Raw Foods

Now to the obvious question: Why Raw? Experiencing a diet of raw foods is what convinced Mom & Me. It has changed our lives, and how we both feel about aging. While most of our peers resign themselves to feeling worse as they grow older, we have been feeling better every year.

Noting the healing capacities attributed to raw foods, we began to think about the human diet, what we eat and how we eat it.

Nutritional science - not to mention the food industry - is still exploring the complexities of healthy eating. Armed with only an approximate understanding of the body's needs, and pressed by advertisement and industry funded 'education'; we are ALL easily confused about what we need to eat.

However, nutritional experts agree that people should eat MORE fresh raw fruits and vegetables. It is also commonly understood that eating depleted foods taxes the body, resulting in loss of energy, vitality, immune function and the progression of degenerative disease.

Still, raw foods in their whole form are sometimes inedible, requiring processing (treatment or preparation) prior to ingestion. Even certain common vegetables - amongst them potatoes, eggplant, artichokes - are not conveniently palatable.

Processing can make indigestible foods edible - allowing humans to survive conditions of famine and utilize a wide variety of foodstuffs. Ingenious techniques to store food, rid it of pathogens, and eat locally in every climate and condition has supported the proliferation of mankind.

Yet, the methods that we have employed have mixed consequences. Heating and processing also changes the nutritional profile of food, altering - and often deteriorating - vital food nutrients.

Despite being amazingly adaptive, the body has rigid requirements for balance. Our smallest motions depend upon indescribably complex reactions requiring precise inputs and conditions.

Raw foods are nature's provisions for all animals. We require elements of raw foods (nutrients that are destroyed by heating) for survival.

We have learned that heavy-handed attempts to provide isolated elements or address secluded symptoms produce a cascade of 'side-effects'. We are now learning the same about food processing.

Rarely considered qualities of foods such as color (derived from antioxidants that protect us from free radical damage), electromagnetics, and seasonality (qualities of expansiveness or contraction derived from local growth conditions) are examples of the limits of our common understanding of food value.

Mom & Me don't have all of the answers, but thinking and experiencing provide a strong argument for choosing fresh raw foods (as possible) over processed foods for health.

To us, consuming living foods makes sense. It is natural, environmentally friendly (produces little waste at low energy cost), socially friendly (supports farmers, not corporate processors), healing and health supporting.

Mom & Me have been eating primarily raw foods for 8 years now. It was a rigorous transition because we dropped cooked foods cold turkey. We encourage everyone to eat MORE raw foods, but to take your time if you too are interested in eating all raw because changing habits is a shock to the system, and can be quite uncomfortable if done too quickly. If your physical condition necessitates more rapid changes, we urge you to contact someone with experience in raw foods disease treatment to assist you.