Benefits To The Raw Food Diet

The raw food diet is gaining much attention and press lately. After all, it has strong supporters from high profile celebrities such as actor Woody Harrelson, model Carol Alt, designer Donna Karan, and Chicago-based celebrity chef Charlie Trotter. The raw food diet sure sounds like a healthy diet. But is it only a fad? What are the benefits to the raw food diet?

The raw food diet is one that is about the consumption of uncooked, unprocessed and largely organic foods. This means that foods are not allowed to heated above a certain temperature. What this temperature is depends on the type of raw food diet you are on. Yes, there is more than one to choose from. But typically, maximum temperatures range from 92 degrees farenheit to 118 degrees farenheit.

If you equate raw food to only vegetarian food, then this is not entirely true. For some raw food diets, only vegetables, fruits, seeds and nuts are allowed. In others, it can also include fish, meat and unpasteurized dairy products such as raw milk, cheese or yoghurt. This will help ensure that you get much needed protein from other food sources as well.

There are many benefits to the raw food diet. One of the main reasons why people go on a raw food diet is because they believe that raw food can heal or treat several diseases. Raw foods contain live enzymes, thus aiding in digestion. It frees the enzymes of your own body to work on its various metabolic processes. Unfortunately, most enzymes in foods are destroyed through heating when we cook and through processing for preserving them for sale.

Another benefit to the raw food diet can be on your weight. This is simply because raw food usually has fewer calories than other types of food. A raw food diet can help you achieve weight loss as you will have to cut out all junk or processed foods.

Raw foods also contain bacteria and other micro-organisms that are said to be helpful for the balance of your intestinal flora. They can help stimulate your immune system and improve on the digestive process.

Another benefit to the raw food diet is that you can find yourself having loads of energy. This happens because your body can more easily digest and use the fuel from raw foods rather than meats and refined foods. Also, raw foods have higher nutrients than foods that are cooked, since they are not all destroyed via cooking.

However, to be on a raw food diet means that you should refrain from eating even the smallest amount of cooked food. Your body will find it more difficult to process the raw foods, because the acid levels in your stomach will be increased.

You also need to ensure that you take supplements especially if you are on a vegetarian-only raw food diet. Vitamin B12 is one supplement that many vegetarians are deficient in, because it is found in meats and other animal products. It is difficult to get this in raw vegetables and fruits. Some other supplements that are normally needed are zinc and copper, because they are primarily found in meats. Eating seeds and nuts may help you to get some of the vitamins, because they are a very good protein source that can help you to rebuild your tissues and create new ones. Calcium and protein deficiency must also be looked into, with a raw food diet.

You may find that your appetite increases with a raw food diet. You can eat a lot of food and still be hungry and will be tempted to eat more. Although raw foods contain less calories, you may find that you undergo more severe detoxification side effects such as headaches and mild nausea, if your stomach cannot take too much raw foods suddenly and all at one go.

The raw food diet is also not suitable for those who are pregnant, young children, anemic people or those at risk with osteoporosis. Those who go on a raw food diet tend to have lower bone mass.

Also, implementing a raw food diet takes up considerable time, effort and commitment. You need to make many of your foods from scratch. Not all food ingredients are as readily available as the ones catering to a normal diet.

Despite the various criticisms, the raw food diet movement is gaining popularity. The many benefits to the raw food diet is tempting: balanced body weight, clear skin, more energy and less sickness. It is also much easier to find restaurants offering raw food meals in large cities now across the world. A raw food diet is not boring either. There are several cookbooks published with appetizing recipes that you can easily follow if you want to go on this diet.

Fast Food and Calories

Here in the technology and information age, we have more knowledge and advancements than ever before in history. Sixty years ago, who would have ever thought that you could send an instant message over a phone, let alone take a picture with it? Sixty years ago, who would have thought we would be capable of sending a man to the moon, but fail the war on obesity and cancer?

Isn't it oddly shocking that America is so well-advanced in everything except health and fitness? While the fitness industry tells us to count calories and exercise for fat loss, we grow fatter and fatter as a nation.

Running parallel to the fitness industry is the fast food chains, doing their best to keep on the top of "healthy eating" trend. It seems the fast-food industry can tailor to anyone's dieting needs with "fat-free," "low-calorie," and "low-carb" menu items.

