WHAT IS RAW FOOD?

Raw food means that you do not heat your food but eat it in its ‘raw’ state. This means that you are not allowed to cook your food by boiling, roasting, grilling, steaming, baking or heating it in any way. To eat raw foods is not a new phenomenon, because we did it before we invented fire. It is only the last approx. 50,000 years that we’ve cooked our food and even today, man is still the only species on this earth, that heats his food in order to eat it. All other species on the planet eats it the way it is found in nature. It has not been refined, cooked, frozen or mixed with a lot of other ingredients but instead it is simple and raw.

We eat heated food mainly because it tastes good and because it allows us to eat food we would normally not eat. Things like meat, cereals, rice, eggs, potatoes, root vegetables, beans, sugar canes and coffee beans are not particularly attractive or easy for us to digest in their raw state. Therefore a raw fooder eat things that are edible and easily digestible in its raw and natural state.

WHAT IS THE 80/10/10 DIET?

There are several ‘schools’ within the raw food movement, but the one I have used to get well is called the ’80/10/10 diet’. The figures stands for minimum 80% carbohydrates, maximum 10% protein and maximum 10% fat and it is the most natural and simple of all the schools.

80/10/10 is a diet very low in fat, which means that you mainly eat fruit, some vegetables and leafy greens plus very small amounts of fat (e.g. avocados, seeds and nuts).

There is a another school called ‘Gourmet raw food’ where they use a lot of nuts, seeds and oils in order to make ordinary looking dishes like cakes, bread and pizza. This is the school most people think of when they hear the word raw food and it is also the one you will find in cookbooks and raw food restaurants. They are allowed to heat the food up to 42 degrees and use a dehydrator to dry it out the 80/10/10 diet strives to be both whole, fresh, raw ripe and organic if possible. Unlike ‘gourmet raw food’ things like refined sugar, salt, oils, syrups, cocoa powder, super foods, etc. are not used. Instead the food should be processed and altered as little as possible.

THE LIFESTYLE

Unfortunately diet is not enough and you also have to make changes to your lifestyle. It includes special guidelines for things like sleep, water, exercise, mental balance, air quality, sunshine etc. The way you think and feel about your health and life in general is also a very important factor when you want to tap into the placebo effect. When combined all of these areas can do wonders for your health and give your body the extra energy it needs to detox and repair itself. The lifestyle flower below shows the areas that must be addressed: