Radiant on Raw Blog: Raw and Living Foods, Holistic Health, Latest News and Reviews

5 Easy Steps to Staying Super Hydrated

You have most likely heard that our bodies are not capable of lasting more than two to three days without water, though that you would be capable of going weeks without food. Water is required for very basic physiologic functions such as regulating blood pressure and body temperature, hydration and digestion (the body requires about 1.5 milliliters of water to absorb every calorie ingested).

Not Drinking Enough Water Can Be Dangerous

Did you know that 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated? In 37% of Americans, the thirst mechanism is so weak that it is often mistaken for hunger. Even mild dehydration will slow down one's metabolism as much as 3% (a huge contributor to weight gain). Lack of water is the #1 trigger of daytime fatigue. A mere 2% drop in body water is capable triggering fuzzy short-term memory trouble with basic math, and difficulty focusing on the computer screen or on a printed page.

According to a survey, nearly three quarters of Americans are aware of the recommendation of drinking eight 300ml servings a day, though only 34% actually drink this amount of water each day. Most humans consume only about 6 servings of water a day and nearly 10% declared that they do not drink water at all.

Chronic dehydration has been implicated in Attention Deficit Disorder, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Alzheimer' Disease. If you consider the brain as an electrical energy producer like a battery, which is 80% water, it does not require a leap in consciousness to understand how a lack of simple, elemental water would compromise its most basic function. Much like a car battery that dries up and dies.

I don't know about you, but this information makes me run  for my water bottle!

The Living Link Missing From Our Diets

Here's a great article I found on benefits of probiotics in our diets and wanted to share with you.

For millions of years, our ancestors hunted for meat and gathered fruits, nuts and other plant foods. They followed the food supply, so there was no kitchen sink to wash it in.

Instead, they brushed the dirt off the foods they gathered. Or rinsed it in a nearby stream.

Today, factory farms add thousands of tons of pesticides and herbicides to our food. Even if we wash our fruits and vegetables thoroughly, we run the risk of slowly poisoning ourselves.

This modern dilemma means that our ancestors received a benefit from their food that we don’t. I think of that benefit as “living foods” — the good bacteria that inhabit our guts.

Living foods aid digestion. They hold dangerous bacteria in check. And recent research has revealed an amazing variety of other benefits. Here are just a few of the health benefits connected to these living foods:

Menu Planning for Raw Food Beginners Made Easy

If you have been on a diet before, you must be quite familiar with the concept of menu planning. It is a great tool that helps you keep on track, allows you to make sure you are getting all the nutrients that you need and enough calories to get you through the day, and also makes sure you get a good variety into your raw food diet.

Having a menu can help you make sure that you are always prepared and will never find yourself in a situation where you open your refrigerator and see empty shelves; it helps you see at a glance if all your nutritional needs are being met; it makes the whole process of eating raw foods easy and straightforward.

But first, let's cover the basics on a truly healthy raw and living foods diet:

Natural Ways to Overcome Depression

Conventional medicine tells us that depression is caused by an imbalance of a neurotransmitter in the brain called serotonin. Most pharmaceutical advertisements claims that drugs that flood the brain with serotonin are the answer to depression. However, some studies found that dramatically increasing serotonin levels in the brain failed to relieve depression.

So why do doctors persist in prescribing medications with side effects ranging from mood swings to suicidal or homicidal behaviors when those drugs may not even work?

Many of the symptoms of depression can be directly linked to vitamin and mineral deficiencies in the standard American diet. Depression, mood swings and fatigue often have a common cause: poor nutrition.

Dental Care for Raw Foodists Made Easy

These days it's almost impossible to find a person with perfect, cavity-free teeth. According to the Centers for Disease Control, in America, anywhere from 75% to 95% of all people are prone to periodontal diseases.

Unfortunately, in the raw food movement, there's a higher incidence of dental decay. This is typically due to high fruit consumption and incorrect dental care. And there are still, unfortunately, some people who believe that if they just eat clean diet, they do not really have to take care of their teeth, that the food will do it for them (a "rumor" started by natural hygienists a while ago). And it's a pricey mistake to make.

Taking care of our teeth is crucial. If we learn how to take care of our teeth, not only can we prevent problems, we can also heal damage that is already done. There can be healing.

First, let's look at the cause of dental decay.

Why Grow Your Own Food

"The only way today we can guarantee our foods are not pesticided, irradiated, herbicided, or GMO is to grow our own food."

- Rabbi Gabriel Cousens, MD

Gabriel Cousens, MD, the creator of Tree of Life Foundation in Arizona and the author of such wonderful books as "Conscious Eating" and "There Is Cure for Diabetes", states that learning to grow your own food is absolutely essential. With constant food recalls, salmonella contamination, and now Swine Flu, learning why we need to grow our own food is of utmost importance.

Here are just a few reasons why growing our own food is an important step towards great health and also independence:

Food is grown in nutrient/ mineral deficient soils (even organic)!

It's a fact. Our soils are depleted and depleted soils do not produce healthy, nutrient-rich plants. It's also a fact that crops produced in depleted soils are more prone to the invasion of insects, viruses, fungi, etc. Much of the modern world is now aware that our industrialized methods of farming have depleted the soils and created a cycle that requires pesticides to protect the unhealthy crops grown on depleted soils.

Prior to the 1800s, farmers fertilized their crops with organic substances. But modern, economic-based agriculture has virtually replaced all of the critical organic complexes with inorganic fertilizers, which cause toxicity in water runoff and further imbalance the delicate nature of our soils.

