It hasn’t been that long ago that our ancestors survived and even thrived on a diet that was composed primarily of raw foods including fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, sprouted seeds and grains, dried fruit and juices, rolled or flaked grains, along with a few herbs and spices.
When times were good, animals and fish provided meat but the average adult diet consisted primarily of fruits and vegetables. The women were lean, the men were muscular, and everyone spent hours each day walking, running, and exerting themselves physically in a variety of daily activities.
Everything rocked along rather well until somewhere, someone discovered fire, and thus we began the long downward spiral that ultimately led us to today’s ‘processed foods’.
In just three generations, our society has taken a relatively healthy diet and while attempting to make it more appealing we’ve gotten off course, way off course.
Today’s highly processed foods are certainly more attractive and thus more marketable, so it’s a sure bet that it looks really good on the shelf. In addition to making it look so appetizing, we’ve added countless chemicals pushing preservation to the very edge, where shelf life is virtually unlimited.
But the most devastating news is this, our daily diet of overly processed food has been stripped of any real nutritional value and fiber has been all but forgotten.
French fries and ketchup are the two most commonly consumed vegetables at a time when we also find ourselves plagued with arthritis, attention deficit disorder, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, strokes and cancer.
Add high levels of stress, sedentary jobs, poor air and water quality and it’s no wonder we’re a more obese, malnourished, infertile yet angry and violent society today.
Is it possible that the solution to so many of our social issues can be found in something as simple as raw food?
Well, take a moment to consider a few things; the recommended daily servings are two to three fruits and three to five vegetables.
Too often people interpret the goal as five servings of fruit and vegetables when in reality a maximum of eight servings would be ideal.
That’s a daily intake of eight servings of nutritionally dense foods that are naturally designed to satisfy you so you will find yourself eating less.
Additionally, weight loss is almost a certainty when you shift your focus from processed foods to fresh fruits and raw vegetables.
Because calorie and carbohydrate intake are substantially reduced when concentrating on raw foods, it’s hard to overeat on such a diet. An added benefit to the high water and fiber content of such a diet will be realized in a feeling of fullness, a healthier digestive system, and a detoxified body with increased anti-aging properties.
A drastic shift toward raw food can overwhelm your body and it is highly recommended that you gradually increase your intake of raw food over several days while at the same time reducing the amount of processed foods.
You will find yourself spending less time in the kitchen preparing foods and more time enjoying them.
It’s quite possible that you might find yourself strolling through the produce department a bit more frequently however, as raw foods do not have the vast quantities of preservatives (yes, that’s the chemicals) so freshness must be controlled by buying only the items that you expect to consume in a short period of time.
You can find many recommendations online for meal plans designed to include more raw foods into your daily life, and when combined with the health improving elements of Weight Loss Breeze you can be well on your way to a healthier, slimmer and revitalized YOU!