Living foods or raw foods

Living foods are raw foods. These foods have not been cooked, boiled, stewed, microwaved, frozen, baked or steamed. As a result, they are still in their original state and contain their food enzymes. Food enzymes are the life force of food and help the digestion process. Raw fruits, raw vegetables, sprouted grains or sprouted seeds all contain food enzymes. We need an abundant supply of food enzymes to nourish our bodies, provide us with energy and balance our metabolism.

The most noticeable deficit in the old diets of the participants on You Are What You Eat was that their meals were completely missing food enzymes. Most of the participants never ate anything raw.

Good carbs

These are the carbs without the added refined sugar: for instance, fruits, wholemeal breads, grains, rice and vegetables. These healthy carbohydrates (called complex carbs) contain naturally occurring sugars that the body can easily and slowly metabolize for balanced brain function, mood attitude and useful energy. They are not stripped of their nutrients.

Organic foods

Organic foods means foods that are free of chemicals. Foods that are organic have been grown in soils that have not been sprayed with chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Remember, if chemicals have been sprayed on the produce that you eat, from chemically treated soils, then those chemicals, which are toxic, will enter your body cells and bloodstream. Who knows what damage they will do? There are numerous studies which show that chemicals inside our bodies do not help our health.

Good protein

Vegetable proteins are easy to break down in the body. Quinoa is an example of a vegetable protein that is very easy to digest. It looks like a grain and you can make a tasty porridge with it. Sprouts (not Brussels sprouts, but sprouts that are grown from seed) are a more efficient, cheaper and healthier form of protein than meat. Combining beans and grains together forms a complete protein too, easy to digest and enhancing to the metabolism.

Good fats

Fats have a terrible reputation. In this era of low-fat foods and fat-free diets, the crusade against fats has almost gone mad. The most zealous campaigners even condemn oil-rich nutritious foods like nuts, seeds and avocados, but no one can ever blame heart disease on avocados!

I generally advocate good fat foods such as nuts, seeds and avocados to my patients. These oil-rich foods contain healthy fats which are necessary for aiding weight reduction, lowering cholesterol, enhancing immunity and nourishing the reproductive organs, skin, hair and bone tissue, effectively lubricating our bodies. These are the good fats, vitally important and necessary for life itself. And these fats help you to metabolize fat. They are so important that they are called essential fatty acids (EFAs).

Your body cannot make EFAs, so you must get them through the foods you eat. I think they really should be called Essential Thinny Acids. That’s how I refer to them in my practice and my patients seem to like the thinny concept better. Flax seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, sea vegetables, fish and avocados are good examples of these essential, thinny fats.

The crusade against fats has gone mad.

Unprocessed foods

These are foods that have no added chemicals or other additives. This food is in its orginal state, the way nature grew it. It has not been changed. Some packaged foods still contain foods and ingredients in their original state. Start reading labels and become more familiar with what goes into the foods you eat.

Overcooked veggies

Most of my patients, when they first come to see me, overcook vegetables. Many tell me they don’t even like vegetables. I contend that they simply do not know how to prepare them. For some reason, we British often have a tendency to boil our veg to death, and in the process lose all of their vital nutrients.

To get the most out of your veggies, either eat them raw or simply steam them lightly for 2–3 minutes maximum in most cases.

Bad carbs

Simple carbs are the sugary, refined type of carbohydrates which are not good for you. These include chocolate, cakes, biscuits, sweets, and anything made with added, refined sugar or flour or processed white rice. During the refining process, the majority of the minerals and vitamins are removed, and these foods behave like pure sugar when they enter the body. They rush into the bloodstream, causing blood glucose disturbances and sugar cravings. Eat too many of these foods and you will undoubtedly have mood swings. You may get depressed, angry and irritable. If you want to be fat and ill, eat bad carbs. Excess bad carb residues are stored as fat in the body. And finally, years of bad carb eating could lead to diabetes. It’s not worth the risk.

Non-organic foods

Non-organic foods, such as non-organic fruits and vegetables, have been sprayed with chemicals and grown in soils that have been treated with chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The residues of these chemicals make their way into our bodies when we eat these non-organic foods. They harm our cells and organs and damage our digestive systems. These chemicals become toxins in our bodies, polluting and poisoning us.

