Eating Out

Every now and then I like to have a cooked meal at a restaurant just to remind me why I eat raw foods. Well, I don't go with that intention but I always come back with that result.

I haven't been eating raw for long and yet I am truly amazed by not only the transformation in how I feel eating primarily live foods but how I feel when I eat cooked ones. Me, the ultimate lover of cooked foods. Now I eat a cooked meal and I feel so sleepy, heavy and drained. Initially I wondered if it was all psychosomatic but the proof is in the pudding, even when the pudding is made from soaked cashews, dates and water.

What is it about a cooked meal out that leads one to feel this way? A number of things.

1) When we eat a heavy meal the body responds by releasing large amounts of insulin. The insulin ensures that the blood sugar gets to the liver, muscle and fat cells. Within an hour or two, insulin levels have dropped dramatically as has blood sugar. The result - a crash. For me the crash manifests as fatigue, irritability (which I would be right now if I wasn't so tired), and sugar cravings.

Since going raw my sugar cravings have been almost null. When I get them they are very manageable. But give me cooked food and give me death, or at least a cookie.

2) When we eat cooked foods, especially out at a restaurant, we tend to overeat. Cooked foods do not have the digestive enzymes or the minerals so abundantly provided in raw foods. Much more energy is required to digest a cooked meal. Raw foods actually supply the body with the enzymes necessary for digestion whereas a cooked meal usually causes the body to draw on its store of enzymes for proper digestion. We end up depleting our enzyme reservoir.

3) Digesting takes energy. Raw food gives the body energy and requires much less effort to digest - actually aiding in digesting. Much of our energy during the day is used to digest cooked foods!

These are only a few of the reasons why eating raw foods provides us not only with energy and enzymes but a whole new outlook on life!