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WHY SWITCH
TO A LIVING FOODS DIET
Courtesy of Roxanne's Raw Restaurant,
Larkspur, California
Living foods are the key to our health
and longevity. They allow our bodies to perform as they were meant to. Our bodies have
evolved over a four million year period. For 3,950,000 of those years we ate only raw,
living foods. It is only recently that we have begun eating cooked food. When we look at
other mammals in nature, we do not see any significant incidence of the diseases that have
become pervasive in humans. No cancer, heart disease, strokes or diabetes.
Before discussing why Living Foods are so critical to our health, lets examine what
cooking does to food. The first thing that is lost when you cook something is its' water
content. Our bodies are between 60% and 70% water. Vegetables and fruits are loaded with
water, and it is structured water that better facilitates our biological processes.
Cooking denatures the proteins in our food, rendering them harder to digest and utilize.
Cooking destroys 50 percent of the protein in our food. Between 50 and 80 percent of the
vitamins and minerals are also destroyed. Pesticides break down into more toxic compounds,
which are more easily assimilated into our bodies. Oxygen is lost and free radicals are
produced.
Most importantly, enzymes are destroyed when food is heated above 118 degrees. Enzymes are
the catalysts of every chemical reaction in our bodies. Without them, there can be no
cellular division, immune system functioning, energy production nor brain activity. No
vitamins or hormones can do their work without enzymes. There are two different types of
enzymes in our bodies, metabolic enzymes and digestive enzymes. We produce over 100,000
different enzymes, each doing a unique task.
Interestingly, every food contains exactly the perfect mix of digestive enzymes to break
it down completely. These are called food enzymes. Nature in its never-ending perfection
sees that all food whether flesh, fruit or vegetable, decomposes and returns to the earth
from which it came. But cooking our food above 118 degrees destroys its enzymes, leaving
our bodies to generate the enzymes necessary to digest it. There are two main problems with this enzyme
destruction. First, our bodies cannot produce enzymes in the perfect mix to metabolize our
food as completely as the food enzymes nature creates. This results in partially digested
fats, proteins and starches that will clog up our body's intestinal tract and arteries.
The Eskimos are a remarkable example of this. Eskimo means, "one who eats raw."
While living for centuries on a diet that consisted primarily of whale or seal blubber,
Eskimos developed no arterial sclerosis. They had almost no heart disease or stroke, and
no high blood pressure. Established nutritional doctrine would predict a high incidence of
these ailments, but even raw blubber will digest itself completely if it is not cooked and
its enzymes are not destroyed. But once you heat even the finest olive oil above 118
degrees, you will not be able to digest it completely. It will clog you up.
More importantly, it has been
demonstrated that our bodies produce a finite lifetime supply of enzymes. Every cooked
meal we eat causes enzyme production that draws on our finite reserve. A living food meal
does not cause this drain.
This can help us understand why an
85 year old has only 1/30 the enzyme activity level of an 18 year old. Aging is really
nothing more than running out of enzymes. Cells stop dividing, our immune system fails to
handle challenges it managed easily when we were younger. Our enzyme reserve is depleted
over a lifetime of eating cooked food. In 1930, Dr. Paul Kouchakoff found that when we eat
cooked food, our bodies attack it with leukocytes, the white blood cells that are the
cornerstone of our immune system. These cells bring enzymes to the cooked food in an
attempt to break it down and get rid of it. Our bodies actually treat cooked food as a
foreign invader. No leukocytes are produced when living food is eaten. It is a tremendous
burden on our body to produce digestive enzymes and leukocytes. It takes ten metabolic
enzymes to make one digestive enzyme. The pancreas of humans and our domesticated animals
is twice the size as a percentage of body weight, as mammals in nature. This is a direct
result of the overwork we place on it to create digestive enzymes. It's no wonder we feel
so tired after eating a cooked meal. We actually burn close to half of the calories we
consume in a cooked meal just to digest it!
In nature, all mammals live eight to
ten times their maturation age. Humans, and our domesticated pets and farm animals that
eat cooked, processed food only live four times our maturation age. In the famous
Pottinger cat study, it was demonstrated that cooked food diets result in shorter life
spans, congenital abnormalities and eventually, loss of reproductive capability. In lab
experiments, mice fed a living food diet live fifty percent longer than mice fed cooked
food.
It is amazing to see how all animals
in nature maximize their enzyme reserve. If you give a squirrel a raw nut, it will not eat
it, but always will bury it. It will only dig it up when the nut has sprouted. They have
found sensors in squirrels' noses that can identify a sprouted nut. Raw, unsprouted nuts
have enzyme inhibitors that prevent the nuts' food enzymes from digesting it. Only when it
sprouts are these inhibitors deactivated.
When our bodies eat the living foods
they were meant to, our entire bio-terrain operates in optimal health. All of our cells,
organs and systems are able to do the jobs they are capable of in perfect balance. A
healthy bio-terrain requires proper enzyme capacity, acid-base balance and a healthy
digestive tract. These can be achieved through a living foods diet. With a healthy
bio-terrain, our bodies manage all health challenges quite effectively. This is why we
rarely see disease in mammals living in nature. It is what we put into our bodies that
prevent them from doing what they are capable of. Cooked food destroys our bio-terrain.
Living foods support a healthy bio-terrain.
A living food diet leads to a
longer, more energetic life. Think of how you feel after a Thanksgiving feast. The burden
of digesting a cooked food meal drains our energy. This does not happen with living foods
and the extra energy allows the body to focus its resources on cleansing and rebuilding.
Less sleep is needed and it is more restful. Only when we eat food that our bodies evolved
eating, we will produce the right balance of hormones and brain neurotransmitters.
When Roxanne and I began eating
living foods, we thought we would give it a try for one month. After one month, our bodies
just went "Wow!" The change was undeniable, and we couldn't believe our energy
level and reduced need for sleep. Our vision even improved. We listened to our bodies, and
they were right. We hope you will give your bodies a chance to tell you what they want and
need. |
