How important is it to eat 100% raw food?

Continuing through Victoria Boutenko’s book 12 Steps to Raw Food  she asks the question how important is it to be 100% raw.

Now I am not 100% yet because I still go out for meals with friends and cooked food is impossible to avoid.But when I am at home I now only do raw and feel much better for it.

My body is now getting to like the feel of raw and dislike the taste of cooked.

Victoria’s recommendation is that if you are a compulsive eater you go 100% raw but if you are a controlled eater, that is you eat at fixed times and only eat until you no longer feel hungry, then 80% is OK.

For compulsive eaters the temptation is just too great to go back to cooked food if you just have one thing that is cooked.So better to stay 100% all the time.

Victoria also talk about the moment when we weaned off our mother’s milk and start to eat/drink other foods.She believes this moment can have a profound effect on the eating habits through the rest of our lives.A child will watch what it’s parents eat and think it must be good.But if the parent is unaware of what foods and good and what are bad how can we expect the child to know otherwise.

Obesity is rife these days but like most things prevention is better than cure,so if we can instill good eating habits in children then they have a better change of leading healthy lives.

So my question is if you have children what are you feeding them and what is their school feeding them?

Leave you comment below

What is life and what has that got to do with food?

You may think the first part of this question is a bit too deep  but Victoria Boutenko has a chapter in her book devoted to this subject. You can get the book here.

She starts by making the point that if you plant two almond seeds in the ground one roasted and one raw ,the raw one will grow into a tree and produce many more almonds.The roasted one will not.

Her point is that why we are alive we need to put alive food in our body.Inside plant cells are organelles which break down carbohydrates and sugar to provide energy,but they only occur in raw food.

Even animals in the wild who eat meat will kill and animal and eat it’s flesh straight away whilst it is fresh ,not leave it to rot somewhere.We might think meat is kept fresh by freezing or cooling it but the truth it is no longer fresh and lacks the aliveness of raw fruit and vegetables .

In fact it is starting to be shown if domestic pets are  fed on a diet of cooked meat that is then canned, illnesses develop until now not seen in animals in the wild.

A friend of mine Susanna McIntrye is a veterinary surgeon who promotes the use of raw food as part of an animals diet.Check out her website
here

So we need live food to maintain the life force within ourselves.Indeed people who go raw report an increase in their energy levels.

If all we eat is cooked food then we are eating dead food and this cannot be good for the life force within all of us.

Just one more reason to go raw.

To your good health

Andrew Collinson.

I am reading 12 Steps to Raw Food by Victoria Boutenko one of the pioneers of the raw food movement.You can get it by clicking on the image below.

This is the second edition of her book first published in 2000, and I am reading what she says about eating greens.

Now greens are the base of the nutritional pyramid in a raw food diet  but you may find it hard munching through all that lettuce,  kale ,or spinach.Remember it must be all raw for you to receive the maximum nutritional benefit.

So what she has suggested is to turn it all into a smoothie.You see the walls of plant leaves are quite tough and make it difficult for your body to get at the powerful nutrients within each plant cell.

Now  to add a bit more flavour she suggests you add some fruit like some strawberries or peaches or bananas.

So that is what I did.I used spinach peaches,lime juice, and two cups of water,put it all in the the blender and a minute later have a quite wonderful drink,great to taste and packed with all the vitamins and minerals you need.

No meat, no dairy, nothing cooked, just whole raw foods that come without a bar code.

Try it now and you will come to like your greens more and more.You will spend more time in the fruit and veg section of your supermarket and less time in aisle 6 where all the processed foods are.

Start today.

To your good health.

Andrew Collinson

I have started adding miso to my cold soups and I have to say I like the taste.
Now of course it is dangerous to eat something just because it tastes nice.Taste is what drives most people when deciding what to eat and is the reason why most people have unhealthy bodies.

Refined sugar is often the main culprit so the less we have of it in our diet the better.

Miso is made by fermenting rice barley and soy beans with added sea salt and water.I buy miso made by Clearspring which is organic and Soil Associations approved.

You really notice the salt in the miso and makes for great soups which are eaten by millions of Japanese people every day.Given the high salt content I would not recommend you take it everyday  and then only add a small amount to your soup.

You can coat a corn on the cobb with it, and use it as a dip to eat with vegetables.You can even use it as a spread on bread.

For the soup I follow the Hippocrates Institute recipe which consist of

• miso- of course
• water
• a clove of garlic
• 2 chiles
• tablespoon of toasted sesame oil
• Braggs Liquid Aminos
• ginger

Put all this in a blender,when complete pour it through a strainer  and add arame sea weed,shiitake mushrooms and a couple of spring onions ( green onions).

