A raw food diet includes fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and sprouts served cold or slightly warm but under 118 °F. Higher heat damages nutrients and enzymes which can break down into toxins that cause disease. Raw food can help you achieve optimum health, lose weight and prevent many degenerative conditions.
Raw foodism is actually not new. It can be traced back to the late 1800s, when Dr. Maximilian Bircher-Benner discovered that eating raw apples helped him cure his jaundice. He started to test the effects of raw food on human health – and the raw food diet has been evolving since then!
Typically, “live” or “raw food” is mostly organic and hasn’t been cooked, processed, microwaved, irradiated, genetically engineered or exposed to toxic chemicals, GMOs or pesticides. It includes fresh fruits, berries, vegetables, nuts, seeds and herbs in their whole, natural condition. Advocates claim that cooking over 118 °F destroys or damages most of the nutrients in your food. Since the food is then much more nutrient dense, you don’t need to eat as many calories as people need on a diet of cooked, processed and “dead” foods.
Raw foodists are usually experts at juicing, blending, dehydrating, sprouting, germinating, cutting, chopping and many other methods to prepare raw food recipes for themselves, as well as their pets.
How to Enjoy a Raw Food Diet for Optimum Health!
Here are the basics of a raw food diet in a nutshell, though simplified for fast, easy understanding. A raw foodist is someone that eats 75-100% live, nutritionally-dense organic uncooked and unprocessed food and drinks pure, live water. Enjoying delicious meals without cooking the “life” out of your food helps optimize your health by alkalizing your body. At that rate, your body can eliminate the toxins created when you cook.
When more 25% of your diet is cooked, you are eating acidic toxins faster than you can eliminate them. You then store these toxins in your fat cells, disrupting your body’s acid/alkaline balance. Acidic toxins are a major cause of excess weight and disease.
Toxins Created by Cooking!
Common myths of a raw food diet are that eating raw is expensive and that it takes a lot of time to prepare. Nothing could be further from the truth! When you do it correctly, a raw food diet is one of the most convenient and economical ways you can live a long and healthy life! You see, cooking food above 118°F. is what actually causes most of the chemical changes in food associated with many health problems. Heat breaks down the food creating mutagens, carcinogens and free-radicals associated with diabetes, arthritis, heart disease and cancer – while also destroying the live enzymes we actually need.
Your Body is Meant to be Alkaline!
Your body is like an alkaline battery — running on electrons. All life-giving chemical reactions only happen when electrons or energy flows between atoms. Cooking or processing causes food to lose electrons – the source of the energy your body needs. Things that are healthy ‘contribute” electrons and are called alkalizing. Things that are unhealthy steal electrons and are called acidic or “oxidizing.” (burn up, rust or decay).
Because the pH scale is logarithmic even a fraction of a point can create huge changes to health! One hydroxyl molecule (-OH) in 550 million is enough to make water conductive. In fact, most important processes in your body only work within a very narrow pH range. For example, if the pH of your blood falls to the low end of its normal range (~7.35-7.45), a .10 difference, it could reduce the oxygen levels in your blood by as much as 300%!
What Do You Eat as a Raw Vegan?
A raw food diet includes fresh, whole, unrefined, unprocessed, living, plant-based and organic foods. These include fruits, vegetables, leafy greens, sprouts, nuts and seeds, all eaten in the most natural state possible without cooking. People who choose a raw food lifestyle are called “raw foodist” or “raw vegans.”
Remember, raw foodists eat mostly organic food, which is 80% to 300% more nutritionally dense — loaded with available electrons/energy. As your body learns to absorb this additional nutrition and energy you’ll be less hungry, getting more energy from what you do eat, and eat less. This ultimately can reduce your food costs, as well as your health care costs, far below what is was when you were eating empty calories filled with the acidic toxins. A live, raw food diet, plus pure water, is the ultimate health care plan!
A raw food diet means nutrient-rich plant foods that have not been heated or processed in any way. When foods are cooked or processed much of their important disease-preventing nutrients are lost. Conversely, a raw diet provides you with a greater degree of health and vitality, slows aging, and promotes healing. By making the majority of your diet healthy raw foods and avoiding unhealthy alternatives, you can improve your health and reduce your risks of suffering from a degenerative disease. Getting started with this nutritious lifestyle is easy.
How to Add Raw Foods to Your Daily Diet
I start every day by drinking with a glass of pure, high pH alkaline water and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. I make fresh alkaline water in my Life Water Ionizer. Then I make a nutrition-packed smoothie with greens like kale or spinach and some frozen organic fruit like mangoes and blueberries. I usually add some superfood powders as well.
My lunches often are just a salad with some homemade raw dressing, maybe some soaked nuts or seeds and some sprouts. When I grab s snack like to go for fresh fruit. Remember to drink some pure alkaline water between meals (I make it in my Life Water Ionizer) .
When you are first starting, pick just one or two days a week day a week to eat mostly raw foods. Once you realize see how easy it is and how great you feel that you’ll be highly motivated to do that more.
After that, do a whole week. Then go for two weeks,. Work up to a month. Remember, you are shooting for mostly raw each day — that 2 raw meals pls raw snacks and one cooked meal. Just see what works best for you. This approach makes it easier to get over your addictions to cooking. Next steps for you could be to purchase some of the equipment you may need, like a blender, juicer or dehydrator.
Can you Lose Weight on a Raw Vegan Diet?
Start a raw food diet with uncooked plant foods for most meals. Use lots of vegetables and fruits to keep your calories down. Eat all the leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables you want. Have fresh smoothies for breakfast and salads for lunch and dinner. Slowly work up to 100% raw.
Raw vegans are healthier than carnivores/omnivores. With all the problems of GMOs, processed foods, toxic additives and chemicals, most processed foods are already killing you. Many packaged foods also have dairy-derived ingredients. Then when this toxic food is cooked, 35 to 85% of nutrients are lost. So when you say a big NO to meat, dairy and other cooked or processed foods, you’re no to all the toxins that can make you sick.
When you start living a raw food lifestyle, you don’t just lose weight — you actually gain happiness, energy and stregnth. I’ve seen many people give up their cooked, processed animal products for meals loaded with phytonutrients, minerals, vitamins … and life! When you chooses living foods, you’ll just naturally let go of bad habits, bad energy, bad health and of course, all that unnecessary weight.
Suggested Raw Foods List of Staples
With a little preparation you can enjoy the benefits a raw food lifestyle all the time. To make that easy, here’s a list of the raw foods staples to stock up on:
Fresh organic fruits like blueberries, oranges, bananas & avocados
Fresh, organic vegetables in season
Fresh, organic leafy greens like kale, spinach, cabbage, etc.
Soaked & sprouted raw nuts & seeds
Sprouted or soaked gluten-free grains like quinoa, millet & buckwheat
Sprouted or soaked legumes, like lentils, peas, chickpeas & beans
Foods high in probiotics like raw sauerkraut & miso
Sunflower, sesame and pumpkin seeds
Ripe, organic avocados
Fresh coconut water or kefir
Raw yogurt (non-dairy)
Cultured vegetables like sauerkraut or kimchi
What is a raw food diet for dogs?
Raw food for dogs is also called the BARF diet {Bones And Raw Food). It’s a healthy alternative to dry or canned food. The BARF diet consists of raw meats, bones, vegetables & supplements. Raw food is the healthiest, most natural food for dogs just like it is for you!
Switching Your Dog to a Raw Diet
Dogs need a little time to adjust to a change in their diet. Put your dogs on a brief your dog for a day prior to giving them raw food.
If your dog is healthy, split the raw meal into two part. Give them the first around noon and the other around dinner time.
Although not very likely, watch out for any diarrhea or vomiting. If that happens, feed smaller amounts over the next few days days to follow. If your dog does any vomiting, your dog may need extra enzymes.
Your dog may act hungry after eating. Dogs may often tend to gorge themselves, especially if they love the food. Instead of just giving in, use your dog’s weight as a guide.
Make sure your dog has pure, filtered water at all times.
I am, first and foremost, a Raw Foodist. For myself, this was mostly done for health reasons. For many folks that’s a good enough reason to not eat meat. I knew that the “Standard American Diet” made people sick so I wanted to avoid animal products. I also wanted to avoid all the diseases associated with eating animal products — cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis, heart disease and many more.
First, I spent a lot of time learning all I could about health and nutrition to make the best possible choices. I even studied nutrition at U.C. Berkeley to better understand my choices! I came to realize that cooking actually creates most of the toxins that cause disease. So I chose to become a vegetarian and raw foodist.
Becoming a vegan was, however, a choice made almost entirely for ethical reasons! Vegans generally don’t even care much about the health impact of their lifestyle choices. But they are very passionate about how their choices affect the other living beings we share our planet with — cows, chickens, turkeys, pigs, fish, horses, cats, dogs and many more. All living beings on our planet are endangered by humans who have no regard for the well-being of all living things on Spaceship Earth.
I started out becoming a vegetarian for health reasons. As I learned more about nutrition I became a raw foodist. As I became more conscious after decades of taking better care of my body, I began to recognize the socio-political impact of my dietary choices and became a vegan. So now I consider myself a raw food vegan!
We currently live in an environment that’s never existed in nature before. Today’s environment is loaded with electrical pollution, or electromagnetic fields (EMF) from radio frequency communication devices like cordless phones, wireless devices, cell phones and cell phone towers as well as wiring in your walls, electric outlets, extension cords, lamps, and other sources of electricity. You could also be affected by power lines near your home or your bedroom. A WiFi router in your kitchen or a “free” WiFi hotspot at the coffee shop and even wireless baby monitor can all contribute to the electromagnetic pollution that affects everyone you know.
In the book, Public Health SOS: The Shadow Side Of The Wireless Revolution,Camilla Rees writes, “It turns out that most living things are fantastically sensitive to vanishingly small EMF exposures. Living cells interpret such exposures as part of our normal cellular activities (think heartbeats, brainwaves, cell division itself, etc.) The problem is, man-made electromagnetic exposures aren’t “normal.”
There are both natural and man-made sources of non-ionizing electromagnetic fields (EMF). The earth’s magnetic field is one example of a natural EMF. Man-made EMFs can come from a number of sources. Source of extremely low frequency EMFs (ELF-EMFs) include power lines, electrical wiring and appliances like shavers or hair dryers. Common sources of radio frequency radiation include wireless telecommunication devices such as cell phones, radio/tv signals, radar, microwave ovens, wireless networks, smart meters, as well as tablets and laptop computers.
The Dangers of 5G Cell Phones
Until now your cell phone was designed to meet the needs of people. But 5G has been developed mostly with the needs of machines in mind! To get low-latency and high-efficiency data transfer 5G breaks data down into smaller packages for faster transmission times. Your current 4G cell phone has a fifty-millisecond delay. The new 5G systems offer a one-millisecond delay. We humans won’t notice the difference, but it will let machines achieve near-seamless communications. The real price is that this is development was made for machines, not people. That change in purpose or intent from people to machines will open a whole new world problems for us – as well as our our planet.
You see, 5G will require many more, smaller ones cell towers placed much closer together. Each of these will be emitting bursts of radio frequency radiation (RFR) that will be much harder to avoid because these 5G towers will be everywhere.
Magnetic field levels are highest near the source and decrease rapidly the farther away you get. Just one foot from most appliances will dramatically lower exposure. Non-ionizing EMFs are everywhere in your home. WiFi local area networks are almost always “on” and are common in homes, schools, libraries, offices and many public places. But 5G radiation will be pervasive, all around you, creating health dangers without you ever noticing a thing!
You usually can’t feel electromagnetic fields (EMF) in your environment, but your cells are extremely sensitive to them! Here’s just a partial list of diseases associated with EMF exposure:
Many cancers
Neurological conditions
Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)
Sleep disorders
Depression
Autism
Cognitive problems
Cardiovascular irregularities
Hormone disruption
Immune system disorders
Metabolism changes
Stress and Mineral disruption
Fertility impairment
Increased blood-brain barrier permeability
DNA damage
Many studies have associated RFR exposure with:
• DNA single and double-strand breaks (which leads to cancer)
• DNA single and double-strand breaks (which leads to cancer)
• oxidative damage (which leads to tissue deterioration and premature ageing)
• disruption of cell metabolism
• increased blood-brain barrier permeability
• melatonin reduction (leading to insomnia and increasing cancer risks)
• disruption of brain glucose metabolism
• generation of stress proteins (leading to myriad diseases)
The Problem with Cell Phones
Even before 5G, the shear number of cell phones has been growing by leaps and bounds every year. Some reports indicate that the total number of cell phone users worldwide will reach over 5 billion.
It took 20 years after cell phones hit the market before a billion were in use. That was in 2004. Then it only took another 18 months to reach 2 billion. Just 9 months later, the number explodes to 3 billion. After 6 months there were 4 billion cell phones … and the world is already showing the signs of a brain cancer epidemic! If you manage to avoid brain cancer you may still find yourself battling headaches dizziness, Alzheimer’s disease, autism and even impotence.
Cell phones emit both electric and magnetic fields — invisible areas of energy or radiation. Electric fields are produced whether or not a cell phone is turned on. Magnetic fields require that a device is turned on. Electric fields are easily shielded by objects like walls. However, magnetic fields can pass right on through buildings, living things and most other objects. Together, these fields are called electromagnetic fields (EMF). There are two main types of EMFs:
High-frequency EMFs like x-rays and gamma rays. that are also called ionizing radiation. These can directly cause damage to your DNA or cells.
Low- to mid-frequency EMFs, such as static fields (do not vary with time), magnetic fields from electric power lines or appliances, radio waves, microwaves, infrared radiation and visible light. These are in the non-ionizing part of the electromagnetic spectrum and are not known to damage DNA or cells. These EMFs include extremely low frequency EMFs (ELF-EMFs) and radio frequency EMFs.
Though the corporations involved have worked long and hard to make everyone believe that cell phones are safe, here’s what really happens — cell vibratory receptor proteins sense electromagnetic radiation and react to them as a danger. Within a few seconds they respond with cell membrane compression which eventually impairs intercellular communication and organ function. Long-term exposure can cause cell death due to the build up of free radicals in the cells. It can take 18 months for such damaged cells to be replaced with good cells assuming the source of electromagnetic radiation is gone.
While virtually everyone you know has a cell phone, and probably has for a decade, you probably don’t know anybody that has a brain tumor. Every year about 80,000 men, women and children in America are diagnosed with a brain tumor. Comparatively, almost 10 times more people (800,000) die annually from heart disease. So the rarity of brain cancer may make you think that your cell phone is safe to use. When over 90% of U.S. adults has a cellphone and only 0.02% get brain cancer, you might think that it’s OK to use a cell phone. Except, however, the real damage is not actually brain tumors … the real danger is from the reactive nitrogen species peroxynitrites which can damage your mitochondria.
