If you would have told me a year ago that I would know anyone that was on a totally raw food diet I would have said you were crazy. But last month I ran into an old friend who is, indeed, on a raw food diet and he looks fantastic! He has lost weight; his coloring is great and no longer suffers from insomnia and fatigue. The guy looked and acted like a new man.
So I sat down and did an impromptu interview because I wanted to know why he decided to do something as radical as the all raw food diet. As we visited I had to ask him if he missed the macaroni and cheese he ate almost every day and he laughed. He admitted that if it wasn’t for boxed mac & cheese and drive through burgers he would have starved for many years. But the truth is, he felt like he was in a war everyday of his life and he couldn’t figure out why.
He started with an alternative medicine doctor that prescribed all kinds of vitamins and minerals that made him feel better but gave him massive stomach aches. The cost of all the supplements was also a factor since his health insurance does not cover them. So on top of the health insurance premium he was paying he was shelling out another $600 to $800 a month and just could not sustain it.
So he did what many people do and turned to the internet to see if he could get some insight into taking control of his health. What he found was a documentary called “Simply Raw” that follows a doctor who takes people who are diabetics and uses a raw food diet to get them totally off or substantially reduce their insulin intake. But that was not all. These people also lost weight, reduced their cholesterol and got off their high blood pressure medicines.
It was after watching this and reading a couple other things that convinced him to do the raw diet and he was just finishing up his first thirty days. I asked him if he was going to continue with this diet for the rest of his life and again he laughed. He told me he had done it the hard way and that he really needed to purchase a dehydrator, a good juicer and blender to really do it up right.
Since I had never heard of such a thing, I immediately went home, told my wife and we found “Simply Raw” and watched it. I was amazed by the results these people were getting. So now after clearing it with our doctor, we are moving toward the goal of eating a mostly raw diet. There are a few items that we are having a hard time giving up; coffee being the hardest one.
Oh yeah, my friend is a diabetic, my wife is borderline diabetic and I have high cholesterol and can’t take statin drugs due to the side effects. So after we get the things we need to do it right, we will be a family on a raw diet and should be doing it up in about a month. I also ran back into my buddy a couple of days ago and he is doing the same thing. He got off the diet and feels so lousy again that he and his wife are buying what they need to do it right this time. We are all looking to be trim, toned and healthy on a raw food diet.