Would you like;
your skin to glow and feel like velvet?
your eyes to look brilliant and full of life?
not to feel tired and sluggish and feel fit and energetic instead?
to lose weight in a balanced and regular way or,
get your body into the ideal shape?
to have your eating disorders and food cravings end?
to have a more optimistic and balanced mood?
your mind to be clearer?
a more peaceful and undisturbed sleep?
to have regular bowel movements every day?
to get younger?
to get rid of your allergies?
to stabilize your blood sugar?
to detoxify your body?
to add a new and different energy to your life?
How can you say no to those questions ?! So lets see how we can accomplish those miracles in a very short times like in couple of weeks.
So you can start this new thing by eating raw food for just 7 days.
We can call eating Raw Food a “raw diet” or “eating vibrant foods”. In other words, consuming foods without cooking, producing or altering their genetic structure, without adding ingredients (chemical fertilizers, hormones) and consuming them in their original forms as they were created, organic and live. meaning losing their nutritional values such as vitamins, minerals, enzymes.
Einstein once said "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. Therefore, if you want to achieve different results, you'll have to question what you do today and you will need to change habits slowly and in a balanced way.
When we cook food over 48° C, we in fact kill a lot of useful things (particularly enzymes) in it, For example, we can notice this in the following words used in a recipe: ” You're killing the onion well in oil”. So, all its fragrance and biting effect is gone. Yet, onion has a natural antibiotic effect when raw. Enzymes are very important for our digestion. Enzymes in food are killed by cooking; the enzymes in our stomach are decreasing due toxic conditions. Thus, the digestive process becomes much longer and challenging than it should be. As a result, gas and bloating problems are seen in quite a high proportion of the population. However, when we eat enzyme-rich foods, the digestion process can be easily completed and the time and energy that the body will spend for it is left to ourselves; we feel more vigorous. When we eat vibrant foods, our energy will be more lively. We are what we eat.
New York Times best seller writer Michael Pollan says that there are three basic elements to be healthy; eat food not foodlike things (for example ice cream), not so much and mostly plants. You can easily and conveniently follow this advice with a raw diet.
So, What You Can Eat on this Diet?
First of all, let's say what’s not allowed: animal proteins (meat, dairy and seafood), pastries, bakery products (flour, rice, pasta, bread, gluten), sugar, margarine type of fat.
What’s allowed: vegetables, green leafy vegetables (chard, spinach, arugula, purslane, etc.), fruit, nuts (almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts, etc.), legumes (mung beans, lentils, beans, etc.) and their sprouts, spices (cumin, ginger, etc.), herbs (parsley, basil, dill, etc.)and spices.
If I do not eat meat and dairy, how will I get my protein and calcium?
We use vegetable protein in a raw diet. Here, especially, SPROUTING is crucial. When we soak legumes (especially small grain lentils, mung beans, etc.) in water for 16 hours and then keep them wet for 2 days, tiny sprouts will spring from the sides. And that way these sprouts’s nutritional value increases up to 10-35 times according to
Dr. Brian Clement from the Hippocrates Health Institute expressed,
In addition, almonds also have substantially amounts of calcium and protein. There is calcium in kale and other greens and sesame to a large extent!
Spirulina
Seaweed supplement also contains 50-60% vegetable protein.
Sugar
We can substitute our need for sugar with dried fruits (dates, apricots, figs, etc.). Agave also can be used. Stevia zero calorie.
Detox effect
A raw diet will create a detox effect on the body - as any processed or packaged food do not enter the body, and as we will be eating more alkaline food with a raw diet. We can repeat this as a detox from time to time at a certain frequency. It is recommended to do it: 1 day a week, 1 week every month, 10 days, 14 days, 30 days, 40 days, however often you want.
Dark greens are most perfect foods with their high chlorophyll ratio; they alkalize our body to cleanse and purify. The fastest way to take advantage of them is with a green drink. Juice chard, spinach, arugula, celery stalk, cucumber and lemon with a juicer. You can also add half of an apple and some broccoli and ginger.
Toxic foods cause toxic thoughts. So, when you eat clean, unprocessed, natural foods, your mood will be more peaceful and positive. Be sure to watch yourself in this respect.
Food cravings originate from sugar production from toxic and cooked foods containing additives. Cravings will disappear with the raw diet.
Frequently Asked Questions;
1- Sould we constantly eat 100% raw?