Bad protein

Depending how strong your digestive system is, some proteins may simply not be good enough for you. Most people on You Are What You Eat had very weak digestive function, so proteins from red meats were hard for them to break down.

Too many high-protein, fatty, red animal foods can toxify the body and acidify the blood, deplete calcium, overwork the kidneys and liver, stagnate digestion and destroy the beneficial bacteria. This can also lead to kidney stones and liver fatigue, colon and bowel disorders, constipation, arthritis, osteoporosis and heart disease.

Even cow’s milk is too difficult for many people to digest. It can trigger allergic responses such as sinusitis, asthma, earache, congestion, runny nose, skin rash, eczema, fatigue, lethargy and irritability. Whole cow’s milk is too high in saturated fat, low in vitamins and the mineral content is out of balance with human biochemistry; as a result, many of the nutrients cannot be absorbed by humans. Also, cows are normally subjected to hundreds of different drug injections, hormones, pesticides, drug residues which in turn make their way into the milk. If you must drink cow’s milk, boil it first to make it easier to digest.

Try goat and sheep’s milk as alternatives, as the molecules are smaller and easier to break down. There is also an abundance of alternative milks on the market that are easy to digest: rice milks, soy milks and other grain milks.

Refined foods

The modern diet contains many refined foods. All the participants on You Are What You Eat had diets full of refined foods. Refined foods are stripped of their original, natural nutrient content and fibre. The consumer is left with a more concentrated, unnatural sweet version of the original food. Refined white flour and white sugar are the two most common examples of refined foods. These ingredients are then used in a multitude of other ‘foods’. Baked goods, chocolates, fast foods and ready meals to name a few are the types of foods filled with additives and preservatives to give them a longer shelf life. These foods really should be called ‘non-foods’. They cause havoc with the health of the body as the body is not designed to deal with these nutrient-depleted, industrial, false foods.

On the show, I met one participant who only ate refined, processed, preservative laden foods. Yvonne, who was overweight, depressed, exhausted and constipated, survived mainly on crisps and microwaved meals. She never, ever ate real food. To bring Yvonne to her senses, I teasingly suggested that if she were to drop dead tomorrow, her body would literally take years to decompose because she was so full of all these preservatives. That was a bit of a shock, but she definitely got the message!

… years of bad carb eating could lead to diabetes. It’s not worth the risk.

Bad fats

Saturated animal fats are heavy and turn to stone inside the body, hardening the arteries, leaving you at risk of heart attack and stroke. Red meat, pork, dairy products, butter and cheese are examples of foods that are fat saturated. The body is not designed to deal with these types of fats. High bad-fat diets raise blood pressure and cholesterol levels, can interfere with blood sugar levels and cause liver stagnation, which can lead to depression and weight gain. The body cannot effectively process bad fats, so many are turned into toxic balls and stored in the body, making you even fatter.

Hydrogenated fats are the results of a process that hardens liquid vegetable oils. Shortening and margarine are hydrogenated fats, so potato chips, chocolate, sweets, ice cream, pastries and baked goods all contain hydrogenated fats. The hydrogenated fats change into the evermore dangerous trans fatty acids which have been shown to cause diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Trans fatty acids also cause you to gain weight as they interfere with the metabolism and breakdown of essential fatty acids. They increase the bad cholesterol in the body and deplete the good.

Processed foods

The processing of foods changes the original food and the proportions of the nutrients within these foods. Many pre-packaged and plastic wrapped foods, quick fix, microwaveable, fast and boil-in-the-bag type foods have gone through a multitude of processes before they end up in the supermarket. These foods have little or no nutritional value.

The food industry allows more than 3000 food additives to be used in the processing of food. And just because many of these additives and chemicals used in the processing of our foods are deemed safe, it does not mean that they are. So, chemicals, food additives, colouring agents, sweeteners, artificial flavours, dyes, nitrates, nitrites, preservatives to prevent spoilage, acids, maturing, bleaching agents, emulsifiers to maintain consistency are all finding their way into our bodies via these easy-to-prepare packaged foods.

These processes can cause allergic reactions, stress on the liver to process such chemicals, many of which are cancer forming. Children exposed to such processes can become hyperactive and display learning difficulties.