomach, or along with other healthy vegetables such as tomatoes, carrots, celery, sprouts, peppers, onions, cilantro, radishes and other fresh salad ingredients.

 An exception is cucumber or any other fruit from the melon family. These are known to create a chemical “conflict” in the stomach that slows digestion. (That’s why cukes cause some people to burp.) But eaten alone, both melons and cucumbers are highly digestible and extremely healthful.

Fresh fruit is another great way to add living foods to your diet. Nothing is faster (or better for you) than a simple breakfast of fresh fruit. Whether oranges, plums or pineapples, fruit provides a healthy dose of natural simple sugars and fiber along with the natural enzymes and vitamins your body needs. This kind of meal can be a gentle jump-start to the day, and allows for for the energy of the sugars to be burned during the day and not stored as fat.

Eggs, bacon and such are key for protein and healthy saturated fats (beware of hydrogenated seed oils), and are another alternative if adhering to a high fat low carb diet. This is what worked for me. 

Bonus: If you consistently make a fruit breakfast part of your morning regimen, you may see your caffeine consumption naturally decrease as your living-food vitality increases. This works, an apple will wake you up!

 Disclaimer, I love my coffee, so …

It’s important to take a common-sense approach when shifting your diet toward living foods. To avoid a massive, sudden detox and potential withdrawal symptoms (which could lead to an unhealthy junk-food binge), be sure to wean yourself from your regular diet gradually as you incorporate more live foods into each meal. After a few weeks of transition time, you will find yourself more willing and able to eat entire meals of fresh, living foods.

 Whether you respond more powerfully to the benefit-oriented aspects of the live-foods proposition (health, beauty, vitality), or the more ominous repercussions of going without them (disease, obesity, shorter life span), the argument for live foods is a straightforward one.

Fad diets and wonder supplements aside, eating plenty of fresh, live foods is the most reliable way to permanently reduce fat while achieving robust health. So ultimately, what your mother told you about an apple a day keeping the doctor away is probably well-founded. Just to be on the safe side, though, better make that an apple, a carrot, a beet, and a giant green salad.

For years, health experts have argued about whether or not the acidic pH of the stomach summarily destroys live food enzymes. Some scientists have insisted that stomach acid kills most enzymes on contact, thereby rendering useless the considerable efforts raw food eaters take in preserving and consuming them. 

However, research by Viktorus Kulvinskas, a leading expert on raw foods and enzyme nutrition, suggests that stomach acid does not in fact kill, but rather temporarily deactivates most food enzymes. According to Kulvinskas, the enzymes are then reactivated in the more alkaline small intestine.

Raw foodyism (eating raw, living foods exclusively) is a trend that is gaining popularity with all kinds of people, from small-town gardeners to Hollywood celebrities. For most of us, committing to a diet of all raw foods still seems extreme. Who wants to totally give up grilled foods, our favorite pasta dishes or the occasional order of fries? Plus, some nutritionists insist that many foods are better assimilated by the body in cooked form.

Regardless of whom you want to believe, though, there’s no doubt most of us could stand to weed out a lot of processed, packaged foods and replace them with fresher, more wholesome options.

You won’t eat live foods if you don’t have them around the house. How much live food do you really have on hand?

On the Shelf: If most of your food resides on a shelf or in the cupboard, it probably isn’t live food at all. Almost any food that can survive unrefrigerated for more than a few days is likely canned, boxed, cooked, dehydrated, vacuum packed, ultra pasteurized or otherwise processed (which is to say, it is largely dead). There’s nothing wrong with having some dry staples and gently processed foods in your house, of course, but if less healthy shelf-dwellers like chips and crackers constitute the bulk of your available nourishment, watch out.

• In the Dark: Some foods that do have a decent shelf-life include potatoes, yams, onions, garlic, squash and other root vegetables, most of which do well unrefrigerated for long periods, as long as they’re kept in a relatively cool, dark place. Of course, most people end up cooking these items at some point, and once cooked, they are no longer considered live. Even cooked, though, many of these foods are still quite nutritious, and many can be eaten raw.

• In the Open: In the old days, nearly everyone used to have a tempting fruit bowl right out in plain sight. For some reason you don’t see fruit bowls so much anymore. That’s a shame, because many fresh fruits and vegetables, including peaches, pears and plums (as well as tomatoes and avocados) belong here, not in your refrigerator (at least, not until they are sliced or they’ve reached their peak of ripeness). If you’ve got nothing but a mushy banana or two sitting around on your counter, repent. Keep a bowl of tempting produce where it’s handy to snack on or slice into salads and sandwiches.

• In the Ice Box: Welcome to the fridge — you’ve hit the motherload of live, raw foods. Chilled melon, grapes, cherries and apples, crunchy celery, carrots and cucumbers, green leafy vegetables, fresh herbs — if it’s in the refrigerated produce section at the grocery store, it probably belongs in your fridge at home. Hopefully, many can be found at local famers markets in season.That goes double for perishable oils, like flaxseed oil and nut butter, as well as sesame and olive oils more commonly found on the shelf.

• If you’re eating live and fresh, your fridge should be full of brightly colored produce. If, on the other hand, you open your ice box door and find nothing but condiments, cheese, cold cuts and soft drinks, there’s a good chance your diet is in trouble.

• Check out the freezer, too. Most experts agree that most kinds of produce, if picked at the peak of ripeness and quickly frozen, offers many of the same benefits as their fresh counterparts. If you can thaw produce and eat it as is, or (as with frozen berries and bananas) blend it into a smoothie you can still call it live. Just remember, all the bets are off if you must cook it before you eat it. And if your freezer only contains pizza rolls, tater tots and ice cream, consider a change.

It’s this shift to processed foods, taking place all over the world, that’s contributing to a rising epidemic of obesity and related diseases. If most of the world ate more local fruits and vegetables, a little meat, fish, and some whole grains (as in the highly touted Mediterranean diet), and exercised an hour a day, that would be good news for our health—and for the planet.

Have a Great Day !