Peroxynitrite is the Real Culprit in Cell Phone Damage
Peroxynitrite is an unstable ion produced in your body after nitric oxide is exposed to superoxide. This complex chemical process starts with low-frequency microwave exposure from your cell phone and Wi-Fi router, as well as from nearby cell phone towers. And with 5G, cell towers will be much closer to you than ever.
!n your body, peroxynitrites react with certain proteins creating changes visible in human biopsies of atherosclerosis, myocardial ischemia, inflammatory bowel disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and septic lung disease.
First, microwave radiation stimulates the production of calcium inside your cells and mitochondria. With this extra calcium present, nitric oxide is then activated in the cells. Nitric oxide is requires calcium to activate. It’s present in all animals and has numerous health benefits, but it can be destructive when an ionized oxygen molecule is released during pathological change, producing peroxynitrites, believed to be one underlying causes for some of today’s chronic diseases.
Reactive nitrogen species like peroxynitrite can remove an electron and damage the DNA inside the mitochondria and nucleus of your cells. This pathway of oxidative destruction triggered by low-frequency radiation emitted from mobile devices may explain the phenomenal growth rate of chronic diseases in the last 25 years. This is a far, far greater problem than brain tumors when it comes to cell phone hazards.
Protecting Yourself!
There are several ways to protect yourself from EMFs. The main concerns in your home are cell phones, portable phones and Wi-Fi routers/modems. Remember, even though you feel safe to use your phone since you don’t feel the health effects immediately, but that is most definitely not the case!
Keep your phone away from your head: You can use a selfie-stick, turn on the speaker phone or use a headset. Try to keep your conversations short and do more texting than talking to minimize exposure.
Increase your distance from sources of EMF: The closer the device, the more EMF you are exposed to. Avoid putting your phone in your pants pocket or on your belt. And please don’t keeps phone and tablets by your bedside.
Certain spices help reduce damage: Spices rich in phenolics, such as cloves, rosemary, turmeric, cinnamon and ginger, have shown some protective capacity to protect from damage caused by peroxynitrites.
Turn off your Wi-Fi: When not in use, turn your Wi-Fi, modem and cell phone off.
Please don’t count on any of the many that promise to block EMF radiation — they do a terrible job. There is even less you can do about the 5G radiation that will be all around you in the future — except taking political action now, while you still can make a differemce!
5G is an Even Bigger Problem for Our Planet
Even more disturbing, if that’s possible, 5G technology puts our environmental at risk in a number of ways. First, it may pose a serious threat to plant health. One study showed that the leaves of aspen seedlings exposed to RFR exhibited symptoms of necrosis, while another Armenian study suggested low-intensity RFR caused “peroxidase isoenzyme spectrum changes.” That’s a stress response that damages cells in wheat shoots. P
In addition, the 5G infrastructure could threaten our planet’s atmosphere. The 5G network will require deployment of many, short-lifespan suborbital satellites shot into orbit by hydrocarbon rocket engines. In California a study found that launching too many of these will pollute the global atmosphere affecting ozone distribution and temperatures. Even worse, solid-state rocket exhaust contains chlorine, an ozone-destroying chemical.
Finally, 5G could threaten our natural ecosystems. According to several reports, low-level, non-ionizing microwave radiation affects bird and bee health. It drives birds from their nests and causes plume deterioration, locomotion problems, reduced survivability and death. And bee populations suffer from reduced egg-laying abilities of queen bees and smaller colony sizes. In a 2012 meta-study, they found that 593 of 919 research studies suggest that RFR adversely affects plants, animals and humans.
Why The Government Can’t Stop This
Over the past few decades, government regulatory agencies have become financially entangled with the corporations they are regulating. In fact, agencies like the FDA and FCC are actually in part funded by the very businesses they are supposedly regulating. Even worse, the heads of these agencies are looking forward to cushy jobs in the private sector when they “retire” from their Federal jobs — or conversely you’ll find corporate executives appointed to these sensitive Federal positions. At the very least, this is a huge breach of public trust.
In Dirty Electricity: Electrification and the Diseases of Civilization, Sam Milham, MD, shows how the diseases of modern civilization — heart disease, cancer, diabetes, etc. — are related to this overlooked cause. Dr. Milham shows us why so many of these diseases have been increasing during the last 100 years, explaining the connection between disease and electricity. Government has failed to do anything or has been bought. So the industry completely ignores the risks while increasing our exposure. Industry leaders show no concern as our declining health bankrupts the country.
The cell phone industry likes to claim thousands of studies on their safety. But the original studies were about microwave ovens NOT cell phones. Sneaky buggers — you see, microwave ovens and cell phones have similar radiation, but not identical! And, of course, microwave ovens are not held next to your ear.
The media began to complain about the lack of serious studies on the health effects of cell phones when Congressional hearings made it clear there actually were no studies on their safety at all — and no FDA or EPA oversight. So the cellular industry promised to do their own research — the fox guarding the hen house principle. Surprisingly, after a massive research project the result of all their work contradicted the industry’s claim that cell phones were safe. The study showed that brain cancer was 3 times more prevalent in heavy cell phone users. Non-malignant tumors of the auditory nerve (behind the ear where we hold our phones) and chromosome damage were more probable. A few other researchers also found troubling results, such as DNA damage in human blood cells from cellular radiation. But these studies were very new at the time so their reliability was unknown.
In 1997, an Australian researcher published the first significant scientific evidence that cell phones could cause cancer in mice. But many “scientists” still questioned whether mouse studies could be applied to people. In 1998, a Swedish scientist reported that increased use of cell phones showed a corresponding increase in headaches and fatigue. The study of over 15,000 people showed as much as a 600% increase in dizziness, headaches and discomfort as usage increased from 2 minutes a day to over an hour. Leakage in the blood brain barrier was cited as a possible cause.
Soon, another alarming study found that cell phone radiation caused genetic damage in human blood cells. The relationship between cancer and cell fragments, called micronuclei, is so powerful that doctors all over the world test them to see if patients are likely to develop cancer. The preliminary results showed almost 300% increase in genetic damage when human blood cells were exposed to cell phone radiation.
Of course the industry didn’t want to believe this so they repeated the study with tighter controls, but the still saw genetic damage. In another study, cell phone users were almost 2.5 times more likely to develop these neuro-epithelial tumors. And yet another study looked at a rare noncancerous tumor affecting the auditory nerve — and saw a 60% greater chance of acoustic neuromas for people who had used cell phones for 6 years or more. The longer they used a cell phone, the greater the risk. Finally, a study, of 285,000 cell phone users found a higher rate of brain cancer deaths among cell phone users who hold the antenna next to their heads.
Around 2009, researchers at the National Toxicology Program (NTP) exposed rodents to radio frequency radiation levels at around what heavy cell phone users get every day. The researchers discovered that as the rats were exposed to greater intensities of electromagnetic fields (EMF), more of them developed rare forms of brain and heart cancer — demonstrating a direct dose–response relationship. Conversely, none of the rats in the “control group” (not exposed to the radiation) developed such tumors.
Earlier studies had never found that this type of radiation was associated with such cancers, but none of those studies followed as many animals for as long or with the same intensity exposures. The findings shocked some scientists who had been closely tracking the study. “I was surprised because I had thought it was a waste of money to continue to do animal research in this area. There had been so many studies before that had pretty consistently not shown elevations in cancer. In retrospect the reason for that is that nobody maintained a sufficient number of animals for a sufficient period of time to get results like this,” one scientist stated.
The Damage from Electromagnetic Fields (EMF) is Alarmingly Real
Electromagnetic fields (EMF) is associated with cancer, concentration problems, ADD, tinnitus, migraines, insomnia, arrhythmia, Parkinson’s and even back pain. For people sensitive to EMF just walking into a coffee shop with WiFi can trigger an array of symptoms such as headache, fatigue, nausea, burning and itchy skin and muscle aches. A cordless phone base station 2 feet from your head for three minutes can noticeably disrupt your heart rhythm, triggering higher heart rates, arrhythmias and other issues. The EMF effects on the heart in one study were found at only .3% of the FCC’s recommended exposure limits
Cell Phone Health Risks
Today, electromagnetic fields (EMF) are surrounding us all the time. Some are natural like the sun, which gives off energy throughout the entire electromagnetic spectrum. The earth’s atmosphere is very selective about which radiations and light to let in and which to keep out and all living organisms have adapted to this. But in the last 100 years humans have been busily adding their own forms of electromagnetic energies — usually without even a thought about the biological consequences. For example, the protective ozone layer in the stratosphere is getting depleted and letting in more dangerous energies from the sun. And 5G systems may well be the worst offenders yet.
The toxic effects of ionizing radiation, such as X-rays gamma rays and ultraviolet radiation (UV) are well understood. However, non-ionizing radiation (radar, radio frequency radiation, lasers and extremely low frequency ELF’s) can have very detrimental effect at surprisingly low exposures. This is particularly true when low exposure levels are combined with long periods of exposure (chronic exposure). With 5G systems, will actually be living in a “fog” of radiation all around us and in our face — all the time!
In our fast-paced, industrialized society, we spend most of our time indoors or in cars, away from the natural background radiation that is normally life-sustaining. Instead, we replace that healthy radiation with electronic gadgets, digital devices and a whole range of unnatural sources of electromagnetic fields (EMF) that rarely occur naturally. This results in a deficiency of natural radiation exposure, replaced instead with unnatural, unhealthy radiation exposure from man-made sources alien to our natural world and our bodies.
How you can take action right now:
Understand EMFs and their behaviors
Protect yourself with an EMF Shield that neutralizes the harmful effects of EMF emitting devices.
Limit your exposure with an anti-radiation headset or by using the speaker phone mode on your cell phone.
Refuse to use 5G phones and devices and discourage those you know from doing so.
Refuse to buy anything ‘smart’ – ‘smart’ appliances, ‘smart’ heaters, etc.
No matter what, DO NOT let your electric company install a so-called smart meter on your house– these put high levels of 5G radiation right into your home.
Legally threaten smart meter and 5G tech installers with liability. Learn how here.
Learn to enjoy more healthy, organic and alkaline-forming raw foods in your diet.
The Raw Food Connection
There is a profound connection between alkaline-forming Raw Foods and ionizing radiation. You see, ionizing radiation does the same thing to your body cooked, processed, acid-forming foods do only much, much faster and more deadly. Simply put, ionizing radiation scavenges electrons from the molecules of healthy cells in the same way that the free radicals in cooked, processed food does. The acidic toxins caused by cooked, processed foods will slowly kill you. The results from ionizing radiation are often much faster and more deadly but the principle is the same — raw food can actually protect you from radiation!
The first, most basic thing you can do right now is to drink alkaline water, also called alkaline mineral water, usually made with a water Ionizer. Some are also available in bottles (7.0 pH and higher are alkaline):
Essentia guarantees a pH of 9.5.
Smartwater has a pH of about 7.0.
Evian has a pH of 7.2.
The next thing you can do right now is to eat more alkalizing raw food to help protect you from radiation.
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Before the invasion of GMO’s in the late 1990’s, I used to worry about the differences between conventional and organic crops. I wrote several articles comparing conventional and organic crops to show how much more nutritious organic was. Back then I thought that was a big deal. I never even heard of genetic diversity or biological diversity back then
Since the 1980’s, giant agribusiness corporations have been working hard to corner the market on the world’s seed supplies. There have been almost 1,000 corporate takeovers since the 1970’s. You might wonder why they were doing this — because control of the seeds, organic or conventional, controls our food supply. Control of our food supply is then a direct threat on the gene pool of of our most basic food crops — an attack on the genetic diversity and biological diversity of our food supply. And this was before anyone even heard of GMOs!
You see, farmers rely on genetic and biological diversity for healthy crops that have a natural resistance to disease. A loss of genetic diversity inevitably leads to a loss of biological diversity Without that diversity, crops lose their fitness for reproduction and are more susceptible disease. Another word for that loss of biological diversity is “inbreeding,” i.e., repeated matings between closely-related individuals, when harmful genes reduce a plant’s fitness for survival. Inbreeding depression is a trend in many plants with small populations sizes and greatly increases their risk of extinction.
Books like Shattering: Food, Politics, and the Loss of Genetic Diversity written all the way back in 1990, reviewed the development of genetic diversity over 10,000 years of human agriculture. The book then looks at what would happen if we lost the genetic diversity of our food crops at the hands of political and economic forces. It’s as if they were talking about our future — and the advent of Monsanto & Friends GMO crops.
Conventional Crops are now Non-GMO Crops
Please click the picture.
GMOs are genetically engineered with genes from other organisms. They take genes from bacteria, viruses, insects and other plants or animals. These are artificially inserted into the DNA of soybeans, corn or wheat, which never happens naturally. Rice that has been engineered with human genes is already being tested in Junction City, Kansas by Ventria Bioscience for new prescriptions. Jane Rissler (Union of Concerned Scientists) told the Washington Post, “It is unwise to produce drugs in plants outdoors.” Now that’s an understatement!
Ventria developed three varieties of GMO rice, each with a different human gene. Two of them are engineered to make compounds found in human breast milk and saliva. They promise it won’t get into the wild, of course. Meanwhile, the USDA revealed that rice in Arkansas became contaminated with a different GMO that ultimately was never approved. Another GMO variety of rice has caused contamination so serious that it actually disrupted U.S. rice exports. The USDA’s credibility has been further damaged by the discovery of unapproved GMO StarLink corn in our food supply, as well as the accidental release of GMO crops engineered to make a vaccine for pig diarrhea.
All this underscores that GMO’s will ultimately be much more toxic for you and me, as well as the environment. In fact, GMO’s may eventually destroy the “genetic diversity” of our entire food supply, slowly killing us all.
Monsanto’s Real Purpose
The first thing you have to understand is that Monsanto’s ONLY real purpose for inventing GMOs was to increase sales of their highest profit items — the chemical fertilizers and pesticides that GMO’s need to grow. But nature had something to say about this so fought back — creating weeds resistant to Monsanto’s Roundup (glyphosate).
Not to be outdone by Mother Nature, Monsanto re-engineered their GMO crops. Now they can survive three times the levels of Roundup (glyphosate). Even that’s just a temporary fix. Soon we’ll have super-duper-weeds. Then we’ll need six times more Roundup. But it’s all just more profit for Monsanto!
GMO’s are Destroying Our Genetic & Biological Diversity
There are unknown consequences to altering an organism with alien genes, from serious risks to the environment and humans to new allergens and antibiotic-resistance in our gut flora. In the wild, the transfer of genes between GMO’s and their natural counterparts often has alarming consequence. For example, transgenic fish accidentally released into the wild eventually threatened the viability of both the natural fish as well as the transgenic version.
