6 Reasons to Eat Less Cooked Foods

6 REASONS TO EAT LESS COOKED FOODS

1. DAMAGED NUTRITION

If you touch a hot stove with your finger (even for just one second) you are going to have a burn on that finger for several days, and the nutritional value of food can also suffer when it touches a hot stove.

Baking, boiling, frying, grilling, barbecuing, roasting, toasting, and microwaving foods can expose them to very high temperatures, and this can cause nutrients to become damaged.

Some will argue that although some nutrients become damged through cooking, other nutrients can actually become more bio-available through cooking. But even if that is true, generally speaking, the higher the temperature and the longer the duration, the more damage will occur during cooking.

If you look at a plate of crisp lightly steamed vegetables next to a plate of mushy over-boiled vegetables, your natural instincts will tell you that the steamed vegetables are less damaged and will be more beneficial to eat.

So if you are going to cook, please use the least harsh cooking methods, and eat it with something that is raw.

2. WE ARE THE ONLY SPECIES ON THE PLANET WHO AREN'T RAW FOODISTS

The fact that we humans are the only species on this planet who aren't raw foodists (with the exception of the animals we raise) and the fact that we are the only species who are experiencing a deadly epidemic of dietary health problems like obesity and heart disease (with the exception of the animals we raise) is strong evidence that we aren't eating the way that we are supposed to.

There are millions of different lifeforms on this planet, and the diversity can be mind-bending to even think about...

- Some life forms can thrive in a desert climate, while others can thrive in an arctic climate.

- Some lifeforms have a natural lifespan of less than one day, while others have a natural lifespan of over a thousand years.

- Some lifeforms are so small that a million of them could be living in your eyeball right now without you even realizing it, while others are so big that they can swallow half a million calories in one gulp.

So with all of the different species on this planet, and the fact that they can all go their entire lifetimes without ever eating cooked food, maybe it wouldn't be all that "radical" for us to start eating more raw foods.

3. NATURAL BEAUTY

Grocery stores like to put their "produce department" in the very front of their store because fruits and vegetables are naturally beautiful and pleasing to the human eye, and this will give customers entering the store a great first impression.

If you are what you eat, and if you want to be more naturally beautiful, eat more naturally beautiful raw fruits and vegetables.

A diet high in raw fruits and vegetables will help you lose body fat, help you develop clear, glowing, and well-hydrated skin, and help you feel better. (Which will result in a happier healthier smile that will give people a great first impression when they meet you.)

4. MORE TIME AND ENERGY

Below are some recipes which demonstrate just how much time you can save by eating foods in their raw and natural state...

RECIPE 1 - "BANANA"

Simply take a banana, pull down on its natural "pull tab", and it is ready to eat.

RECIPE 2 - "MEATLOAF"

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Take 1 tablespoon of butter and put it into a nonstick pan over medium heat. Take a knife and finely chop up half an onion, 2 cloves of garlic, 1 celery stick, 1 oz of scallions, 1 carrot, and 1 green bell pepper and add the chopped vegetables to the butter. Stir the vegetables well and then let them saute in the butter for 7 minutes. Pour the butter and vegetable mix into a large mixing bowl and add 2 pounds of ground beef, 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, 1/2 cup of ketchup, 2 eggs (beaten), 1/2 cup of breadcrumbs, 2 teaspoons of salt, 1 pinch of pepper, 4 ounces of mushrooms, and 1 package of meatloaf seasoning mix and then mix all of the ingredients well. Use your hands to shape the mixture into a "loaf" and then place it into a 13 X 9 X 2-inch loaf pan. Take a bottle of ketchup and pour a layer of ketchup over the top of the loaf and spread evenly. Place the loaf in the preheated oven and let it cook for 1 hour. Remove the cooked meatloaf from the oven and let it cool for 10 minutes before serving.

(WARNING: PLEASE DO NOT TRY THIS RECIPE AT HOME.)

Not only will eating more simply mean a lot less time preparing food before you eat, but it will also mean a lot less time cleaning dishes "after" you eat.

If you eat something raw (like a bowl of fruit) you should be able to clean the bowl afterward by simply running some warm water over it. But if you eat something cooked (like lasagna) the food can really cling and stick to the pots and pans, so you will likely need to use hot water, abrasive scrubbing tools, and harsh chemical-based detergents just to clean the dirty dishes.

Meals that are complicated to make can be complicated to digest, and it should be noted that the average person eats cooked food 3 times a day and spends more of their daily energy on digestion than on anything else.

If the definition of "food" is "fuel for the body", then anything that causes you to feel tired and results in you needing to drink coffee or take drugs like "Pepto Bismol" afterward just to function doesn't meet the definition of "food".

After eating lots of cooked food on "Thanksgiving", people will typically feel so tired that they will have to lie down and take a nap or just sit in front of a television for the rest of the day because they don't have the energy to do anything else since so much of their energy is having to go towards digestion.

But raw fruits and vegetables tend to be quick and easy to digest, and they are also difficult to overeat since they are so high in water and fiber. So if we eat a "raw food diet", we will naturally feel more energetic throughout the day and we will also need less sleep at night.

And all of this extra time and energy that you can have on a "raw food diet" can be used to do big things that you have always wanted to do, but that you were never able to find enough time or energy for on a "cooked food diet".

5. EXCITEMENT

Changing your diet for the better WILL change your life for the better. But instead of feeling excited about this, a lot of people feel worried.

You might be worried that if you stop eating cooked foods, you will be limiting your diet so much that you won't be able to get enough nutrition.

But I have found that I actually eat a bigger variety of foods now than I ever did when I was eating cooked food, and I have also found that there are very few fruits, vegetables, or grains that can't be consumed raw.

Many of the foods that people are convinced have to be cooked can actually be eaten raw when they are "young", AND they tend to be more nutritious that way...

- You might not want to eat a raw pumpkin, but you can definitely eat raw pumpkin seeds.

- You might not want to eat raw lentils, but you can definitely eat raw lentil sprouts.

- You might not want to eat raw adult spinach, but you can definitely eat raw baby spinach.

It should also be noted that even fully grown vegetables that are way too hard to eat raw like potatoes, beets, ginger, etc can actually be juiced and drank raw.

So if you're under the impression that it would be hard to get enough nutrition from raw foods, I strongly recommend that you use a free nutritional tracking program like "Cron-O-Meter" so you can see for yourself just how nutritious raw foods actually are, and so you can stop feeling "worried" and start feeling "excited" about changing your life for the better!

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