S.A.D. Archives -

Why I chose a Raw Foods Diet to heal

Most Disease is just our body trying to survive us poisoning ourselves

As Americans, we have spent most of our lives eating the Standard American diet of meat, cheese and heavily cooked vegetables. This makes it hard to imagine eating only raw plant based foods. As such, many people feel overwhelmed just at the idea of change.

Accomplishing the transition to a healthy diet feels like such a drastic change that most people become overwhelmed at the thought of it. Often quitting before they even begin and often letting their health suffer instead. But it doesn’t need to be overwhelming. We don’t need to live in fear of disease.

Why Choose Raw Food?

I will start by saying that my personal journey to a raw foods centered diet did not happen overnight. Most people who transition to a Raw Foods centered diet, do so gradually, as they become more educated about nutrition and food choices. However there are many people, particularly those who are already sick, who choose to jump right in to Raw Foods 100% from the start.

I had been a vegetarian for a large part of my life, since 1992, but by no means a healthy eater. For most of my Vegetarian life my diet focused on Bread, Pasta and Cheese with the occasional Veggie “meat” convenience foods.

In 2011 I transition to a Vegan diet, but this was not much of an improvement to my diet. I simply swapped the Cows Milk cheese for oil based “Vegan” Cheeses and the junk food for Vegan versions.

However I did feel a dramatic benefit from just removing dairy from my diet. This benefit was reinforced if I accidentally ate something without realizing it had dairy in it. I felt so sick after eating just these tiny amounts of dairy that it really reinforced how much impact just one wrong food can cause on draining our health away.

However, my Vegan diet was still very Starch heavy, cooked food centered and included very little fresh fruit. I was still tired all the time, depressed and feeling and looking old well before my time.

So I began researching nutrition more heavily. Nutrition has interested me since I first read the books Diet for a New America and Never Be Sick Again shortly after college. So I knew there was a better way of living, I just had to find it. This research led me eventually to the Raw Food, Fruit Centered Diet, and while the transition was not always smooth, I can say confidently that it was worth every moment.

Benefits of Raw Food and Why I choose Raw Food still today

Here are some of the benefits that I have seen from my transition to a Raw foods diet.

I Lost 40 lbs over the course of about 6- 7 months, effortlessly, and without ever feeling hungry or deprived and without joining a gym. (My primary exercise comes from walks and hikes with my dogs and gardening.)
My physical endurance has increased astronomically, I feel like an athlete now, something I have never felt in my life.
My self confidence is greatly improved. I wake up happy, grateful, joyful and full of energy.
Cavities in my teeth have begun to repair themselves.
My joints no longer ache and I recover quickly from strenuous hikes, bike rides and other exercise.
My complexion has cleared up, my skin looks brighter and younger and my hair is extremely long, shiny and healthy.
I have abundant energy from morning to night.
My sleep has improved drastically. I no longer have insomnia or restless nights. Waking I spring from the bed ready to tackle the day.

The list of changes could cover pages so I will stop here, but overall I feel amazing and that is what keeps me motivated. That and the food is delicious and I can eat as much as I want.

What has kept me on the Raw Foods diet is realizing just how bad I feel when I eat cooked and processed foods. It took several months to detox all of the junk, but now I can’t believe that I let myself go on feeling so tired all the time.

You aren't "getting sick" you are being poisoned.

The craziest part though, at the time I was eating cooked foods, wheat and cheese, I had no idea how bad I felt. It wasn’t until I started eating a natural biologically appropriate human diet and started to feel really good that I even realized that I was feeling so bad before. If you have never felt this good before you have nothing to compare it to.

If you have eaten cooked foods and science projects your whole life, like I had, you have no experience of what eating vibrant foods feels like. You have no idea how much you are actually suffering. So it wasn’t until I started nourishing my body that I truly understood how weak and sick I was. I just thought it was normal to feel that way.

So this is Why I choose Raw Foods. I can not emphasize how important real food is to our health. Try Real Raw Food for just 30 days, I can say with the utmost confidence, you will feel better, you will look better and you will live longer. You will never want to go back to eating science projects again.

6 Disturbing Reasons Why Americans are so Unhealthy

Why are Americans so unhealthy today? Are we feeding ourselves to death?

Why are We so Unhealthy - All Diseases are on the Rise due to these 6 Disturbing facts. — Obesity, Cancer, Heart Disease and Diabetes are all on the rise with no end in sight.

