Raw Food Diet FAQ

The raw food diet. Just these words makes me smile. Ever since I'm raw, I feel like I've uncovered one of the biggest - yet simplest - secrets. Now, after only three years, it seems so absolutely logical, natural and obvious. I need no science, research or specialists to convince me that the raw food diet is what I want to eat for the rest of my life! My experience and results speak for themselves. On this page, I'll write down some raw food basics and frequently asked questions (FAQ).

What is Raw Food?

We call food raw if it is:

• Uncooked - never heated above 42 C/118 F degrees.

• Unprocessed - as fresh (and wild) as possible.

• Organic - no irradiation, preservatives, pesticides.

Why not cook food?

"Why can't I just cook my foods?" is another question I'm asked a lot. Well, the reasons are that heating your food above 115 degrees F (45 Celcius):

• Kills the enzymes. Enzymes help you digest your food. Your body can create enzymes but that process takes a lot of energy. This makes you tired - remember how you feel after a heavy cooked meal? Further, the enzymes your body makes are not as good as the ones that were destroyed in the food. The food will not be broken down as well and thus harder to digest.

• Changes the PH of the food and makes food acidic. We like to eat alkaline foods. Eating acidifying food makes your body acidic and thus a welcome feeding ground for disease.

• Transfers minerals in food into inorganic - hard to absorb - minerals. INorganic minerals such as calcium are hard to absorb and might cause calcium stones, whereas organic ones are easier to digest, make you alkaline... and help you take in more oxygen, which is good!

• Destroys most vitamins

• Destroys the life force. Eating cooked food is eating dead food. This will make you feel heavy and tired. Live food has live energy. Simply put. A raw seed will grow, a cooked seed won't. When you pick (raw) fruit it continues to ripen. Cooked fruit starts to decay.

Esme, what do you eat?

I keep my raw diet very simple. I eat mostly fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts and super foods, I love vegetable juices and smoothies. Therefore I juice and blend a lot which is easy and quick.

Where do you get vegan protein?

On a raw food diet many wonder where to get your protein. But you don't need to worry:

• Raw food has twice as much protein as cooked food, so you'll need less.
• There are many excellent sources of vegan protein. Click here for a list.
• You may not need as much protein as you think. (Read "The China Study" from professor Campbell.)

You can also look at my nutrition chart to see the exact breakdown of where I get my protein from.

Why eat raw?

Eating a raw food diet is a win- win- win situation for everybody. Eating raw food is better for you. It's better for the people, animals and plants around you. It's better for the planet.

What are the (health) benefits of eating a raw vegetable diet?

The raw food diet benefits are endless. The major benefits are weight loss, detox, and improvement health. When your diet consist of more than 75% raw foods, these and many more improvements might happen to you!!!

• More energy
• Up to 3 hours less sleep
• Weight loss
• Detox
• More beautiful skin
• Healthy long-life
• "The glow"
• No more colds and flu
• No more headaches
• Clarity of mind and better memory
• Improvved immune system
• Lower cholesterol
• No more candida
• Preventing or reversing cancer
• Improved fertility
• No more PMS
• Better sex life
• Better digestion
• Reduced risk of heart disease
• Prevent or even reverse diabetes
• Get rid of allergies
• More flexible
• Less sentitive teeth
• No more arthritis

Why is eating a raw vegan diet good for the planet, other people and animals?

Eating raw is good for the planet because:

• Raw foodists eat food that is not processed or sprayed with herbicides, pesticides, or other chemicals. They generally don't use (many) recreational or prescription drugs. Today, a polar bear baby is born with over 200 chemicals (incl. drugs) in his blood. If you eat raw you contribute to a cleaner world. Not just the planet, all people and animals will benefit from that.

• Most raw foodists are vegan, vegetarian, eat less meat, or at least eat organicly raised (food from) animals. This has an incredible impact on the planet:

  1. Less animals are slaughtered.
  2. You need 60 pounds of food to get 1 pound of meat. Food necessary to feed the animals until they are killed. Rain forests are being cut to make place for soy and corn fields to feed the animals. These crops are sprayed with even more chemicals than yours. These chemicals are stored in the animals fat. It is estimated that if everyone becomes vegan, there is enough food to feed the world population 7 times.
  3. Huge amounts of water is used to feed the animals and to water the crops.
  4. Huge amounts of fossil fuels are needed to raise the animals. Being vegan helps reduce the emission of CO2 tremendously.
  5. Read more in A Diet for a New America, Fast Food Nation and The China Study

Is it safe to eat food raw?

What about e-coli on spinach, salmonella, parasites? Is it really safe to eat raw food? I'm sure there must have been a reason why people started cooking their food?

Before people had a fridge, cooking their food was the best way to kill parasites and bacteria. Louis Pasteur "invented" pasteurization to ensure that food was safe to eat for everyone. However, today this method is obsolete. It doesn't just kill the bad bacteria, it also kills the good ones, as well as the enzymes, makes the food acidic, takes away vitamins and minerals, etc.

Today, we have much better methods for keeping our food safe. Some methods are:

Vacuum Sealing.

To read more go to food safety page.

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What's the best raw food diet?

All raw foodist have in common that they don't heat their food, but what they eat can vary greatly. Typically, the raw food diet includes raw fruits, vegetables, (germinated or sprouted) nuts, seeds and whole grains. But some also eat meat, fish, eggs and dairy. There are a few different variations of raw vegetable diets:

• Alkaline Diet

• Juice Fasting

• Fruitarian Diet

• Raw Food Weight Loss Diet

• Raw Vegetable Diet (Vegan)

• Raw Living Food Diet

• Detox Diet

All of these diets are all raw, but preparation and foods differ. A juicer would juice his raw food, the fruitarian eats only fruit, not nuts, meat, dairy. A raw vegan refrains from any animal products. Some diets consist of mostly leafy greens where other include superfoods. Some focus on fat foods others on fruits.

Everybody is different, so there's not one best diet. So much choice means that ANYONE can find a right raw diet. From desert-like food such as raw chocolate cakes to fruits and green leafy vegetables or sushi. A personalized diet works best.

I love that there's so much variation, that I'll never have to be bored with what I eat and that what I eat makes me feel so terrific and energetic. And the weird thing is that my taste changed so much. I much prefer the delicious fresh foods over those cheap cooked empty nutrition ones...

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