When a crop’s genetic diversity is damaged, it has many long-term consequences. An organism’s “genotype” regulates multiple characteristics. Body size or shape, reproductive characteristics, tolerance to environmental extremes and seasonal cycles, disease resistance, and much more can be adversely affected. This genetic diversity, or variation in our environment, is one of the most important factors for healthy organisms.
Various conditions affect living organisms differently, from the weather to soil condition. Genetic diversity helps organisms deal with such variables in our environment because it is always changing. This is called the natural or historic range of variability. If an organism is living in a stable environment then a narrow range of genetic characteristics (called “phenotypes”) could evolve just for these conditions.
If an environment is unpredictable, however, these differences go through the process of natural selection so new traits can evolve with tolerance to these conditions. The lack of genetic diversity can cause serious long-term problems with natural selection. Genetically uniform populations like GMO crops are infamous for being highly vulnerable to pests, diseases and other problems. They wouldn’t even survive without lots of Roundup (glyphosate) from Monsanto (their real “cash crop”).
REAL Ecological Communities Need REAL Genetic Variation
In order to compete successfully in the environment, natural crops need real genetic diversity to reduce the deleterious effects of inbreeding. This is why genetic diversity is one of the most important survival traits in the evolution of every species on earth — plant or animal. Genetic diversity is the key trait that all organisms used to survive for thousands of years. No organism can ever be perfectly adapted or engineered for all possible conditions. The diversity of an organism, or its ability to adapt to “environmental uncertainty,” is the key to evolution of healthier populations. But when agribusiness companies create GMOs, reducing genetic diversity, it’s a step towards the “extinction vortex.”
GMO’s are engineered to survive as long as they’re treated with tons of chemical pesticides and fertilizers. The underlying problem is that GMO’s don’t need healthy, living soil at all. In fact, GMO farming is actually “killing” the soil so that nothing can grow there without these costly chemicals provided by Monsanto & Friends.
The destruction of farming by multinational corporations like Monsanto is actually not a new development. In the late 1990s, even before the advent of GMOK’s, these corporations were developing more uniform, more profitable crops. Over 7,000 varieties of apples once grew in America, but most are gone now. But you can buy GMO Arctic Apples today. Virtually all the broccoli varieties from 1900 are now gone, as well. Instead, Monsanto & Friends have been buying up seed companies for over two decade and now threaten the gene pool of our most important food crops.
For thousands of years farmers have been relying on the genetic diversity in our food crops to prevent disease and provide a rich harvest. But for the last 20 year or so, Monsanto & Friends convinced farmers to rely on GMOs that would die without tons of herbicides and pesticides. This vicious cycle is ruining the environment needed for healthy, natural crops and makes farmers more and more dependent on Monsanto & Friends.
The evolution of genetic and biological diversity took over 10,000 years of human agriculture but it may be gone within our lifetime! If we’re lucky, it may not be too late to do something about it. Many concerned, aware farmers are turning to non-GMO and organic farming methods to save their farms, save their livelihood and protect the natural environment we often take for granted.
The Importance of Live, Healthy Organic Soil
Fertile, healthy soil is the main basis for naturally healthy plants, animals and even humans. Organic matter in the soil is the foundation for healthy soil. Understanding how organic matter keeps soil healthy is essential for developing sound agricultural practices. But GMO’s and chemical-based agriculture is rapidly destroying our farmland by killing the living soil. Most American farmland is now mostly devoted to GMO’s and only a small percentage is used for organic agriculture.
The soil used to grow GMO crops is now dead. It is no longer rich with the living organisms that our crops once relied on. But nature always finds a way; so new organisms have evolved to thrive under these “dead” soil conditions. Say hello to our new “super weeds.” Super weeds cannot be killed easily so farmers spray more and more Roundup (glyphosate) to kill them. Roundup isn’t cheap, so this can cost farmers so much they can’t make a profit. It’s often profitable for farmers to switch to non-GMO or organic crops. That would be a good thing, but Monsanto came up with a solution – crops that can survive three more glyphosate!
Instead, what’s actually happening is that GMO’s are destroying everything that humans hold dear — all in the name of profit for Monsanto & Friends. They pull every trick in the book to fool you and the rest of the world into believing their Monsanto-sponsored, short-term, heavily biased studies and outright lies.
GMO’s are Killing our Environment.
The toxic chemicals that GMO’s need to survive are destroying the health of everything on our planet slowly but inevitably. Every country around the world, even those that banned GMO’s, will eventually be negatively affected.
Organic and non-GMO foods are the best and the last defenses we have against this insanity. Please make a commitment to eat as much fresh, raw, organic or non-GMO whole foods as you can. You’ll soon discover that it’s both cheaper and healthier to eat, especially when you consider all the real costs and health consequences of a toxic, GMO diet.
GMO’s & Glyphosate are Slowly Killing You!
The “shikimate pathway” controls the ability of plants to synthesize amino acids. Though it’s totally disrupted by glyphosate, “scientists” thought it was only found in soil bacteria. What they all failed to understand is that the shikimate pathway is also essential for the bacteria found in your own gut! Your body needs it for digestion, to synthesize vitamins, for your immune system and much more.
Glyphosate Damages the Healthy, Beneficial Bacteria Your Body Needs
By damaging your body’s ability to make some essential amino acids, glyphosate inhibits the cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes produced by your gut “microbiome” — a community of microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, viruses, etc.) that live in or on the human body. CYP enzymes are critical to human biology because they detoxify “xenobiotics,” the foreign chemicals that we are all exposed to every day in our modern, toxic environment.
We are more vulnerable to the dangers of environmental toxins in general when constantly exposed to exposed to Roundup (glyphosate). This toxic exposure is slow and takes months or years but eventually it gains traction at the cellular level. The results are like a list of the “diseases of civilization” associated with our modern lifestyle … obesity and gastrointestinal disorders, diabetes, heart disease, autism, cancer and many more.
The Reason Why Wheat is Toxic — & it’s not a Gluten Allergy!
Roundup (glyphosate) is also these days as a pre-harvest dessicant for many crops. This includes wheat, barley, sugar cane, rice, seeds, dried beans, sweet potatoes and sugar beets. The U.K. Soil Association even called for a complete ban on glyphosate for ripening and desiccation. The use of the herbicide on wheat increased 400% in the past 20 years. Today, glyphosate residues are commonly found even on non-GMO wheat.
Cooking Destroys Nutrition Creating Toxins That Are Not Healthy.
Cooking, processing & GMOs creates the toxins in your body that eventually lead to most modern diseases.
Eating organic, live, raw food maximizes your health and prevents most disease.
If you choose to cook some food, remember to use the lowest heat for the shortest time possible. Remember, heating food over 118°F kills the enzymes so keep temperatures lower.
The world agrees that Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are NOT the answer for the future of food. Environmentally-sound farming method using the latest non-GMO and organic crops now out-produce even GMOs at lower cost. But this doesn’t make money for the mega-corporations that need to sell their patented seeds!
These corporations manipulate the law so engineered DNA must be detectable to label something as GMO, exempting a huge class of processed foods like high fructose corn syrup, beet sugar, purified oils and many artificial additives which are so damaged by processing that their DNA is either gone or degraded. This means that things like soft drinks won’t be labeled even if they do contain GMO corn syrup.
GMO crops are not designed to improve their nutrient profile. The priorities for these corporations are always things like resistance to chemicals, pests and other factors affecting profitability.
Use “transitional” recipes when you can’t get raw, organic foods. I recommend eating at least a 75% raw food diet. At that level your body can eliminate any toxins in your diet. But too much cooked food can overwhelm your body eventually causing disease.
Cooked Food, Processed Food & GMO’s are Known to Cause Disease
Eighty million species on earth — about 700,000 of which are animals — thrive almost exclusively on raw, non-GMO or organic food. Only humans intentionally cook our food or design its DNA in a laboratory. So it isn’t very surprising that we also typically die at just half of our potential life span from chronic illnesses that are almost all diet and lifestyle related. Farm animals and pets are also fed cooked, processed, packaged and genetically modified foods — and also suffer the same kind of chronic health problems that we do — cancer, arthritis and other degenerative diseases.
In their natural environment, the typical species on our planet lives seven times its age of maturity. Humans generally mature in their late teens to early twenties, making our potential life span 120-140 years. This is never actually realized largely due to the health effects of cooking our food, GMOs and the toxins created by heat, food processing or cooking! Before discovering fire 10,000 to 20,000 years ago we thrived for millions of years on fresh, raw, live foods furnished by nature in their whole unadulterated state. In some ways cooking allowed humans to expand all over the world, from Africa to Antarctica. However, we paid dearly for that with shorter lifespans and many diseases.
These days humans cook or process almost all of our food, which then breaks down under heat into toxins we can’t properly assimilate. The GMO’s we eat are often by-products of eating farm animals fed GMO feed. Slowly the decades pass and the harmful effects of these toxins becomes more and more deadly. Like most animal species, humans are actually adapted over eons (thousands of years) to eating live, raw food. Raw food — not cooked or processed — is what we are actually designed to eat.
Raw Food Contributes to the Prevention of Cancer & Disease
Scientific evidence shows that a raw food, vegan diet decreases toxic by-products of cooking or heat in the colon. — Ling WH, and Hanninen O, of the Department of Physiology, University of Kuopio, Finland, J Nutr 1992 Apr;122(4):924-30
Shifting from processed, GMO and cooked foods to a healthy raw food diet dramatically alters fecal hydrolytic activities in humans, suggesting that live, raw food causes a decrease in bacterial enzymes and other toxins associated with colon cancer. Researchers also found that a diet rich in raw vegetables lowers the risk of breast cancer. Finally, including fresh fruit and veggies in your diet is associated with fewer heart attacks and related problems. — British Medical Journal, 1996
Heating or cooking food over 118°F denatures its nutrients. You wouldn’t stick your hand on a hot stove — so why do that to your food? You see, when you burn your finger some of your healthy, live skin actually dies — and you feel that immediately. However, when you cook food it also “kills” most of the nutrients and enzymes but you just don’t feel it for many years.
Food fresh from the field or orchard provides the healthy, living raw materials that you meed to replenish your cells and tissues. Cooking or processing, on the other hand, destroys live plant and animal tissues so their nutrients no longer bear any relationship to a living body.
Heating, processing or cooking food breaks down vitamins and amino acids, producing undesirable cross-linkages in proteins, especially meat. When food is cooked above 118°F. for over three minutes, the following negative cause nutritional damage that gets worse as temperatures increase:
proteins coagulate
high temperatures denature protein molecular structure leading to deficiency of some essential amino acids
carbohydrates caramelize
overly heated fats generate numerous carcinogens including acrolein, nitrosamines, hydrocarbons, and benzopyrene (one of the most potent cancer-causing agents known)
natural fibers break down
cellulose is completely changed from its natural condition: it loses its ability to sweep the alimentary canal clean
30% to 50% of vitamins and minerals are destroyed
100% of enzymes are damaged, the body’s enzyme potential is depleted which drains energy needed to maintain and repair tissue and organ systems, thereby shortening our life span
pesticides are restructured into even more toxic compounds
valuable oxygen is lost
free radicals are produced
cooked food pathogens enervate the immune system
heat degenerates nucleic acids and chlorophyll
cooking causes inorganic mineral elements to enter the blood and circulate through the system, which settle in the arteries and veins, causing arteries to lose their pliability
the body prematurely ages as this inorganic matter is deposited in various joints or accumulates within internal organs, including the heart valves.
As temperatures rise, each of these damaging events reduce the availability of individual nutrients. Modern food processing not only strips away natural anti-cancer agents, but high heat actually creates new, more potent cancer-causing chemicals in the process. This gets even worse with many GMOs. “Alien” toxins are thus created that the body cannot properly metabolize.
Chemicals from Cooking can Cause Tumors Throughout the Body
Mucoid plaque, a thick tar-like substance, builds up in the intestines
Mucoid plaque is caused by uneliminated, partically digested, putrefying cooked fatty and starch foods eaten in association with protein flesh foods;
Lipofuscin is another toxin: an accumulation of waste materials throughout the body and within cells of the skin, manifesting as spots in the liver as liver and in the nervous system including the brain, possibly contributing to ossification of gray matter and senility.
— From an article by Dr. Bruce Ames, professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at University of California, Berkeley.
Additional carcinogens in cooked or processed foods include:
Hydroperoxide, alkoxy, endoperoxides and epoxides from heated meat, eggs, fish and pasteurized milk;
Ally aldehyde (acrolein), butyric acid, nitropyrene, nitrobenzene and nitrosamines from heated fats and oils;
Methyglyoxal and chlorogenic atractyosides in coffee;
Indole, skatole, nitropyrene, ptomatropine, ptomaines, leukomaines, ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, cadaverine, muscarine, putecine, nervine, and mercaptins in cheese.
— From the book Diet, Nutrition and Cancer, Nutritional Research Council of the American Academy of Sciences (1982) and the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) Office of Toxicological Sciences,
Since 1950, as processed food became more common in the U.S., cancer rates did as well! We now at the highest cancer rates in history. The result from consuming cooked food is both (2) minimal nutrition and (2) maximum toxic overload. After a typical cooked meal on the SAD diet (Standard American Diet), your body is forced to raid its dwindling supply of nutritional reserves leading to more hunger even though your stomach is full. This results in chronic overeating and obesity, now also at epidemic levels nationwide.
You see, cooking denatures proteins – period. This creates an unhealthy or toxic modification to the protein molecules. Heat, acid, alkali and ultraviolet radiation can also denature a protein’s properties making it unusable or less usable by your body. Unlike more basic organic molecules, the properties of proteins are dangerously changed when they are cooked/heated. This also denatures the secondary bonds of the molecular chains. Once these weak bonds are broken the molecule falls into a disorganized tangle — and loses the protein’s original biological function.
For example, enzymes lose their catalytic powers. Hemoglobin in your blood can lose its capacity to carry oxygen. Denaturation can also destroy the highly specific patterns that amino acid chains use when folded into the native protein. In the case of egg whites, a gel or coagulum is formed when heat/cooking is applied forming enzyme resistant linkages that inhibit the separation of constituent amino acids.
This is why the I use the phrase “dead food” when used referring to cooked food.
How Cooked Proteins Coagulate Becoming Indigestible
You can actually see the “coagulation” of protein molecules when you fry an egg. The clear protein surrounding the yolk turns white, thickens and then coagulates. Your digestive enzymes (peptones and proteases) cannot readily break down coagulated protein molecules once fused together. Now these heat-damaged proteins are no longer available to your body — but there’s more! The indigestible proteins will also to putrefy as bacteria in your digestive tract feed upon the dead organic matter. Bacterial enzymatic by-products are highly carcinogenic. This coagulation effect happens microscopically in ALL cooked or heated protein molecules whether you can actually see it (like the egg) or not.