Obesity is on the Rise, So is Cancer, Diabetes, and Heart Disease. We are a nation that is dying younger than our parents and the statistics are not getting any better. We are waging a hundred billion dollar war on disease but more people died of Cancer this year than 30 years ago.

$100 billion dollar war on Cancer but more people died this year than 30 years ago. Learn why:

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From 1976 to 2006, 62 million people died from medication errors, according to a June 2010 report in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. The cost of adverse drug reactions are more than $136 billion annually, this is more than cardiovascular and diabetic care combined. One in five hospital patients become injured or die from adverse drug reactions. Yet our medical industries motto is “First Do No Harm.”

Learn more: Check out this article from the National Institute of Health.

One in five hospital patients become injured or die from adverse drug reactions.

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Why are Americans so unhealthy?

6 Reasons Why we are so Unhealthy - Reason #1, our food is less nutrient dense because our soil is less nutrient dense. — Why are we so unhealthy? Our food is missing essential nutrients that keep us healthy and fight disease.

Over the last several generations, and most drastically over the last 50-75 years we have radically shifted our diets from farm grown, organic produce, fresh organic eggs and farm fresh, pasture raised meats, to chemically produced fruits and vegetables, heavily processed foods and antibiotic ridden meats that are raised on nutrient poor grains instead of their natural diet of organic grasses.

Why are Americans so unhealthy? – Our food is less nutrient dense.

The quality of our food supply has changed drastically. Experts agree that your average vegetable contains up to 40% less nutrition than just a few decades ago. Add to that, the fact that we eat far fewer fruits and vegetables than we did just one and two generations earlier and that 40% less nutrition really adds up (or should I say subtracts?).

Read more about soil depletion and our loss of nutrients here: Scientific America, New York Times, Time Magazine.

Natural and Organic Soil contains 50 or more known nutrients, as well as millions of bugs and bacteria that work together to create, store and process all the nutrients in the soil. After the second World War, the government had surpluses of chemicals from weapons production. These chemicals were passed off to farmers as fertilizer and make up the N-P-K that we know today.

N-P-K stands for Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), and Potassium (K) which are three elements found in soil which help plants to grow. The problem is, these are only three of fifty or more known nutrients that should be in healthy soil. So year after year, our farmers put down their N-P-K neglecting all of the other Nutrients found in healthy soil.

This depletes the soil as all the other minerals are slowly used up. Now our plants growing in this N-P-K heavy and everything else poor soil have no place to draw up all the other essential minerals. The beneficial insects and microbes can’t survive in this poisoned soil and slowly die off. So we are left with a dead soil which leads to unhealthy, malnourished plants and consequently unhealthy, malnourished humans.

These unhealthy plants then require more and more chemicals to help them survive; pesticides, herbicides and more – a chemical soup.

Why are Americans so unhealthy? – Our food is old.

Before the World Wars, if you wanted fresh vegetables you went to your backyard or to the farmer down the road. Your food was picked fresh that same day. Eggs were laid by the hens that morning and the meat was slaughtered just hours before, maybe even right in front of you. People brought seeds from the old country and passed them down through the generations. The variety of vegetables was plentiful. Wild greens grew readily all around your home, fresh for the picking.

Why are we so Unhealthy? Our Food is Old - Shipping Container - Food Shipped Around the World — Food Shipped Halfway Around the World sits for days or weeks before reaching your plate, losing valuable nutrition the whole time.

Today, most of your food has been shipped 2000 miles or more. It comes from Australia and China, on giant container ships, it comes on trucks from all around the country and from Mexico. It may take a week or more from the time it was picked until the time it was delivered to your grocery store. Then it sits in your refrigerator for another week or more. All of this time the nutrients are slowly breaking down, so by the time this food gets in your mouth, there is barely any nutrition left to feed your body.

Why Are Americans So Unhealthy? – Our Food is Poisoned.

Pesticide Poisons being sprayed on Crops — Pesticides sprayed on food cannot be washed away. The plants absorb them and then we absorb them.

Most of the produce you buy at your local market has been sprayed with all types of chemicals, pesticides, herbicides and chemical “nutrients”. We are told this is all safe, but all of these chemicals have giant poison warnings on them. If it is not safe to eat out of the sprayer (or even be nearby when it is being sprayed), why would it suddenly be safe once it is sprayed onto the food? Many of these chemicals have been shown to cause cancer on their own, but most of our foods are sprayed with a whole cocktail of chemicals, not just one.

