Benefits of Raw Living Foods

Benefits of Raw Living Foods

In an age where people have become so much health conscious, it is only natural that they look for more ways to stay healthy and fit. Presently, the growth rate of people following a planned 'Living Food Diet' is soaring. The notion that raw living foods areproviding a number of essential health benefits, has increased its popularity.

What are Raw Living Foods?

Raw living foods are basically foods in their most original or natural, unprocessed and uncooked state. They mostly include vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds. Many raw foodists also include raw eggs, non-pasteurized or non-homogenized dairy products, raw fish and raw meat in their diet. Science asserts that cooking food above 104-120 degree Fahrenheit not only destroys most of the enzymes and other vital nutrients present in the food but, may also lead to the production of toxic by-products.

Thus, a diet that is composed of 75% to 100% raw foods constitutes a healthy living food diet. These foods contain all the essential nutrients and enzymes intact.

Benefits of Raw Living Foods

Some of the important health benefits of consuming raw foods are:

Increases Energy: Raw living foods are abundant in vitamins and minerals. Hence, it supplies us with the much needed energy for all our day to day physical activities. We tend to feel lighter, healthier and happier. Thus the foods acts as an energy booster enabling you to remain energetic throughout the day. You will wake up fresh and early every morning and with great zeal.

Improves Digestion: The fibre and the digestive enzymes present in your daily raw living foods enhance natural digestion besides helping the body to absorb all the vital nutrients. This diet also helps in detoxifying the digestive system to a great extent.

Weight Loss: Since raw foods are high in vitamins and minerals and contain low or zero calories, you will lose weight at a much faster pace than actually possible. Thus, if you are looking for ways to shed those extra pounds, switching to a diet of raw foods is one of the healthiest ways. Furthermore, in the long run it helps in maintaining and stabilizing your weight by keeping away the unwanted fats. Also, the fibre-rich foodswill easily make you full, so you will unlikely feel the urge to gorge on food excessively and / or in between meals. Eating less, as we all know is key to keep your weight under control.

Increases your Life Span: Following a planned diet will reduce the risk of heart diseases, obesity, cancer, high blood pressure and diabetes. It keeps your cholesterol and triglyceride level check, keeps you away from flu, common cold, digestive disorders, heartburn, etc. The intake of raw foods enriches the body with such essential nutrients like potassium, fibre, proteins, magnesium and even compounds like phytonutrients. It also supplements the body with antioxidants and removes the toxins that are stored in the body. All these essential components that come through this kind of diet contribute in increasing your life span by alleviating various illnesses.

Change in Appearance: In addition, a healthy living food diet brings about a marked change in the appearance of all raw foodists (especially women). The skin starts glowing. It becomes soft, vibrant and firm making you feel much younger. Your hair will tend to shine all the more. You will never be affected by acne and other skin diseases.

It is important to note that a lot of patience, time and research are needed before you can start on a healthy raw living foods diet full-fledged. You first need to understand the needs of your body while planning. As a starter, you can try with one raw meal a day.

What Makes People Eat Raw Food?

What Makes People Eat Raw Food?

Throughout kitchens and restaurants around the world, there is a revolution taking place. People are turning to Raw Food as opposed to the cooked food that society has traditionally eaten. Which begs the question: Why?

One of the primary ways we experience the world around us is through what we eat, drink and think. So why then would people be foolish enough to put food into their bodies that isn't cooked? After some extensive research, it turns out these people might not be as foolish as originally thought.

The assumption behind cooking food is that the original form of Nature, as it exists, must be altered in some way in order for it to exist in an artificial form inside us. Or simply put, when feeding something natural (our body), it is necessary to give it something unnatural.

The problem is that when food is cooked it becomes less than it was before, never more. According to International Best-Selling author and Raw Food expert, David Wolfe, cooking alters organic molecules. When those molecules are ingested, they become part of our tissues. Thus eating cooked food alters our tissue at a fundamental level.

Cooked food is dense. It leaves a toxic ash residue in the body after it has been processed. Over many years, the debris from this toxic residue accumulates and is deposited throughout our tissue. Eventually the toxins reach a crisis level, clogging and poisoning our body's systems which can lead to heart attacks, strokes and cancer.

What is Raw Food?

Raw food is alive, it still contains the vital nutrients and enzymes that gave the food life in the first place. Cooking food (above 239?F) destroys all of the enzymes and the food becomes "dead".

Enzymes are vital in that the body requires them to digest and absorb food, effectively helping to turn it into fuel.

Enzymes also are essential for many of the body's processes such as breathing, digestion, circulation, cognition and the prevention of inflammation and aging.

