There has been much debate over the relative benefits of eating raw food meals versus cooked food and I will try to give you some overview of that here. However, in the grand scheme of things, I eat live raw food because it's quicker and simpler to fix, and much easier to store and to take with me as meals.
There’s no need to heat them up or try to keep them warm and you can literally grab them out of the refrigerator and go with them. I like simplicity in my life.
So why should we eat raw food meals? Because they have all the enzymes still intact that our bodies need daily. Whole foods have the metabolic, digestive and food enzymes needed for breaking down food properly and transforming it into alkaline detoxifiers that neutralize the acid of our highly acidic cooked diet. Enzymes are critically necessary for achieving a balanced pH, as well as balanced raw food meals.
Acid/Alkaline Balance
Our bodies are acidic by nature; however, our organs prefer a neutral pH, and raw foods are alkaline, which balances our systems. Cooked food, however, is acidic.
Heat also destroys many vitamins, denaturing them so that they are not fully absorbable by the body. Enzymes are deactivated or destroyed by heat, and mechanical and chemical reactions. These are found not only in cooking, but also in the high temperatures involved in food processing and manufacturing, and the handling and storage of food. See “Dirty Secrets of the Food Processing Industry”.
If we eat a predominantly processed, synthesized, cooked, microwaved or convenience style diet, 90% of the enzymes and other vital nutrients are destroyed or rendered unavailable. So we end up as malnourished as the starving children in Africa, just at the other end of the spectrum.
Cooked food also increases white blood cell count, as does refined, chemicalized or processed food. This is called pathological leukocytosis. The worst offenders are high heat processed foods, including beer, refined carbohydrates such as white flour and rice, and homogenized, pasteurized or preserved foods.
Raw plant foods are rich in oxygenating, alkalinizing chlorophyll. With raw food meals, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts in that the nutrients act synergistically with each other. Organic produce has an average of 83% more nutrients as well.
Homeostasis
The body is always working towards homeostasis, or balance within the systems. We need a balance between raw and cooked foods, depending upon the season, as well. If you can’t eat your veggies raw, then at least steam them lightly or stir fry them for the best retention of nutrients.
Eggs are best eaten raw as well and meat should be cooked low and slow. See the provided links for further information on these two topics.
Here is a wonderful resource that lists substitutions which you can use if you run out of something or don't have it on hand. It can be a real lifesaver!
Ideally, you should eat 85% of your food raw and 15% of it cooked. Here is an excellent article covering an interesting aspect of eating mostly raw foods from Dr. Mercola’s site. That subject is biophotons and is really fascinating.
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