Food For Your Raw Food Diet

The inclusion of uncooked, organic or unprocessed food in our daily regime is known as ‘ Raw Food Diet’. It sustains on the fact that cooking destroys the nutritional value and enzymes present in food. To utilise the nutritious benefits of vegetables without cooking them, you can add the following food items to your diet list.

Fruits and Vegetables: Fruits and vegetables are a rich source of vitamins, minerals, protein and other vital nutrients. They form the backbone of any raw food diet. Being low in calories, and high in water content, they help in maintaining our health and fitness. Include fruits and vegetables like apples, bananas, leafy green vegetables, pineapples, mangoes, carrots, berries, broccoli, celery, radish etc, in your diet list to enjoy the health benefits in the raw form.

Nuts and Seeds: Nuts and seeds are a rich source of protein and fiber. Nuts and seeds like almonds, groundnuts, pistachios, hazel nuts, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds etc are a source of omega 3 fatty acids and the much needed essential oils required by the body.You can have these raw as an evening snack or add the seeds to vegetable or fruit salad to enjoy its benefit!

Herbs, Spices and Seasonings: Unprocessed herbs and spices can be included in the raw food diet. Cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger root, garlic, black pepper etc can be easily consumed in their raw form. Homemade seasonings of mustard or mayonnaise is also consumable.

Milk and Milk Products: Dairy products like milk, butter, eggs, cheese and yoghurt can be be easily included in the raw food diet. They are healthy and safe for consumption. But still it is better to be selective in one’s choices to avoid any kind of health disorders.

Beverages: Beverages like coffee, tea, alcohol and soda are not a part of raw food diet. But some beverages like coconut water, fruit and vegetable juices, soups etc can be a very healthy component in your diet list.

Others: Other than all the food items mentioned above, there are a few more things like raw honey, jaggery and lemon that can be included in your diet list.

Raw Food Works Wonders: Eating raw food is not only cost effective but, it also provides you better nutrition than the cooked food. Also, it is easily digestible. Raw food items fights aging and improves skin complexion. As the nutrient value of food remains intact, consumption of raw food effectively increases the immunity power of our body, and fights many diseases like cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, allergies and many more.

Eat healthy not only in order to stay healthy, but also to build a healthy future for yourself and your family members.

Vegetarian, Raw food and Vegan with Bill & Sheila

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Wyoming group contests raw food rules change

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — The debate over proposed Wyoming food safety rules centers on opinions about what constitutes food safety.

“People in Wyoming are concerned with food safety,” state Rep. Sue Wallis, R-Recluse said. “Many want to buy locally.”

The problem, according to Wyoming Department of Agriculture spokesman Derek Grant, is that unregulated processing of locally produced products, such as chopped lettuce or cantaloupe, increases the chances of contamination.

One proposed rule allows farmers to sell leafy greens at a farmer’s market, for example, as long as they are not in a bag. If the greens are cut and placed in a bag, they are considered cut leafy greens and producers must meet sanitation requirements and obtain a license to sell them.

Wallis said farmers in Jackson Hole have been selling bagged greens to local restaurants at the restaurants’ request.

If the rule change is adopted, farmers will have to invest in a certified kitchen, with equipment to meet department requirements for cleaning the greens.

Grant said the proposal is intended to clarify rules already on the books.

He said the wording on the cut-leafy-greens rule comes from the federal Food and Drug Administration’s food code.

“What we’re trying to do is make it easier to sell products in the state of Wyoming,” Grant said. “I think there’s a lot of misinformation out there about what’s being changed in the rules.”

Wallis claims that the proposed rules represent major change.

She said about 700 people have signed a petition urging the department to hold a public hearing on the rule changes.

A major sore point involves raw milk.

What’s getting people upset, Grant said, is the word “solely” in the new rule to clarify that only the sole owner of a cow can serve raw milk to people in the household, employees and guests.

Grant said the practice of cow sharing, or multiple people paying to get raw milk from a single cow, has been illegal in Wyoming for decades.

“The sale of raw milk is still not legal in the state of Wyoming,” Grant said.