So when you eat raw fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds as a source of protein (amino acids) you are getting the maximum biological value of all the nutrients in that raw food. As you consume more fresh, raw produce, your body progressively requires less and less food as you absorb more and more nutrients. Since the food is raw and uncooked, you also require little or no calories for the elimination of toxins.
The result is that as you eat more nutrient-rich fresh, raw food over time your body adapts and becomes healthier. Your metabolic efficiency increases as does your ability to assimilate the higher nutrition found naturally in raw food. Eventually you will only need about half the protein you needed when consuming cooked, dead food filled with mostly denatured proteins.
However, some physiologists claim that cooking and digestion are chemically identical or that cooking is a form of pre-digestion where heat hydrolyzes nutrients that otherwise are hydrolyzed by digestion. This is a huge oversimplification. There are two ways to denature proteins: chemically with enzymes or with heat (cooking). However, when you cook/heat your food, your body cannot utilize the heat-damaged, denatured amino acids. They’ll never be viable, healthy protein molecules again.
Cooking denatures food molecules far past the point of any bio-activity. Your body heat is way too low to permanently damage protein molecules like that. It digests food chemically with enzymes — not heat! So these chemically digested proteins can easily be reused. Protein molecules denatured by heat/cooking cannot be used by your body at all.
Raw, Live Plant Protein Is Best. A fresh raw food diet includes lots of raw proteins. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and sprouts do not require cooking at all to improve their taste or digestibility. When proteins are heated during cooking, however, enzyme resistant links are formed between the amino acids that the body cannot separate — and what the body cannot use it must eliminate or store in your fat tissues. So now these cooked and damaged proteins can become a source of toxicity for the whole body.
Some high-protein plant foods like soybeans and Lima beans contain naturally occurring toxins that some people say are neutralized by cooking. However, cooking does not totally remove all the toxic effects of such foods — and has little effect on the toxins found in GMOs. On a raw food diet you’ll get everything you actually need without having to consume the few things that may be enhanced by cooking. Just don’t eat anything that has to be cooked at all.
Detrimental Effects of Heat on Nutrients. According to the textbook Nutritional Value of Food Processing, written for chemists in the processed food industry, changes that occur during food processing result in either nutrient loss or destruction. — Nutritional Value of Food Processing; 3rd Edition; Karmas, Harris; Van Nostrand Reinhold
Effect of Temperature on Rate of Destruction of Food Components (minutes at 250°F)
Vitamins 100 to 1000 20-30
Quality factors 5 to 500 10-30 (texture, color, flavor)
Enzyme inactivation 1 to 10 10-100
Vegetative cell inactivation 0.001 to 0.01 80-200
Spore inactivation 0.1 to 5 50-200
At 121 degrees C (249.8 F) the nutritional components decreased by 90%
At relatively low temperatures, the destruction of enzymes is higher than that for microorganisms. The temperature range where the destruction of enzymes is equals to that for microorganisms is 270-290°F. The fact that heating food reduces its nutrition cannot be argued.
During baking, for example, the effect on nutrition is most intense in the crust or outer portions of the baked goods. While the heat of baking does denature proteins, the quality of the protein is even affected by “browning,” called the Maillard reaction. Maillard reactions are responsible for the odors and flavors of freshly baked products. The dark crust many people like on bread is, for example, the result of a Maillard reaction. However, Maillard reactions produce nothing of nutritional value at all, and actually reduce the nutritional value of bread and actually raise cholesterol.
Most amino acids are destroyed during the Maillard reaction. The damage to lysine after toasting bread was studied in rats using bread toasted to varying degrees of brownness. Weight gain in rats was especially low with diets of dark-toasted bread.
Cooking Can Affect Vitamins which are heat sensitive. Thiamine and vitamin C were the most susceptible to baking losses. When the pH of the baked product rises above 6, nearly all of the thiamine is destroyed. Similar conditions exist in a variety of chemically leavened baked goods including cookies and crackers. In high-protein cookies, calculations revealed thiamine losses from baking exceeding 90%.
In addition to baking, vitamin B6 and pantothenic losses could be as high as 91% in canned food. The recommended daily allowance (RDA) for these two nutrients probably can not be obtained from eating refined, processed and canned foods at all! When foods are treated with heat they can lose up to 97% of the water-soluble vitamins (Vitamins B and C) and up to 40% of the lipid soluble vitamins (Vitamins A, D, E and K).
Cooking Can Affect Minerals. Heat affects the absorption of some minerals by making them less absorbable. Phytate, fiber, proteins, and certain minerals are particularly suspect as components of these complexes. Vitamins and minerals must be consumed in an organic colloidal, naturally chelated form to be absorbed, assimilated and utilized by you body! Heat damages the molecular structure of vitamins and minerals, returning carbon atoms to an inorganic, ash-like form that is like a toxin to your body.
Cooking Affects Fats & Carbohydrates by damaging the carbohydrate and fatty acid content of baked good, called the Maillard Reaction. In a hot oven, linoleic acid and even some other fatty acids can be converted to unstable hydroperoxides, which affects nutritional quality of the baked goods. Heat actually changes the lipids or fats interfering with cellular respiration and causing an increase in cancer and heart disease. Carcinogenic, cancer causing compounds created by heating fats include acrolein, nitrosamines, hydrocarbons and benzopyrene.
Deep-fried foods like fried chicken, french fries, onion rings, potato chips, corn chips, cooked beef, chicken and most cooked meats are even worse due to their high fat content. This is perhaps the main reason why cancer is the number one killer of children in the U.S. Oils and fats can become very rancid when heated, turning rancid and toxic when broken down during cooking. High heat applied to oils turns them into hydrocarbons that can cause cancer. Frying temperature can reach up to 600-700°F causing fatty acids to become TRANS fatty acids. The unsaturated fats then act like saturated fats — raising cholesterol and LDL cholesterol levels almost as much as saturated fats. This is another reason why fried foods contribute so much to hardening of the arteries.
When oil is reheated for deep fryers the fat is more likely to develop cancer causing agents like acrolein and benzopyrene. Very hot temperatures also destroy vitamins and damage major proteins. Temperatures up to 1,000°F (found in many fast-food restaurants) forms free radicals as the polyunsaturated fats break down. These fragments then can combine with oxygen to create toxic peroxides, with a strong oxidizing (rusting) capacity to damage cells.
Cooking Carmelizes Carbohydrates. If you ever baked yams or sweet potatoes you probably noticed a sweet sticky goo oozing from the skin. When you see that you’re actually witnessing sugar molecules carmelizing — or fusing together. Though you can actually see this in a sweet potato, it also occurs on a microscopic level when any foods are sufficiently heated. When complex carbohydrates like sugar molecules are carmelized your digestive enzymes cannot break them down into simple sugars for use as an energy source. So now they are not just unavailable, the heat turned them into an ash-like toxin on your body.
Proteins under ideal conditions are broken down into amino acids by gastric enzymes. Every protein molecule in your body is synthesized from these amino acids. Protein that you eat is actually NOT used by your body as protein! First, the protein must be recycled or broken down into amino acids which only then can be used to build the protein molecules your body actually needs.
There are 23 different amino acids that link together in various combinations. The very long chains of amino acids create protein molecules. Excessive heat, however, can “decapitate” the amino group rendering not only useless but toxic!
Heating Food Past 118°F Deranges Enzymes
When food is heated past 118°F enzymes are destroyed. Enzymes are specialized protein molecules that are needed for numerous catalytic functions in your body, including breaking food down during digestion. When exposed to heat/cooking, food enzymes are virtually all inactivated. Then you body then must use more energy to generate more digestive enzymes, and so on. When you heat food under 118°F it is still considered a raw food. That temperature does not denature the enzymes. That’s why food dehydrators that work at low, safe temperatures are great for making many raw food recipes or dehydrating live crackers.
Some nutritionists and biochemists, however, try to claim that raw food isn’t always the most nutritious or that cooking releases more nutrients into the food. One example they use — out of context — is that the body more easily absorbs iron when cooked. Iron from broccoli or cabbage seems to jump from about 6-7% to almost 30% with cooking. But, what these so-called scientists didn’t consider is that this is all inorganic iron — which actually damages your body more than helps it.
There are numerous times when cooking something releases a nutrient here or there – like lycopene in tomatoes, or when cooking breaks down toxins in something you couldn’t eat raw. However, they fail to mention that if you eat raw foods you won’t have a prostate problem so won’t be needing any extra lycopene! Or that with all the live raw nutrients you get on raw food you won’t need to eat things that might otherwise be toxic anyway.
The Dangers of Inorganic Iron. Iron absorbed from cooked food is unhealthy compared to iron from raw food, which we need. You see, cooking radically changes iron into its inorganic form, which can overload your body since it’s difficult to eliminate. Excess inorganic iron is associated with increased infection, heart disease, predisposition to radicals, the promotion of atherosclerosis, premature aging and cancer.
Remember, nature has provided the perfect balance of nutrients in fresh, live raw foods which is what we are all designed to eat. Applying heat to our food actually upsets that perfect balance.
Why Cooking Can Never Improve the Nutrition in Food
The more that a food actually needs to be cooked to be edible, the more it compromises your health. When a food needs to be cooked before you eat it, that is the number one sign that it is not something you need to eat — so don’t eat it! Our culture, however, is centered around a cooked food lifestyle. So rather than force people to be totally raw, I like to recommend that most people eat 75% raw food. If you count all snacks as a meal, that leaves 25% for cooked foods. Your body is easily able to eliminate the toxins you get from just 25% of your diet. That means you can enjoy some cooked foods and still be pretty healthy. Its important to enjoy your food and not get overly stressed about all this!
Pottenger’s Cats
Dr. Francis M. Pottenger Jr. MD wrote about his experiments with 900 cats over a period of ten years. Pottenger fed raw meat to a portion of his test cats, and fed cooked meat to the other test cats. Pottenger wrote, “Cooked meat fed cats were irritable. The females were dangerous to handle, occasionally biting the keeper.”
Cooked meat and pasteurized milk led to progressive degeneration of the animals. He compared healthy cats on raw foods with those on heated diets with similar findings among humans by Dr. Weston A. Price. Behavioral characteristics, arthritis, sterility, skeletal deformities and allergies are some of the problems associated with all-cooked foods.
The cats fed cooked meat suffered with pneumonia, empyema (an accumulation of pus), diarrhea, osteomyelitis, cardiac lesions, hyperopia and myopia (eye diseases), thyroid diseases, nephritis, orchitis, oophoritis (ovarian inflammation) and many other degenerative diseases. No cooked food is benign. Cooked foods act malignantly by exhausting energy, inhibiting healing and decreasing alertness, efficiency and productivity.
The Pathogenic Nature of Cooked Food
An increase in white corpuscles in the blood indicates a pathology. White corpuscles are your body’s first line of defense against toxic substances, whether from cooking, chemicals or GMOs. The typical white corpuscle count is about 6,000 per cubic millimeter. When this count doubles, triples or increases four or five times it is evidence of a disease even if you have no symptoms.
Dr. Kouchakoff of Switzerland conducted over 300 experiments pinpointing the pathogenic nature of cooked and processed foods. Food heated to just 120 to 190°F (usually associated with warming rather than cooking though it still kills all enzymes), causes leukocytosis — an abnormally high white corpuscle count.
Leukocytosis Doesn’t Happen with Raw Food! In Dr. Kouchakoff’s experiments, white corpuscle counts tripled even after being exposed to relatively low temperatures (but still above 118°F). When raw foods were added to the foods cooked at low temperatures they did not cause leukocytosis. With temperatures higher than 190°F, however, no amount of raw food diminished the pathological effects so leukocytosis always occurred.
So there is no increase in white blood cells when you eat raw fresh live food. But when you eat cooked, processing and GMO foods, you are engaging a daily battle against the toxins in food instead of benefiting from the nutrients in healthy food. This will eventually exhaust your immune system causing age-related diseases and even premature death.
This research was done in the 1930’s and has never been adequately confirmed. But it also seems that nobody has done anything to disprove it either – in almost 80 years. Hmmm, I wonder why? Meanwhile, cooked food proponents will always remind you that this research hasn’t been verified, and was poorly designed. Nonetheless, it is indicative of something — and medical schools still teach doctors that so-called “digestive leukocytosis” is a perfectly normal reaction to eating — cooked foods, that is. People who eat raw foods, however, DO NOT get digestive leukocytosis after eating…not even a little bit!
White Blood Cells & the Immune System
Your white blood cells are the sanitation engineers of your body, keeping your tissues, lymph and bodily fluids pure. If poisons, bacteria, fungi (yeast), metabolic wastes, cooked food toxins or other foreign substances get in your blood, they are immediately attacked by your white blood cells. But too many toxins at one time can overwhelm your immune system.
White blood cells increase in normal blood right after major infections or poisons since they are the disease fighting mechanisms in your blood. Your body contains hundreds of these defensive mechanisms including leukocytes, lymphocytes, plasma cells, monocytes, basophils, neutrophils, eosinophils and granulocytes that clear your blood of toxins.
Whenever you swallow any drugs (recreational or medical), many herbs, even vitamins and minerals – or just eat cooked foods — you’ll experience leukocytosis. This is when an abnormal amount of leukocytes are released into your blood to stop harmful alien substances before they damage any cells or tissues.
Most Americans have a “normal” white blood cell count of around 4,300-7,000 per cubic millimeter of blood. After eating cooked food or taking drugs your white cell count can jump to as much as 20,000 per cubic millimeter!
This “average” white cell count of 4,300-7,000 is actually very high! You see, it’s based on what the average American usually eats — which generally includes junk foods, cooked foods, sugary soft drinks, coffee, tobacco and other foods that cause an “abnormal” white cell count which only looks normal in this context. After decades of eating a “normal” diet that does this, you resistance to disease and your immune response it badly damaged.
But for people who consume a raw food diet with mostly fresh, organic fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds actually have white blood cell counts well below 4,300! In fact, doctors may mistakenly think such people have an immune deficiency like AIDS! The real truth is that people who have a real immune deficiency like AIDS have completely destroyed their capacity to create white blood cells from constantly taking drugs or getting transfusions.
Raw foods are easily digested, requiring only 24-36 hours for transit time through the digestive tract, compared to 40-100 hours for cooked foods. Eating overly heated nutrients increases the threat of putrefaction and disease. As you consume cooked carbohydrates, proteins and fats, you are eating numerous carcinogens created by heat.
Such overly cooked foods actually cause a lot of damage in your body. Nutrients are coagulated, deaminized, caramelized, rendered inorganic and become pathogenic or disease causing. Cooked food spoils rapidly, both inside and outside your body, while live, raw foods are quite slow to lose their nutritional value.
