Food Focus: Raw Foods
Everyone knows it’s healthy to eat fresh, uncooked fruits and vegetables every day. Raw foodists take this way of eating to heart and base all their meals around different preparations of raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. While some people debate the health merits of eating a totally raw food diet year round, it certainly it a great diet for the long, hot days of summer!
Raw foods, in addition to having abundant nutrients, are also high in water - something we need extra of during the summer months. Thankfully, nature knows this, and provides us with a bountiful harvest of foods that are easily eaten in their raw form (unlike fall vegetables like pumpkins, which are difficult to impossible to eat raw).
So when you’re out and about this month, make sure you get a good amount of your daily calories from fresh raw or lightly cooked fruits and vegetables!
Superfoods - foods with a extremely high phytonutrient profile, like blueberries, seaweeds, algae, sprouts, and cacao also play a prominent role in the raw foodists diet. Eating these superfoods can help ward off illnesses and disease and give your immune system a much needed boost! But the main reason to eat these foods is because they taste good! Here are some great reasons to eat more raw fruits and vegetables:
• Vitamins and micro-nutrients:
Most vitamins and other micro-nutrients are damaged or destroyed at temperatures above 130 degrees. Many of these newly discovered micro-nutrients are thought help prevent cancer and other diseases.
• Enzymes:
Enzymes are the most heat sensitive of all nutrients, and are damaged or destroyed at temperatures above 118 degrees. Raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds contain the necessary enzymes to make digestion easier on our bodies.
• Water:
Our bodies are 70% water. Fruits and vegetables have a high water content, which will keep you well hydrated and cool, particularly in the summer heat.
• Good Fats:
Natural fats are very sensitive to heat (think of avocadoes and flaxseed oil). Heated and processed fats no longer have antioxidant qualities, and can be carcinogenic. Cooked fats are also sticky (think of a lasagna pan), which can cause blockages in the arteries and digestive tract, inhibit the absorption of nutrients, and reduce the body’s ability to transport oxygen.
• Good Elimination:
The soft, soluble fiber in fruits and tender green vegetables keeps you regular.
• Proper acid-alkaline balance:
Processed food, cooked food diets, pollution, and stress leave most people too acidic, which prevents optimal immune system functions, and leaches alkaline minerals from the body. Fresh fruits and vegetables help keep you alkaline.
Tags: food focus, raw foods, seasonal, summer