Wallis said there is no law or regulation that even mentions cow shares.

The department, she said, is trying to perpetuate a rule that would allow only the sole owner of a cow to use the raw milk.

Wallis said she is a cow share owner because she wants fresh milk and she can’t have a cow in her town.

If the state adopts the sole owner rule, it will be taking away her property right, Wallis said.

Wallis also took issue with a proposed rule banning the sale of local, ungraded eggs.

Grant said the rule is designed to open opportunities for people who raise chickens so they can obtain a license to sell their eggs to restaurants.

Wallis said someone who owns a flock of 50 chickens couldn’t afford to invest money in the equipment needed to clean, candle and grade eggs for sale.

Grant said people can still sign and date eggs and sell them at a farmer’s market if the rule change is adopted.

Wallis said so-called food freedom supporters are independent-minded and don’t want the government “to decide what we can eat or who we can buy it from.”

Kari Gray is Gov. Matt Mead’s chief of staff. Gray said she told Wallis she is interested in the Department of Agriculture having a public hearing on the proposed rules.

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Can a raw food diet heal arthritis and heart issues?

Screeching, painful joints brought on by rheumatoid arthritis crippled Agathe Mathieu’s ability to use her hands after she developed the inflammatory disease at 42 years old.

So when a friend lent the seamstress a book on the health benefits of a raw food diet, she immediately began a regimen of only uncooked meals with the hope of healing herself. Three months later she regained function in her hands and could pull a thread again.

“It’s all gone; it’s never come back,” Mathieu says after sticking to the diet for nine years. “I have the look of someone who has arthritis, because my fingers are twisted a little bit, I’ve bumps and swelling, but the pain, the incapacity is gone.”

Restoring joint mobility is one of many possible health advantages attested to by followers of raw foodism or rawism — the practice of eating mainly uncooked and unprocessed foods such as plants, seeds and nuts. Fans of the diet also boast it creates higher energy levels, fends off illnesses and slows down the aging process.

“Going raw you just leave out a lot of real junky food,” says registered dietitian Vesanto Melina.

The 70-year-old sifted through the scientific literature on raw food regimens in Becoming Raw, a co-authored book listed as a top guide among raw foodists.

Melinda says one possible explanation for why the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis may vanish after someone starts the diet is because it can eliminate “unfriendly” intestinal bacteria.

“If you eat whole plant foods, and it seems even more so with raw plant foods, you’ll get a friendly bacteria that protect us against different illnesses. And they affect whether nutrients can break through your intestinal wall and cause inflammatory responses,” she says.

She also points to the abundance of anti-inflammatory components and protective anti-oxidants — like vitamins A, C and E — found in uncooked vegetables and fruits.

“In that whole pattern, you get things that really help your cells and your body remain less inflamed,” Melina says.

She adds the same factors improve cardiovascular health.

“Plus, you’ve got absolutely no cholesterol in your diet, because cholesterol isn’t found in plant food. You automatically eliminate that.”

Keeping a healthy heart

Clive Langton, a co-founder of the non-profit group the Raw Food Society of BC, vouches for a raw diet’s power to heal.

Working in the United States as a counter-terrorism consultant following the 9/11 attacks, Langton thought he was staying healthy by refusing to eat meat.

But after going for his annual checkup, his doctor shared some bad news that proved otherwise.

“I had wanted to live my life in a healthy way since I had become vegetarian,” Langton recalls. “And here I was being a vegetarian and now being told that you are a candidate for a heart attack.”

A hectic schedule of travelling to 35 cities in seven weeks for training sessions and presentations led Langton, now 64, to choose quick veggie meals like pizza that he’d gorge on late at night.

“You can do a lot of being a vegetarian in the junk food way, too right, because there is everything available. There’s soda pops that are supposedly natural. There’s chips that are natural and maybe a good oil, but there’s lots of salt and lots of oil and fried,” he says.

When Langton shared the doctor’s warning with a couple friends, one of them eventually convinced him to check out a health talk on raw foods.

Although initially reluctant to go, Langton became fascinated by the seminar and the suggestion to blend vegetables and fruit in the morning to create a green smoothie — a mainstay beverage among people on raw foods.

