This is a guest blog entry from my roommate Colleen. She and I have known each other since high school and went to college together at Uconn. We have seen each other go through tremendous changes throughout the past few years, but none have ever been as significant as the changes to her health this past summer. This blog entry serves as a personal testimony and reminder of the importance of keeping one’s health a top priority –and of the incredible health improvements one’s diet and lifestyle can make. This is a personal account of her discovery of the root of her health issues and how her dietary changes have made a huge impact in her life.
Credit: Istockphoto
College. The word itself invokes many different thoughts for many different people. But whether this word brings about thoughts of final exam cramming, trips to the local bars, or crazy weekend adventures, there is one aspect of college that I feel many can agree on, and that is your average college student is fairly unhealthy.
Personally, I spent the majority of my college career eating a diet consisting exclusively of ramen noodles and instant rice. Needless to say, I felt less than healthy all the time, to put it lightly, and was sick for a good 70% of those four years. I developed a severe lactose intolerance, depression, chronic fatigue and a slew of other maladies that at the time I was unable to attribute to anything other than (possibly) my poor diet and lack of sleep – which I suspected could have been due to diet as well.
When I ended my college experience, I moved to Missouri with my parents, where I decided that I would regroup and try to tie together some of the loose ends I had allowed to come undone over the last four years. Honestly though, it seemed to me it wouldn’t make much of a difference. How could I undo those four years of damage? I decided to go on the advice of a friend of mine from college who had suffered the same string of terrible health – I decided I would try a raw food diet.
What is the raw food diet? If your reaction is like my sisters (Ugh, Colleen! How can you even digest that rabbit food?) then chances are you aren’t too familiar with it. Often called ‘raw food-ism’ or ‘rawism’, the raw food diet is the practice of consuming uncooked, unprocessed, and often organic foods as a large percentage of the diet. This means including vegetables, fruits, grains, and even (though very occasionally) meats in their original form- uncooked and unprocessed. One of my friends from high school started up the raw food diet a while ago, and I must confess my original reaction was quite similar to my sisters. Why would you want to give up eating cooked food? It seemed a strange concept to me.
Naturally I had to find out what the science was behind this method of eating. I stumbled upon a raw food book, called ‘Eating in the Raw’ by Carol Alt, a book about the raw food diet for “beginners” – people who were unsure of how to go about making the transition to eating raw food. In the introduction, Nicholas J. Gonzalez, M.D. and raw foodism advocate, states, “It all has to do with enzymes.” According to Gonzalez, and to many raw foodists, enzymes in food are often overlooked for their more highly publicized cousins such as DNA or proteins. However, enzymes are proteins in themselves – they are the building blocks of our nutrition. This is all fine and well, but what do enzymes have to do with eating uncooked foods?
According to Gonzalez, enzymes begin deteriorating at around 106-107 degrees; and above 116 degrees, most denature – that is, they become inactive and unable to perform useful activities in the cell. Therefore, when you cook food, whether it is a vegetable, fruit, nut, seed, or meat, these natural enzymes are gone rapidly. In order to preserve these enzymes, therefore, it is imperative to keep food uncooked, or if you wish to cook it, to keep it under 106 degrees Fahrenheit.
First, I thought this must be too good to be true. There was no way that a diet I had never heard of could make this much of a difference in someone’s health! So I looked to my friend Shelby, my friend from college who I mentioned earlier, for answers. Shelby has been a raw foodist for a while now, and has been posting photos of her raw food creations, and talking about how great she feels since she’s converted to her new raw diet – to a pair of until recently deaf ears, I must admit.
Three months, and a following of supportive raw-foodists and vegans on my raw food tumblr (cocointheraw.tumblr.com – check it out!), I can barely believe the change I see. Not only did I lose the weight that I gained in college, but my lactose intolerance is under control for once. I know that I can speak for all my fellow raw followers in saying that I have never, ever, felt better.
Ask yourselves this question – how many raw foods do you actually consume in one day? You may be surprised with yourselves… but increase your consumption of said raw foods, and you will really be surprised! And raw food isn’t just “rabbit food” like my sister said. There are hundreds of cookbooks out there advocating different ways to “uncook” your foods – and websites too! (goneraw.com being my personal favorite). From pasta to brownies, you can find healthy, raw varieties of all your favorite foods!
I’m not saying that everyone needs to convert to raw food – the diet isn’t for everyone and some people need other aspects included their diet. However, increasing your diet by even just 20% raw can make a world of a difference. You’ll feel energized and motivated – no need to take my word for it, just try it for yourself! Happy (and healthy!) eating!
-Colleen L.
If you liked this post and would like to learn more about going raw, you can visit colleen’s blog and talk with her.