No, you sould not; but the more you add it to your life, the more you experience the benefits listed above. It depends on the choice of individuals. Add it to your life slowly at first, you can rise the amount later. Starting from 30-40% raw and 60-70% cooked, you can eventually move up to the ideal of 20% cooked and 80% raw. As long as you notice changes in yourself, you will want to increase the rate of raw food in your diet.
2- Can we eat Sushi?
When we say raw diet, we do not mean raw meat. The first that comes to mind is sushi and sachimi, but they are not suitable for a raw diet. The rice in sushi is also not suitable because it is cooked.
A Few Basic Recipes
Instead of dairy milk, you can use almond milk or carrot juice. Wonder where will you find the almond milk? You will make it yourself. It is very simple; it takes 5 minutes. After soaking raw almonds in water overnight, blend them with 3 glasses of fresh new water, filter through a thin fabric, then you get a snowy white, silky and tasty milk. It has two times more calcium than cow's milk. At the same time, it is a great source of protein. You can keep it in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.
Instead of yoghurt, you can use avocado – mixed with spices and herbs such as onions, garlic, parsley and so on - as a creamy sauce.
Instead of rice, you can use blended cauliflower as substitute in sushi for example.
Or, when you desire sweets, you can make chocolate balls by mixing cocoa, dates (soaked overnight), cinnamon and avocado and rolling them in coconut.
For snacks, almonds, walnuts and hazelnuts (raw and soaked overnight) can be eaten alone or combined with dried fruits or fresh fruits. If you have them with you in a small bag, in case you feel hungry during the day, during your journeys, in your car, in your office etc., you can stay away from harmful alternatives when you are hungry.
While watching TV at night, you can prepare fresh salsa (tomatoes, onions, hot peppers, garlic, parsley and a little olive oil mixture) or make avocado sauce to dip vegetables such as cucumber, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli. You can eat and enjoy this.
As a dressing, olive oil, garlic, basil, lemon is one of the healthiest combinations.
You can eat very thinly sliced zucchini slices with pesto (blending basil, pine nuts, garlic, olive oil in a blender) instead of spaghetti.
With nut pates, you can prepare wraps and stuffed peppers. Want to know how? When you soak raw almonds, walnuts and hazelnuts in water overnight and blend them, add, for example, a little olive oil, garlic, basil, red pepper, sun-dried tomatoes and mint. You will have a great almond puree. You can mix this with your salad or wrap with green chard, spinach or arugula leaves to eat as wrap, or you can also use it to fill red, yellow or green peppers to make stuffed peppers!
Required Tools
If you are going to change to raw nutrition, you will certainly need a juicer and a blender.
A Dehydrator is a kind of oven for drying out food at a temperature around 41- 48 °C. In this way, very different recipes can be created. In this oven, different crackers, crepes and desserts can also be produced that substitute for bread. But, don’t worry if you don’t have a dehydrator. Consuming foods with fresh fluid in them is always more desirable.
SAF BOX ve SAF restaurant (www.safbox.com.tr )
Do not disturb your mind with questions such as; “How can I practice this raw diet?
Do I always have to eat salad?”
We, as The LifeCo, have now 800 and 1200 cal raw food menus and restaurant in our Bodrum Center.
In addition, to make life even easier for you, we combined all of these in a practical box; SAF BOX, which can be sent to the address you want every day which is essential in busy daily city life where you dont have much time.
Each box includes meals (with snacks) and food supplements (for accelerating metabolism, digestive enzymes and probiotics), healthy and delicious foods prepared without any additives that can be consumed without any hassle such as shopping, food preparation, dishwashing and calorie count.
If you would like more detailed information on this subject, here are some websites and films we can recommend
At www.rawfamily.com, you can find out how Victoria Boutenko and her family got rid of their diseases such as diabetes and asthma with raw and green nutrition. It also has many different recipes for green drinks.
On www.rawfoodrecipes.com, there are simpler, more elegant, practical and healthier recipes.
The film, Simply Raw – Reversing Diabetes in 30 days, documents taking 5-6 people with diabetes on a camping where they are fed with 100% organic and living foods for 1 month. Their diabetes was healed and they stop insulin and medications.
The film, Food Matters tells how a raw diet can be used as medicine.
The book, Live Foods for Optimum Health is written by Dr Brian Clement from the Hippocrates Health Institute is one of the basics for raw food industry.
Search for people who have practiced a raw diet for a while over the internet or, if you are lucky, find someone in your close environment… You'll see that their life energy, light in their eyes, skin and attitude seem very different and striking.
Get ready to create your own miracles with raw food.
Be well.