Detox on a Raw Food Diet
Food can either be medicine or food can be poison. As nature intended, our food is our medicine and will allow the body to heal itself as it was designed to do. Food will help to heal you if the food is whole, plant-based food from nature – vegetables and fruit, whole sprouted grains, seeds, nuts, beans and legumes – as these foods provide maximum nutrition and minimum calories.
Using Raw Food to Detox
Food is poison when it is processed, refined and replete with unhealthy fats, sugar and salt – what most modern people eat today and consider “normal” – as this pseudo-food provides little nutrition and maximum calories. Raw, living whole food prevents and in many cases reverses diseases like arthritis, pain, allergies, digestive ailments, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, skin problems, autoimmune disorders and even cancer – which are considered lifestyle diseases, as they were relatively rare one hundred years ago until we started processing our food. Instead of aches, pains, fatigue, illness and visits to the doctor, you can invest your energy into pursuing your dreams and living life to the fullest.
Of course, the transition to a brand new way of eating may take time, as you are likely unaccustomed to eating primarily whole food. Don’t worry. Once you begin this journey, the payoff for eating nutrient-rich, calorie-low, easy-to-digest, alive food happens quickly: within weeks, you will feel more energetic, healthy and upbeat, and look more vibrant and slimmer. In contrast, the payoff for eating nutrient-poor, calorie-dense, dead and hard-to-digest food that starves your body of the life force inherent in whole, uncooked, unprocessed food is flab, fatigue and disease. Don’t let that happen to you.
What is raw food?
Raw, living food is food in its natural state. It consists of uncooked fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds that have not been heated above 48º Centigrade (117º Fahrenheit). All of this food is vegan food.
What are the benefits of eating raw food?
The benefits of eating raw are numerous and include the following:
Optimize enzymes
Raw, living fruit and vegetables are replete with enzymes that we need to digest and assimilate our food. Heating food for any extended time kills active food enzymes.
Enhance digestion
Because raw food is high in enzymes, it digests easily and passes through the digestive tract in less than half the time that cooked food
does. As a result, you no longer have that familiar ‘zonked out’ feeling after a meal that you get from cooked food. Most people on a raw food diet have regular bowel movements and rarely experience constipation or indigestion.
Boost metabolism
With raw foods, the body’s energy goes into feeding every cell rather than getting rid of toxins, thereby boosting metabolism. In addition, a raw food diet balances blood sugar levels and this effectively treats adult-onset diabetes.
Strengthen immune system
Eating raw, living foods releases toxins from your body. This lightens the load on your immune system to rid the body of unwanted foreign invaders. As a result, the body can focus better on destroying viruses and bacteria, and biggies like cancer cells.
Control weight and weight loss
With the raw, living foods lifestyle, most people find that they can eat as much as they want and maintain their ideal weight, and cravings disappear.
Balance PH
Ideally, we want our body to be slightly alkaline, as this reflects the pH level of the blood and helps prevent disease which requires an acidic environment in which to grow. You will accomplish this on a raw fruit diet, as fruit and vegetables are the most alkalizing of foods.
Enhance oxygenation
Eat green and you food your body with life-sustaining oxygen. Processed foods, in contrast, contain no oxygen.
Boost energy
Raw, living foods are easy to digest, pass through the digestive tract and get eliminated quickly. This leaves less time spent on digestion which takes up much energy. For this reason, eating a raw, living food diet gives you a light, energized feeling. Eating raw also relieves your pancreas of having to crank out enzymes.
Maximize anti-ageing
Eating a raw, living food diet is one of the best things you can do to keep your body young and vibrant.
Here are the many anti aging benefits:
- Vibrant and youthful skin
- More youthful-looking facial appearance
- Greater than average fitness
- Clear and bright eyes
- Stronger, richer and fuller hair
- Enhanced eyesight, hearing and tactile sensitivity
- Healthier and more functional teeth and mouth
- More functional cardiovascular system
- Stronger and more flexible bones
- Better body tone
- Improved sexual organ function and related hormones
- Stabilize moods
Food is a drug. Living food stabilizes your mood, so you feel more upbeat and stable. Processed food, particularly white sugar, makes you feel anxious, tired and even depressed.
