A diet is considered a raw food diet if it consists of at least 75% raw, uncooked fruits, vegetables, sprouts, etc. Raw and living foods are believed to contain essential food enzymes (living foods contain a higher enzyme content than cooked foods). The cooking process (i.e., heating foods above 116°F) is believed to destroy food enzymes.

People who follow the raw food diet use particular techniques to prepare foods. These include sprouting seeds, grains and beans; soaking nuts and dried fruits; and juicing fruits and vegetables. The only cooking that is allowed is via a dehydrator. This piece of equipment blows hot air through the food but never reaches a temperature higher than 116°F.

Do you have to follow the regimen that strictly? Of course not, but it’s certainly worth it to incorporate some of these techniques and ideas into your diet. If you tend to snack a lot at work, try taking in carrots or apple slices instead. Most of the bigger grocery stores now offer packaged vegetables or fruits that make it easier & more convenient to pack them and take them to work.

We’re a nation of convenience, and much of the resistance to healthier eating is that it does generally take a little more effort and time to buy and slice fruits and vegetables. Food retailers have been catching on, slowly, and it’s much easier now to get bags of sliced carrots, celery, apples, nuts and raisins.

Of course these aren’t necessarily organic foods, and organic is the better way to go, but we think anything raw is infinitely better than cooked, processed food. If you have the time & resources, do buy organic and slice them yourself. But if you’re in a hurry, don’t have the resources or are nowhere near a natural food store, then don’t beat yourself up or sabotage your efforts because you can’t do this 100% all the time. That’s not realistic to a lot people. Anything from the fruit and vegetable aisle is going to be better for you than a potato chips, or worse yet, a French fries!

What is the difference between a vegetarian diet and a raw food diet? Well, a raw foodist is a vegetarian, but one who generally does not cook his/her vegetables or fruits. A vegetarian is someone who simply doesn’t eat meat, fish or poultry, but only consumes vegetables, pasta, and rice. A vegetarian might eat meatless spaghetti sauce or order onion rings in a restaurant. (Not the healthiest choice, but sometimes it’s hard to find something to eat in a restaurant if you’re vegetarian – even harder if you’re a raw foodist.)

There are different categories of vegetarians, like vegans, or fruitarians, and raw foodist is a category of vegetarianism. We often don’t see much about sushi being considered a raw food, but it is. Although, raw food generally means eating raw, uncooked fruits, vegetables, dried fruits, seaweeds, etc.

To be a raw food purist means eating raw broccoli, and not steamed broccoli. To a vegetarian, someone committed to not eat meat or fish or animal products, steamed vegetables are just as good, although everyone would agree that steaming can take out valuable nutrients from foods, rendering them less nutritious. A vegetarian might consume dairy or egg products; however a vegan will not consume any animal products at all. And a raw foodist is a vegan who consumes only uncooked, unprocessed, raw foods.

Proponents of the raw food diet believe that enzymes are the life force of a food and that every food contains its own perfect mix. These enzymes help us digest foods completely, without relying on our body to produce its own cocktail of digestive enzymes.

It is also believed that the cooking process destroys valuable vitamins and minerals and that cooked foods not only take longer to digest, but they also allow partially digested fats, proteins and carbohydrates to clog up one’s gut and arteries.

Followers of a raw diet cite numerous health benefits, including:

• weight loss
• improved digestion
• increased energy levels
• improved appearance of skin
• reduced risk of heart disease

Have you ever seen a picture of your blood plasma after you’ve eaten a meal from a fast food joint such as McDonald’s or Burger King? It’s not a pretty site!  It looks thick and cloudy. Fast foods are loaded with fat and sodium. They use white bread and rolls, which means they’ve used white processed flour, with very few nutrients in them.

And how do you usually feel after eating a Big Mac and some French fries? You feel like you need a nap, don’t you? All that fat will drag you down and make you feel sluggish.

Going on a diet is hard, but think about some of the things you do when you go on a diet. You eliminate those high fat, processed, high-sodium foods. You eat less, true. But you also eat more raw fruits and vegetables. You drink water. And the results of eating this way are increased energy, and less need for sleep.

Processed foods, with their high fat content are hard to digest. They take an enormous amount of the body’s energy to consume. When your body’s energy isn’t used up for digesting all that fat, it’s available for YOU – for work, play, love, exercise – in other words, for LIFE.

These aren’t drastic concepts. You don’t have to make drastic changes in your lifestyle. But take a good look at what you consume without even thinking about it. We reach for the potato chips, or stop at McDonald’s or Taco Bell when we’re hungry and we want something in a hurry.

It’s much easier these days to have snacks on hand so you don’t have to stop at a fast food place when you’re hungry. If you’re on the road a lot, and get hungry, pick up a bag of vegetables or apple slices at a grocery store. Yes, it’s easier to drive up to Wendy’s, but taking a few extra minutes, not to mention a few extra steps, will be well worth it in energy and vitality.

When you start eating more raw foods, you may find that you’re not as thirsty or don’t need as much water or other beverages as you normally do. There are several reasons for this. First of all, raw foods, such as raw fruits and vegetables have a higher volume of water in them, so your body is getting the hydration it needs from these foods.

