Go natural is probably the best way to describe the organic live, raw diet. Nature didn't intend for us to cook, process, spray with herbicides or pesticides, microwave, genetically engineer or cook our food.

The raw truth
How do we know this? Fire, like the wheel, and the cooking of food came relatively late to the species homo sapiens. All other animal life forms on Earth eat raw. When we cook, we lose over 60 percent of vitamins, 100% of phytonutrients and nearly all of the B12. Fifty percent of protein is also lost. None of this is disputed. It's the raw truth.

Raw diets have been with us since the beginning of time, and remain popular with people interested in health, long life and the environment. But raw diets perhaps became most famous when Dr. Gerson healed Dr. Albert Schweitzer of diabetes. He also helped heal Dr. Schweitzer's wife from tuberculosis and healed literally hundreds of patients with cancer—all using live raw food. From 1940 on, Dr. Szekeley saw over 100,000 patients interested in his raw food lifestyle.

Losing weight
A switch to a raw diet tends to automatically trigger weight loss since the body receives twice as much protein and up to 80 percent more nutrients when raw. We consume less when we eat raw and feel fuller. The body gets what it needs with less fat, bulk and calories. In other words, eating half the food on a raw diet would equal the same nutritional value as double the food intake when cooked. Or thought of another way, we eat too much food when we eat cooked because the body craves missing nutrients, often resulting in consumption of too many calories. Raw diets are a natural weight loss trigger.

Cooking destroys everything good
The most deleterious aspect of cooking is that it destroys enzymes, only found in live raw food. Enzymes have been firmly linked to longevity and health since natural raw food enzymes reduces the demands made on the body to secrete enzymes in digestion, among other factors. These enzymes are used to detoxify and repair the body.

Some might argue in favor of cooking for taste. The charred taste on the grill. The hotness of a steaming baked potato. But, the reverse is true. The food itself loses flavor and transforms. Zucchini raw has considerably more flavor than cooked. Raw virgin olive oil carries much moor flavor than non virgin heated olive oils. Tomatoes are sweeter and tastier when eaten raw.

Food communicates with our genes
Raw natural food has been with us since the beginning of time, but only recently we've begun to understand why it's so important. In the same way that heat transforms oil negatively, all foods are changed by any form of cooking or heat above 118 degrees Fahrenheit.

Genes are either "turned on" or "turned off" by diet and lifestyle. Genes not only regulate our health, but the way we feel and think. This area of study is fairly new, but it is clear that gene communication is one of the reasons raw foods are superior in every way to cooked.

Eternal youth?
Not quite, but Herodotus reported the ancient Greeks of Pelopennesus lived on a raw diet, and typically lived for 200 years. Even allowing for exaggeration, they were healthy on their raw diet. Similar stories of Buddhist monks, who often are vegetarians and eat raw, living for longer than average lifespans. Even in absence of "good genes" for long life, raw food can naturally extend life, and more importantly, quality of life.

Added nutrients, and lack of free radicals may be part of the reason for the "longer life" trend. A lowered tendency to become sick might be another part of the story.

What we do know, people who eat raw tend to be thinner, healthier and happier.