Cooked Food = No Enzymes

Eating cooked and processed foods makes one groggy, affects moods, lower's one's level of attention and interferes with the body's optimal functioning. A poor diet of highly cooked foods can also have a detrimental effect on longevity.

A cooked seed will not grow. It has had the life burnt out of it. How then would eating cooked food be the best way to help us grow?

Cooked food was not here when we first appeared on Raw food was.

Raw-Animal or Raw-Plant Food?

Some people opt for a raw-animal diet, however typically the health of these people weakens over time, for a number of reasons. Namely meat can be very high in fat, cholesterol, calories and disease and bacterial contamination.

The other option is a raw-plant based diet.

People who follow a raw-plant based diet benefit from vital enzymes which allow the body to fully digest food, enzymes which are typically lost when food is cooked.

All About Food Ingredients

All About Food Ingredients

When you are buying food in your local stores the first thing that you look at is the ingredients.

Function of the food ingredients

The food manufacturers have many reasons why they add the ingredients. Some of these reasons include:

To keep the food safe and fresh: The ingredients used in serving this role are preservatives. They prevent spoilage of the food thus reducing the risk of you suffering from foodborne diseases.

To improve the texture of the food: I'm sure that you have noticed that most of the food you get from your local store has a better texture than the one that you prepare yourself. This is due to the addition of the ingredients. The ingredients added include: thickeners, emulsifiers, leavening agents and stabilizers. The additives give food a light airy texture that feels great on the tongue.

The additives improve taste: Spices, sweeteners, and other flavors enhance the taste of food thus you enjoy eating it.

The additives aid in improving appearance: Natural and artificial food colors improve the appearance of plain foods such as juices, cheese, and yogurts.

Common food ingredients

There are many additives that can be used in food but there are some that are more common than others. The most common additives include:

Flavors: They include both natural and artificial flavors. The most common are: salt, citric acid, butter flavoring, methyl salicylate, vanilla extract and vanillin. The flavors are heavily used in cereals, soft drinks, dressings, yogurt, and bread. The additives provide a bitter flavor that neutralizes the sweet flavors that are common in beverages.Food colors: Food colors offset the color loss that takes place when the food is exposed to light. They also enhance the colors that occur naturally in food. The most common food colors that you will find in most foods are: caramel coloring, beta carotene, and annatto extract. The additives are common in yogurts, fruit spreads, candles, cheese, snack foods, and pudding.

Sweeteners: They add sweetness to food and beverages without interfering with the original food texture. Common sweeteners are high fructose corn syrup, aspartame, sucrose, honey, agave, and nectar. You will find the additives in dressings, maple syrup, cereals, juice concentrates, desserts, and molasses.Conclusion

This is what you need to know about the common food ingredients and their roles. While the additives are harmless to many people there are some people that react to them. If you one of the people who are affected by the ingredients you should avoid foods containing them.

The Dangerous 10 - Top 10 Worst Food Additives

The Dangerous 10 - Top 10 Worst Food Additives

Food additives are substances added during the processing or making of a certain food in order to preserve flavors and freshness and enhance taste and appearance.

Although some of them have been used for centuries, the use of certain food additives is becoming really widespread and some of them are extremely dangerous for your health, I would say toxic even.

I'm not talking about the once-in-a-while consumption of a certain processed food containing additives, which can't harm anyone. I am talking about daily use. Statistics show that the average American spends about 90% of his/her budget on this kind of food; which means that if you open an American fridge or look up on the shelves you'll find tons of canned, dehydrated, artificial or processed stuff, which is extremely unhealthy, and its persistent consumption can cause health problems.

Typically these food ingredients are very difficult to identify, both for the variety of names and codes they're labelled with and the very minuscule fonts used to lists them on the ingredient list.

Here is the list of the top 10 toxic ingredients.

Go get your detective glass and start reading labels!

1) HFCS - High Fructose Corn Syrup

High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is a highly-refined artificial sweetener made from corn starch and found in almost all processed food such as: bread and baked goods, salad dressing, candies, yogurt, soda etc. And according to some studies has become the number one source of calories in the US.

Indeed, its easy handling and cheap cost made it the number one granulated sugar replacement: The amount of refined sugar we consume has declined over the past 40 years, while we're consuming almost 20 times as much HFCS.

HFCS is linked with weight gaining, it increases your LDL ("bad" cholesterol) levels, and contributes to the development of diabetes and tissue damage, among other harmful effects.

Also, recent researches published by the American Association for Cancer Research found that the fructose in HFCS promotes cancer growth, specifically pancreatic cancer.

2) Sodium Nitrate & Sodium Nitrite (NaNO3- NaNO2)

Both of them are chemical compound used as a food additive to preserve and give to cured meats, smoked fish and poultry a nice red pinkish color. Although their purpose seems harmless, these ingredients are highly carcinogen and their consume is linked with gastrointestinal cancer and heart diseases.