Pasteurization Processing Plant
After you eat cooked or processed food, bacteria grow and multiply exponentially. This is what what happens to milk when making yogurt. If you tried to make yogurt with raw milk, adding a bacteria culture, the bacteria actually just dies. No yogurt! But if you pasteurize the milk it is now “dead” and the bacteria can then “spoil” or ferment the milk producing yogurt in a few hours.
Cooked food is nothing but dead material that are a feast for many bacteria. The cooked, damaged proteins, starches and sugars quickly ferment and putrefy creating a soup of vinegars, alcohols, indole, skatole, nitropyrene, ptomatropine, ptomaines, leukomaines, hydrogen sulfide, cadaverine, muscarine, putecine, nervine, mercaptins and ammonias.
GMOs Are Not Designed for Better Nutrition – Ever!
Agribusiness corporations design their seeds for better yields, higher growth rates, more pest resistance and other attributes that are intended to increase their profits. The last thing they actually think about is nutrient content, if they even give it any thought at all! In fact, agricultural researchers generally accept the fact that selection for one function may take resources away from another. If they ever select for nutrients they’d eventually get them — but that is the last thing they’re looking for.
There are many reasons for changes in nutrient content over time. Farming practices like row spacing, seeding, type of fertilizer, irrigation and other factors all play a significant role However, the single biggest factor today may be the fact that GMO crops are never designed to improve the nutritional profile of a crop as the priority is almost always resistance to chemicals or pests and other factors affecting profitability.
Geneticists actually don’t think very much about nutrient content, it they bother at all. Instead, they like to breed GMO pigs that glow in the dark by inserting a gene from a jellyfish into their DNA — now THAT’S interesting! So are tomatoes that have antifreeze from fish genes to resist freezing. Or the Arctic Apple, now approved, that doesn’t turn brown. Or potatoes that don’t bruise. Many genetically engineered foods have foreign genes spliced right into their genetic code without much thought of any side effects that might exist.
At least 90 percent of the soy, cotton, canola, corn and sugar beets sold in the U.S.A. today are genetically engineered. Herbicide-resistant corn now covers about 90% of U.S. corn acreage! And the gene for toxins in Bacillusthuringiensis (Bt), provides increased resistance to insects reducing the need for some pesticides.
But many people, including scientists, think that these “Frankenfoods” cause serious environmental damage and health issues for consumers. The Center for Food Safety calls genetic engineering, “one of the greatest and most intractable environmental challenges of the 21st century.”
“Genetically modified foods have been linked to toxic and allergic reactions, sick, sterile and dead livestock and damage to virtually every organ studied in lab animals,” according to the Institute for Responsible Technology. And, according to the Non-GMO Project, “Most developed nations do not consider GMOs to be safe.”
My advice is that the risk isn’t worth the potential damage — so stick to non-GMO and organic foods!
Healthy Adaptations You’ll Enjoy with Raw Food
Three important changes immediately occur when you choose a mostly raw food diet. First are the higher quality nutrients you get in your body. Fresh raw food is nutrient dense, mostly pre-digested and easily absorbed. Cooked and processed nutrients are mostly “dead,” denatured and low quality. That’s one reason people over-eat — their stomach may feel full but their body still craves real nutrients.
The second big change with raw food is what you stop eating — devitalized, heat-damaged toxic food residues. Now you won’t be wasting energy flushing toxic byproducts from your last meal away from your cells or storing them in fats, cysts, warts or tumors! Instead, this valuable energy is now used to maximize your wellness!
The third big shift on a raw food diet is the end of overeating. When you overeat you saturate your body with things that clog your body’s nutrient delivery and cleansing systems. The blood delivers nutrients and oxygen to living cells and carries away toxins metabolites created during cellular metabolism. When you eat too much your body is overtaxed with nutrients, toxins and calories it just cannot use or even excrete, so it just stays there stored away in your tissues eventually making you sick years down the road.
Athletic performance can also be dramatically improved on a raw food diet. Dr. Douglas Graham, a 100% raw foodist for over 20 years, has coached pro athletes all over the world from many fields, including tennis legend Martina Navratilova and NBA pro basketball player Ronnie Grandison. He has advised Olympic athletes from four continents in a variety of sports.
Dr. Karl Elmer also worked with top athletes in Germany, producing improved performance with a food diet. Raw food gives athletes more strength, energy and stamina. The mind, memory and concentration of a raw foodist can be more focused and effective. Raw food helps you feel energized after eating rather than the usual feeling of tiredness you get as your body tries to cope with the toxins in dead food. Raw foodists have more energy, need less sleep and often get a more restful sleep.
The healthy raw materials your body needs to for wellness are not found in cooked, processed or GMO foods. Also, the nutrient values in our Recommended Dietary Allowance [RDA] charts are the highest for raw foods. NOTE: Potato, rice, wheat, pasta and bread aren’t even found on this chart.
So don’t get stuck trying to figure out the best diet or the right way to cook your fruits and vegetables. The most important thing you can do is simply eat more fruits and vegetables. The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture recommends up to 10 servings of fruits and vegetables — and if you do that with raw food you are already a raw foodist! The average American, by comparison, eats only the 3.6 servings of fruits and vegetables combined, which includes garbage like french fries, potato chips, ice berg lettuce and other cooked, toxic, empty calories.
On a raw food diet your energy will increase, you’ll spend less money on groceries (processed foods are actually more expensive), your sugar and fat cravings will eventually disappear and your weight will normalize. It’s actually nearly impossible to overeat fresh raw fruits and veggies.
Raw food is also good for all other living beings on our planet, from plants to animals. Wild animals eat raw food almost exclusively. Your beloved pets do much better on raw foods. Zoo animals do better on raw foods. Fish are healthier and more lively on raw foods. Even plants grown with raw fertilizers do better than those grown with processed fertilizers.
Raw Food & the World’s Great Scriptures
In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve did not eat cooked food until after the snake gave them the apple of knowledge — a baked apple, of course! Chinese, Egyptian, Indian and Hebrew stories all say that humans were kicked out of paradise for cooking their food. Methuselah, however, ate only raw food and lived to a ripe old age.
The Bhagavad Gita says that pious people should eat what nature leaves them after their offering. But ungodly people that cook food sin as they eat. They’re referring to the diseases caused by cooking food.
Finally, in the Essene Gospel of Peace, a 3rd century Aramaic document, Jesus says, “Cook not your food with the fire of death, which is the fire that blazed outside you, that is hotter than your blood. Cook only with the fire of life, that is the natural heat of the day.”
Originally inspired by Arthur M. Baker MA, NHE, ca. 2000.
Revised & updated, 2011-2017 by Robert Ross
Wheatgrass is the young grass of the common wheat plant, Triticum aestivum, a subspecies of the family Poaceae. Wheatgrass is usually grown indoors in greenhouses on trays filled with a potting mix. But DynamicGreens Wheatgrass Juice is field-grown in a remote area of Canada, far from pollution and chemical spraying, then “flash-frozen” so that it is even better than fresh!
Beyond Organic — Field-Grown, Flash Frozen Wheatgrass Juice
DynamicGreens Wheatgrass Juice is actually grown right on an organic family farm! It’s harvested right at its young, grassy stage at a height of 7 – 11 inches. At this point, it is loaded with living energy and when squeezed, the tender young blades express a rich, dark green liquid called wheatgrass juice. Wheatgrass juice is a complete food or super food because the broad spectrum of nutrition can single-handedly support the body. When consumed in a raw / living state, wheatgrass juice contains well over 100 known vitamins, minerals, amino acids, enzymes, essential fatty acids and anti-oxidants.
Juicing wheatgrass for quality requires some technology so we can
juice, package and freeze without any loss of nutrition. Old world
farming and high tech juicing are a perfect combination.
The main advantages of outdoor grown wheatgrass are:
Superior nutrition:
6 x deeper root system
10 x longer growth cycle
50% higher chlorophyll levels
Zero simple sugars (in the outdoor plant, they convert to complex carbohydrates)
Higher phytonutrient levels
Optimal raw and living format
Flash freezing is key to capturing the raw, live power of wheatgrass juice
It allows us to harvest the best possible plant (field grown) at the optimal moment (nutritional peak)
Nutrition is fully maintained by flash freezing and the USDA confirms the retention of freshness, quality, nutrients, enzyme activity, etc. (See here)
Indoor growing methods cannot provide the same nutritional power:
tray grown plants don’t contain the same nutrient content
most powders and tablets are usually dried with heat which destroys nutrients
cut wheatgrass degrades quickly
wheatgrass juices rapidly loses nutritional value when refrigerated, pasteurized or irradiated.
No detectable molds:
Outdoor grown wheatgrass never has the mold issues commonly found in tray grown grasses
This means far better taste
It also ensures excellent tolerability as many people are allergic to the molds
Molds cause most of the problems people associate with wheatgrass juice, often incorrectly blamed on cleansing or detox! Healthy wheatgrass tastes great and is easy to drink without upsetting the stomach.
Superior food safety
Flash freezing technology keeps food safe because it stops the biological clock.
This preserves nutrition and prevents the growth of microorganisms.
Dynamic Green Flash Frozen Wheatgrass Juice
Wheatgrass pills are usually freeze-dried. Sometimes the juice is sprayed through a drying chamber with some heat … which quickly oxidizes the juice. It’s still wheatgrass, so very powerful, but it is a bit degraded by that process. Freeze-drying is a little better, but but still not ideal.
The best way to enjoy wheatgrass juice is to make it fresh yourself and drink it right away or it will go rancid very quickly. When I do a or 3 week cleanse, I used to grown a few trays of wheatgrass right at home. Then I drink an ounce or two of the fresh juice twice a day. Properly grown, even tray-grown wheatgrass has the power to transform your health!
However, the best way to grow wheatgrass, however, is out in a field under the sun and in the fresh air — like on an organic farm with lovingly nurtured organic soil. Field-grown wheatgrass juice is a true superfood because it has much more nutrition and life force than anything else. Tray grown plants are just naturally inferior and prone to molds, making the wheatgrass juice more difficult to tolerate. In fact, for people sensitive to molds it can be impossible to drink at all.
The only organic, field-grown wheatgrass that I know of is DynamicGreens Flash-Frozen Wheatgrass. This is the finest, cleanest, purest source of wheatgrass juice that you can enjoy with confidence. This juice is made fresh than flash-frozen so quickly that all the nutrients are preserved. Its a great way to help the body detox and purify. You can even taste the difference — DynamicGreens wheatgrass juice is more delicious than anything may have tasted from a greenhouse!
Grown Outdoors — Solar Energy! No Mold! Completely Organic!
Field-grown, flash frozen, organic wheatgrass juice is more potent & healthy than your own home-grown wheatgrass, too. It has to be much hardier to grow in the wild, out in the fresh air and under the sun. Home-grown or greenhouse-grown wheatgrass is actually grown in an “artificial environment,” so it’s weaker and prone to molds. DynamicGreens organic field-growing technique creates the ideal conditions for healthy plants – real sunlight, fresh air, low density planting, miles from any chemical spraying, planned fallowing of the land and much more.
When you drink high-quality wheatgrass juice, you may experience results like these:
A physical and mental sense of well-being
More energy and better sleep
Stronger immune system
Detoxification on a cellular level
Reduced inflammation in your body
Less appetite cravings
Increased mental clarity
Steadier nerves
Improved eyesight and night vision
You may suddenly start accomplishing more every day
Actively engaging in and enjoying activities you had been dreading in the past
Visually seeing results via live blood cell analysis such as the unclumping of oxygen-carrying red blood cells
and much more…
DynamicGreens is not available in stores or eve my own website because it is not pasteurized or irradiated. You must buy it only from the DynamicGreens website. This is a family-farm business so supplied, though they grow plenty during a good season, are very limited. But it is truly the best raw, organic wheatgrass juice. you can get.
Remove a juice package from the freezer and leave it on the counter for 1 minute before proceeding.
Follow the instructions on the back of the label which show you how to break apart the cubes by twisting the package.
Cut open the top of the bag with scissors.
Add the desired number of cubes (0.5 fl. oz each) to a glass.
Add at least 3 x more water than juice (filtered, room temperature water preferred).
Stir to thaw and drink it as it thaw (add more water to speed melt).
Please avoid using heat, hot water or microwaves to speed the melt. Heating the juice destroys vitamins and enzymes and compromises all its live qualities.
Wheatgrass Green Smoothie (Serves 1)
– 1 ½ bananas, peeled, chopped, and frozen
– Small handful of fresh spinach
– 1 teaspoon wheatgrass powder or 1 ounce wheatgrass juice
– 2 Medjool dates, seeded
– Dash of ground cinnamon
Place ingredients in a high-speed blender like a Vitamix or Blendtec and blend until smooth. Drink immediately.
History of Wheatgrass Juice
You’ll be surprised to know that wheatgrass juice goes back thousands of years years to the ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Egyptians prized the leafy blades as sacred afor many for health benefits. In the 1930s wheatgrass became an American superfood when Dr. Charles Schnabel, an agricultural chemist, compared wheatgrass to other nutrient-dense vegetables and found it to be dramatically superior. In the 1940s, the “Father of Wheatgrass,” started to market wheatgrass powder. In the 1950s, “cereal grass” tablets were one of America’s best-selling supplements. Soon, whole-foods advocate Ann Wigmore began to juice wheatgrass for her wheatgrass-based dietary protocol at the Wigmore Hippocrates Health Institute in Boston, the first wheatgrass-based program in the U.S., where she would educate thousands on the benefits of wheatgrass and a live-food, raw diet.
DynamicGreens is not available in stores because it is not pasteurized or irradiated so it is truly a raw, organic wheatgrass. However, you can order directly at their website right here!
Raw Food Basics: Getting Started with a Raw Food Lifestyle
A raw food diet is based on eating live, uncooked and unprocessed foods as a large percentage of your diet. When 75-100% of your total food consumption is raw food, you are a raw foodist. At that rate it is believed that your body’s elimination system can eliminate all or most of the toxins in the cooked portion of your diet. When you eat more cooked food, the body can’t eliminate all the toxins and they back up causing dis-ease. Heating food above 118°F. is believed to destroy enzymes in food that can assist in digestion. Cooking also diminishes the nutritional value of food — the heat actually causing chemical changes in the food creating many of the carcinogens, mutagens, free-radicals and other toxins that are associated with many of today’s diseases, from diabetes and arthritis to heart disease and cancer.
