Read Crazy Sexy Diet: Eat Your Veggies, Ignite Your Spark, and Live Like You Mean It! Online
Authors: Kris Carr,Rory Freedman (Preface),Dean Ornish M.D. (Foreword)
Tags: #Nutrition, #Motivational & Inspirational, #Health & Fitness, #Diets, #Medical, #General, #Women - Health and hygiene, #Health, #Diet Therapy, #Self-Help, #Vegetarianism, #Women
Crazy Sexy Diet: Eat Your Veggies, Ignite Your Spark, and Live Like You Mean It! (12 page)
In fact, your precious cells are like little batteries that run on energy provided the sun, either directly or indirectly. Directly: You eat the plant that grew in the sun that contains lots of vitamins, minerals, carbs, fat, and enzymes. Indirectly: You eat the vegetarian animal that ate the plant that grew in the sun and contains vitamins, minerals, carbs, fat, and enzymes. PS: Direct is best.
THE RAW
LIVING REMEDY
with
Dr. Brian Clement
Your body is in great part H
2
O
(about 70 percent), otherwise known as water. A molecule of water has two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. The hydrogen part is really important when it comes to making sure your bodily systems do not contain high acidity. This is a problem since the world of medicine estimates that approximately 60 percent of the global population does not consume enough of this essential nectar. To further complicate the issue, it seems that 40 percent of humanity lacks a little bell in the brain that tells them to drink. (Where did that go?)
Alysia Cotter Photography
When you consume adequate amounts of water, especially those pure and alkalized types, or raw juices, like watermelon juice on a hot day, your cells gulp it up. This hydration, in and of itself, is the greatest deterrent to a high-acid system.
Food is the second way we can regulate oxygen. Certainly the superstar bodybuilders are the organic vegetables. Germinated nuts, seeds, grains, and beans are the gold medalists. When eaten in their raw state, all these foods contain not only their inherent natural full spectrum of nutrients, but also water that contains hydrogen.
Yet even plant-based foods when processed and cooked, or fruit when harvested and eaten unripened, can all cause the bodies and bones to deteriorate. Some twenty years ago Dr. Theodore Baroody (author of
Alkalize or Die
) clearly stated, “The greatest nemeses to health are the tissue acids that have a difficult time leaving the body.” Time and again research has demonstrated that processed foods, especially those from the animal side, become a burden to the body, no longer supporting the metabolism.
Barbara Hendel, MD, a specialist in homeopathic medicine, says, “From a bio-physical perspective, food is a carrier of information to the body.” She points out that you cannot grow an apple tree from cooked and processed apple butter, even if it is organic. Eating the apple raw gives you the bioelectrically charged nutrients that the human body thrives on. This choice of cuisine, which we have been feeding hundreds of thousands for more than half a century here at the Hippocrates Health Institute, has proven to be the nourishing healer that Hippocrates, the father of medicine, spoke about so eloquently.
Let’s all come back down to earth: Eating raw organic, vegan, fresh food will bring your body what it needs to flourish, heal, and fight aging. The more you eat of this stuff, the less you have to worry about pH, getting old too soon, or lying in a hospital rather than enjoying wild romance with your favorite person.
Dr. Brian Clement
, PhD, NMD, LN, and director of the Hippocrates Health Institute, is the author of several books, including
Living Foods for Optimum Health.
CHLOROPHYLL:
LIQUID SUNSHINE
At the top of our supercharged alkaline
health list is king chlorophyll. Think about it: Chlorophyll is what allows plants to absorb light from the sun and convert it into usable energy. Our very existence depends on the sun. We are interconnected to its energy on many levels, including what we shove in our mouths.
The chlorophyll in plants is what makes their leaves green and healthy. You can think of it as the blood of the plant—and in fact, it’s similar to our blood. The difference is that the main atom in hemoglobin, the chemical that transports oxygen in your blood, is iron, while in chlorophyll it’s magnesium.
Chlorophyll is a powerful blood builder. That’s right, the blood of the plant literally helps heal and detoxify the blood of the body. It increases red blood cell production and enhances the cells’ ability to carry oxygen. Chlorophyll strengthens the immune system, improves circulation, eases inflammation, and counteracts harmful free radicals. Foods especially high in chlorophyll are green (duh!), but if spinach is the only green food coming to mind, other concentrated sources are asparagus, green bell peppers, broccoli, green olives, kale, leeks, and turnip greens. By eating a diet high in chlorophyll, we dine on liquid oxygen, also known as sunlight—the very substance we need to stay alive and thrive.
TIP
While eating raw fruits and veggies is optimal, quickly steaming, lightly sautéeing, or blanching food is the next best option, especially if you keep the inside of the plant crisp. For those with weak digestive systems, increasing your raw food consumption too fast can be ouchy on the belly. It’s like expecting a couch potato to run a triathlon. Steaming and blanching helps break down the fibrous plant walls. As you heal your body, you’ll be able to up the ante (and lower the heat).
FIGHT BACK A GAIN ST
FREE RADICALS
Excess acid-forming foods
put an enormous strain on the digestive system, liver, and kidneys. Neutralizing all that acid also creates extra molecules called free radicals, which damage our cells and rob electrons (life force) from healthy tissue. It’s impossible to completely protect ourselves from free radicals (and we wouldn’t want to). Some naturally form during normal metabolic function or as an immune response to stamp out bacteria and viruses. But too many free rads (from a shitty diet, carcinogens, environmental toxins, stress, etc.) up the ante on disease and premature aging.
What makes these molecules so dangerous? Basically, free radicals are molecules that have lost one of their electrons, and this makes them very unstable. Sort of how you feel when you can only find one of your Jimmy Choos. A free radical will latch onto any electron it can find. When these mini thieves steal an electron, that molecule in turn becomes a free radical, starting a cascade of them that can damage your cells. Take it from me—you can’t trust too many free radicals. They talk a good game but they’re moochers!
Your resourceful body produces antioxidant enzymes designed to quench the free radicals. This works because antioxidants are the givers. These generous little substances donate an extra electron to the greedy free radical. This stabilizes the little mutant and keeps it from bombarding other cells and snatching electrons from them. But if you have too many free radicals your body can’t keep up. Downward health spiral, here you come!
One way to combat free radicals is to suck in less of the stuff that causes them in the first place. Another way is to give your body plenty of additional antioxidants found in (you guessed it) mostly raw, plant foods.
VITAMINS
Do you know why
vitamins and minerals are always mentioned together? Well, like Bogie and Bacall, they’re made for each other and need each other to be happy. A vitamin is an organic (carboncontaining) chemical compound that your body needs for normal functioning. Because your body can’t make vitamins, you must get them from your food. There are thirteen vitamins in all, and you need tiny amounts of every one of them for good health.
Though vitamins are added to a lot of “fortified” foods, like breakfast cereal, bread, and OJ, it’s not the same as consuming them in their natural form. Talk about backward: Manufacturers attempt to reinject the nutrients they’ve processed out of natural foods, or add them to fake foods that never contained them in the first place. Synthetic laboratory vitamins are no match for the real deal. In some foods, vitamins and minerals are literally sprayed on! How dumb.
When you cook foods, you also reduce the vitamin and mineral value. You know those intoxicating stovetop smells? Well, suck them in, ’cause there goes a good portion of your vitamins and minerals. If you kill your broccoli, much of the vitamin C will end up in the cooking water, not in you.
