Raw Living Foods 101

Raw or living food is simple nutrition which still contains it's vital life force, offering you more living potential. Once food is heated to a temperature higher than 110 degrees, it's enzymes start to diminish, and so does 50-80% of the nutritional value. In doing so, cooked food uses up the body's energy to process and use what little may be left. Eventually the body becomes depleted of it's enzyme stores and the aging process speeds up.

This process can be reversed by moving toward an 75-100% Raw Food Diet. Living food is intact with all the enzymes available to make digestion a much simpler task. Raw fruits and vegetables also have a much higher water content than their cooked counterparts, meaning not only do they nourish the body, they also hydrate it.

Raw food is a general term used to describe any fruit, vegetable, nut, grain, seed, seaweed or superfood that has not been cooked or heated higher than 110 degrees (generally speaking). To take it a step further, many raw food nutritionists promote the soaking and sprouting of organic nuts, beans, grains and seeds. This deems them much more nutritious and highly bio-available to the body.  Here's an example: a raw almond is a highly concentrated food that's potentially not so easy to digest.  Once soaked in water and the sprouting process has begun, the water content increases as well as the nutritional value (50% increase in protein bioavailability, 100% increase in minerals and antioxidants, and 200-300% increase in vitamins).  You can think of it this way; a toasted almond placed in the ground and covered with soil will just rot.  Now take a raw almond; soak it in water overnight and plant.  That almond now has so much nutrition and life energy that it will grow to become a beautiful tree filled with almonds.      

The living foods diet can be as simple or complex as each individual prefers. Some raw foodists eat simply whole foods; fruits and vegetables, including plenty of greens as a staple in their diet. Even distance runners and health nutritionists! The fruits provide enough calories (for energy boosts) while the greens contain the full spectrum of minerals and all the essential amino acids that build protein. Superfoods cater to those of us who are constantly on the go, need to jump start their day, or seek to achieve the best results ever!