The chemical companies say, just wash it off, you’ll be safe. Sure, that’s why Round-Up is being found in Breast Milk and our babies are being born with high levels of DDT and Round-Up and many other chemicals before they even take a bite of food.

Or they say, peel the vegetables, the chemicals are only on the outside. Seriously? Vegetables absorb what is sprayed on them, just like a sponge. They suck it up through their root systems, they absorb it through their leaves. Peel away the outside, the poisons are still there.

So now, our food is lacking in the nutrients that help us heal and coated in poisons which our Liver now needs to clean out of our body, along with all the pollution in the air and water it’s already trying to handle.

These poisons not only build up in our bodies, but they build up in the bodies of the livestock we eat. Farm Animals are also fed these heavily sprayed foods, along with a huge cocktail of antibiotics and other questionable “supplements”. And since these pesticides are eaten daily by the animals, when you eat that piece of chicken or that steak, you are now getting all the poisons that animal ate through its lifetime as well. So animal products drastically increase your exposure to these cancer-causing toxins.

Raw Food is Bright, Vibrant and Alive, Cooked Food is Dead Food, which would you rather be? — Live Food makes your more alive, vibrant and full of energy. It makes you look and fell younger. Dead food makes you feel tired and look old.

And Then We Cook the Heck Out of It.

So, if you only walk around the perimeter of the grocery store and you buy fresh produce, eggs, milk and meat, what do you do with it? We cook it! We know that cooking damages the nutrients, scientist have been telling us this for decades. But new studies now prove that cooking changes the molecular form of foods creating additional toxins. Cooking food actually makes many foods carcinogenic (cancer causing), especially high heat cooking, blackening, and grilling. Cooking food creates the carcinogenic chemical Acrylamide, the higher the temperature, or the darker the color(think burnt toast), the more Acrylamide is produced. (Learn more about Acrylamide from the National Cancer institute here.)

So if you regularly cook at home, from fresh simple, unprocessed ingredients, then your food is 40% less nutritious, chemically coated and cooked to death. But how many of us don’t even cook from “scratch”. That is where the middle aisles of the grocery store come in. And if you have been to the grocery store lately, you may have noticed, the middle is the largest part.

So the largest part of the store sells the stuff in the boxes and the cans, and this is where the majority of Americans spend their money. Or perhaps, like 1 in 4 Americans, you are also getting your food from a Fast Food Restaurant every day…

Why are Americans so unhealthy? – Our food is heavily processed.

Dead Food Can't Give Life - Learn how to Avoid Dead Food and Eat only Life Promoting Foods. — Eating dead food makes you tired and sick.

So now we have food that has less nutrition in it and has been sprayed with a toxic soup and now we process that food. Cook it, strip it down, add some more chemicals to it for seasoning and a few more to preserve it and throw it in a box or a can or a bottle. Then we ship it off to a warehouse to sit for a few months or a few years before we ship it to a store to sit on the shelves. Then we bring it home and let it sit in our pantry a little more.

So now this food is old, old, old, and guess what? It’s dead. There is no life in it, there is no vibrancy, the nutrients are gone, the energy is gone. So we fuel our bodies with the calorie dense, nutrient poor sludge and then we feel tired, depressed, sluggish and slow. Why? because our food is dead, it can’t give us life.

We think we know what to eat, but we are way off the mark.

So now we know that the majority of our food is cooked to death, starved of nutrients and loaded with Toxins, but at least we know the right things to eat right? Wrong.

Our perception of what our plates should be has been skewed far from a natural human diet. Our government has presented us with the “Food Pyramid,” where we are told to stuff ourselves with heavily processed starches: 6-11 servings of Bread, Cereal, Rice, and Pasta. Consuming all of these wheat and starch based products sends our blood sugar on a wild ride with wide-ranging negative effects on your health from Diabetes to Heart Disease.

Now add to that 2 to 3 servings of meat and 2 to 3 servings of dairy. Eat only 2 to 4 servings of Fruit per day, which most people don’t even meet on an average day. Eat 3 to 5 servings of vegetables, but no mention of leafy greens. And of course don’t forget your added sugars and fats, used sparingly of course. So if we were to follow this guideline strictly and eat the maximum servings, that is 26 servings, only 7 servings are coming from foods that contain vital nutrients: fruits and vegetables. That leaves 19 servings of useless filler: fats, sugars and mostly indigestible animal proteins.

