Live Food FAQ

It is impossible to answer all the quesitions about raw and living foods here, but the following Q & A section reflects some of the questions Ihave been asked and the discussions I have enjoyed. If you have any questions that aren't answered here, please feel free to email with your question and I will try to answer and post it on this site.

Why Living and Raw Foods?

Our world is changing quickly and ways of life that once nourished our ancestors can no longer sustain us. Our physical, mental and emotional health is declining at a shocking rate. Disease and chronic conditions are no longer what we are used to as the consequences of aging – they are appearing in epidemic numbers in our children, youth and adults. Over many years, scientific evidence linking diet and health has finally convinced us that we need to change our approach to nourishment. We need to insist that the food we buy (or better yet, grow ourselves) has the highest nutritional value, and we need to prepare it in a way that preserves the nutrients and life force energy. There is a real hunger to re-discover more simple and natural ways of nourishing ourselves.

Where did the raw/live food diet start?

Before humans discovered fire, we ate our food raw. Even after cooking became common, there are many examples of ancient societies that thrived on a raw food diet for health and spiritual reasons, but we seem to have forgotten the benefits of this practice until recently. It is hard to trace the history of the ive food "movement", as there have always been small groups of people who followed this way of eating. The Natural Hygeine movement is one source of wisdom being followed today. There are other schools to thought, each with their own logic and practices, but they all focus on eating organic, living and raw foods in an uncooked state. The generally accepted definition of "raw" food is that it is food that has not been heated above 118 degrees Farenheit.

There are many live food researchers and practitioners who have constributed to our body of wisdom today, but two stand out as modern day catalysts for the movement. Ann Wigmore and Victoras Kulvinskas were pioneers in research and education. Now, raw cuisine is growing in popularity and people are beginning to add more live foods to their diets – with amazing results that you can see and read about on some of the links listed in the Information section..

Why eat a raw/live food diet?

The reasons are plentiful – some people do it for their health and vitality, others eat live foods for idealistic reasons or to enhance their spiritual practice. Many do it because the food tastes wonderful! Dr. Wigmore adopted a raw food diet because she had been diagnosed with colon cancer, essentially a death sentence in the sixties. She tried a raw diet and healed her cancer. Since then, the Hippocrates Institute has helped many people improve or cure serious health problems. Now there are many healing and educational centres devoted to sharing the healing power of live foods.

What happens when food is cooked?

We all have fond memories of a good-home cooked meal and the comfort it brings. Much of this comfort is social, cultural and emotional – which are all important forms of nourishment. But there is a downside to cooking, especially the way it is done in our fast food culture. Cooking (heating above 118⁰ F) destroys 99% of all enzymes, phytonutrients, and antioxidants; 60 to 70% of the vitamins; and between 50  85% of protein. The denatured protein is indigestible, contributes to inflammation, and overloads the lymphatic system. Fats become saturated and carcinogenic, and carbohydrates become caramelized, leading to yeast infections, hypoglycemia, diabetes and other sugar-related disorders. Not only that, as these nutrients are destroyed, they form other substances that can be toxic to the body. When we eat cooked foods, the body responds as if it has been attacked by a foreign invader: it sends white blood cells to the digestive tract, where the enzymes in the white blood cells help to digest the food. This weakens the immune system. Cooking also disturbs the bioelectrical structure of food, which is important for building and maintaining our life force energy and health.

Why are live foods so important now?

The quality of our food, our lifestyle, and our environment all influence out state of health. The Standard (North) American Diet, or SAD, is based on foods grown using chemicals, which kill the soil and deplete both soil  food of nutrients. These foods are then processed and have many toxic substances added. Then we cook the food, often in a microwave, killing more enzymes, destroying vitamins, and denaturing proteins. The final meal we eat has little resemblance to the vibrant food our great-grandparents ate. This diet is SAD indeed!

Our lives are much faster now, and we live with more stress, and less time to take care of ourselves. The stresses are many – poor diet and inactivity, pollution from agricultural and industrial chemicals, noise, electromagnetic fields, not to mention social and economic pressures. Our immune systems are simply not able to cope with the stresses of modern life when our diets provide more toxins than nutrients.

A diet of natural, organic fruits and vegetables is an important way for us to take control of our health. Most living/raw diets focus on vegan foods – that means no meat, dairy or eggs. From a practical standpoint, this diet is based on foods that have the best nutrient value and highest life force energy. Science has (re)discovered (and the ancient societies knew this) that we are nourished by more than just the biochemical building blocks in food – our bodies are made of energy and, ultimately, it is life force energy in live food that is our primary form of nourishment.