Earth Day Celebration

Today is the Earth Day, a perfect opportunity to be reminded that this planet is our home and we need to take proper care of it.

So here's my 10 easy ways to be more green:

1. Turn OFF the lights when you leave the room, simple.

2. If you work in an office, do turn off your computer at the end of the day and on the weekend - if you are not there, there is really no reason for your equipment to be working (plus you'll save on electric bill, your boss will appreciate it).

3. Don't charge your cellphone overnight - these days most cellphones only take a couple of hours to charge so don't keep your phone connected to an outlet all day (and you'll save the battery life).

4. Replace light bulbs with long-lasting fluorescent bulbs in areas like hallways, storage rooms, and garage (many people say they are sensitive to fluorescent lights and get headaches so don't install them in rooms where you spend a lot of time, just a precaution).

5. If you are still getting it, cancel the phone book delivery. I mean, seriously, when was the last time you looked anything up in a phone book? Google it!

6. Sign up for getting your bills electronically to eliminate paper statements. Most banks and credit card companies already provide such services. Also, embrace online banking to cut back on paper and postage.

Quick Fact: Approximately one billion trees-worth of paper are trashed each year in the U.S., and hard copy bills alone generate almost 700,000 tons of waste and almost two million tons of carbon dioxide. Both you and the planet will be happier without the excess garbage.

7. Fight junk mail with all your might: cancel magazines you never read, catalogs you never look at, credit card promos you don't really need. Here's a wonderful website that gives you all the information on how to do that - Stop Junk Mail

8. Recycle. I can't believe how many still don't do it. Shame.

9. If you are going to buy groceries, bring re-usable bags with you to use instead of plastic: most big chain supermarkets now sell them and some (like Super Stop & Shop here in NY) even pay you back for every bag you use.

Quick Fact: Amount of plastic bags used in the US annually - between 500 billion to a trillion (according to Environmental Protection Agency). Amount of oil it takes to manufacture 100 million bags - 430,000 gallons!

10. Finally, my personal favorite and the easiest tip of the day - while you are brushing your teeth, turn off the water! If you do what the dentists recommend and brush for 2 minutes, well, you just used 18 gallons of water. It adds up to 547 gallons per month, just from leaving the water on while brushing your teeth! Think about it, people!

And if you are curious how much water you consume on a daily basis, here's a fun calculator - Water Consumption Calculator.

Check out EarthDay.gov for more helpful tips on how to reduce your environmental print.

Happy Earth Day!

Color Your Raw Food Diet Green

In the world of raw foods green is a new black. Thanks to inspiring work of Viktoria Boutenko, who started the "green revolution" four years ago, everyone now knows how important eating lots of greens is to us.

Why Greens are Important?

According to Boutenko's research, greens are the primary food group that match human nutritional needs most completely.

Greens are very high in amino acids, the building blocks our body uses to create protein; these amino acids are easier for the body to utilize than complex proteins that come from meat, fish, and dairy. Can greens really supply enough protein for the body? Well, yes! Just look at the largest vegan on earth - the elephant.

Greens are also high in fiber, the necessary component of elimination process. Without fiber, our colon fills up with toxic waste and we eventually become sick and chronically tired. Insoluble fiber in greens acts like sponge that takes the toxins out of our colons and helps us stay healthy and vibrant.

Greens supply our bodies with many vitamins and minerals necessary for optimal functioning. They also have an ability to make our bodies alkaline - an extremely important factor if you want to enjoy disease-free, youthful, energetic body. Consuming lots of greens on a daily basis is the most important step to maintaining good alkaline pH balance.

The last, but not least, benefit of consuming lots of greens is chlorophyll, the sunlight in liquefied form. No life is possible without sunlight and no life is possible without chlorophyll.  The molecule of chlorophyll is almost identical to the molecule of human blood, so when we consume lots of chlorophyll-rich greens we are literally consuming "plant blood" that adds to our own.

Green is a color of the heart charka, according to Yogic teachings. When we consume lots of greens, we come to experience being peaceful, centered, connected to our body and our heart, and we experience being more open to the world around us.

So Where Do I Start?

To truly enjoy all the benefits the greens can bring us, we have to consume at least a pound of greens a day. That sounds like a lot, doesn't it? But there is a solution to this problem.

A Growing Movement Against Mandatory Vaccines

By Melanie Segala
Managing Editor, Total Health Breakthroughs

I used to think that only people with ultra-conservative religious beliefs or anti-establishment opinions home-schooled their kids. But after reading an October 2008 article in USA Today,¹ I learned differently. Debra and Curtis Barnes are part of a growing number of Americans who home-school their three children solely to avoid having them vaccinated.

Debra Curtis is hardly a fringe member of society. She has a busy chiropractic practice in Mississippi and is president of the Mississippi Vaccination Information Center, a group of 159 concerned parents who believe that mandatory vaccinations for school-aged children are a dangerous over-reach by state governments.

Five Simple Ways to Get Your Body Beach Ready

Some folks are under the impression that if they eat 100% raw diet they will be in great physical shape.

Not true.

Having a clean diet is a great start, but it doesn't automatically result in shapely arms and legs or a six-pack. You still have to exercise. But with our busy lifestyles, how many have time to go to the gym every day? The one time I got myself a gym membership, I ended up going not more than 6 times and then my busy life just took over. And I bet many of you had the same experience (and that is how the gyms make most of the money - from people who buy memberships and never show up).

But don't get me wrong - I love working out. It gives me energy, strength; exercise is necessary for strong bones, happy disposition and healthy immune system. But I like doing it using my own body weight, not intimidating metal monstrosities in a stuffy room full of sweaty people.