However, this does not mean that you should stop drinking water or juices. You don’t want to adopt some of the more radical elements of the raw food trend. First and foremost, listen to your body. It will tell you what it needs. If you’re overweight, sluggish, tired, depressed, your body might be telling you to make some dietary changes, and raw foods might be one way to alleviate some physical disorders.

But if you’re overweight and have symptoms of Type II diabetes, overwhelming thirst can be one symptom. When you start consuming more raw foods, with a higher fiber and moisture content, you may start to lose weight, and that can go a long way to reducing your blood sugars.

If you’re not overweight, or don’t have Type II diabetes, you still might find you’re not as thirsty as you normally are. The reason being, you’re drinking water and juices, and you’re no longer consuming caffeine, which is very dehydrating and as a result tends to make one thirstier. And another thing, by not consuming as much in the way of cooked foods, especially highly processed foods, which have astronomical sodium counts; you may not be as thirsty as before.

The bottom line is that by consuming more raw, uncooked food, and pure water and fruit juices, you’re putting your body into balance. Keeping sodium to normal levels found in foods means you’ll start to require a more balanced amount of water.  Don’t think of this as changing or taking away. Think of it as adding balance, and it will make the process of eating healthier much easier.

The best way for one to have healthy, glowing skin is to start from the inside out. Eliminating caffeine in the form of coffee and soda from one’s diet is a great way to start. It’s a known fact that caffeine dehydrates the body and the skin, and we all know that lack of moisture is a sure way to create lines and wrinkles.

Caffeine is also a diuretic, which causes increased urine output, again depleting one’s body and skin of the moisture it needs. A lot of times we try to combat this problem with moisturizers, when in fact the better way would be to put the moisture INTO our bodies, and not on it.

Drinking pure water, unprocessed fruit juices or coconut milk is a great way to give one’s body and skin the hydration it needs. The colors in natural fruit juices are the colors of the earth and these colors will reflect themselves in warm and healthy skin tones.

The overall long term effects of caffeine on one’s body will manifest themselves in one’s skin. A lot of times heavy caffeine drinkers experience osteoporosis, headaches, depression, and sleeplessness. These can all be reflected in one’s skin.

When you replace colas, coffee and teas with water, natural fruit juices, “sun tea” and coconut milk, you’ll soon start to feel better and sleep better. Your skin will start to reflect the good health of all the organs and cells in your body, once you’ve completely kicked the caffeine habit.

Another great reason for drinking pure water, coconut milk, natural juices and “sun tea” is that they help with the elimination of toxins. When the body rids itself of toxins, the toxins pass through the skin which is the largest elimination organ. Raw food increases your detoxification rate. Drinking water immensely helps the body rid itself of the toxins. Eating seaweed is also a good idea because it is high in the vitamins and minerals that are beneficial to the skin and it also helps rid the body of toxins.

In order to achieve a healthy complexion, drink plenty of water and eat plenty of raw foods. Remember, what goes into your body is reflective in your overall appearance.

What is the largest organ in the body? It’s the skin! The skin provides a protective covering for all the other organs in the body. The skin changes to regulate one’s internal body temperature. The skin is also a great indicator of one’s overall health and well-being.

People spend thousands & thousands of dollars on skin products just to make their skin look vibrant and glowing. They spend so much on topical products – products that they put on top of their skin. What they don’t realize is that if only they spent even a fraction of the money that they spend on these facial products on RAW FOODS, they would begin to see an immediate change in the texture of their skin.

What a lot of people don’t seem to get is the fact that when you eat raw foods, you put more of the essential vitamins and amino acids that your body needs into it. By eating raw foods you’re actually adding moisture – naturally to your body. Raw foods have a higher moisture content than cooked foods, simply because the cooking process tends to take out a lot of the essential moisture from the food.

The skin is actually a mirror of what’s going on in the rest of one’s body. Therefore, when your organs and blood are fed the right nutrition that they need in order for them to function properly, that shows in the skin. You can easily get your much needed vitamins and moisture from foods like apples and carrots. When you do, then phrases like “inner beauty” and “inner glow” will apply to YOU. Remember, your skin is what is presented to the rest of the world and healthy, glowing skin makes the best first impression.

When you start adding raw foods to your diet, you’ll see that things will just start to naturally fall into place. You’ll begin to feel so much better, and as a result you’ll even begin to look much better. You’ll even begin to notice that people will start reacting to you in a more positive manner. You’ll also begin to 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 to make your skin look good. When your body and skin are getting their essential nutrition with healthy raw, uncooked foods, you will no doubt look and feel your best, NATURALLY!

Since cooking takes a lot of the important nutrients and vitamins OUT of food, you automatically start feeding your body with the all the essential minerals and vitamins that it needs when you stop cooking your food and start eating uncooked, nutrient-rich foods. It’s a known fact that raw carrots have exponentially more nutrition than cooked carrots!

