"Let food be thy medicine and let thy medicine be thy food."
  --Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine (460-377 B.C.)

What is a Raw Foodist?
by Jenna Norwood

The raw food lifestyle has been enjoying a surge in popularity in recent years. Several raw food gurus have helped bring this about through their tireless touring and speaking to interested groups around the world.

Generally speaking, raw foodists are people whose diets are comprised of at least 75% raw (uncooked, living, preferably organic) foods. We eat a wide variety of fresh fruits & vegetables, as well as dried fruits & vegetables, leafy greens, sea vegetables, seeds, nuts, sprouted grains, beans and legumes. We drink fruit & nut smoothies, fruit & vegetable juices, young coconut juice, wheatgrass juice and purified water. While it may seem like a limited diet, the culinary options are actually endless and every craving can be satisfied through creative food preparation. Most raw kitchens are equipped with a good blender, food processor, juicer and dehydrator. The dehydrator is used to change the texture of foods, intensify their flavors, or to preserve them. The dehydrator blows hot air over the food for several hours at low temperatures (below 114°). Using the dehydrator, raw foodists can make delicious breads, cookies, cakes, pizza crusts, fruit chews and vegetable chips, just to name a few.

Cooked foods are avoided because their inherent digestive enzymes and nutrition begin to be destroyed at temperatures above 105°. Over time, eating cooked foods takes a heavy toll on the digestive system and can cause waste and toxins to build up in the colon and intestines, which in turn creates an opportunity for disease.

The proof is in the persimmon pudding! Raw food detox centers around the world report that thousands of people have healed themselves with the raw food diet. Even those in advanced stages of disease have been able to turn their health around. But you don’t have to go to a detox center to dramatically improve your health. With a little research, smart shopping, and some good recipes you can modify your diet enough to see impressive results within just a week or two. It also helps to have friends or family who will participate with you, or at least be supportive. Perhaps there’s a raw food group in your town. If so, you can probably find them here. And you don’t have to do it all at once. Start by adding some raw food to your diet and allowing a cooked item to fall off. Go at your own pace.

Why Raw?
by David Wolfe

Every culture seems to have a story about how human life began on Earth. Most describe a story where humans showed up here living in paradise. Everything was perfect for long ages of time, until something happened. Some consider that "something" to be the flood, or to be "the knowledge of good and evil," or a shift in the ages, etc. What was it? Why is it that humans live life on Earth so differently from the other creatures here?

Raw-food eaters such as myself believe (actually know) we have found the answer. The great change came over the life of humans on this planet when we discovered fire and began experimenting with cooking our food. Let's use our best sense: no other creature on the planet cooks or tampers with its food in any way. Here is an experiment: Let's feed a tribe of gorillas coffee and donuts for a few generations and let's see what happens! Because cooked food is part and parcel to civilization we have been trained never to question it.

What constitutes the basis of human nourishment? Is it pills and supplements coming out of the roaring jaws of factories? Is it the flesh of animals being churned out by factory farms? Is it the milk of cows which was intended for baby calves? Is it cooked and processed food?

The basis of human nourishment is obvious: it is RAW PLANT FOOD which is presented to us in abundance in nature. All this talk about this diet or that diet or "natural" this or "natural" that is all nonsensical. There is only one normal diet: a raw-food based diet.

Going raw recreates you in your original form. Eating raw transforms you back into an intuitive natural creature ‹ it returns to you lost animal powers. Eating raw plant food radically naturalizes you and puts one back in touch with the material and spiritual flow of nature. Because of this effect, eating raw grounds you in the natural world and also provides you with more awareness of the spiritual world ‹ which is really also part of the natural world.

You are a work of art in progress. Each meal is a cloud or a tree or a flower ‹ a piece of the painting that you are becoming. Every bite of food you put in your body should be adding to your perfection, to your beauty. You are what you eat is a cosmic law. It is known in every culture and throughout every civilization throughout history. Every person knows that saying. Give your body the highest quality food possible. Eat organic and homegrown food.