He instantly began swapping out cooked foods for unprocessed, raw ones.

“When I did the next 12 days, I lost weight of course, my face felt clear, my skin was radiant, my eyes were feeling brighter and able to see more clearly, and I just felt much more heightened and alert and alive,” Langton says.

The most profound change occurred when he visited his doctor a year and a half later after maintaining a diet of virtually all raw foods.

“My doctor said your blood count and everything else was that of a 30 year old, and at the time I was in my mid fifties,” he says.

Balancing a raw food diet

Melina, who’s been on a high raw diet for six years and has competed in triathlons annually since turning 60, recommends people on uncooked vegan diets take vitamin B12 supplements.

“The lack of it raises something called homocysteine, and that increases your risk of heart disease. So you have this great diet that was putting (you) in good health and a lack of vitamin B12 can undermine the whole thing,” she says.

For Vancouverites and others living in rainy cities, the registered dietitian also suggests taking a vitamin D supplement because raw food purists might miss out if they aren’t drinking fortified milks.

Consuming enough protein while going raw is possible, she adds.

“You can get a lot of iron or protein from 9 cups of kale, but who’s going to eat that?” Melina asks.

“In terms of percentage calories from protein, kale is as good as beef, but you have to eat a larger volume of kale because it doesn’t have as many calories.”

According to the Melina, a mix between healthy cooked and uncooked foods is ideal.

“I personally think that the best combination is high raw. So that would mean maybe 75 per cent of your diet is raw, but include some cooked legumes like beans, peas and lentils to get the protein content higher,” she says.

While Melina believes a raw food diet can be an excellent choice for adults, she warns against feeding it to infants.

“A baby or even a child shouldn’t be on a diet that is full of fibre and plants; raw plant food,” she says.

“Their stomachs aren’t that big and they don’t take that long too eat, and they just can’t get the calories in that they need to grow.”

Serving up a raw cuisine

Mathieu now works with her hands 16 hours a day, seven days a week preparing organic and vegan, raw cuisine at her newly opened North Vancouver grocery and café Tao Organics.

She says people often misunderstand what a raw food diet can be.

“For many a raw food diet means eating carrot and lettuce, and that must be boring like heck,” Mathieu says.

But her menu consists of a smorgasbord of meals, including burgers, nori rolls, pizzas, crepes and cakes.

Mathieu’s most popular grocery item is her kale chips — dried out pieces of the vegetable topped with tahini, apple cider, garlic and lemon juice. A 20-gram portion packs 5 grams of protein.

Her raw lasagna, also a favoured dish, is made with zucchini pasta, spinach, marinara sauce, marinated mushrooms and cashew cheese.

“A misconception is that you cannot have exquisite flavour out of fruits, vegs, nuts and seeds, but actually you can,” Mathieu says.

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Raw foods make you beautiful

Why changing your diet can change your look.

Did you know?

Did you know? Despite not eating dairy, raw food vegetarians offset the risk of bone fracture through a low BMI.

Minerals are one of the keys to beauty and an incredible 95 per cent of our body’s activities involve minerals. Our biochemistry is dependent on our mineral sources and it is easy to provide the body with the essential minerals it needs when we are eating correctly.

The most important beauty minerals are:

• Silicon, which strengthens the hair, nails and skin.
• Zinc, which helps rebuild collagen in the body.
• Iron, to improve circulation, which helps skin tone.
• Magnesium and potassium, which detoxify and cleanse.

Green plants are our number one food for providing all the minerals we need for superior beauty and nutrition, while simultaneously giving us the vitamins and amino acids we need to build protein.

If we eat greens abundantly and get a good variety of them in our diet, we will get the wide spectrum of minerals we need into our bodies. The best form to eat greens in for their mineral content is raw. This is because some cooking methods, such as boiling, reduce their mineral levels as well as their vitamin content. This is not to suggest that we must eat 100 per cent raw foods. But it does mean we need to increase the percentage of raw greens and vegetables that we consume overall. The green plants that are highest in beauty minerals are: rocket, cucumber, radicchio, bok choy, dandelion, romaine lettuce, broccoli, celery, swiss chard, kale, watercress, mustard greens and wheatgrass. For an added beauty boost, eat organic greens, because minerals enter the plant from the soil and organic soil has a higher mineral content than traditional farming soil.

