If you are eating the standard Western diet of cooked and processed food, it’s time to make a few healthy changes. These changes will improve your health, you’ll feel better, be less tired and get rid of most, if not all of your health ailments.

We are told that we need to eat more vegetables and fruits daily but how often are we told that we need to eat them raw? 

‘Raw’ refers to vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds that taste good to the majority of human kind in their basic simplicity – direct from tree, bush, and vine or from below ground.

Raw uncooked food is the star. It is super healthy and provides lots of vitamins and minerals that nourish the body and lead to higher quality of health.

Unfortunately in our busy modern lives it is far easier to buy prepackaged or prepared food that can be eaten right away rather than taking the time to shop for fresh ingrediants. Although it may be quick and easy and possibly even cost effective in the moment, the real “cost” of these actions reflects as poor health and maybe even a shortened lifespan.

Life Giving Enzymes

One of the main benefits of eating raw and uncooked food is that it retains the enzymes that are needed to digest it properly.

Enzymes act as powerful catalysts in hundreds of thousands of chemical reactions that take place throughout the body. They are essential for digesting, absorbing and converting food into energy at cellular levels and are critical for most of the metabolic activities taking place in the body every second of every day.

When food is cooked these enzymes are destroyed. This makes our body work harder – it now has to tap emergency enzyme supplies in the pancreas to digest the cooked food. This is why we feel tired and less energetic after eating.

Enzymes contain antibiotic properties which help fight free radicals in the body. This reduces the work load of the liver and pancreas. The reason this is so important is that as we grow older, the ability of the body to produce natural enzyme molecules diminishes. The preservation of these live enzymes in uncooked food plays an important role in keeping us healthy.  

Foods that are not alive are considered ‘dead.’ These include but are not limited to anything that has been altered – cooked, canned, processed, packaged or refined in any way by anyone other than nature herself. They are easily identified  in their pretty boxes and packaging with fancy graphics and an ingredient list of multiple unpronounceable names of chemicals, additives, trans-fats, man-made sugars and empty carbohydrates. They are usually calorie rich and nutrient poor.

Unfortunately, the few meals that we enjoy today do not include enough raw elements except for the leafy green salads we all know so well.

In order to keep the nutrients “alive” in living foods we need to ‘cook’ and dry them out at a low temperatures which is quite different from old fashioned high temperature cooking methods that render food very ‘dead’ and destroy much of its nutrient value.

Adding fresh grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts or seeds to each one of our meals that hasn’t been destroyed by heat or processing is the sure path to increased health and vitality.

Raw food benefits:

• Raw plant based foods have beneficial digestive enzymes to help break down the rest of the food we are eating

• The fiber in plant based foods expands in our stomach, filling us up faster so we won’t eat as much

• Pushes food through our digestive tract helping to keep us healthy inside

• Provides the body with much needed fiber, vitamins and minerals – nutrient dense

There are lots of interesting and delicious ways to prepare raw, living food. It’s limited only by one’s imagination. Some look and taste so incredibly good, it’s hard to believe they are so healthy for us. Even grains that currently suffer a bashing can be made healthy with the right added ingredients.

The principle behind eating raw foods is that it gives us energy, rather than depleting our energy. Living foods energize naturally because they contain more energy than their cooked cousins. 

Improved overall health, weight loss, energy, detoxification, vitality, positive mental attitude, and longevity are some of the benefits gained by eating more raw grains, veggies, fruits, nuts, and seeds.

It’s time to save those life-giving enzymes by eating more raw foods – 

“Wellness Wake Up Call”     can help you do just that…

For more tools and resources from Carolyn Hansen to assist you in attaining your health and fitness goals and achieving the success you desire in life, please visit:

Carolyn Hansen Fitness