The Vegan Society have released a 30 minute film about the benefits of a vegan diet.

They have broken the film down into short segments which are now all on You Tube.Here is the first

The rest you can find by going to the Vegan Society You tube channel.
Vegan Society Youtube Channel

The film looks not just at the health benefits but the benefits to animals,food security,bio-diveristy in the countryside,and as an aid to competing in sport.

Is Coffee good for you?

It is said that coffee is the second most traded commodity after oil which must mean we drink alot of the stuff.

Many people choose not to drink it or any other drink that contains caffeine as it raises blood pressure or give you ulcers.

However there are a number of studies emerging that suggest drinking coffee in moderation will prevent.:

• Type 2 diabetes
• Parkinson’s disease
• Alzeimer’s
• Prostate cancer

Caffeine in isolation is quite toxic but mixed with the other ingredients of coffee such as antioxidants neutralise the harmful effects of caffeine.There are many minerals and vitamins in coffee which have a beneficial effect on the human body.

So if you are drinking coffee please observe the following guidelines

Use organic coffee as the coffee that is not organic is covered with pesticides which will not wash off

Don’t drink out of plastic cups which leach harmful chemicals into your coffee.

Do NOT use milk or sugar.

If you use coffee filters ensure the filters are unbleached

Use filtered water.

Follow these guidelines,drink coffee in moderation, and you will be OK.

The Ph level in our body is so fundamental to our well being.

It was a Nobel Prize winner Otto Warburgh who discovered that cancer is caused by a lack of oxygen which allows lactic acid to destroy the ability of  DNA  to control cell division.

So if we want to avoid cancer what better way than to keep the  alkaline. Yet we hear little talk of ph levels from doctors.Sure we hear alot about blood pressure and  cholesterol but not much attention is given to our ph level. An alkaline bias should be around 7.4.Your body will do all it can to keep your ph  at this level to the extent of taking calcium out of your bones.

This will fix your ph level but will do long term damage to your bone strength.It could even lead to osteoporosis.

What is the solution?

We should be eating more of are greens of course because they are all alkaline.To get the right ph level you need to be eating 80% alkaline food which will be impossible if you are consuming food which contains meat and/or dairy.

So get eating those greens such as kale or spinnach and if you find them boring try turning them into a green smoothie and add an apple or peach for taste.

All of this will keep your cells healthy and deliver high energy levels.So dump the meat/dairy diet now.

To check your ph levels there you  can buy urine testing kits which are colour coded and will tell you if you are acidic or alkaline.You need to do a few samples over a few days to get a good average.You do not want to be below 7.4.

To your good health.

Andrew Collinson

The importance of greens in your diet

I am reading another book by Victoria Boutenko called Green for Life which you can buy here
and in the first few chapter she looks at how similar we are genetically with chimpanzees so it make sense we should have a diet similar to theirs.

Of course  the diet of a chimpanzee is raw so if you are eating raw food then you are already  way ahead of most people.The problem Victoria identified  was that chimpanzees eat a lot more greens than we do and much less seeds and nuts.

The problem with eating greens is that the nutrients we need and inside very robust cells so the green must be chewed slowly to break these cells down.Also the stomach acid we have must be very strong.

So to overcome this problem Victoria uses her super fast blender the Vitamix to turn the greens into a smoothie.Then she encountered another problem the smell was not exactly attractive.So what she did was add things like bananas, pears and strawberries.This did the trick. it made the smoothie a joy to drink.

So my advice to you is to experiment with making green smoothies until you find the one with the best taste.Then you will know you are getting all the nutrients you need and drinking something that tastes good.

You know that saying:” what you resist will persist”.

Well it is the same with raw and cooked food.If you approach your shift to raw food as a battle of will against cooked food then there is a good chance that you will lose.

So in deciding to go raw you must have a big reason for doing it that will dissipate the need to resist.

Do you want to be healthy both mentally and physically when you are old?Do you want to be active in your community when everyone around is getting sick because they are still on the western diet.

Have you some spiritual goals that can only be attained if you have a long life?

You must have these big goals or you will lose meaning to your life and drop back to cooked food because well why not what’s the point to life, you reason.

I have found the people who care about their health and by extension what they eat and very happy positive people who have meaning in their life.

Fo me I follow a Buddhist spiritual practice and one of the first meditations we do on the path to Enlightenment is to realise we have a precious human life.We have had countless previous lives mostly spent in hell or as an animal.Now by our  greatest good fortune (actually as a result of our karma) we have a human life where we can attain full Enlightenment.