Enhance mental focus
On the raw food diet, you will experience clearer thinking, focus and concentration without feeling tired. Nor will you experience head fog from overloading your body with sugar.
Boost self-respect
Switching over to the raw food way of life is not easy for most. If you succeed, you will feel empowered and take control of your health. This will lead to a greater feeling of control in other aspects of your life, along with enhanced self-respect.
Transition
For most people, it’s best to make the transition slowly from eating largely processed, re ned foods to eating whole foods – plant-based foods. If not, you may end up feeling unduly deprived and stressed out by cravings for comfort foods.
If a raw food diet is completely new to you, then you are best starting out with slowly eliminating the bad foods from your diet. Follow these basic steps over the next seven days to help you ease yourself into this new way of eating.
If you are not in the habit of eating raw plant foods already, your body may take time to adjust and you may feel bloated or stuffed full after some meals. It’s not that raw food is not for you, but rather that the modern diet has likely caused the body to become low in hydrochloric acid and this makes some plant foods, especially greens, hard to digest.
Here are some ways to help ease your body into eating raw food:
Green smoothies: basically leafy greens blended with water and fruits in endless delectable variations. Smoothies are delicious liquid meals that help to get your digestive system in gear by introducing greens into your system in a palatable and pre-digested form. Studies done by Victoria Boutenko in the book ‘Green for Life’ show smoothies help to increase hydrochloric acid if you suffer from a deficiency.
Raw soups: like drinking smoothies, eating raw soups will help introduce raw foods into your body is a more pre-digested form. Raw soups can be made by blending any of your favourite raw ingredients such as vegetables, garlic, spices and sometimes cashew nuts to add thickness in a high-speed blender such as a Vitamix. A Vitamix will allow you to actually heat your soup up in the blender as it blends but only to a temperature that won’t destroy the nutrients and enzymes. Investing in this type of high-speed blender will allow you to gently heat your raw foods and still keep them as raw and highly nutritious.
Chew: chew your food well to allow some saliva to be released before swallowing. Saliva and enzymes in the mouth are the rst steps in digestion, and chewing gets that going.
Eat citrus fruit: citrus fruit helps increase hydrochloric acid production and are a great after-salad snack to aid digestion.
Take enzymes: enzymes help you to digest your food.
Eat the colors of the rainbow
Colorful foods have great health benefits and add life to our daily meals. Consuming a diet well varied in all the colorful foods to support health is essential for optimal living. As it is often said, eat the rainbow to ensure that you are feeding your body super nutrients that equip your cells like defense weapons against everyday stressors and aging. Eating a variety of colorful fruits and vegetables will maximize the body’s ability to heal daily and prevent against all forms of diseases and cancers.
Green in vegetables and fruit means that they are replete with phytochemicals that will keep you healthy. For example, the carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin found in spinach, collards, kale and broccoli have loads of antioxidant properties to help keep the retina of your eye strong. Green also lowers the risk of some cancers and promotes strong bones and teeth. Moreover, antioxidants help with memory retention and boost your brain power.
Red and pink colours in fruit and vegetables provide the antioxidant lycopene, which lowers the risk of some cancers, protects against heart disease and urinary tract infections, and helps improve memory and protects the brain from disease.
Orange pigments in food come from the antioxidant beta-carotene – a must for good health. Beta-carotene helps vision, the heart and the immune system and lowers the risk of cancer. Bright yellows have many of the same perks as the orange groups: high in essential vitamins and carotenoids. Pineapple, for example, is rich in vitamin C, manganese and the natural enzyme bromelain, which can aid digestion.
Blue/purple are filled with health-enhancing flavonoids and valuable phytochemicals. Purple foods could be especially beneficial for the brain. Anthocyanin, the phytochemical that gives foods their purple colour, might actually stave of memory loss and is thought to act as a neuro protector. This flavonoid is found in berries, cherries and eggplant. It has been shown to improve learning ability, memory and coordination skills in certain studies.
White/tan vegetables from the onion family contain the phytochemical allicin that has natural antibacterial and antimicrobial properties and increases the body’s ability to fight infections. Furthermore, they may also help lower cholesterol and blood pressure. They include garlic, scallions, chives, leeks and any variety of onion.
Good luck!
And remember, heart work pays off!
//Sara
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