The people that question my new raw food lifestyle all ask the same things.

•Why raw?

•So you just eat a bunch of salads?

•Doesn’t everything being cold bother you?

Why raw? Why not? Raw foodists believe that the act of cooking food robs it of most, if not all, of their nutrients. How many times have you cooked a can of vegetable soup and found the veggies to be mush? That happened because the plant that makes the soup cooks it through, packages it and then you cook it again before eating. These vegetables are giving you nothing that your body needs. Instead, you’re putting sodium, preservatives and other unnatural, lab made chemicals (put there to give the soup it’s “freshness”) into your body. Every ounce of raw food that you consume gives your body purpose. The organic fruit, vegetables and raw nuts and seeds are high in minerals, vitamins, fiber, antioxidants, nutrients, potassium, omega 3s, protein, etc and they’re all in their natural form. Nothing has been processed, no added hormones, it’s all natural and easily broken down by your body. Your skin clears up, you lose weight, it’s easier to get up in the morning, the list goes on…

Salads? Yes, some. The amount of things you can make following a raw diet is vast. With the use of a dehydrator you can make chips, bread, cookies, crackers, falafel, pizza crust, “cheese” sticks… You can puree (in a blender or food processor) many soups, dips, sauces, smoothies, drinks, salad dressings, pie fillings, condiments, “mashed potatoes”… Today I made a creamy garlic dressing for my salad and it was awesome! So yes to salad but that’s just the beginning. You use raw nuts to make pie crusts, aide in sauce, soup and dip recipes and they’re great to snack on! With the use of a sprouting jar you can sprout small beans and lentils. Bigger beans like black beans and kidney beans have toxins in them that need to be cooked out in order to consume. You can eat them uncooked if you’d like but it would end with you vomiting.

I have found the solution to eating cold food all the time is to spice it up! I put cayenne pepper in a lot of dinner meals (i.e. raw chili, raw soup, even the “spaghetti”!).