The process is long so we need a long life.We can achieve that if we eat the right food and drink the right drink.

So get clear on your big goals.The need to resist will disappear as you will know what is at stake.

What are your big goals and how do they help you stay raw?Tell me in the comment box below.

You enthusiasm  for raw food can get you into trouble.

Firstly you might visit someone who does not know you have gone raw and present you with a cooked meal.You might respond “oh cooked food,I cannot eat that it will make me sick.It’s raw food or nothing for me now”

Or you may try to convert people to raw food telling them how harmful cooked food is and how good raw food is.The problem is no on wants to be lectured to.The only thing you can do is be the healthy person you have become and wait until others convince themselves that raw food is a better option.

It’s like that old adage people don’t like to be sold to but they love to buy.People have to decide in their own mind that they want something not be bullied into buying it.

So if you just go about following your raw food diet then eventually people will start asking you questions.Some are the same old boring ones like ” where do you get our protein from” but some are good questions and show the person may be coming round to your way of thinking.

If they do don’t jump on them even at this point, just keep giving them the facts and eventually they will convince themselves that raw is good.

The other point about people serving you cooked food if you are invited to a dinner then tell the host in advance what you eat.Hey even offer to bring your own food,it will be one less thing for the host to worry about.

Show the world how healthy you are and how rarely you get sick.That’s all you need to do.Anything more than that and you become another pushy salesman.

Don’t be that.

To your good health

Andrew Collinson

The Raw Food Diet and Overcoming Hunger

The problem with the western diet is that we eat processed food which does not contain all the nutrients we need so after the meal is eaten we still feel hungry and want to eat more.So we do and the process is repeated and this is why so many people are overweight.

I would say most people eating cooked meals make the decision on what to eat on how something tastes whereas someone eating raw food is more aware of the mixture of carbohydrates,fats,protein and nutrients in their food and chooses accordingly.

So the food a raw fooder likes the most is constantly changing,whereas someone who eats cooked food will tell quickly what their favourite meal is.

The makers of ready meals know that a food needs flavour to make it attractive to the buying public so things are added usually salt and pepper ,but this will not satisfy and dietary needs.

Preservatives also go in to prolong the shelf life.

Because cooked food does not give the nutrients our body needs there has been an explosion in the number of fast food eating outlets around the western world.Within them portion sizes are getting bigger and bigger because we feel hungry all the time.

The only way to achieve weight loss is by increasing the diversity of nutrients we take so as to reduce  our feeling of hunger.

As you make the transition to raw food you will find that even different parts of the same vegetables taste differently.The problem with cooking is that every vegetable starts to taste the same which is why we need to add condiments.

To overcome this problem in raw food you should always strive to have the five food rates present sweet sour salty bitter and spicy.That way your raw food will never be bland.

For sour use lemons or cranberries.

For sweet use figs dates and prunes

For spicy use garlic, ginger or mustard seeds.

For salty use celery or nori.

For bitter use sage or onions.

Add these to raw food meals you make for cooked food eaters and they too will start to get the message.

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

Are marathons good for you?

You may think the answer is an emphatic yes.Surely the further you run the fitter you become.Yet once again we see a death on a marathon this time a young woman at the London marathon in 2012.So are they really good for you bearing in mind a run of 26 miles pushes you to the absolute limit.

I have done three half marathons and that for me is enough.My legs and feet hurt for days,but hey no pain, no gain, right?

I follow a blog run by a Dr Mercola which is an excellent source of information about exercise and nutrition.He says the pain is not worth it.

In one of his blog posts he cites numerous studies that show extended and vigorous exercise increases the risk of cardiac damage.In his opinion even if you suffer no negative short term effects if you are doing alot of long distance training then over time you will suffer.

A study of older men who  ran at least 100 marathons during their earlier life showed significant heart scarring.A test on rats also doing long and intense physical exercise showed the same result.

Dr Mercola’s solution is for us to mimic our hunter gatherers exercise pattens of very intense but short exercise followed by rest.He suggests the following:

• warm up for three minutes doing plenty of stretching.
• do 30 seconds of sprinting so intense you feel you cannot go any faster.At the end you should be gasping for breath.
• come off the intense exercise but keep moving a gentle jog.Do this for 90 seconds.
• repeat the above 7 more times.

The total of all this is a twenty minute work out which should be done three times a week.You will get all the cardio benefits of long distance running without any damage to your heart.

You also have more time to do other stuff!

I will give it a go and report back.Why don’t you try it too and tell me your experiences.Leave your 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.