Juicing as part of a raw food diet
It is believed that many chronic degenerative diseases are caused or aggrevated
by digestive problems, this cause and effect process receives rather less coverage
than it deserves in today’s modern world of convenience meals and junk
food.
So how can you improve the functioning of your digestive system? How can you
ensure your body receives the nutrients it needs to function effectively? The
best way is to introduce juicing and raw food into your diet.
Effects of heat on food
Whether you eat 100% raw food or just increase your level of raw food intake,
the reasons to do so are well documented. Cooking diminishes a great deal of
the nutritional value of the food we eat such as vitamin content. Cooking destroys
the enzymes found in food, enzymes are the keys to many thousands of chemical
reactions that occur within our body. Cooking destroys oxygen levels that would
be found in the raw form of the food. Degenerative diseases such as cancer proliferate
in cells that are lacking in oxygen. Amino acids – the building blocks
of protein have their molecular form mutated by cooking which makes them harder
to digest. When compared to raw foods, cooked foods require the body to divert
a great deal more of its energy to the process of digestion.
Out of the incredibly diverse range of species on the earth it is humans and
their domesticated animals such as dogs and cows that suffer from disease. These
species all have the following factor in common – they are the only types
of animal to eat cooked food that is lacking in enzymes. All other animals eat
a raw food diet.
Raw food linked to longevity
In an article in the January 1973 edition of the National Geographic magazine
Dr. Alexander Leaf published his studies into some of the oldest living communities
in the world. These communities were found spread across the globe - the Viacabambans
of Ecuador, the Hunzukuts of Pakistan and the Abkhazians of Russia. These communities
were free of common western diseases such as Cancer, Heart Disease and Obesity.
The life expectancy of people in these communities averaged over 100 years.
What was the factor that linked these communities together? The link was the
fact that they all ate a diet that was predominantly made up of raw food such
as raw fruit and vegetables, seeds, nuts, sprouts
and unpasteurised dairy products. The frequently used concept that consuming
raw fresh juice everyday can be thought of as taking out life insurance certainly
seems to bear greater significance when the above study is taken into account.
Fresh juice counts as raw food
It is generally accepted that someone who eats a raw food diet is someone whose
diet consists of at least 75% uncooked – raw food. Juicing counts towards
eating more raw food as raw fruit and vegetables are put through our juice extractors.
Shop bought juices are often heat treated to increase their shelf life. This
means they are devoid of enzymes and their benefit to our bodies is far less
than fresh home made juice obtained through a juice extractor.
Juicing can enable us to consume a large amount of raw food in one easy to
digest drink. With the billions of dollars being spent on advertising high fat,
high sugar convenience and junk foods filled with preservatives and other such
chemicals juicing is now more than ever a vital tool for helping us provide
our bodies with its nutritional requirements and giving our digestive system
the rest that it requires.
Juicers that run at a lower speed such as Twin gear juicers are said to give
juice with a higher nutritional content that will store for a longer time before
its nutritional content degenerates. This is because the slower operating speed
of the juicer means that less heat is produced by the process of juice extraction
and less oxygen is introduced into the juice. Centrifugal
juicers run at higher speeds and produce more heat than the twin-gear or
single auger juicers and introduce more oxygen into the juice.
