why raw?

People experience endless benefits from eating their food raw: increased energy, less need for sleep, improvement in general health, uplifted mood, ideal weight, shining eyes, beautiful skin, younger looks, clearer thinking and intuition, enhanced creativity increased effectiveness, calmer and more contented children and heightened physical sensations. Many people notice that their connections to nature and to other people deepen and they gain what can be described as a more spiritual or shamanic experience of life.

Why is this?

The components in a high quality, nutrient dense raw diet seem to enable the brain to work in a different more effective way. Looking at the evidence of what the right hemisphere of the brain is potentially capable of and what happens to people on the raw path, it seems like somehow the change of diet enables more right hemisphere function. This is likely because the limiting factor for the left hemisphere function is structural owing to the effects of testosterone during development in the womb (see page on Hormonla Retardation and the Fall from Grace) while the right hemisphere has much more potential if given the building blocks and fuel it needs.

Heating above body temperature changes the molecular structure of food. The nutrients in uncooked food are in a form that the body can recognise, understand and use. Food in its natural living state has a crystalline structure with electromagnetic fields which carry order and information into the body and brain.

The neurotransmitters in our brains are generally a class of biochemicals called monoamines and they are constructed from amino acids. The undamaged nature of raw amino acids improves neurotransmitter quality. high. Tryptophan, the precursor to serotonin and melatonin is particularly affected by heating. It is an essential amino acid, one that the body cannot make itself and an adequate supply is essential for us to feel happy and relaxed. The mono-amine oxidase inhibiting effects of the flavonoids in fruit and in various superfoods and herbs favoured by raw foodists keep the neurotransmitter levels high. These in turn stimulate the pineal gland and the production of even more powerful pineal monoamine oxidase inhibitors (maoi's), which further boosted neuroactivity. This is the 'raw high'. After water, the main constituent of the brain is fat so the build of the brain benefits from the consumption of undamaged (raw) fatty acids. The fatty acids in our brain are extremely delicate and prone to oxidative damage. In nature they are always wrapped up with antioxidants. Immersion in antioxidant compounds thus protects our brains.

Moving from the biological slant to a more esoteric and geometrical one, the structure of all organic living things is intricately based on the golden ratio or phi. This structure lends itself to life, growth, movement, connection and, in a word, fractality. Nature - from the cosmic to the biological to the microscopic - is fractal. If you take any small part of it you can build the whole thing from the information contained in it. For example the DNA blueprint for construction the whole human body is in every cell of the body. The more we surround ourselves and fill ourselves with fractal i.e. living matter the more we keep ourselves in touch with that all powerful, all knowing, ever present fractal reality or 'divine intelligence'. Because the structure of raw food has not been changed on a molecular level by heating it retains more fractality. The integrity of the fractal patterning is even greater in some raw foods than others for example wild foods, hemp and flax and they are said to let in 'light' which is a way of describing the energy that we connect with through the 'divine' fractal pattern. This sense of connection could be thought of as the essence of the 'spiritual' experience, that indefinable expansion of energy and awareness, and it is so more easily felt in natural surroundings and sacred places where that patterning is much more intact. Perhaps the right hemisphere of the brain has retained a greater capability to align with fractal reality.
'Spiritual awareness' is inherently connected to physical awareness – they are both energetic awareness. With increased energetic awareness our vision, hearing, smell, taste and touch senses become more sensitive and accurate too. Spiritual and physical senses only seem separate into us because we use a different of our minds to access to access information beyond the limited level of five sense sensations that are currently the usual experience. When we go into that different part of our minds (the right hemisphere) we perceive and feel different and experience a different sense of self which feels very profound. Obviously there are many tools used to access this part of ourselves – high quality living food gives us good building blocks to lay a foundation for increased sensitivity.

Raw food is utterly delicious. Interestingly after some time on a raw diet most people prefer the natural tastes. But even before that adaptation, beautiful raw recipe creations can be made which taste as good as cooked. What's more, the increased sensitivity we begin to acquire gives us an eating experience which is sensual on a different level - mouthful becomes exquisite. The tastes and colours of the food are more vibrant making a wonderful cuisine out of entirely healthy ingredients.