Raw, Weight Loss, Vegan, Natural Foods, Low Fat, Cookbooks, Food & Wine 

When you hear the term “raw food”, it can be hard to imagine what that might consist of. Your thoughts might jump to sushi or something similar, but there’s actually an entire diet based on eating raw foods. What exactly is the raw food diet and why do people stick to only eating raw foods? And why do raw foods make sense for your sandwiches, salads, and smoothies?To start, raw foods are unprocessed and uncooked foods. This means that if you’re on a raw food diet, you’ll be eating a lot of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and grains. Ingredients that you’ll want to avoid include meats (unless they’re raw), most dairy, most store bought foods, cooked items, and processed foods. Most people are under the misconception that you can’t heat your food at all if you’re on the raw food diet. There’s actually a magic number that you can heat your food up to, but not over. That magic number is 118 degrees Fahrenheit. That means you can eat fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, seeds, etc. as long as you’re not heating anything up beyond 118 degrees Fahrenheit. Why only 118 degrees? By heating up your food over a certain temperature, the level of nutrients in your foods (especially fruits and vegetables) as well as the natural enzymes in your food, which help you digest your food, are diminished or destroyed.There’s a lot of reasons why someone may choose to go on a raw foods diet. A diet made up of raw foods will typically be high in a lot of the nutrients your body needs to function since you’ll be eating more fruits and vegetables than average. You’ll also be cutting out any processed foods out of your diet, which is healthy for you as well. We’ll go over some more health benefits later, but there are also some misconceptions or unproven benefits of the raw food diet you should be aware of.Those on the raw food diet claim that going on the raw food diet can help cure allergies, asthma, and a whole host of other diseases. Although going on a raw food diet can reduce your risk of several diseases, there’s no scientific proof of a raw food diet curing you of all your ailments. - from Amzon