This is an edited extract from The Beauty Detox Solution by Kimberly Snyder (Harlequin Books, $24.99). On sale now in stores and online at www.harlequinbooks.com.au

Vegetarian, Raw and Vegan with Bill & Sheila

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Some fresh facts about raw food

The fresh, unadulterated truth is raw food is all the rave now, with a lot of people embracing it as a lifestyle. Demi Moore leads the pack of Hollywood celebrities who are exposing the naked truth about a meat diet. Demi lost quite a lot of weight — and dropped Ashton Kutcher, too. For Demi, less is Moore. Alicia Silverstone wasn’t clueless when she bared it all in a lean and mean vegan poster for PETA. Fashion designer Donna Karan has no skeletons in her closet — she just lost 20 pounds on “lifefoods.”

And now, meet Mona Lisa Neuboeck, certified raw food chef and educator/coach. Born in Seattle and raised in Austria, Mona Lisa is the daughter of an Austrian butcher. Though she must have grown up on the standard American diet, she later chose to change her diet and her lifestyle as she was convinced that raw natural food is good for both body and soul, as well as the environment. She apprenticed with raw food pioneer Dr. Gabriel Cousens, founder of the Tree of Life Rejuvenation in Arizona, where thousands of incurably ill patients suffering from heart disease, diabetes, and even cancer were said to have regained their health, thanks to Dr. Cousens’ alternative treatment.

The young raw food expert, who is also an artist, model, surfer, and yogini, shares more nutritional information about raw superfoods at her workshops at Sugarleaf.

“Superfoods are vibrant, nutritionally dense foods that have recently become widely available and which offer tremendous dietary and healing potential,” Angelo Songco of Sugarleaf tells us. “A superfood is a food rich in phytochemicals, which are special chemicals that have been noted to have disease-fighting properties. Phytochemicals can reduce the risk of certain forms of cancer, reduce inflammation, strengthen the immune system, or in some other way contribute to a person being healthier.”

Some common superfoods are fruits like blueberries, cranberries, red grapes, pink grapefruit, mango, mangosteen, papaya, watermelon, and tomato. What makes these fruits so super is that they are packed with special nutrients. For instance, tomatoes are rich in lycopene, which may reduce risk for prostate cancer, and high in beta carotene, which may promote greater mental alertness and slow conditions like Alzheimer’s.

In her class/workshop, Mona Lisa dishes up a hefty serving of guilt-free, easy, and delicious vegan recipes you will surely love to do at home. She shares her raw passion for healthy eating in this exclusive interview with The Philippine STAR:

PHILIPPINE STAR: How healthy is raw food? What are the health benefits from eating raw food? 

To understand the health benefits, one must first understand the concept of “enzyme preservation.” All of your body’s functions are governed by enzymes. They are the physical counterpart to life force or chi (as it is known in traditional Chinese medicine). There are two major types of enzymes: Your body’s digestive and metabolic enzymes and the food enzymes present in all raw foods.

All cooked foods are enzyme-deficient since the delicate enzymes die at a temperature as low as 118°Fahrenheit (45°Celsius). Your body will therefore have to utilize its own digestive enzymes in order to break down the enzyme-depleted cooked food.

Every time we eat a cooked meal, our bodies go through an allergic reaction which scientists call leukocytosis. What happens is the enzyme-depleted cooked food triggers the release of white blood cells — the typical symptom of an immune system breakdown.

However, when we consume at least 51 percent of raw foods in our meals, the harmful effects of leukocytosis are diminished.

Some cooked foods are even harder to digest than others, i.e. animal proteins are highly acidic. Other than that, they need to be converted into amino acids first, before they become bioavailable. This puts additional stress on your liver, thus buffering your body’s self-healing mechanism and speeding up the aging process.

As long as your body is “wasting” a big deal of its digestive enzymes on the breakdown of cooked food and those macro-nutrients, it is also missing out on the chance to regenerate its cells. 