Cooking also significantly alters the chemistry of foods, very often making them harder to digest. Have you stopped to wonder why we have so many digestive problems in this country? The truth is, it’s because we are putting foods into our bodies in a form that we clearly weren’t designed to absorb. The fact is that high fiber, high water content fresh produce abolishes constipation of the bowels, cells and circulatory system. When you eat the right foods obstructions are cleared and blood flow increases to each and every cell in the body. 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.

It’s a known fact that obesity is prevalent in this country. The diet industry is more profitable than the oil companies. Why? Well, because the way we eat and prepare our food practically guarantees that we will overeat. Time and time again psychologists tell us that we overeat because our souls are hungry. But the truth of the matter is, our bodies are starving, even though technically we may feel full. The bottom line is when you start giving your body the nutrients it craves, then overeating will cease.

Eating raw foods is the best thing that you could ever do for yourself, it adds an amazing boost to your metabolism. 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, enzymes, fluids and oxygen to make your body the efficient machine it was created to be.

It’s a fact that when you’re on a raw food diet you’ll naturally stop overeating, because your body and brain will no longer be starving for the essential nutrients they need. A starving brain will trigger the thoughts that make you overeat. Remember, the brain and the rest of your body doesn’t need quantity; they need quality.

Have you now more than ever before started hearing so much about the Raw Food Diet? Well, lately it’s been gaining a lot of popularity and buzz, not just as a weight loss diet, but as a diet for a long and healthy life. Nowadays we eat a lot of processed foods and we don’t even bother to stop and really think about what we’re putting into our bodies, and how far we’ve actually nutritionally moved away from our ancestral, agrarian roots.

A raw food diet means eating unprocessed, organic, uncooked, whole foods, such as vegetables, fruits, legumes, seaweeds, nuts, seeds, dried fruits, etc. It means being on a diet that is at least 75% uncooked! What a lot of us are not aware of is the fact that cooking at times takes away the flavor and nutrition from vegetables and fruits. A raw food diet means eating food pretty much like the way our ancient ancestors did. Our healthier, more fit ancestors didn’t cook as much as we do in this day & age, and they most certainly didn’t cook or process fruits and vegetables like we do, they ate them RAW. Their water wasn’t from a tap like we are accustomed to in this day & age; it was natural, spring water. They probably even drank some coconut milk on occasion.

A raw food diet means consuming food in its natural, unprocessed form, just like it was intended. There are several common-sense rationales as to why this is a good idea. Processing and cooking food usually takes a lot of the basic nutritional value away. Think about some of the conventional wisdom you’ve heard over the years, such as: If you cook pasta to the al dente (or medium) stage, it will preserve more calories. Well, this is absolutely true, it will retain more of the nutritional value in it than if you cooked it to a well-done stage. Or you most likely remember hearing not to peel carrots or potatoes too deeply, because most of the nutritional value is right under the surface.

Now think about it for a minute, doesn’t it make more sense that this is what our bodies were meant to eat? A raw food diet is a way of eating that’s not only in harmony with the planet but also in harmony with our own metabolisms. Let’s face it, our bodies were meant to be taken good care of & fed all the right foods in order to function efficiently. This means that exercise also plays a vital role in our lives, but most importantly it means eating natural, raw foods that will add nutritional value to our bodies & enable us to live long, healthy lives.

Organic gardening is the way of growing fruits and vegetables with the use of natural resources and products.

1. Making compost from kitchen and garden waste is a lot easier than most people think. Although it may be a little more time-consuming than purchasing ready made chemical fertilizers and pesticides, it undoubtedly helps to put garbage to good use and in doing so saves the environment.

2. Organic farming does not use harmful chemicals that may potentially have an adverse affect on your health. This is particularly important when growing vegetables. Chemical companies often tell us that the chemicals we use are pretty safe if used according to direction, but a lot of research has shown that even small quantities of poisons absorbed through the skin can cause serious illnesses such as cancer, especially in kids.

3. On average, children ingest four to five times more cancer-causing pesticides from foods than adults. This can lead to various complications and diseases later on in their lives. With organic gardening, these incidents are lessened and the risks drastically reduced.

4. Keep in mind that pesticides contain toxins that only have one purpose – and that it is to kill living things. Poisons are frequently washed into our waterways, causing death to fish and polluting their habitat. Organic farming is less harmful to the environment.

5. The Soil Conservation Service says that an estimated 30 – 32 billion tons of soil erodes from U.S. farmlands every year. Organic farming practices help prevent the loss of topsoil through erosion.

6. Organic farming is cost effective. With organic gardening you don’t need to purchase expensive chemical pesticides and fertilizers. A lot of the organic recipes for pest and disease control come straight from the kitchen cupboard. At times other plants can even be grown as companions to the main crop. A good example of this is the marigold, which helps to repel aphids from vegetables.

- A simple mulch of pine needles will help to suppress the growth of weeds as well as keeping the moisture in.

- Mixing 1 tablespoon of liquid dishwashing soap and 1 cup of cooking oil can make a cheap garden pest spray. Put 3 tablespoons of this mixture in 1 quart of water and spray on plants.

Organic gardening practices help to keep the environment safe for future generations.