It’s true that raw food is making the news and every day more and more people jump on on board to learn about the benefits of this still rather unusual lifestyle. While it may not always be easy to put into action, the benefits are hard to ignore. Before we dive into the Top 5 Reasons to Be A Raw Foodist, we just want to clarify in our words, what it means when we say we eat “Raw Foods.”Fruits
Everything from the classic apple and banana right through the dozens of varieties of peaches, plums and berries to the exotic flavors of the kind of fruits you’d see in an Asian Market. This would include things like dragonfruit, jackfruit, durian and litchis to name but a few!
Leafy Greens
While there are an abundance of wild greens and herbs that are definitely edible, the most common leafy greens are all varieties of lettuce, parsley, spinach, chard, kale, arugula. A few names you might not be so familiar with, but are worth trying are watercress, Mache, and lambs quarters. There are more, but these are the most common.
Sprouts
Sunflower sprouts, alfalfa, buckwheat, and pea shoots are the most common green, leafy sprouts. Many people also eat lentil sprouts, mung bean sprouts, germinated sunflower seeds and other soaked and sprouted nuts and seeds. Though nuts and seeds, even soaked or sprouted are not considered sprouts per se and are best in a small volume because of the high fat content.
Nuts and Seeds
As mentioned above, in very small quantities only: sesame, almonds, cashews and other nuts and seeds form a small part of the our raw food diet.
Having clarified that, why on earth would anyone want to give up french pastries and fried chicken for cucumber soup?
1. Raw foods just LOOK better.
This may sound a bit superficial, but whether you attribute it to evolutionary adaptation or spiritual wisdom, this point is a strong one that is not to be undervalued.
From an aesthetics view alone - and as a woman, believe me when I say, aesthetics count - raw fruits and vegetables win hands down in the food beauty category. There’s nothing else that can compare to a gorgeous arrangement of juicy fruits and crispy vegetables. I mean, how gorgeous can a slab of meat or a plate of noodles get?
Given the complex and developed nature of humans as a species, it just makes sense that in nature we would be attracted to our most ideal foods in their unadulterated state. I don’t suspect all creatures on the planet have such a refined sense of aesthetics as humans. We delight in colors and shapes and art and without question fruits and vegetables are the most stimulating to our perceptions when it comes to aesthetics.
2. You’ll be healthier!
Raw fruits and vegetables contain more vitamins than cooked food and all the antioxidants, and essential nutrients that you could ever wish for in their most digestible and most easily assimilated form.
Speaking historically, without the backdrop of all the years of modern research that are accepted as common knowledge today, we would not know the nutritional breakdown of our food. One cannot look at an apple and know that it is loaded with Vitamin C. These are discoveries of the efforts of those who have brought the practice of nutrition to a precise science of measurable nutrients.
Having this information however, we now know that the highest concentrations of nutrients and vitamins are found in raw fruits and vegetables.
3. You’ll have more energy than you thought was possible!
Raw foods contain “life energy” and require significantly less physical energy to process. It’s no accident that most people have huge energy gains when switching to a diet that is high in raw foods.
Raw foods require significantly less resources on the part of the body to digest, process and assimilate. That means your body is able to put its resources into other tasks and activities. Most people who try out the raw food diet find that the first thing they notice is a dramatic energy improvement.
By following a raw food diet, they allow the body to free up this energy that was being used just to handle digestion, to allow the body to heal itself from whatever conditions may be arising in it physiologically.
4. Raw fruits and vegetables are rich in the very best quality of water you can get.
The “You must drink 8 glasses of water” a day indoctrination has been based largely on a cooked food culture’s practices of eating heavily seasoned and salted foods that demand additional water in order for the body to detoxify and cleanse the toxins that are being consumed.
There’s no need to drink all that water when your foods are naturally high in water to begin with. An additional bonus is that the water found in raw fruits and vegetables have been naturally distilled by the plant itself, and is thus of the best quality comparatively speaking.
5. It just makes sense.
Just imagine yourself in a field of wheat and ask yourself how you’d make lunch out of your surroundings. While it’s true we’ve been awfully clever to create all the magnificent artistic and gastronomical displays that we’ve put together, we’ve managed to pull ourselves a long way out from eating the kinds of foods that we might actually find in nature. As a result, we’re living the consequences in astronomical rates of diabetes, blood pressure problems, cancer, arthritis, etc.
Humans are here to thrive and to survive as well as we can, and as long as we can. Your body is the only tool you have for getting around in this life, so treat it as well as you can and feel as good as you can inside it.