This is why many raw foodists are said not only to slow down the aging process but are actually reversing it. 

Also, since raw plant-based foods do not contain any cholesterol, are free of preservatives, processed sugars, and trans fats, the most detrimental danger foods are thereby eliminated from the diet. 

Raw plant-based foods are alkalizing, which means your system becomes oxygenated, thus preventing and curing countless diseases including cancer.

Raw and living foods increase vitality by preserving the enzymes, proteins, vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients of whole foods in their natural state. In other words, you get to absorb 100 percent of the goodness of the food you buy, not just a measly 20 percent as on a conventional cooked food diet.  

Hollywood has now discovered the raw food diet for its powerful “youthening” properties. Some of the famous raw celebrities are Demi Moore, Madonna, Megan Fox, Alicia Silverstone, Susan Sarandon, Donna Karan, Edward Norton, Sting, and Woody Harrelson, to name a few.  

Filipinos are not used to eating raw food except perhaps for the sushi in Japanese restos. And most shy or stay away from a raw diet because of hygiene/health issues — raw food could harbor bacteria. How will you convince Filipinos to eat raw food?

My goal is to educate people on the countless benefits of the raw food diet. I am NOT telling them to go cold turkey, a 100-percent raw vegan overnight.

I’d rather go out there and teach people how to incorporate more raw plant foods into their everyday meals. Teaching the science and basics of raw food preparation is more transformative than actually selling readily prepared raw food dishes.

It is true that micro bacterial contaminants are found in raw vegetables, more though however in animal protein such as raw meat, poultry, and dairy products which require extremely high hygiene measures. Parasites are less likely to proliferate in the system of a raw food vegan, than in the system of a person on a conventional cooked (vegan, vegetarian, pescetarian or omnivorous) diet. A raw vegan diet is a highly alkalizing diet as opposed to any cooked food diet, especially diets high in sugar, dairy, processed starches and, most importantly, meat products. 

All meats are acidic. All vegetables are alkaline to the human body, more so when eaten raw. When your diet consists of mainly alkaline foods such as fruits and vegetables, you are dramatically lessening the possibilities of parasite invasion. That is to say, with the raw vegan diet, parasites will hardly survive and even less likely proliferate in your system.

Do you grow your own raw food? 

Yes, and growing my own food has radically changed my life. Before going raw, we used to maintain a manicured ornamental garden. As my diet progressed to raw veganism, buying organic vegetables at the supermarket became quite expensive. That’s when my partner and I began plowing the lawn and planting our own vegetables. In this manner, the raw food diet has become the most cost- effective diet to us. 

What got you into raw food? 

Having worked in the modeling industry for some years, I was always struggling with yo-yo dieting. I would lose weight rapidly on one fad diet and then gain it back together with some extra pounds as soon as I would continue eating “normal” again.

Tell us the chunkful of changes eating raw has made in your life.

The raw food lifestyle was a transformative process in which I totally gave up the concept of “dieting” and consciously started “eating to live” (as opposed to “living to eat”) for a lifetime. I soon noticed dramatic improvements in my overall health. My hormone levels stabilized, my skin cleared up, my energy levels went up, my frequent bouts of constipation were no longer an issue, and my bodyweight finally met its natural ideal without fluctuating dramatically as it would over the previous years. Also, for the past two years I have been eating this way, I have not taken any conventional medications at all. I am feeling the healthiest, strongest, fittest, most vibrant, and the most inspiring ever!

* * *

For more fresh news about raw food, e-mail Mona Lisa Neuboeck at [email protected]; Facebook: Mona Lisa Raw. She will hold her next workshops on “The Beauty of Raw” part 3 (Truly Healing Food) on July 21, part 4 (Detox with Food) on August 18, and part 5 (Lose Weight the Raw Way) on September 15, all on Saturday afternoons, 2:30-5:30 p.m. at Sugarleaf Makati, Medicard Bldg., Paseo de Roxas corner Gil Puyat Avenue. 

For more information, call 0917039055 or visit http://www.sugarleafph.com.

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