So we are stuffing ourselves to the brim with “foods” that keep our body constantly starved for nutrients. Sounds crazy right? So lets put a stop to this madness. Let’s start preventing disease by eating food, not science projects.

Want to learn how to eat healthily easily and prevent disease? Sign up for my newsletter to get recipes, healthy tips, quick fixes and important health news. Read on:

What is a healthy diet?

What is Disease?

What is healthy?

How do we get healthy?

What is Healthy really?

What is healthy and how do we get there?

Healthy is a body free of disease.

Healthy is a mind free from negative thoughts.

Healthy is being full of vibrant energy, enjoying life and being truly happy in your life.

Healthy is being at peace.

If we are missing any piece of the puzzle it keeps us from achieving true health. If we don’t eat well we all know that we can gain weight or feel ill. But what is more important is that when we don’t eat well our body is not vibrant and full of energy and our mind is not clear and positive.

Obesity is the most common form of malnutrition in America.

Poor diet and malnutrition affect our mind. Being malnourished can lead to depression, emotional imbalance and negative thoughts and feelings.

The sad fact is, nearly all Americans are malnourished thanks to the Standard American Diet (S.A.D.) of grains, animal products, sugar and processed “foods”.

The food choices you make can have far-reaching consequences and can influence your life and your future.

Poor food

can lead to weight gain
and poor complexion
makes us weak and sad
makes us tired
and not willing or able to exercise
makes us old before our time
makes us achy and sore
makes us sick
makes us depressed
causes unbalanced hormones
and so much more…

Every cell in your body is affected by what you eat and drink. You are the sum of everything you put in and on your body. What you eat, drink and breathe feeds the cells that create you. If you feed them poorly, they will create a damaged version of yourself, both physically and mentally.

What about exercise?

We all know that exercising can boost our mood and help us lose weight.

And we know that we are supposed to exercise. But we don’t. Why? Because we are tired, our body is lacking the fuel it needs to run.

The truth is exercise should not be a chore, a healthy body vibrates with energy and is naturally drawn to move.

But with our poor diets and a food system which is calorie dense but nutrient poor, we feel fatigued just climbing off the couch.

This leads to further mental discomfort, as we blame ourselves for being too “lazy” to exercise.

But this is not the case.

It is not your fault.

We have been misled by years of advertising to think that healthy foods are unhealthy and unhealthy foods are healthy.

We have been led to believe that it is our fault if we are overweight, and we should just pop another pill to make us skinny or happy.

Have another cup of coffee to pick you up.

Have another drink to make you fun.

Meanwhile, the pills and the food and the alcohol make us fatter, sicker and more depressed.

We have been led astray from vibrant health. But we can get it back.

I have gone from a tired, overweight, sad, “lazy”, non-athletic woman, to a vibrant, happy, strong and determined woman. I have seen 50 pounds shed from my body effortlessly, not from exercise or starving myself, but from focusing on nutrition.

I am not a member of a gym, I am not running on a treadmill to burn calories. I don’t count calories or points either.

I have shed sadness and depression from my mind, and I have gained a confidence in myself which I have never possessed before.

A Healthy Diet is not about going without. It is about Abundance. The most important tool in getting health is eating a lot of Real Food — You should never be hungry on a healthy diet. Fruits and Vegetables have far fewer calories then hamburgers and chips. Eat your fruits and vegetables in abundance, don’t skimp.

I have gone from being exhausted and out of breath walking a mile, to hiking 16 miles and 4000ft to the top of Mount Charleston without any fatigue, ready to go further. Exercise is no longer a chore I force upon myself, but a freedom that brings me great joy.

As with any change, there have been bumps along the road. I have not been perfect, there have been weeks at a time where I go back to eating junk. But the difference now is that I can feel how bad it makes me feel.

Before, my body was so burdened by the S.A.D. diet that I didn’t know what it felt like to be happy and vibrant and full of energy.

Now I know that it is the fake food making me tired and stressed and depressed, and I love the way my body feels when I eat real food, nutritious food, so I go right back.

Gaining true happiness starts with your food. When your body is clean, your mind is filled with positive thoughts and your soul is at peace. Then you have reached true health.

If you would like to learn how to shed weight effortlessly, to have abundant energy and to free your mind of negativity then read on:

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