IN THE RAW

IN THE RAW

Most of what I evaluate in life, is health and nutrition and I have been on this bandwagon for some time.  Now as a nutritionist I scrutinize even more every new diet, every new weight loss item, I can’t help it, it comes naturally.  Through all my investigations though there are some threads that have become apparent, the more opportunity we give our bodies to access true nutrition, the better chance we have at being in an optimum state of health; we all judge our health by the amount of energy that we have, if we feel full of energy, then we feel healthy.  Energy ultimately comes from the food that we eat, saying that though health is not just about what your eating, but its about how you feeling.  If you feel down all the time, then you will feel listless and not healthy. Confused, in a nutshell health is a culmination of factors, the main one being the food that we are ingesting.

So if food is the main component of health it makes sense that we would want to give our bodies the best and purest form of energy/food that it can transfer to energy in the body.  This is where raw organic foods come into the picture. You see raw foods in their natural state are unparalleled in their nutritional profiles, this translates to more bioavailability for your body to absorb the nutrients it requires and a better chance at being at your peak.

Lets just have a quick look at foods, all living foods contain enzymes, these are mainly proteins that act as catalysts to speed up most chemical reactions in the body.  When they heated above 45 degree, these enzymes become denatured and are not longer capable of performing their task. In our digestion we classify them into three categories, metabolic, digestive and food, and as implied are vital for these bodily processes to occur.

It’s also with excessive heating that water soluble vitamins are destroyed, minerals can also be leeched into the cooking water and oils, rendering your meal a mere shadow of its former self.

It’s at this stage I must let you know that am not a big proponent on fanatical diets, that restrict intake, unless it’s necessary to deal with health issues.  So from a day to day perspective, I encourage to increase your intake of raw foods where ever you can, excluding all cooked food, is perhaps ideal, but maybe not necessary or realistic.  What’s is necessary is varied diet that contains all the essential vitamins and minerals, that is a pleasure to eat, enjoying every mouthful is as important as the nutrition therein.