In addition to all that, there is a lot of emphasis among raw foodists on the pH of food. It is believed that a mostly raw food diet is “alkaline forming,” while cooked and processed foods are “acid forming.” All medical resources agree that the pH balance of our blood is one of the most important biochemical balances in human body chemistry. pH stands for “potential hydrogen,” and refers to the number of hydrogen ions in a substance like your blood. Higher numbers mean a substance is more alkaline (absorbs more hydrogen ions). Lower number means a substance is more acidic (less potential for absorbing hydrogen). Human blood is usually around 7.35 to 7.45 – just above neutral or slightly alkaline.
Raw foodists believe that the pH level of our bodies is directly influenced by what we eat and drink. So foods that tend to help maintain a more alkaline body chemistry are called “alkaline forming,” and visa versa. If you remember your basic chemistry, you know the chemical processes for an acid are very different than those for a “base” (another word for alkaline). Most chemical processes in a healthy body are alkaline based, so healthy people seem to be more “alkaline.” On the other hand, a more “acidic” lifestyle based on cooked and processed foods is believed to cause dis-ease. You can also alkalize your body by making sure all the water you drink is not only clean, but high in pH and negative ORP. I use a water ionizer for this myself, but there are a couple of good brands of bottled water with pH above 8 (such as Fiji water). These days with so much talk about pH some companies are starting to list the pH of their water right on the bottle!
Raw foodists are usually vegan, meaning they do not eat animal-based products like dairy or meat. Only raw plant foods are generally eaten, including vegetables and fruits, plus soaked and sprouted grains, nuts and seeds. A small group raw foodists, part of the Natural Hygiene Movement, include raw, organic animal products, such as free range organic chicken, sashimi (raw fish), meat (carpaccio), organic eggs, organic yogurt or raw organic goats milk cheese. My personal preference is a raw vegan lifestyle.
Raw foodists in general all agree that consumption of uncooked foods encourages weight loss and prevents and/or heals many forms of chronic dis-ease. In my own case I lost a ton of weight and pretty much handled a serious case of chronic fatigue syndrome. Many medical studies have shown other positive health outcomes with such diets, though when not done properly it can also lead to some problems. When I was teaching at a major raw food health institute for several years, I personally saw thousands of people with various illnesses have “spontaneous remissions.” Of course, results vary with the individual and many other conditions.
Raw Food Basics — Getting Started
A common myth is that eating raw takes a lot of time to prepare. Nothing could be further from the truth! I am one of busiest people I know (mostly answering emails from my readers)! But when you do it correctly, a raw food diet is actually one of the easiest, most convenient ways you can eat. Just use the Raw Food Basics on this web site to get started. Once you learn the basics learn to keep it simple! My rule of thumb for eating 75% raw is this easy:
There are 4 meals in an average day for most people (lunch, breakfast, dinner and your combined snacks). So to be 75% raw you need to have any 3 of those be mostly raw, and add a good salad to whatever you are having for dinner (remember, whenever I talk about raw food I mean ONLY organic food). Here is how I do that myself.
First, I have a raw, tasty smoothie every morning for breakfast instead of my old favorite – a toasted bagel with cream cheese and coffee. What you have for breakfast determines the rest of your day so make sure you start out with healthy, energy-packed, nutrition-packed foods rather than toxins like wheat and caffeine! Yes, the gluten and some of the other heat-created chemicals in cooked wheat products are toxic! So try to eliminate all wheat and caffeine from your diet entirely!
For lunch I have a fresh live salad or fresh green juice almost every day. I keep a Samson Juicer right in my office and stock my little office fridge with cucumbers, celery, spinach and carrots. At home I have a Green Power juicer. Why two juicers – so I don’t have any excuses to miss my juice – and because I love to juice! Remember, never stuff yourself and only eat when you are really hungry.
For dinner I have whatever I like, plus a good sized raw salad. I am actually around 90% or more raw, so you may occasionally find some cooked items on my plate around dinner time, but even then I stay vegan. And I always avoid sugar (or anything made with sugary ingredients, especially corn-based ingredients like corn syrup), wheat products (or anything that has “gluten” in it), anything “hydrogenated,” and finally salt (or anything salty including MSG).
Finally, there are snacks – what I call the 4th meal. I usually keep fruit, nuts and flax seed crackers at my office. But when I don’t have time for all that I always have organic apples handy. I always soak my nuts to activate the dormant enzymes in them and reduce the dense proteins and fats so they are more easily digestible. I soak almonds overnight, for example, then after rinsing I sprinkle them with some spices. Lately I like Pink Himalayan Mineral Salt. Then I stick them in my Sedona Dehydrator to dry them out for snacking. I also use some of the soaked nuts wet to make nut milk for my smoothies.
What You Need for the Raw Food Basics
Most raw recipe books focus on fancier dishes, which can be fun sometimes. However, I prefer to keep it simple — the raw food basics!. Raw food doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive! In fact, I find it is cheaper to eat raw organic foods since they are more nutritious so I actually eat less!
While it’s by no means essential to own fancy kitchen appliances it really does help to own at least a good quality 3 HP blender like the Blendtec Blender and a low-speed masticating juicer like a Samson Juicer or the GreenStar Elite Juicer. But if you are on a budget, then all you need really is a good sharp knife! However with these tools you’ll discover lots of new, exciting and healthy recipes!
As for foods, I find that I can get most of what I need in the organic food section of my local supermarket. I also go to my local organic green markets on weekends to find locally grown and better quality produce. You can also use an organic produce delivery service if one is available in your area or subscribe to a local CSA farm (Google “community supported agriculture”). Remember, always get organic produce! In addition to the pesticides on commercial produce, commercial produce can have huge health risks from genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Most importantly, organic food is usually 80% to 300% more nutritionally dense (click for article on Organic Food)! As your body learns to absorb this additional nutrition, you be less hungry and actually eat much less, reducing your food costs well below what is was when you were eating empty calories filled with toxins that increase your health care costs.
Enjoy!
You are entering on a wonderful journey – so please take the time to educate yourself about the raw food basics — so you know what you are doing and fully enjoy it! It really is a wonderful new life, but doing it properly takes time to learn, and give yourself time to let go of old habits and food addictions. Finally, be compassionate with yourself. If you find yourself feeling weak or a little flu-like, you may be detoxing, which is normal. You can slow down until you adapt more or take the time to learn more about cleansing to actually speed up the process. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions!
Raw food eventually helped me lose 75 lbs almost as an after-thought! Over 170 delicious recipes show you how and make going raw easier than ever … without sacrificing taste. 104 pp.
Special sections: Recipes for the Holidays & Raw Food for Pets.
FREE download with any purchase over $100.00.
See how easy raw food can be with this easy, tasty recipe.
Cabbage Roll-Ups
1 large cabbage leaf
1/2 avocado, cut in chunks
2 olives
chopped Lentil, pea and/or fenugreek sprouts
Lemon juice
Liquid Aminos
Dulse flakes
Slivered red pepper
Sprouts
A cabbage leaf makes a great sandwich for any filling. Softening the cabbage makes it easier to roll the filling up in it. Any guacamole, pate or salad recipe would be delicious stuffed in a cabbage or lettuce roll.
Soften the cabbage leaf by putting it in a dehydrator for 10 minutes or dipping the whole leaf in hot water until soft; set aside. In a small bowl, mash the avocado with a fork and add the olives, sprouts, lemon juice, Liquid Aminos and dulse to taste.
Place the mixture on the cabbage leaf. Top with red peppers, sprouts and any other vegetables you have on hand; roll up and enjoy.
Cooking creates toxins in your food. Heat not only kills essential enzymes, it chemically changes healthy food into poisons that cause disease.
This is one of the most important topics for raw foodists and other vegans! Of course, everybody is well aware of the benefits of fresh fruits and vegetables. We also know that destroys much of the nutritional value of fresh food — turning it into a toxic soup!
What many, if not most, of you are probably not be aware of is that when you cook food you are actually making a toxic soup! Numerous toxins and carcinogens are generated when food is heated past a certain temperature or for a period of time. This brief overview familiarizes the reader with some of these hazardous substances along with precautions that can be taken to help prevent diet‐related disease. And these are just a few of the nasties in the toxic soup that you never heard of before!
Nitrates, Nitrites, HCAs and PAHs1,2,3,4,5,14: Cooked meat and fish contain heterocyclic amines (HCAs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), both of which have been shown to be mutagenic and carcinogenic. One HCA in particular, 2‐amino‐3,8‐dimethylimidazo[4,5‐f]quinoxaline (MeIQx) has been linked to an elevated risk of invasive breast cancer in humans. Processed meat also has nitrates and nitrites, precursors of N‐nitroso compounds that have been linked to pancreatic cancer and liver DNA damage.
Acrylamide6,7,8 Acrylamide is a carcinogen that is found in cigarettes, coffee, and many baked or fried foods, particularly breads, potato and corn products. Formed from asparagine and glucose (or fructose) during the Maillard reaction, acrylamide was discovered by Swiss scientists in 2002 who found that fried and baked foods contained it, while foods that had been boiled or unheated did not. This discovery caused enough concern that it led to the eventual formation of the Heat‐generated Food Toxicants (HEATOX) Project. This “multidisciplinary research project involving 24 partners in 14 countries” was sponsored by Lund University in Sweden and lasted 40 months. The study found that hemoglobin adducts increased linearly with acylamide intake within humans. Other studies have linked acrylamide with cancer in rodents. The FDA, the World Health Organization and several countries have posted information on websites regarding safer cooking practices and the acrylamide content in food. In August 2009, the FDA released “Acrylamide in Food; Request for Comments and for Scientific Data and Information”. According to the document, the “FDA is considering issuing guidance for industry on reduction of acrylamide levels in food products” due to the fact that “it is anticipated that new information will soon be available about the toxicology of acrylamide”. In that same month, Health Canada added acrylamide to its list of toxic substances and has begun a program of monitoring acrylamide content in foods.
HMF8: During the course of the HEATOX study, other compounds that form when carbohydrates are heated were investigated as well. One of these was 5‐hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF). The scientists found that a human sulfotranferase (SULT) can convert HMF into 5‐sulphooxymethylfurfural (SMF), a mutagenic compound that forms DNA adducts and has been found to be strongly nephrotoxic in mice.
AGEs9,10: Advanced Glycation End products can be formed endogenously or absorbed from food. These compounds, which are glycosylated proteins, are formed in the process of heating and cooking. The mechanism by which AGEs induce damage is through a process called cross‐linking that causes intracellular damage and apoptosis. AGEs have been found to be associated with a series of diseases from allergy and Alzheimer’s to rheumatoid arthritis and urogenital disorders. Diabetics, in particular, are
known to have high amounts of AGEs in the blood serum due to their hyperglycemia.
Oxidized Unsaturated Oils11,12,13,14,15: For years the popular belief has been that it is healthier to cook with unsaturated oils. More recent evidence, however, indicates that these fragile oils not only oxidize readily but also promote the damaging effects of substances such as HCAs. Both omega‐3 and omega‐6 fatty acids oxidize with heat and/or light. The reason is that the location of the pairs of double bonds (in relation to each other) provides an attractive target for an attack by a free radical. Omega‐3 fatty acids
are the most susceptible, since they have the highest number of multiple double bonds. Ironically, many manufacturers are now adding flax seed to their cereals and breads as a “health benefit” and may actually be causing more harm than health. Olive oil, a monounsaturated oil, is more stable, but one study found that the oxidized content of olive oil more than doubled when tested past the expiration date.
General recommendations3,11,16: The effects of many of this toxic soup can be mitigated through the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables. Foods high in antioxidants like garlic, green tea, berries, and cruciferous vegetables should be eaten daily. A large percentage of the diet should be fresh fruits, vegetables, and boiled or steamed grains like brown rice, quinoa or amaranth. Whole foods and whole food supplements are more effective than isolated extracts. For example, it was found that fresh apple, grape and orange juices were effective at reducing the hepatic genotoxicity of N‐nitrosomorpholine but that ascorbic acid actually promoted stomach DNA damage in the presence of nitrates. Fried and baked foods should be avoided or minimized. Since dry cereal can have a high acrylamide content, oatmeal or other boiled hot cereal is a healthier substitute. Steaming foods is preferable to baking, frying or broiling. When eating baked breads, removing the crusts will minimize the acrylamide content. Avoidance of heated or cooked nuts, seeds and unsaturated oils (especially those high in omega‐3 like flax and walnuts) is highly recommended. If oil is necessary when cooking, coconut oil, a stable, saturated oil with added health benefits, is a better choice. Oils should be packaged in dark glass and be within their expiration date. In addition, olive oils that list a high phenolic content can help prevent LDL oxidation.
Conclusion: Listed here are just some of the harmful substances in cooked foods. In the summary of the HEATOX project, the final report stated,
“Lastly, as it is known that a great number of proven or suspected carcinogens, e.g. other
Maillard reaction products, such as heterocyclic amines, furfural and furan derivatives
together with lipid peroxidation products can be formed during heat treatment of food,
it is important to further study the health risk associated with heat‐generated food toxicants.”
The ones that we have identified are only the tip of the iceberg. Further, we have not even begun to realize the extent that these compounds interact with other factors such as BPA, pesticides or environmental toxins. The best that we can do for our clients is to continue to educate them and ourselves on protective diet and lifestyle choices.
Adapted from Wendy Reeve, MS, Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine, Tempe, AZ.
References
1) Ward, M., et al., “Processed meat intake, CYP2A6 activity and risk of colorectal adenoma”, Carcinogenesis; May 2007 Vol 28, Issue 6, p1210
2) Wu, K., “Meat mutagens and risk of distal colon adenoma in a cohort of US men”, Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers Preview June 2006, 15(6):1120‐25
3) Ohsawa, Koh‐ichi et al, “Detection of in vivo genotoxicity of endogenously formed N‐nitroso compounds and suppression by ascorbic acid, teas and fruit juices”, Mutation Research/Genetic Toxicology & Environmental Mutagenesis, Aug2003, Vol. 539 Issue 1/2, p65
4) Harvey A. Risch, “Etiology of Pancreatic Cancer, With a Hypothesis Concerning the Role of N‐Nitroso Compounds and Excess Gastric Acidity” J Natl Cancer Inst Volume 95, Number 13 Pp. 948‐960
5) Ferrucci, L. M., “Intake of meat, meat mutagens and iron and the risk of breast cancer in the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial, British Journal of Cancer, 7/7/2009, Vol 101, Issue 1, p178‐184
6) “Summary and conclusions of the sixty‐fourth meeting of the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives,” Feb 2005
7) FDA web page on acrylamide: <a>http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodSafety/FoodCon…nants/Acrylamide/default.htm</a>
8) HEATOX Final Report, <a>www.heatox.org</a>, April, 2007
9) Bernheim, J. et al, “In vitro effect of advanced glycation end‐products on human polymorphonuclear superoxide production”, Euro J of Clin Invest, Dec 2001, Vol 31, Issue 12, p1064‐1069
10) Smit, A. J., Lutgers, H. L., “The Clinical Relevance of Advanced Glycation Endproducts (AGE) and Recent Developments in Pharmaceutics to Reduce AGE Accumulation”, Current Medicinal Chemistry, Oct 2004, Vol 11, Issue 20, p2767‐2784
11) Sies, H., Stahl, W., Sevaniant, A., “Nutritional, Dietary and Postprandial Oxidative Stress”, J of Nutr, May 2005, Vol 135, Issue 5, p969‐972
12) Rovellini, P., Cortesi, N., “Oxidative Status of Extra Virgin Olive Oils: HPLC Evaluation”, Italian Journal of Food Science, 2004, Vol 16, Issue 3, p333‐342
13) Raloff, J., “Oxidized lipids: A key to heart disease?”, Science News, 1985, Vol 127, Issue 18, p278
14) Weisburger, John H., “Comments on the history and importance of aromatic and heterocyclic amines in public health”, Mutation Research, Sep 2002, Vol 506/507, p9
15) Organic Chemistry, Fourth Edition, Brown, W., Foote, C., Iverson, B., Thomson Brooks/Cole, 2005
16) Ahmad, M. S., Pischetsrieder, M., Amed, N., “Aged garlic extract and S‐allyl cysteine prevent formation of advanced glycation endproducts”, Euro J of Pharm, April 2007, Vol 561, Issue 1‐3, p32‐38.
