Live Foods

Live foods

Most people look upon food as just something to please the palate and to fill them up inside. They don’t give a thought to its purpose, nor to the miraculous way the digestive organs and their secretions break it up into its component elements, so that the body can absorb it and use it for heat, energy, and running repairs.

The body is the most wonderful chemical laboratory, but it cannot make good building-bricks (i.e. living bone cells, muscle cells, nerve cells, blood cells, etc.), without the right materials. It is important, therefore, to eat and drink the things that do contain the right materials.

It is true that ‘a little of what you fancy does you good’, but — don’t eat what you fancy to the exclusion of things that you know are essential to good health. Eat first what you should, then what you would, Sir William Osler used to say! Having eaten what you should, you won’t have much room left for what you would. This is all to the good, because present-day palates are not true guides to their owner’s bodily needs. They have acquired a taste for refined sophisticated foods. These may look attractive, and (such is the cleverness of food-technologists) may taste attractive, but they are often unbalanced foodless foods which have been deprived of some, if not all, of their vital and are therefore no longer foods in the true sense or die word – such things as white flour and white sugar products (shop cakes, biscuits, jams, sweets, chocolates, white bread and rolls, etc.). These things have also had harmful substances added to them, to make them look and taste more attractive, and to give them a longer shelf life.

If, therefore, you truly seek health, start by re-educating your palate so that it learns to desire and to relish only natural whole foods. Do this by refraining from all food, other than fresh ripe fruit, for a day or, two. You will then become so hungry that you will feel able to tackle a raw carrot. If you are really hungry, this, like other raw food, will taste very good.

There is, you see, a world of difference between real hunger and false hunger. The latter is appeased only by things that pander to the palate, and, if you give way to it, your desire for more important foods may never make itself felt. “That sinking feeling’ is very often due simply to fermentation in the stomach, and a few sips of water will usually dispel it. If it doesn’t, eat an apple, some dates, or some raisins, not a bun and a cup of tea, neither of which contains any of the vital substances your body is crying out for.

The really vital and important foods are fresh ripe fruits, vegetables, and salads. These are ‘live’ foods — at least, they are until they are cooked — full of vitamins, minerals, and ‘trace’ elements (provided they have been grown on composted organic soil, without artificial fertilizers) are full of stored sunlight, and sun-water (rainwater).

What a pity it is to cook them, because cooking destroys their vitamins and digestive enzymes and extracts their minerals and trace elements; these dissolve in the cooking-water which, in the case of vegetables, is usually thrown away; it should, of course, be drunk as soup. (The addition of a little Vecon adds to its value and makes it taste delicious.)

It is wise, therefore, to get into the habit of eating as many things as possible in their natural raw state (beans are an exception; they are best eaten cooked). Remember that what is important is not the food in your life — but the life in your food.

The perfect answer to the problem of how to eat raw vegetables is a juice-press. This extracts the life-blood of the vegetables, which contains precious vitamins, and trace elements, without which our body-cells cannot make use of the other foods we eat.
Well-scrubbed unpeeled potatoes can be juiced together with other vegetables.

If potatoes are cooked they should be cooked in their skins; this conserves their vital properties. Most health food shops can supply an electric juice-press, which might seem expensive, but it is an investment that pays big health dividends.