What can a raw/ live food diet do for me?

A diet of live foods offers one of the fastest and most efficient ways to boost your immunity, cleanse your body of toxins and increase your strength and vitality. Whether you are working with a serious health challenge, want to lose weight, or simply want to have more physical energy and mental clarity, increasing the amount of raw/living food in your diet is a great way to do it!

What are the benefits of raw/live foods? Raw foods are:

Cleansing – live foods have significant amounts of the nutrients needed to cleanse the body and fight disease. When we eat these foods in their live state, they stimulate the body to release toxins.

Highly nutritious – antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, phytonutrients and high quality protein are all easily absorbed by the body.

Hydrating – raw vegetables are the best source of highly structured water, which is more hydrating  cleansing for the body.

Alkalizing – most health problems are linked to an overly acidic body. The raw vegan diet helps reverse this condition.

High in life force energy – recent research has demonstrated the living energy field around live/raw foods. Cooking destroys this energy. Foods with the highest amounts of energy are the healthiest, and sprouts are one of the cheapest, easiest, and tastiest ways to enjoy this high energy.

Live foods bring vitality, energy, and mental clarity!

Many chronic health conditions respond well to a live food diet – fibromyalgia, asthma, allergies, arthritis, diabetes, and cancer, to name a few. There are countless stories of people reversing these conditions on a live food diet.

Where do raw vegans get their protein?

We have been taught that we need meat, milk or eggs to get enough protein. But there are many plants that have significant amounts of high quality protein, and many that have more protein than animal products. Here are just a few great sources of vegetable protein: nuts, seeds, hemp, greens (like kale, collards, and spinach), broccoli, sea vegetables (like dulse), sprouted seeds grains and legumes. It’s easy to get enough protein if you eat your greens!

How much raw/live food should I eat? Do I have to go 100% raw?

This is an individual choice. Research shows that people start to get superior health benefits on a diet that is 75% to 100% raw. But don’t worry if you can’t go that far – any increase in the raw food you eat is a gift that your body will thank you for. Also, if you want the best value for your food dollar, then raw foods will bring all their nutrients to your table and belly in a tasty and economical way.

Aren’t raw foods hard to digest?

No, but ithe increase in plant fibre does take some getting used to at first. Humans don't make cellulase, the enzyme needed to break down cellulose. But because all foods that have not been cooked have the enzymes needed for their own digestion, we can liberate these enzymes AND the nutrients inside the plant cells by blending ~ blended soups and smoothies are excellent ways to transition into a living food diet. The blending opens all the cells in the food and makes the nutrients readily available - the food is essentially pre-digested for you! The second way to get predigested food is to eat sprouts. These are amazingly nutritious and can add lots of vitality to your day, and they are full of enzymes, so these can also help make live foods more digestable and easiy to get used to.

What about food safety?

Cooking has historically been a way of killing pathogenic organisms  tenderizing the food. In many parts of the world, this is important, especially for meat. But a diet based on raw vegan foods (no meat, dairy or eggs) carries less risk if you follow some simple guidelines. News stories about contaminated lettuce, spinach and sprouts fail to tell us that the large scale ‘factory’ methods of producing these foods, and a multi-level food distribution system are most often at the root of the problems. Following simple measures of cleanliness – keep your kitchens and hands clean, wash your produce even if it says it is pre-washed, and buy produce from a local organic grower, eating raw foods is beyond safe – it is one of the best ways to protect your health.

What’s so special about the way live foods nourish us?

Our traditional view of food is based on a mechanistic framework, and assumes that food just brings a mix of biochemical building blocks:  proteins, carbohydrates and essential fatty acids, as well as vitamins, minerals and ‘special’ substances like antioxidants and phytonutrients that fight disease. And food does indeed provide these substances. They have an essential role to play in maintaining our physical structure, and do contribute significantly to our physical, mental and emotional states.  BUT new research is showing that these biochemicals are not our primary source of nourishment.           

