Welcome to the Holistic Lifestyle! This section of our website is a place for discussions on how to transform your life into a more harmonious one in all its aspects - family, home, work, entertainment, vacations, and more. We will share with you our simple tips on how to prepare the easiest raw food dishes, make your own creams and remedies, and mix the most incredible juice cocktails tailored to your specific health needs. Plus, tips on how to do your everyday meditation at home and at work. And tips on how to start taking baby steps and (for the brave ones) how to take bigger steps.  Whether you are just starting your holistic journey or are already a seasoned inner traveler, you will find useful and inspirational information here.  Like our staff and many of our clients, you too can transform your life through deep detoxification programs and by adopting a well-rounded holistic lifestyle. Our first articles are in the works, so check back soon!

What Does a Raw Food Diet Mean?
Issue#39, August-September 2009, Healing Springs
By Elena Filenova 

There is much talk about raw food diet these days. The subtle movement that started with Pythagoras grew into the industry of raw food restaurants, raw food stores, raw food websites, raw food academies for chefs and nutritionists, and raw food detoxification retreats.

Many people who are working on the evolving concept of a "raw food diet" focus on the vital function of enzymes for healthy digestion. Being a chemist myself, I know all too well how hard it is to perfectly control a chemical reaction so that it produces the desired final product every time! Sometimes in a chemistry laboratory we have to boil the solution for many hours, or add very strong acid or base to achieve the desired result. The majority of chemical reactions that take place in our body (and millions of them occur after each meal) would not happen or would take too long without the all-important enzymes.

While some of the necessary enzymes are produced by our bodies, other enzymes also vital to healthy digestion, are naturally found in fresh fruits and vegetables. However, when food is cooked, all of the naturally occurring enzymes contained in the food are destroyed. Science has shown us that the body is forced to produce more enzymes as it attempts to properly digest cooked food.

Under natural healthy conditions, the food proteins that we consume are digested into individual amino acids. These building blocks are then used by our bodies to create the myriad of human proteins that we need. Cooking, however, denatures (unnaturally alters) the proteins in food in such a way that makes them literally TOXIC to humans. Denatured and partially broken down proteins are thus recognized by our body as foreign invaders and cannot be properly digested. If consumed on a regular basis, over years, these improperly digested proteins can lead to kidney stones, kidney failure, allergies, arthritis, leaky gut syndrome, and other autoimmune disorders.

Heating damages other nutrients such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, and phytonutrients. For example:

Complex carbohydrates are caramelized, fusing the molecules into sticky, molasses-like goo that our digestive system cannot easily process.

Fat molecules, like many other bio-molecules, occur in two forms that mirror each other like our right and left hand.  Even though they are identical in structure, they have an opposite "orientation in space". One of them is foreign to the body while the other is a vital nutrient. Lets take a closer look at what happens to fat when it is cooked. The result of cooking creates a "rancid" mixture – meaning that the 50-50 distribution of "left" and "right" fat molecules are formed, rather than the original uniform structure of healthy fat. Once fats become rancid, they become carcinogenic. These unhealthy fats begin to interfere with cell respiration, eventually leading to cancer and heart disease.

Additional carcinogens are formed, as a result of heating oil, such as: acrolein, hydrocarbons, nitrosamines, and benzopyrene, The last being known as one of the most virulent carcinogens known to man. Furthermore, when unsaturated oils are overheated their molecular structure is partially transformed from the vital "cis" configuration into the unhealthy "trans" configuration. These so-called "trans fats" are recognized as one of the most dangerous dietary health hazards of our time.

It’s also necessary to mention that vitamins and phyto-nutrients will be destroyed under high temperature conditions. Making our food anti-nutritious and increasing the toxic load for our bodies to handle. As if it is not enough that we already have to constantly detoxify ourselves from toxic air and water, additives in our food, and the everyday stress that most of us experience.

After hearing this, many people ask me questions such as: "How then did our ancestors survive, if the human race has been cooking for many thousands of years?”

Well, it's true that humans started cooking about 10,000 years ago. Around that same time, they began farming grains and eating animal flesh. However, in terms of human evolution, ten thousand years is a very short period of time—not nearly enough for significant evolutionary change to occur. Thus our diet today is one that our bodies have not had time to properly adapt to. True adaptation would require millions of years.
Yes, we can "survive" on such a diet, but no, we cannot THRIVE on it.

Many foods generally consumed only after cooking, such as meats and grains, would otherwise be unappetizing or inedible to humans. The unnatural process of cooking such foods can trick our bodies into "thinking" that such food is appetizing and nutritious. However price we pay for this trick is at the expence of our health and well-being. When people switch from a cooking-centered diet and start eating whole uncooked foods they usually notice that their energy level increases tremendously. They become more alert. Many describe this new energy as a radiant state of mind, and report that their mood has stabilized at a more positive level. Most people lose weight, and their skin becomes smoother and younger looking. Most importantly, many people who have been suffering for years from various illnesses, allergies, and diseases report that, after switching to a raw food diet, their chronic and acute symptoms have simply disappeared.

It is with these thoughts that I—a cancer researcher from the University of California San Francisco—decided to dedicate my life to preventive medicine through positive life style changes and Raw Food diet.

Cheers to fun, raw food and good health!

Yours truly,

Elena Filenova, M.S., Certified Nutritional Consultant

Juice Fasting article is coming soon!