Miso is high in B12 and protein and is very low in saturated fats so I recommend it as part of any healthy diet.If you are ever asked by meat eaters as I always am ” where do you get your protein from?” here is one more food you can add to the list.

So try it today.

I work with this guy who has just bought one of those massive tubs on whey protein,the type you can get in health food shops.

He is doing this because he is visiting  the gym more frequentl,y so needs to boost his protein intake to rebuild his muscle tissue.

The problem with food supplements is that they are isolated foods in that they do not occur naturally the other constituents of the food it came from is this case cow’s milk.

Like most foods  carbohydrates form the biggest part of whey so it and the fat need to be stripped out to leave the protein which becomes the supplement.

In doing this we have something which is no longer a whole food and is therefore harder for  the body to  use.Then there is the problem of the acidity of protein.The body needs to be in a state of alkalinity, so whenever an acidic food is introduced to the body then it must be neutralized with bone calcium.

This weakens the bones which manifests as osteoporosis  in later  life.

The long term effect of protein is to weaken the functionality of muscle so whilst a protein will create muscle inflammation and thus size,the muscles ability to lift weights is reduced.

As always we must turn to whole based plant foods for the right way to repair our muscle tissue after a work out.

Chlorella which comes from fresh water algae is a great  alkaline food and is also a rich source of protein.

I use it daily so can vouch for it’s benefits.

So we see perfect balance here of protein and alkaline which you can only get from whole foods.

So be very careful before you start taking any supplement and seek expert advice first.

To get you  hands on some chlorella visit the Raw Living Website

To your good health

Andrew Collinson

People tell me they are put off switching to a raw food diet as they enjoy hot food during the winter months.Think of it,you come home on a freezing cold day and what could be better than a big bowl of hot soup?

Well as we know if you heat up food most of it’s nutritional value is lost,so in that sense the hot soup is not an option.

So how do we make cold soup “feel” hot?

Two ways: one,put something spicy in the soup such as ginger
or chilies.

Two,heat up your soup bowl in the oven for a few minutes then
put the soup in it.

I have just made some miso soups with ginger, chilies,sesame oil,
shiitake mushrooms,spring onions and Braggs Liquid Aminos.

Let me tell you it was quite hot and left me feeling warm inside.

Not only that as the ingredients are raw the soup has more
nutritional value than any hot soup.Also soup is quick to
digest so you don’t have the exhausted feeling you get after
eating a cooked meal.

So don’t be put off by eating cold food in winter.

Spice it up and  you will feel warmer.

To your good health, mental and physical

Andrew Collinson

PS if you want any of those hard to find raw ingredients then click on the banner ads to the right of this blog post.

The benefits of a raw food diet

If you are to follow a raw food diet you must be motivated as otherwise you will just give into temptation every time someone puts a piece of cake in front of you, or you see all those sweets in the the newsagent.

The fact is a raw food diet is a long term weight loss solution that is not one of those fads diets which go in and out of fashion.

By eating raw food that contains all the minerals and vitamins you need,your body will not have this constant craving for food it does not need.The hunger you feel is not driven by a lack of fat or protein or sugar,you have more than enough of that.

Eat a whole food plant based raw diet and you will have all the nutrients you need and the hunger will go away.Then you will eat less and the pounds will start to fall away.

Think of the consequences of being overweight:

• type two diabetes
• heart disease
• hypertension
• strokes
• skin problems
• bone disorders

Why would you not want to be on a diet that helps you avoid all these problems.

To get started I recommend Shazzie’s  New 2 Raw Course which can find by clicking on the 23 Days to Raw Food Heaven to the right of this blog post.

To your good health.

Andrew Collinson

Raw Food Success

I am just reading an amazing book by Matt Monarch called Raw Success

He make the insightful comment that when we go raw our body becomes less intolerant to bad cooked food as we purify ourselves of all the toxins in such food.

So if you know someone who eats cooked food and they say “well I eat cooked food and I feel fine” whereas you feel sick eating the same food,it is only because their body has built up an intolerance to such bad food.They may be able to survive ,but they will not match your energy and vitality.

You will live longer and look better.

There is an argument that raw foodists do not live that much longer than people who eat cooked food because as the raw food body becomes cleaner it becomes more sensitive to the polluted air we breathe over which we have no control.

If you brought a man from 5000 years ago and placed him on earth today he would probably die very quickly because of the toxic air.

So the message is do not yo-yo between a cooked and raw diet.Go raw 100% and reduced the quantity of food you eat.The purer you become at cellular level the less food you will need.

You can read the book in it’s entirety by clicking on the book image below