Life force energy is our primary form of nourishment. This comes from many sources, the sun, the air we breath, the energy field that surrounds and connects us to everything else…and our food. Gabriel Cousens describes a new paradigm in nutrition in his book “Spiritual Nutrition”. He and many other researchers are exploring new concepts that challenge our old view of nutrition. Cousens suggests that our bodies are crystalline structures that absorb the life force energy from food through a process of resonance. He came to a live food diet while searching for a way to eat that would enhance his communion with the Divine. He also suggests that as humans evolve, we will become more able to absorb life force energy directly from food and this will enhance out capacity to hold a higher resonance.

Does Live Food alter consciousness?

Yes – at many levels. Our world and our collective reality would be quite different iwithout sugar and caffiene. Our almost universal addiction to stimulants reflects the degree to which we have become separated from nature and authentic nourishment. We can change that.

There are many dietary approaches to altering consciousness: Ayurveda is an ancient Indian system of health that recognizes the energetic power of food to alter consciousness. It is important to note that these ancient traditions recognized that our primary source of nourishment was life force energy, and food provided part, but not all of our nutrition. We are also nourished by air, water, nature and our relationships with others and with spirit. Rediscovering our connection to this can significantly change the world we create.

Even in our limited Western way of understanding food we see how sugar, caffeine and other substances affect consciousness and behaviour. What mother doesn't know intimately the effect of ice cream and cake on her toddler's behaviour? And it doesn't stop here - the connection between nutrition and violence is well known. The field of Orthomolecular Psychiatry is devoted to treating psychiatric conditions with common nutrients.

But even in everyday life, we notice a ‘gut feeling’ when something doesn’t agree with us – we become over stimulated, depressed, sleepy, anxious….. we are beginning to understand that foods can be balancing or toxic to us. We are also becoming more attuned to the mental and emotional effects of foods, and with the shift in human consciousness underway now, more people are awakening to see food as intricately connected to the reality we create. Many people report a significant increase in perception, self-awareness, and unity consciousness with a live food diet.  At one level, this is because the live food diet is cleansing – it helps the body release built up toxins and as we continue to eat this way, we stop putting in more toxins and our physical and energetic bodies become more receptive.

The impact of this cleansing is more than physical or mental – it affects our emotions and the way we see the world and our place in it. Many long-time raw foodies say that we need to do our emotional work if we want to gain al the benefits offered by a living food diet. We need to be aware that as we cleanse our physical vehicle with live foods, every other aspect of our being will shift to accommodate this new balance. This means emotional cleansing and releasing old beliefs and patterns – clearing the way for us to re-create ourselves, individually and collectively.

Although many people have achieved advanced levels of consciousness without a raw food diet, most have been vegetarian. As more people are motivated to follow the path to higher consciousness, more are choosing a live food diet to assist in the process.  Live food is a clean burning fuel.

What does our choice of food show us about ourselves?

Our inner and outer worlds are reflections.  What we see ‘out there’ is a reflection of what is going on inside. One of the insights we are experiencing in our collective consciousness is that there is no ‘out there’. We are all connected.

As we recognize this connection, we find our food choices (as well as the way we shop, build, drive and use energy) become more in tune with nature and sustainability. A raw vegan diet, uses fewer resources and land than a carnivorous diet. As food becomes scarce for many of our brothers and sisters, we need to make choices that ensure we can all be nourished. Because of the high nutrition content of live food, we need to eat less to meet our  needs, leaving more to be shared with others.

Is a live food diet ecologically friendly and sustainable?

One of the challenges of a live food diet, especially in northern climates is the limited growing season and the need to import certain foods during the winter. We have also come to expect to have certain foods like avocados, coconuts and a range of superfoods that have to be shipped to us. How do we nourish ourselves and still make eco-friendly choices?

There are many things we can do to increase the local content of our diets, during the winter and throughout the year. These are just a few:

We can start an indoor garden with sprouts and soil-grown microgreens that will provide us with living, fresh food for pennies a day.

We need to make strategic choices about which foods we eat – it may not be possible to go 100% organic, local, raw all year long. We need to be comfortable with our choices and receive the food that we choose in a spirit of gratitude.

We may choose to eat some lightly cooked, locally grown and stored vegetables during the winter to release our dependence on transportation and energy use.

We can explore the range of local ‘superfoods’, which are mostly wild edibles and herbs. This is an area of great potential for us to explore collectively. Traditional societies all knew where to find these foods - it's our challenge to rediscover this wisdom.

One of the most important things we can do is connect with our community to develop local strategies to feed and nourish ourselves.

 

Copyright 2009 - Georgia Barnwell - All rights reserved.

Food Photos by patcreighton@eastlink.ca