In fact, under certain conditions, they can form nitrosamines compounds, molecules that cause cancer in animals and humans.

Also, in massive doses, nitrite - and nitrate, which under some conditions changes to nitrite - can lead to a condition called methemoglobinemia. In our body, nitrites, indeed, have the ability to change the structure of the hemoglobin into methemoglobin: the binding of oxygen to whom results in an increased affinity for oxygen in the remaining heme sites. This leads to an overall reduced ability of the red blood cell to release oxygen to tissue and it may occur in tissue hypoxia.

Can't give up on eating salami, bacon or ham? Choose the uncured ones.Sodium Nitrate is listed under its INS number 251 or E number E251, Sodium Nitrite has the E number E250.

3) MSG - Monosodium Glutammate

Monosodium glutamate (MSG) is a flavor enhancer commonly added to Chinese food, canned vegetables, soups and processed meats. While the Glutamic acid is naturally present in our bodies, and in many foods, such as tomatoes and cheese, the ones exploited by the processed-foods industry is chemically produced through hydrolysis of vegetable proteins with hydrochloric acid to disrupt peptide bonds or by the fermentation of starch, sugar beets, sugar cane or molasses.

The substance produced has the ability to excite our taste buds and make everything taste delicious, which wouldn't be a big deal if it hasn't been shown that high levels of MSG can seriously screw with brain chemistry causing damage to areas of the brain unprotected by the blood-brain barrier.

Best Bet Food Sources for Vitamins

Best Bet Food Sources for Vitamins

I work a lot with natural foods and supplements in my practice. If I can be assured the client will eat the right foods, there is often no need to supplement. If the deficiency is mild, specific food supplementation works perfectly well. And it does often turn out that the client just loves the foods they need anyway!

Best Bet Vitamin food sources are listed in order of most often identified as the foods most beneficial for a specific vitamin. The Best Bet Foods are only the most common items I have found during testing in the last 12 years; there may be more foods that contain the particular vitamin that are listed on my website under the Diet/Nutrition section (see resource box for that link.)

Because each person is an individual with many different nationalities within their bloodlines, it is important to determine which food items are best suited for your body. And easy way to do this is to find out your blood type and eat foods that are beneficial for that blood type. You can find a list of those foods at http://www.dadamo.com. Overdosing with foods is almost impossible. I like that. It's very safe! So, here's the list:

Beta-Carotene: Best Bet Food Sources-- Dark Green vegetables, carrots and tomatoes. Note: Beta-Carotene natural form is comprised of two molecules. The synthetic form only has one molecule. Therefore, natural food sources are best.

Bioflavonoids: Best Bet Food Sources-- Citrus fruits (especially the white part of the peel), apples, soy hawthorn berries and green tea.

Biotin or Vitamin H: Best Bet Food Sources-- Eggs, raw fruits, mushrooms, poultry, soy or soy products, whole grains and oatmeal.

Choline: Best Bet Food Sources-- Choline tablets, beans, and eggs.

CoQ-10: Best Bet Food Sources-- Fish and spinach.Fat SolubleVitamins: See Vitamins A, D, E and K.

Folic Acid or Vitamin B-9: Best Bet Food Sources-- Wheat Germ (refrigerate after opening as it turns rancid easily), eggs, salmon, mushrooms, citrus fruits, and chicken.

Hesperidin: Best Bet Food Sources-- NutriBiotic's Grapefruit Seed Extract. Note: Hesperidin is in the bioflavonoid family and is thought to stimulate the immune system and fight yeast infections.

Inositol: Best Bet Food Sources-- Standard Process(TM) brand Inositol, blackstrap molasses, fresh fruits, nuts and seeds, wheat germ.

PABA or Para-aminobenzoic Acid: Best Bet Food Sources-- Spinach, blackstrap molasses, mushrooms, rice.

Riboflavin or Vitamin G: Best Bet Food Sources-- Sprouts, nutritional yeast, milk, meat, some forms of algae and Standard Process Labs Uses for Vitamin G: Night sweats, burning feet, red hands, paralysis, edema secondary to liver failure, eye syndromes, nervous indigestion, and liver disease. Riboflavin is the heat-stable factor of the Vitamin B complex.

Vitamin A: Best Bet Food Sources-- Parsley, sweet potatoes, watermelon, nettle leaf, broccoli, carrots, dark leafy greens, eggs, and mangos.

Vitamin B Complex: Best Bet Food Sources-- Any brand that you test energetically strong for. The wrong brand can be responsible for some annoying side effects. For me, that is urinary incontinence. To get the whole complex from foods you would want a wide variety of raw fruits, vegetables and whole grains.

