| TEN ADVANTAGES
OF EATING RAW The human race learned long ago
that cooking meat before eating it would protect them from certain diseases. Since then
this practice of cooking has grown to include all types of foods and is now considered an
art. Very few meals are eaten which include raw elements, except for the leafy green
salad.
One advantage of eating raw is that it brings Nature’s
intentions into focus. When I speak of eating raw I am referring to fruit, nuts, and
vegetables, which taste good to the majority of humankind in their basic simplicity direct
from tree, bush or vine.
I realize it isn’t easy to simply abandon thousands of years of
tradition and revert back to 100% raw food. Margaret Mead once said, “It is easier to
change a man’s religion than to change his diet.” So to the point, there are 10
advantages to a diet of fresh, whole raw fruits, vegetables, and nuts, which may lead you
to find a greater place for them in your diet.
1. Raw foods are better quality, therefore you eat less to satisfy
your nutritional needs. The heat of cooking depletes vitamins, damages proteins and fats,
and destroys enzymes which benefit digestion. As your percentage of raw foods increases
you feel satisfied and have more energy on smaller meals because raw food has the best
balance of water, nutrients, and fiber to meet your body’s needs.
2. Raw foods have more flavor than cooked foods so there is no need
to add salt, sugar, spices, or other condiments that can irritate your digestion system or
over stimulate other organs.
3. Raw foods take very little preparation so you spend less time in
the kitchen. Even a child of 5 or 6 can prepare most items for breakfast, lunch or dinner.
This gives children a sense of self-esteem and independence, not to mention the break it
gives Mom or Dad.
4. When you are eating raw there’s little chance of burns,
unless you’re in the middle of a forest fire or out in the sun too long. Just think!
No burns to tongues, the roof of your mouth, or fingers, and many fewer house fires.
5. Cleaning up after a raw meal is a snap. No baked-on oils or
crusty messes. And any inedible parts go directly to the compost pile.
6. Eating a diet of raw foods can reverse or stop the advance of
many chronic diseases, including heart disease and cancer. Remember, cooking creates free
radicals, which are the major cause of cancer. When you lower the number of free radicals
your cells are bombarded with, you lower your risk of cancer.
7. A raw food diet can protect you from acute diseases such as
colds, flu, measles, etc. Raw foods maintain a healthy body and a healthy body will not
become diseased.
8. As long as you combine raw food properly according to the rules
of Natural Hygiene, you will soon reach a level where you no longer suffer from heartburn,
gas, indigestion or constipation.
9. It is environmentally sound. With humanity on a diet of raw
foods, the food industry would close up shop and take up organic gardening. This would
save us enormous amounts of natural resources used to produce power for these industries.
Nuclear power would be clearly unnecessary. And think of how many trees and oil reserves
could be saved without the need for the paper and plastics used in packaging our processed
foods. There would also be less carbon dioxide released in to the atmosphere when all the
cooking stopped and more oxygen produced from all the new orchards and gardens, thus
helping to reverse the Greenhouse Effect.
10. Eating raw saves you money on food, vitamins, pots and pans,
appliances, doctor bills, drugs, and health insurance.
So don’t waste your food, yourself, and our planet by cooking
what you eat. Fruits, nuts, and vegetables which are whole, fresh and raw are brimming
with life and have the ability to transmit their life force directly to you.
Susan Jorg, Estacada, OR |
