By fuel I mean, of course, food and water. Food is like the gasoline that we put in our cars and water is like the oil that keeps the engine going. If we put in bad fuel and neglect the oil, the engine will run rough and eventually seize up and stop working at all. Many of us use food to mask emotional pain or to make us feel good. We need to start seeing food as fuel.

Now, let me say up front that what I am about to tell you could rock your world. When I first heard this, I thought the people were crazy. But the more I read and researched, the more sense it made and the evidence was irrefutable. The reason I thought they were crazy, and why you may think I am crazy too, is that it is so different from what we hear in the media, read in all the 'healthy' books and do ourselves. Stick with me for just a moment ... what if most of what you are taught about diet, calories, vitamins, protein, carbs and healthy eating is wrong or based on outdated, incomplete data? That would be hard to swallow, wouldn't it? I mean, how can so many people be wrong?

So, you need to take what I am about to tell you and decide for yourself. Step out of the mainstream diet and food fads and stand back and listen to what I have to say. Then research for yourself and you decide what is best for you. Don't let anyone else decide for you. It is time for you take the reins and start guiding your own health by making your own decisions.



There are lots of websites out there that tell you the percentage of protein and carbs to eat. What vitamins you need. What herbs help with what ailment. But I am not going there. I do not believe that life and food can be reduced to a combination of vitamins, minerals and food additives. I think there is more to it, and less.

At the most basic level, living food produces life (and health). Food that has not been altered with chemicals, genetically modified or cooked contains all the nutrients we need in the right proportion. Look at the picture of the living food. Notice the bright colors and fresh looking produce. Then compare that with a picture of a brown bland looking steak and beige potatoes. Have you ever noticed that when food has garnish on the side it is often a brightly colored vegetable or fruit?

When we eat living foods, our bodies know how much we need. So we don't have to restrict our food intake and go hungry by dieting. It's that simple! There is no reading labels, no counting calories, no watching our food intake. There is only eating an assortment of food and enjoying it until we feel full, at which time we stop eating because we want to stop. Not because we have reached some arbitrary limit set by someone that doesn't know us or our bodies.

Now, before you take my word for it, do your own research. Don't reject new ideas just because they sound radical. Research what is behind the ideas and the people that are presenting them. Then decide for yourself.

I also want to make something very clear here. I am not an advocate of 'New Age' ideas that integrate spiritual mysticism along with the way I eat. I think eastern mysticism is dangerous and should be separated from what I am talking about here. As you do your own research, you will probably run into a lot of mysticism under the guise of 'holistic' that you may or may not agree with. It seems like a lot of people are into eating living food for mystical reasons. I am in it for the health benefits and I think a separation can, and should, be made. Don't let the mixing of eastern mysticism with healthy eating keep you from researching and learning.

I want to ask you something. What do you have to lose by trying a raw food diet? If it doesn't work and you don't feel better, the cooked food will still be there later. But what if it does work? Before going any further, watch this video. They mention some things that you will find on other pages here.


Living Food
What do I mean by 'living food'? Living food is food that has not been heated above 108^oF. At this temperature, the active enzymes in the food are destroyed. The active enzymes are what your body needs to process and assimilate the nutrients in the food. They also help with digestion and elimination. If you destroy the enzymes in the food, your body must use it's own reserves of enzymes to process the food, thus depleting your body of it's own enzymes.

Now, there is a lot of debate out there about enzymes. Some people say that the enzymes in your body are different than the enzymes in the food, so this is not really an issue. However, as I mention later, I think this is wrong. There is too much evidence that shows that raw food is much better for you than cooked.

Then, some people say that once you have depleted the enzymes in your body, they are gone for good, they can't be replaced. Other people say that eating enzyme-rich food can replenish your body's enzymes. I haven't decided where I stand on this one. I think you can feel better when you eat enzyme rich raw food. Whether your body can produce new enzymes or not is not something that really makes much difference to how I will eat. I still think that eating raw food is more healthy than eating cooked food.

Some people say that more than 85% of our diets are cooked food. Why do we eat so much cooked food? For me, it is habit. Look at the advertisements on television. Everything is cooked. An occasional salad dressing ad might have some salad with a few vegetables but even the salad dressing is cooked and processed. And, you know what? I don't really like salads!

