What Is a Raw Food Diet?

Series Summary

Raw foodism is a trend that is sweeping the world. With global obesity figures skyrocketing, people are taking a closer look at the factors that are affecting their body mass index and asking the question, “why are we getting so fat?” While some would say that the answer is genetic predisposition, others are convinced that a large part of the answer comes in the foods that we put in our body. And increasingly, we seem to be choosing meals high in fat and sodium content, but devoid of any real nutrition.

Raw foods are foods that have not been cooked above 118° F. The basic idea behind raw foodism is that essential nutrients and enzymes get cooked out of our foods at higher temperatures, causing our bodies to work harder to digest. Raw food diets tend to be very nutritious; most of the items on the menu are stout, green, leafy vegetables, nuts, fruit and berries. Are you convinced yet? Have you considered changing to a raw food diet? In this free video series our expert will teach you all about the benefits of a raw food diet and offer some valuable suggestions about basic foods in a raw food diet.

Video Transcript

"Ok, today we're going to talk about a raw live food diet and first we're going to talk about what is raw food. And here on the table we have what we consider raw food. We have blueberries, dates, hemp seeds, lettuce greens, strawberries, currants, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, macadamia nuts, pine nuts, mangoes. We have sprouts, tomatoes, avocados, all these things are raw foods. But to better give you an idea of what raw food is, is I have a book here called Living in the Raw and here it says the easy way to recognize raw food is whether its still whole and still in a vegetable form. And as you can see, right here, this is raw food in the vegetable form. Now we would like to talk about raw foods looks very similar to living foods except its no longer growing. Most living food becomes raw within 24 to 48 hours after being harvested. So here we have a broccoli that we got at the store so obviously if we had picked this broccoli 20 minutes ago, this would be considered living food. And it still has that life force that thinks its still attached to the plant. But now that its been off the plant, I bought it at the store, now its considered raw food."