Veggies and whole fruits and legumes, oh my!
Raw foodists are getting famous for chowing down on greens and grains in their pure, natural, and unrefined form. Uncooked, untreated, and unadulterated. No carriers, binders or fillers.
Doesn’t that just sound right? When you cut away all the additives and prep steps, you’re left with pure, rich foods that move smoothly through your system, healing and nourishing every step of the way.
From to a fiber-full belly to a healthy heart, check out the benefits a raw diet can bring to your life:
Digestive Health
- Raw foods are balanced in fiber and water – two key elements of a strong digestive system.
- Parts of veggies, fruits, beans, grains, nuts and seeds that are too tough for your stomach to break down are fiber: when they pass down through you, they clear you out.
- Bacteria, hormones, cholesterol, toxins and excess waste can all be wiped from your system via fiber. This is great for colon health!
- A diet of live, raw foods and purified water also keeps you perfectly hydrated. Get those 2-3 litres per day!
Enzymes and Nutrients Galore
- It’s a fact: raw, live foods contain all of their original vitamins, minerals and essential enzymes. When these foods are cooked, those precious elements are destroyed by the heat.
- These enzymes help boost your immune system, aid in vitamin absorption, and even help cells to repair themselves.
- Most raw foodies report having better skin once going raw – that’s thanks to nutrients’ anti-aging benefits, and that exceptional water intake mentioned above.
SIDEBAR: What’s the difference between “raw” and “live” food? It’s all about the enzymes! Live foods are brimming with them, but raw food enzymes are dormant. To bring raw foods (like nuts) to life, you simply soak them in water for a period of time until they sprout, awakening those enzymes. Both raw and live foods can also be steamed at temperatures up to 180 degrees Fahrenheit and still safely be part of a raw foods diet.
Weight Management
- Eat raw and achieve a healthy weight – without counting calories or limiting how much you eat.
- Raw fruits and veggies are super sources of lipase – the enzyme that “splits and dissolves fat.”
- Lipase is to thank for distributing fat evenly throughout the body, and burning fat for energy!
- What’s more: a recent study by the American Journal of Physical Anthropology proves that when fats are cooked, they yield more calories than when they’re eaten raw.
Alkaline Benefits
- In alkaline environments, disease and infection can’t thrive – raw foods help alkalize your body.
- Your body only functions within a narrow pH range (~7.35-7.45pH). A ten point difference seems small, but it can make huge differences (a 300% drop in your blood oxygen level, for example!).
- The more cooked food you consume, the more acidic toxins are accumulating in your body, disrupting your delicate alkaline/acidic balance.
Heart Health + Disease Prevention
- Heart expert Dr. Dean Ornish says that raw food diets are so healthy, they can even dissolve plaque that collects on artery walls, “undoing decades of cardiovascular damage.”
- Raw foodists avoid the acidic toxins made by cooking or frying food – including the carcinogens, and mutagens associated with diabetes, arthritis, and cancer.
- A 2012 Food Technology Report says raw diets significantly reduce or completely eliminate people’s genetic bias for chronic diseases. It’s no miracle – it’s pure, beautiful, raw health.
Raw food is good food! Now you know why.
Does this stuff suit your taste? Learn more about the benefits of a plant-based diet here, or go treat your health-loving self to some tasty raw juice. And as always, let us know what you think!
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