6 Reasons to Eat Less Cooked Foods

6 REASONS TO AVOID COOKED FOODS

1. LOSS OF 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 in food can also suffer when it touches a hot stove.

Baking, boiling, frying, grilling, barbecuing, roasting, toasting, and microwaving foods exposes them to extremely high temperatures, and when foods get too hot the following nutritional damages can occur...

- Heated enzymes are killed.

- Heated fats become trans fats.

- Heated carbohydrates caramelize.

- Heated proteins become free radicals.

- Heated vitamins become damaged and useless.

Generally speaking, the higher the temperature and the longer the duration, the more damaging cooking will be.

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 more beneficial to eat.

If you are what we eat, and you want to feel more alive, then eat living foods and avoid dead foods like frozen microwave dinners, that couldn't possibly have any life-force left in them...

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

The fact that we are the only species on the planet who aren't raw foodists (with the exception of the animals we feed) and the fact that we are the only species on the planet who are experiencing an epidemic of deadly dietary related health problems such as obesity, heart disease, and diabetes (with the exception of the animals we feed) is strong evidence to me that we aren't eating the way that we were designed to eat.

Think about it, there are millions of different life forms on this planet, and the diversity can be mind-bending to even think about. (Some lifeforms are so small that a million of them could be living in your eyeball right now without you even realizing it, while some lifeforms are as tall as skyscrapers, and some lifeforms only live for one day while others can live for thousands of years!)

So with all of the other lifeforms on the planet, and the fact that every single one of them can go their entire lifetime from birth to death on a 100% raw food diet, maybe it wouldn't be that "radical" of an idea for us to incorporate more raw foods in our diet.

3. ADDING EVEN A SMALL AMOUNT OF RAW FOOD TO YOUR DIET CAN MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE

Going on a diet can actually feel a lot more challenging mentally than physically, so instead of telling yourself that you can't eat certain bad foods anymore, I would encourage you to simply start "adding" good foods to your diet.

Try eating some raw fruit or a small raw vegetable salad right before you eat something cooked, or simply add some raw foods to the cooked foods that you eat.

Because the more healthy foods that you can ADD to your diet, the less room and the less of an appetite you will naturally have for anything else.

4. BEAUTY

Every year people are willing to spend BILLIONS of dollars on products that are designed to make them look younger and healthier, but they won't simply buy and eat more raw fruits & vegetables.

Sure, they'll buy raw cucumbers so they can cut them into slices to put them over their eyes, or they'll buy raw avocados to mash up and spread all over their faces in the hopes of getting younger and healthier looking skin, but they won't simply add these amazing foods to their diets which would give them many of the same benefits plus many more!

You are what you eat, and in the same way that if you eat a lot of oily foods you will end up with oily skin and hair, if you want to look more more beautiful and pleasing to the eye, start eating colorful raw fruits and vegetables which are naturally beautiful and pleasing to the eye.

5. LESS TIME IN THE KITCHEN

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 sauté 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.)

Eating more simply will mean a lot less time preparing food before you eat, and it will also mean a lot less time cleaning dishes after you eat.

After eating something raw (like a bowl of fruit) you should be able to clean the empty bowl by simply running some lukewarm water over it, but if you eat something cooked (like lasagna) the food can really stick and cling to the pots and pans, and you will probably need to use really hot water, abrasive scrubbing tools, and even harsh chemical-based detergents just to clean the dishes.

Complicated meals are also complicated to digest, and it should be noted that the average person spends more of their daily energy on digesting food than on anything else.

After eating a big cooked meal (like "Thanksgiving" dinner) people will predictably feel so tired that they will either lay down and take a nap, or they will just sit in front of a television for the next few hours because they simply don't have the energy to do anything else.

If the simple definition of "food" is "fuel for the body", but after eating a cooked meal you actually feel more tired than you felt before you ate it, it would be hard to call that food "fuel".

When you switch from a diet that is high in cooked foods to a diet that is high in raw foods, you will likely find that you feel a lot more energetic during the day, and that you even require less sleep night, and having all of this extra time and energy can be used to better your life and to do things that you currently don't have the time or energy to do.

6. NUTRITION

Even the most heavily processed and unhealthy cooked foods that are sold in boxes, cans, jars, and bags and that can technically last for several years on a store shelf can literally be "life-saving" foods in emergency situations when there are simply no raw fruits and vegetables available.

But unless you ever find yourself in a real life "zombie apocalypse", it doesn't make sense to live on a "zombie apocalypse diet", and if you really want to "thrive" rather than just "survive", I encourage you to make raw and living foods a big part of your diet.

And if you are worried or have any doubts whatsoever that you will be able to get enough nutrition from raw food, I strongly recommend that you use free nutritional tracking programs like "Cron-O-Meter" so you can see just how nutritious raw fruits and vegetables actually are, and so you can stop feeling "worried" and start feeling "excited" about changing your life for the better!

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