Sustainable Food? Great, But at What Cost?

Sustainable Food? Great, But at What Cost?

Mention a local and sustainable food program to most chefs and food service operators and you might see a glazed look in their eyes. Or worse yet, they'll start to shake, stutter and break out in a cold sweat, mumbling something about "costing too much", as they look for any way out of the conversation. In my own experiences converting conventional food programs into more sustainable models, I've not only experienced these anxious symptoms myself - I've found a tonic to help cure them.

Definition

Sustainable food promotes environmental, economic, social and nutritional well being. However in terms of exact models of a sustainable food program, whether in a school system, hospital, restaurant or university there are no two that are, nor should be, alike. Locale; fiscal and physical limitations; staff size and skill level; are just a few of the factors that make this type of program hard to duplicate. However, when it comes to dollars and cents, every establishment shares the same common denominators - food, labor, and other expenses. It's these realities that will ultimately be affected - up or down, and can ensure a program's success.

The Real Cost of Food

The difference of purchasing sustainably produced food compared to that of conventional food is likely going to be higher. And it should be! For too long we've been paying a hidden cost for "cheap food" and that cost is starting to rear its ugly head in untold environmental, health and small business tragedies. Small to midsized farmers and producers deserve a fair price for their toils and we need to give it to them. The good news is that there is a way to lessen the impact on our bottom line and support these artisans at the same time.

Many get confused about how much more this will cost. Let's set some facts straight - The cost of food generally averages about one third of our total expenses, therefore any change to buying more sustainable foods will in reality only impact a portion of our total budget. This, compounded by fact that there is little chance one will replace every single ingredient with a sustainable counterpart, means that changes in food costs will be no more than a percentage of the percentage of your total operating costs.

The food service industry has created its own monster. For years we've been reacting to customer dissatisfaction by offering quantity rather than quality. We add more options, increase the size of the menu, the size of the food court, the size of everything - including portions! Well guess what? Customers are often still unhappy. What's needed is to place more focus on fewer choices. And the results that can be expected? Less waste, more attention to detail, more resources for higher quality product.

Labor Costs

Just like food, labor expenses and the staffing levels required to produce sustainable food will fluctuate with the extent of the program. Fresh, whole foods require more "hand work" than processed food does. However what many don't stop to realize is that with some strategic menu planning, you can economize labor. If staffing levels were designed to produce a menu loaded with lots of options, then a reduction of those choices and a focus on the quality not quantity of ingredients will allow balancing the workload.But be aware of the staff's skill levels. For too long, many so called "cooks" have become complacent in their particular art. Those who had culinary skills in the first place, may have forgotten or misplaced them with the advent of highly processed foods. In addition, over the last several decades there has been an influx of lesser skilled labor in the food service industry - it doesn't require a lot of talent to open up boxes and cans and work an assembly line kitchen. Teaching staff to properly handle all this new and wonderful food is critical. What good is an investment in better food, if the customer gets served poorly prepared and presented food? Investment in restructuring and training of staff cannot be overlooked, less the ultimate result will end in a lot of wasted of time and money.Other costs like infrastructure, equipment, marketing and consultative resources must be considered when addressing a more sustainable food program. But just as in food and labor costs, these need not break the bank either. By systematically reviewing the entire food chain, from purchasing, through service, one will realize opportunities as well as limitations, ultimately creating a menu that uses ingredients that will fit your business model.And don't go it alone! Would a brain surgeon start his practice without an education? Would you hire a chef that has no experience in the kitchen? Then why attempt a sustainable food program without tapping into the best resources? Look for organizations well connected in the agricultural field. Utilize the many Farm-to Chef and Farm-to-School programs that exist on a statewide and national level. Hire a resource to help get it right. One thing I hear most often as I go around the food service world, is "Oh, we know how to do that ourselves. We don't need any help" Well if that's the case, why are there are so few truly sustainable food programs out there?

Ultimately, a sustainable food program might cost a bit more, but it will realize peripheral savings as well. I've seen kitchens eliminate disposable tableware and implement composting programs; then go on to save money on trash removal and supply costs. I've witnessed increased employee health and morale due to new ways of working and living, not to mention the increase in sales due to the public demand for this.On the one hand, engaging in the process of prioritizing sustainability is not an easy undertaking. On the other, any conventional food service program fortunate enough to be led by individuals who have the courage and willingness to invest in knowledgeable resources, training and dedicated effort, will reap the abundant benefits of this new food movement. So wipe that sweaty brow, stop mumbling about costs and stand up to this opportunity. There will ultimately be a very large return for everyone, on such a modest investment.