Original article:
http://americannutritionassociation.org/newsletter/hidden-toxins-cooked-foods
All aspects of what makes us human: mind, body, emotions, Spirit, affect our health and happiness. If you can accept this interconnected perspective of life, if you see your diet, weight and your health as related to the emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects of your life, then the raw food lifestyle is for you. Raw food isn’t a magic bullet. It is part of a lifestyle that requires responsibility commitment and time to incorporate properly into your life. Weight loss itself is just the natural result of a healthy raw lifestyle.
The reason most weight loss programs fail is because there are at least three things you must do before even starting a new diet and exercise plan that most programs don’t ever consider, which often leads to unrealistic expectations and impatience. If you don’t prepare you body beforehand, you can experience uncomfortable detoxing as your body suddenly dumps toxins trapped in fat into your system. This can create cravings for cooked foods, believe it or not, and other unhealthy things. You may also have deeply embedded lifestyle patterns that are hard to suddenly change, based on years of living one way that your body, mind and spirit have adapted to. So before attempting to jump into a raw food diet, it is important to do these three things, gently:
Cleanse your body of toxins built up by years of cooked foods
Re-build your body, especially your immune system, digestive system and elimination system.
Cleanse your mind, emotions & Spirit.
STEP 1: CLEANSE YOUR BODY
The Colon. If you are not having two to three good bowel movements every day, you probably have a toxic colon. If the colon is not fully releasing the waste that accumulates there after each meal, that waste rots, turning s putrid and toxic. This toxic waste leaks back through the wall of the colon into your bloodstream creating a dis-ease and making it harder to lose weight. This also creates a condition where your body feels it needs more nutrition, sending your signals to eat even more food.
In my experience, when your system is toxic, you have less energy for exercise, which can also contribute to excess weight and prevent weight loss. In every instance of weight management with which I have been involved, there was toxicity of the colon. When the colon is toxic, it is also a breeding ground for parasites, causing yet another toxicity problem that can interfere with weight loss. Parasites are often hidden cause of colon toxicity, low energy and weight imbalance. You can pick up parasites almost anywhere these days: walking barefoot in the yard (and house, if you have indoor pets), eating greens that have not been properly washed, swimming, eating cooked meats, etc. A good herbal parasite cleanse might be just the thing for you. Research them for yourself. I prefer an herbal parasite cleanse myself. There are several available from health food stores, or at my MarketPlace.
One of the first thing I usually recommend for people who want to lose weight is a good colon cleansing. There are several products available, and BrainGarden offers some good ones as well. I also like to periodically get a professional colonic from a trained Colon Hydrotherapist. Remember, if you have any medical problems with your colon, such as colitis or Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), please check with your doctor first – your digestive system can be gently healed with more live foods, but it may require a slower, specialized approach.
Your Liver. The liver is a vital organ for the health of your body. It’s impossible to maintain good health with an unhealthy liver. Due to high pollution levels in air, water and cooked food, a liver cleanse can be helpful before beginning a raw diet. An effective liver cleanse can take weeks. Just taking something for a few days is not sufficient, and not even a good idea as it can lead to a healing crisis or sudden shock to the body. If you haven’t done a good liver cleanse within the past 6 months to a year, a toxic liver may be part of your inability to lose weight. Research the various programs available and choose one for yourself. I prefer an herbal liver cleanse that includes milk thistle, one of the best herbs for cleansing the liver.
Your Blood. If the colon and/or liver are toxic, I believe your blood is probably toxic, too. To support your body in losing weight, I believe that it is good idea to cleanse your blood. As always, research available products and programs yourself. I prefer a gentle herbal approach that includes red clover, one of the best blood cleansers I know. In my experience, Red Clover is gentle and very effective, even for children.
Yeast. Yeast is another hidden, insidious obstacle to weight loss. Make sure that you don’t have a Candida problem. If you do, there are herbal products to deal with it naturally. Research and find a good formula. Eliminate sugar, wheat and white flour, MSG (monosodium glutimate) and Aspartame (NutraSweet) – this is automatic if you eat raw foods. Initially, as your cells dump the candida into your blood, it may seem worse, but eventually a raw diet will eliminate the excess candida.
Misc. For reducing heavy metal toxins, the herb Cilantro is good. Just munch on it fresh or make a tincture.There are many other cleanses (kidneys, lungs, etc.) but these are the major ones.
I believe that it is important to eliminate the biggest nasties from your diet right away: refined sugar, MSG, aspartame (NutraSweet) and hydrogenated oils.
Stevia is the best herbal alternative to sugar, though it may take some getting used to. An herb called Gymnema Sylvestre is also useful in dealing with reducing sugar in your diet, as it helps directly with sugar cravings.
STEP 2: BUILD YOUR BODY
Once you get your body clean and feeling healthier, you can turn your attention to building your system up. This is a vital second step on the path to “permanent” weight loss. This is another area for personal research, but here are some areas to consider.
COLLOIDIAL MINERALS:
I’ve discovered that one of the overall good health supplements for normal weight, pain reduction and just keeping the body functioning properly is colloidial minerals. There are many good formulas out there. I’ve learned you may not don’t need minerals every day. I use internal feedback to determine if I take them or not. Raw foodists eventually develop powerful instiinctive eating abilities. Dowsing or muscle-testing is also great.
ESSENTIAL OILS
Nothing works faster to help me relax than a few whiffs of the right essential oils. That’s why ForeverGreen features the finest essential oils. It’s similar in thinking to aromatherapy. Regular inhalation of certain essential oils has been proven to aid in appetite reduction, while others work remarkably well for relaxation. Use oils every day. Potent, pure therapeutic grade oils also oxygenate the cells and I find that regular use greatly increases energy levels Since many are antibacterial as well, they are great for working and living in today’s polluted world and I feel that they give me a certain amount of protection from toxicity in the air, foods and general environment.
STEP 3: CLEANSE YOUR MIND, EMOTIONS & SPIRIT
With weight management challenges, you need to carefully watch for emotional and mental triggers until your awareness of these have reached a point where they change naturally. This is where many dieters give up. At first it can be very difficult to be detached and non-judgmental about our triggers. We all to often end up eating so we don’t have to look at what we begin to see about ourselves when we’re not numbing ourselves with food. If we can ever get paste that point, true emotional and mental repatterning can occur. So try to objectively observe what your triggers may be. Research this field for yourself and find the resources you resonate with, from books and videos to workshops and spas.
Some activities can help re-direct an urge to eat: Take a walk, dance to some good music, take a hot shower, drink some herb tea, do something creative, call a friend, prepare a new raw recipe that takes some effort and time, cuddle with a loved one, meditate, chant or pray, drink more water (should be drinking water every two to three hours anyway), inhale some essential oils such as lemon oil, read a book. laugh and have fun! Some people like to get counseling or join a weight loss group. Take the risk of talking with others who are going through the same things you are. It will be invaluable support. Reach out.
If you your emotional baggage is contributing to your weight, you might find that a release ceremony is effective for releasing past wounds, hurt feelings, and fear based on past experience.
There are numerous workshops, books, videos, audio programs and web sites dedicated to these subjects. Research them for yourself to find the ones you resonate with and that are in harmony with your own beliefs.
Of course, no weight loss program would be complete without including exercise. For myself, I like the Total Gym – it’s easy and fun to jump on every other day for about 15-20 minutes. I’m planning on joining a gym and doing more exercise, but don’t hold your breath! I also do Tai Chi almost every day. Tai Chi is great for building energy, toning the body and enhancing lymph circulation and cleansing. I also like to walk a lot and ride a bike when I get a chance. I love dancing, which is a natural way to get some aerobic exercise, too.
Keep watching this web site for more information about weight loss in the future.
Originally published 2008 and updated regularly.
Remember, if you are under medical care for any condition, please check with your doctor or health professional before adding any new product, diet change or cleansing program to your treatment plan! Though you may lose some weight quickly, it is often necessary to cleanse & heal your digestive, elimination and immune systems before you feel better, lose alot of weight or experience all the benefits of a raw food diet.
MSG is often hidden in ingredient listings by other names:
Glutamic Acid (E 620)
Glutamate (E 620)
Monosodium Glutamate (E 621)
Monopotassium Glutamate (E 622)
Calcium Glutamate (E 623)
Monoammonium Glutamate (E 624)
Magnesium Glutamate (E 625)
Natrium Glutamate
Yeast Extract
Anything “hydrolyzed”
Any “hydrolyzed protein”
Calcium Caseinate
Sodium Caseinate
Yeast Food
Yeast Nutrient
Autolyzed Yeast
Gelatin
Textured Protein
Soy Protein
Soy Protein Concentrate
Soy Protein Isolate
Whey Protein
Whey Protein Concentrate
Whey Protein Isolate
Anything “…protein”
Vetsin
Ajinomoto
This site also has some good articles on the possible connection between MSG consumption and migraines.
There is a book and website called The Oiling of America that will give you the necessary motivation to stop using hydrogenated oils, like Crisco, margarine, etc. In general, what hydrogenated oils do is make our cells kind of stiff and like plastic rather than fluid and flexible. They become unable to retrieve vital nutrients they need. Cut out the hydrogenated oils as much as possible. Also, sniff some therapeutic grade essential oils every day as they oxygenate the cells and help counteract the effects of hydrogenated oils.
NOTE: partially hydrogenated oils are actually worse than fully hydrogenated. Take some peppermint oil if you if you must eat out in a restaurant (You WILL get hydrogenated oils whenever you do this, unless it’s a very rare, purely organic establishment that clearly states otherwise on the menu), then I just take a whiff or two of the oil during and after the meal. Take some digestive enzymes and a Pro-Biotic formula, too. These are good any time you eat out or use cooked foods.
Learn How I lost 75 lbs. in Just3 Months with Raw Food
By Robert Alan Ross
Raw Food Author/Teacher/Consultant Now $19.95
PDF Download
This E-Book is my FREE Gift to you with every juicer purchase!
After struggling with chronic fatigue for years, which slowed my metabolism, I gained more weight than ever before. I got most of my health back on a diet that averaged about 80% raw foods, with lots of cleans- ing and detoxifying. But after four years eating mostly raw, I still had a long way to go.
I finally woke up one day and realized that it was time to go 100% raw – it was like stepping out of a fat suit into my real body. The fat was disappearing, almost magically, virtually overnight. I didn’t even exercise (though I do now). Of course, years of cleansing, detoxifying and rebuilding my digestive and immune systems prepared my body for losing a lot of weight and – even more importantly – keeping it off.
In fact, I was dropping weight so fast I had to eat lots of nuts, olives and avocados to slow it down. Over the next few months I lost 75 lbs. I kept that weight off for almost two years. Since then, it has been an ongoing struggle – yes, even for me. Though I have kept most of it off on a mostly raw diet (90-100% raw), I have a tendency to occasionally fall off the wagon – like most normal people! So last year, after gaining back about 50 lbs., I went did a 3-week cleanse and a strict raw diet, and lost about 35 lbs. in about two months. Of course results vary from person to person, and may change with what’s going on in your life – like they did for me.
This isn’t magic – it’s enzymes! My metabolism slows down when I make less-than-optimal food choices, then kicks back in when I go back to what I know is right. I think it’s perfectly normal to slip occasionally, so long as I get back on track eventually. Raw food works for me, and I decided to make it my life’s mission to help it work for you, too!
Monsanto, the American company that invented Roundup (glyphosate), was recently purchased by Bayer in Germany. Roundup is a broad-spectrum agricultural chemical that was discovered in 1970 and seemed to be environmentally friendly at the time. There was just one small problem — glyphosate is so toxic that it killed every plant it touched. So for the next 20 years or so Monsanto sold Roundup only as a pre-emergent herbicide for preventing weeds before any crops.
Monsanto spent decades and millions of dollars to find a way to make Roundup more profitable. Finally, two decades later, they invented “biotechnology.” With biotechnology they could design or “engineer” crops (GMOs) just to survive Roundup. All they had to do was engineer the genes in their new Roundup Ready plants! Crops that are “Roundup Ready” today include corn, canola, alfalfa, cotton, and sorghum (with wheat is coming soon).
Not So Environmentally Friendly After All.
Roundup Ready crops are genetically modified with a gene from a bacteria called agrobacterium that makes them Roundup-tolerant. Once inserted into a plant’s genome, this gene gives crops resistance to glyphosate. Unfortunately, however, it doesn’t actually help people survive the many diseases now associated with glyphosate!
The Sad Truth — We Never Needed Glyphosate Anyway!
You see, we already had several non-toxic agricultural technologies that could eliminate most pests and diseases for crops. Things like from companion planting, cross-breeding, biodynamic farming, French-intensive farming and more help farmers grow all the food we need without poisoning the planet. In fact, farmers can enjoy higher yields than is possible with chemical-based agriculture. Today, many countries around the world actually ban glyphosate. So how do they eat? Are they starving?
These countries have learned how to use more sustainable types of farming that keep our planet’s ecosystems in balance. They discovered natural methods that respect wildlife, nurture the soil, reduce greenhouse gases and protect water and other natural resources. We can grow all the healthy food our planet needs with non-GMO and organic agriculture.