Another reason we cook so much of our food is to kill germs and bacteria that would make us sick. This is a very good reason for cooking food. Pasteurization of milk is done to kill parasites and harmful bacteria. So, in many ways, cooking food protects us. But what if we are cooking food that we are not supposed to be eating anyway? And then cooking the good food too which kills all the good enzymes?

I have one more thing for you to think about when comparing raw food to cooked food. Here are two websites that have stories about animal reactions to cooked food. The first page is about Pottenger's Cats. I think this is a very interesting article. The second is called Health Benefits of Eating Raw Food. If you scroll down about halfway to a section called Psychological and emotional ill-effects of cooked food, you will find another story related by Dr. Ann Wigmore. If you haven't run across her before, Dr. Wigmore was one of the first raw food advocates years ago. Her name is everywhere when it comes to raw food and wheatgrass. (No, she didn't die of malnutrition. From what I understand, she died of smoke inhalation in a fire.)

I read a lot about living food before I decided to integrate it into my diet. Here is the website that finally convinced me. Even if you are not diabetic, I highly recommend that you get the video.

I know I am asking a lot of you right now. So, I just want to add that how you make this change (should you choose to) is just as important as what you change.

One of the best ways to get living food is to grow your own. Not only will you get locally grown living food that you where it came from but you will also get some exercise, fresh air and sunlight. Gardening.ie has lots of organic gardening tips and advice to keep you in good shape.

Changing What We Eat
What I am about to say, you have probably heard before. Besides cooked food we need to remove the following from our diets (by replacing them with healthy food).
- sugar and sugar substitutes
- high-fructose corn syrup
- corn
- genetically modified food
- mono-sodium glutamate (MSG)
- wheat (include bread and flour)
- pork
- carbonated drinks
- dairy and processed food

Here is what we need to get in our diets.
- fruit
- vegetables
- fiber
- green and vivid color foods including wheatgrass
- water

The keys to the last list are fruit and vegetables. One fruit that is really important is pomegranate. I will expand on this fruit more in the near future. But for now, this website has some great information about the health benefits of pomegranate juice and can get you started.

Notice that, other than pork, I don't say anything about beef and poultry. I still eat some beef and poultry and I am not comfortable eating those raw, mostly because of the potential of disease. That is up to you (which everything here is).

Also, I said above that I don't like salad. I eat salads sometimes anyway but mostly I eat smoothies as my raw food. Here is a great website that has tons of ideas. And when I am eating my raw foods, I eat as much as I want. That is another level of encouragement I give myself. I do limit my cooked food intake but not my raw food intake.

Supplements
I am not a big fan of supplements like vitamins. Most of the vitamins you find, even in the health food store, are manufactured and are not in a form that your body can use. So, if not detrimental, at least a waste of money since your body passes most of it (have you noticed how brightly colored your urine is after ingesting those things?).

However, I have recently come across a fruit drink that I don't really consider a supplement but it's not really a food, per se. It's called Vemma. It is packed with antioxidants and, from my experience, is very effective. After only about 2 weeks, I had less memory loss, more energy and I just felt so much better. This is the best I've felt since my surgery about 5 years ago. And even the best I've felt since before that. Here is the website where you can get Vemma or Verve. It comes in various forms. I do not recommend the sugar-free. But, from what I've seen, the other forms are okay. I am currently trying the actual fruit juice (Vemma not Verve) because I don't like carbonated drinks. But I started with Verve and got the same effects. Additionally, I think the fruit juice tastes better. Make sure you read about it before ordering. It's a little expensive but you are worth it.



Research Links
One of my favorite websites is Dr. Mercola. This is a website with an incredible wealth of knowledge. It may be overwhelming initially but don't let that stop you. I have linked it to my Google RSS Reader and I read about 20% of the articles. He covers a lot of areas, not just food. I don't agree with everything on his site but he does give me a lot to think about and some articles will get me started on a research path. One of his more recent articles that I recommend you read is called Top 7 Foods That Slow Your Aging

. Another site that I am reading is We Like It Raw. There is a free book that I just downloaded and haven't read yet.

Additionally, I recently finished reading a new book called The SimplyRaw Living Foods Detox Manual. It was incredibly good! I am following this book right now and you can read about my progress on Feel Great After 50 - My Journey Blog.

My advice to you is that you search the internet for 'raw food' and see what you get. There is a lot of good information out there.

If you are going through this website in order, your next stop is exercise.

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