Today, fast food is considered a normal eating venture among the average person. People aren't just eating out on special occasions or weekends anymore; they are eating out all the time. But is it the calories in fast food that's so destructive to the body and waistline or does the problem lie deeper?

Fast Food and Obesity

Fast food is simply tasty, ready-cooked meals packed to go. Fast food has been around since the early 1900's, but its popularity sparked and grew in the 1940's with the birth of good ole' Mickey D's; quick food priced cheaply. Within a few years similar fast-food operations popped up everywhere in the blink of an eye.

With the compelling rise in fast-food restaurants since the 1940's, oddly, too, started the rise in obesity and cancer during that same time period. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to do the math and link fast food to the obesity and cancer crisis.

Fast Food and its Nutritional Value

To say fast food has a "nutritional value" is an oxymoron. There is absolutely nothing nutritional about fast food. Fast food simply feeds hunger and/or your immediate craving. Fast food does not feed your body in the form of usable lasting energy or building materials, the essence your body thrives on for life itself.

Fast food is highly processed with a wide array of additives. The concept of fast food is obviously, food ready-to-eat and served quickly. To ensure fast food's low cost to the consumer, the fast food products are made with highly-processed ingredients to give it shelf-life, to hold consistency, and to enhance flavor. Fast food is altered from its original healthy form it was meant to nourish the body with, to a denatured form that lacks any nutritional value whatsoever.

According to Diana Schwarzbein, M.D., "The FDA Total Diet Study found that fast-food hamburgers, across the board, contained 113 different pesticide residues." So my question is why does the FDA want to regulate the sale of vitamins, minerals, and herbs that are actually beneficial for the body when there's a linking fast-food / cancer / obesity crisis on our hands?

Why Fast Food is Fattening and Dangerous

Wake up people. It's not the calories in fast food that's damaging to your health and waistline, it's the chemical additives such as aspartame and MSG (monosodium glutamate). These chemical additives are approved by the FDA and studies show that they lead to weight and disease issues.

Synthetic chemicals added to processed food, including fast food, damage your body's cells. Your body is made up of nutrients found in plants and animals you eat. Man-made food items loaded with pesticides, as well as aspartame, margarine, and other man-made chemicals do not nourish your body. If your body can't use what you put into it you will gain fat and decrease health.

Since we can't visually see what actually happens at the molecular level when we eat processed food, we discount it and rely on the FDA to do our thinking for us. After all, if its FDA approved, it MUST be okay to eat, right? Not at all.

Nutrients from the food we eat allow us to burn fat and be healthy. Your body cannot process synthetic chemicals. If a food item can't be processed, it will end up lodged in areas of your body, primarily fatty areas and tissues, creating an acidic pH.

A simple fast-food chicken breast can contain everything from modified corn starch to hydrolyzed corn gluten. Hello? Chicken comprised of corn? A fast-food chicken nugget is nearly 60% corn, and corn is what farmers use to fatten up cattle.

Michael Pollan, author of, The Omnivore's Dilemma says it perfectly - "How did we ever get to a point where we need investigative journalist to tell us where our food comes from?"

A good visual that Dr. Mark A. Gustafson found is that it takes fifty-one days to digest fast food chicken nuggets or French fries. FIFTY-ONE DAYS! Does that sound healthy? I could care less about the caloric, fat, or carbohydrate content. That's not the problem, people. The problem with fast food is that it's void of nutrients and loaded with chemicals not recognized by the body.

What's even more devastating is the book The Fast Food Diet written by Stephan Sinatra, M.D. This is a sad state when a doctor promotes eating chemically-altered food with addictive chemicals and damaged fats that scars the artery walls and contribute to total metabolic damage.

Eating Good and Avoiding the Hidden Dangers

Granted, calories do count to an extent, but what counts more is the quality of the calorie. If you want to lose fat then you have to change your eating habits. This doesn't mean opt for Healthy Choice® and Smart One's® frozen meals because they appear to be healthy. Food manufacturers use deceptive marking tactics to create an illusion to make people buy their product.

To lose fat and keep it off you should choose foods in their natural state, such as fresh organic cuts of meat, fresh organic fruits and vegetables, essential fats, and plenty of filtered water. It's vital that you go back to the basics.

Make eating fresh and organic food choices the bulk of your diet. If you do that, you will never have to count calories again. The quality of food outweighs the quantity every time.

References: Schwarbein, Diana M.D. The Schwarzbein Principle. 1999. 287 Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore's Dilemma. 2006. 1