Of course, agribusiness “scientists” say this is all silly, citing numerous studies to prove it. What they don’t say is that GMO safety studies are mostly paid for, either directly or indirectly, by companies like Bayer/Monsanto. But one thing they won’t be able to explain is why nearly everyone in America today has measurable levels of Roundup/glyphosate in their blood! They promised us that Roundup is designed to break down in the environment. Apparently they were either wrong or lying.
Truly independent studies are sadly much harder to find than the those that the industry likes to rely on. But honest scientists don’t have the financial support that chemical companies regularly “donate” to universities. You can look them up yourself with a Google search, but I’ll cite a few at the end of this article to get you started. Remember, when you look at a glyphosate study question where it was done, who did it and who paid for it. The chances are that it was paid for, directly or indirectly, by agrochemical companies.
More History of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)
In the 1990’s the only thing I cared about was the difference between conventional and organic food crops. I even wrote several articles at the time comparing conventional with organic crops to demonstrate that organic crops were more nutritious. I never even heard of GMOs or genetic diversity back then.
In 1970s, a Monsanto scientist named John Franz was interested in compounds that were originally intended as water softeners. He eventually synthesized the compound that changed the face of farming — which we now call glyphosate. Back then Monsanto herbicides that were meant only to kill specific weeds without harming crops. Glyphosate, however, killed everything it was sprayed on. However, it “seemed” environmentally friendly at the time and Monsanto was desperate to use it commercially. So they sold Roundup for the next 20 years or so only as a pre-emergent herbicide for preventing weeds.
In the 1980′s Monsanto began developing in a new science they called “biotechnology.” The company built brand new labs, hired new scientists and spent billions of dollars chasing their dream — find ways to commercialize glyphosate. In 1994 they finally achieved that goal. That was the year that Roundup (glyphosate) was named one of the “Top Ten Products that Changed the Face of Agriculture” by Farm Chemicals Magazine. What Monsanto discovered that changed the face of agriculture was a way to “genetically engineer” crops that could survive tons of Roundup.
Even back then Monsanto was working hard to corner the market on the world’s seed supplies. They knew that control of seeds would give them control of all the world’s food. And we all have to eat! But corporation like Monsanto have very different motives than the rest of us. Corporations are actually required by their corporate charters to make a profit for their stock holders. So the threat to the gene pool of our crops was less important than their profits … or the genetic diversity of our food.
The Value of Genetic Diversity
Thousands of years before GMOs, farmers relied on the natural genetic and biological diversity of healthy crops for disease resistance. A loss of genetic diversity inevitably leads to a loss of biological or genetic diversity. Without that diversity, crops lose their fitness for reproduction and are more susceptible disease.
This loss of biological diversity is also called “inbreeding” (i.e., repeated matings between closely-related individuals). When harmful genes reduce an organism’s fitness for survival it leads to Inbreeding depression. This, in turn, can increase their risk of extinction.
Books like Shattering: Food, Politics, and the Loss of Genetic Diversity (1990) reviewed the evolution of genetic diversity during 10,000 years of human agriculture. The book examines cat may happen if we lost the genetic diversity of food crops due to political and economic forces. Could they have known what was going to happen in the future — our almost total dependence on GMO crops!
GMO vs. Non-GMO Crops
With GMOs they take genes from bacteria, viruses, insects and other plants or animals and artificially insert them into the DNA of soybeans, corn or wheat. Of course, this never happens naturally and poses an enormous risk because GMO pollen is known to contaminate other, non-GMO crops. Monsanto used to actually sue non-GMO farmers whose farms were contaminated by GMOs. Only recently have non-GMO farmers started winning some of these cases.
According to the USDA, rice in Arkansas recently became contaminated with an experimental GMO. Another GMO variety of rice once caused contamination so serious that it disrupted U.S. rice exports. Unapproved GMO StarLink corn was also once found in our food supply. And then there was that accidental release of GMO crops engineered to make a vaccine for pig diarrhea!
The future could be even more toxic for you and me, as well as the environment. Despite whatever the industry claims, GMO’s are destroying the “genetic diversity” of our entire food supply.
Bayer/Monsanto’s Hidden Purpose
You’ve got to realize is that Monsanto’s real purpose for GMOs is only to increase sales of their highest profit items. Chemical fertilizers and pesticides that GMOs need to survive are high-profit items. A plant’s nutritional profile is not an important consideration at all.
But nature fought back, creating weeds resistant to glyphosate. So Monsanto (now Bayer) then engineered GMO crops that could survive three times the levels of glyphosate. But the sad truth is that’s just a temporary solution because nature abhors a vacuum. So we’ll soon have super-weeds. Then we’ll need six times more Roundup — but that’s all just more profit for Bayer/Monsanto!
GMOs Destroy Genetic Diversity
There are many unknown consequences to modifying seeds with foreign genes. These pose huge risks for both people and the environment from new allergens and antibiotic-resistant seeds. You see, the transfer of genes between GMOs and their natural counterparts has serious consequences! We’ve already has the transgenic fish accidentally released into the wild, threatening the the natural fish varieties.
When a plant’s genetic diversity is damaged, it has serious consequences. A plant’s “genotype” regulates its characteristics. Body size or shape, reproductive characteristics, tolerance to environmental extremes and seasonal cycles, disease resistance, and much more can be seriously compromised by GMOs. It may have taken millenia for some plants to evolve characteristics that, thanks to GMOs, can now be lost forever in a few years.
Genetic diversity helps organisms deal with variables in our environment because they are always evolving. This is called the natural or historic range of variability. An organism in a stable environment has a narrow range of genetic characteristics (called “phenotypes”). It may have evolved just for these specific environmental conditions. Though farmers sometimes cross-breed plants for various environmental conditions but that often took decades. Cross breeding is also somewhat natural for plants, even if farmers speed it up a bit. But that very far from taking genes from an entirely different species, like a fish, and artificially inserting them into a plant to make it more resistant to freezing! So don’t confuse normal cross-breeding with dangerous genetic engineering!
With GMOs, the lack of genetic diversity can cause serious long-term problems with natural selection. GMO crops, you see, are genetically uniform populations that are are well known for being highly vulnerable to pests, diseases and many other problems. So GMO companies had to invent something like Roundup for these plants to survive. Today, Roundup is their real “cash crop.”
The Need for Real Genetic Variation
In order to compete in the environment, natural crops need real genetic diversity to minimize the dangers of inbreeding. That’s why genetic diversity is actually the most important survival trait of all species! For millions of years, genetic diversity has been the key trait that every living thing needs to survive. No organism can be perfectly adapted, or engineered, for all possible environmental conditions. The diversity of an organism, or its ability to adapt to “environmental uncertainty,” is the key to healthy plants. But when agribusiness companies design GMOs they are actually reducing genetic diversity. This is a big step step towards what is called the “extinction vortex.”
GMO’s are engineered to survive as long as they’re treated with chemicals like Roundup. But the hidden problem that nobody talks about is that GMOs don’t need healthy soil. In fact, GMO farming actually “kills” the soil. The live bacteria, earthworms, insects and other things normally found on healthy farms don’t even exist on GMO farms. And they’re also destroying the natural biological diversity of the crops!
Over 7,000 varieties of apples once grew in the U.S. but most are gone now. But you can buy GMO Arctic Apples that won’t brown when you cut them. Virtually all the broccoli varieties from 1900 are gone now, as well. Instead, Bayer/Monsanto & friends have been buying up seed companies for decades and now threaten the gene pool for our most critical food crops. Today they’ve also been buying up most of the organic food farms and companies. We once had hundreds of competing agribusiness companies we now have only a handful. It isn’t looking good for those of us with a preference for real food.
For thousands of years farmers have always counted on the natural genetic diversity in crops to prevent disease. Today, Bayer/Monsanto & friends convinced most U.S. farmers to rely on GMOs instead. And of course, the tons of expensive herbicides and pesticides they require. This vicious cycle is destroying our environment today, making farmers more and more dependent on Bayer/Monsanto & Friends. In fact, I believe that that is their true purpose!
The evolution of genetic diversity that took perhaps 10,000 years may disappear in our lifetime! But, if we’re lucky, it may not be too late. Many concerned farmers today are aware of the problem and are turning to non-GMO and organic farming methods to save their farms, save their livelihood and protect the environment we usually just take for granted.
The Importance of Healthy Organic Soil
Healthy living soil is the key to healthy, nutritious plants — as well as animals and people. Organic matter in the soil is the key to healthy soil. But GMOs, with the chemical-based agriculture they need, is killing the living soil. Most American farmland is now only good for growing GMOs. Nothing else can live there. The result is that only a small percentage of our farmland can be used for organic or non-GMO agriculture. In fact, to start a certified organic farm today you need to nurture the soil. That means adding things like rock dust and earth worms to the soil for at least three before you grow anything.
But the soil on GMO farms is dead. Nothing but GMO crops can live there. It is no longer rich with the healthy, living organisms that real crops once relied on. Of course, nature always finds a way, so new organisms have evolved to thrive in dead soil. These new organisms are called “super weeds.” Super weeds cannot be killed easily so farmers have to spray more and more Roundup (glyphosate) to kill them. Roundup isn’t cheap, so this makes it much more difficult for GMO farms to make a profit. It’s often actually cheaper for farmers to switch to non-GMO or organic crops! That would be a good thing, but Bayer/Monsanto came up with a solution -– crops that can survive higher and higher doses of glyphosate!
Here’s what’s really happening — GMO’s are destroying everything that humans hold dear in the name of profit! Agribusiness companies pull every trick in the book to fool you and the rest of the world into believing their Bayer/Monsanto-sponsored, short-term, heavily biased studies and outright lies.
GMOs are Killing the Environment.
The toxic chemicals that GMOs need to survive are, slowly but surely destroying everything we value on our planet. Even countries that ban GMOs will eventually be affected. Organic and non-GMO foods are our only defenses. Please make a commitment to eat as much fresh, raw, organic or non-GMO whole foods as you can. You’ll soon discover that it’s both cheaper and healthier to eat, especially when you consider all the real costs and health consequences of a toxic, GMO diet.
The Shikimate Pathway
The “shikimate pathway” controls the ability of plants to synthesize amino acids. It’s completely disrupted by glyphosate! Monsanto scientists thought it was only found in soil bacteria so they didn’t give a hoot. But they were deadly WRONG! The shikimate pathway, we now know, is also essential for the bacteria in your gut. Your own body uses the shikimate pathway for digestion, to synthesize vitamins, for your immune system and much more.
By damaging your body’s ability to make some essential amino acids, glyphosate also inhibits the cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes produced by your gut “microbiome” — a community of microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, viruses, etc.) that live in or on the human body. CYP enzymes are critical to human biology because they detoxify “xenobiotics,” the foreign chemicals that we are all exposed to every day in our modern, toxic environment.
The Real Reason Wheat is Toxic to Some People & it’s not Gluten!
Farmers use Roundup (glyphosate) as a pre-harvest desiccant for crops like wheat, barley, sugar cane, rice, seeds, dried beans, sweet potatoes and sugar beets. On wheat, this has actually increased 400% in the past 20 years. Now we can find glyphosate residue ieven on non-GMO wheat. Today, we are also vulnerable to the dangers of environmental toxins like Roundup (glyphosate). This toxic exposure is slow and may take months, years or decades to affect us but it eventually it gains traction at the cellular level. This results in a list of the “diseases of civilization” associated with our modern lifestyle. Obesity and gastrointestinal disorders, diabetes, heart disease, autism, cancer and many more are now at epidemic levels. But there is something you can do about it — avoid eating GMO foods!
Selected References
Glyphosate’s Suppression of Cytochrome P450 Enzymes and Amino Acid Biosynthesis by the Gut Microbiome: Pathways to Modern Diseases
Mesnage R., Bernay B., Séralini G-E. (2013, in press). Ethoxylated adjuvants of glyphosate-based herbicides are active principles of human cell toxicity. http://Toxicologyhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tox.2012.09.006
Séralini G. E., et al. (2012). Long term toxicity of a Roundup herbicide and a Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize. Food and Chemical Toxicology 50 (11): 4221-4231.
Séralini G. E., et al. (2013). Answers to critics: Why there is a long term toxicity due to NK603 Roundup-tolerant genetically modified maize and to a Roundup herbicide. Food and Chemical Toxicology
Because the pH scale is logarithmic even a fraction of a point can create huge changes to health! One hydroxyl molecule (-OH) in 550 million is enough to make water conductive. In fact, most important processes in your body only work within a very narrow pH range. For example, if the pH of your blood falls to the low end of its normal range (~7.35-7.45), a .10 difference, it could reduce the oxygen levels in your blood by as much as 300%!
so why do that to your food? You see, when you burn your finger some of your healthy, live skin actually dies — and you feel that immediately. However, when you cook food it also “kills” most of the nutrients and enzymes but you just don’t feel it for many years.
builds up in the intestines
and digestion are chemically identical or that cooking is a form of pre-digestion where heat hydrolyzes nutrients that otherwise are hydrolyzed by digestion. This is a huge oversimplification. There are two ways to denature proteins: chemically with enzymes or with heat (cooking). However, when you cook/heat your food, your body cannot utilize the heat-damaged, denatured amino acids. They’ll never be viable, healthy protein molecules again.
nutrition is most intense in the crust or outer portions of the baked goods. While the heat of baking does denature proteins, the quality of the protein is even affected by “browning,” called the Maillard reaction. Maillard reactions are responsible for the odors and flavors of freshly baked products. The dark crust many people like on bread is, for example, the result of a Maillard reaction. However, Maillard reactions produce nothing of nutritional value at all, and actually reduce the nutritional value of bread and actually raise cholesterol.
Dr. Francis M. Pottenger Jr. MD wrote about his experiments with 900 cats over a period of ten years. Pottenger fed raw meat to a portion of his test cats, and fed cooked meat to the other test cats. Pottenger wrote, “Cooked meat fed cats were irritable. The females were dangerous to handle, occasionally biting the keeper.”
Your white blood cells are the sanitation engineers of your body, keeping your tissues, lymph and bodily fluids pure. If poisons, bacteria, fungi (yeast), metabolic wastes, cooked food toxins or other foreign substances get in your blood, they are immediately attacked by your white blood cells. But too many toxins at one time can overwhelm your immune system.
Athletic performance can also be dramatically improved on a raw food diet. Dr. Douglas Graham, a 100% raw foodist for over 20 years, has coached pro athletes all over the world from many fields, including tennis legend Martina Navratilova and NBA pro basketball player Ronnie Grandison. He has advised Olympic athletes from four continents in a variety of sports.
In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve did not eat cooked food until after the snake gave them the apple of knowledge — a baked apple, of course! Chinese, Egyptian, Indian and Hebrew stories all say that humans were kicked out of paradise for cooking their food. Methuselah, however, ate only raw food and lived to a ripe old age.
