Raw vs. Cooked Foods, Interesting

[Guest guest]

Greetings:

Excerpted from SproutRawFoods

 

Vegan: a vegetarian diet devoid of animals or animal products.

 

Raw Vegan: a diet of fresh, uncooked fruits, vegetables, nuts, and

seeds.

 

The vegan diet, with its omission of animals and animal products, is

of

tremendous benefit to both the individual and the Earth. It is in

practice,

however, largely a cooked food diet. Cooking engenders tremendous

destruction of the Earth because of the resources used in the

production,

distribution, and cooking of the food. (see sidebar, The Ignominious

List.)

 

The Ignominious List Of Carnage Brought About By The Human Practice Of

Firing Food

By Seth Asher

 

With the cooked food lifestyle we need:

pots, pans, woks, stoves, ovens, microwaves, toasters, baking

equipment,

spice racks;

dish & pot detergents, scrubbers, dish-washing machines;

manufacture of all of the above including mining and production of

metals

and plastics;

processed food manufacturing;

processed food packaging including disposable containers;

processed food trucking and shipping;

processed food based advertising and promotion;

processed food based medical, dental and hospital " services " ;

vitamins, herbal remedies and supplements;

cooking gas exploration, development, and delivery; restaurants;

soft drink manufacture, beer brewing, wine making and much more.

The resources needed to manufacture, house, maintain, transport,

distribute,

promote and sell all of these enterprises and their products are

incalculable. The ecological cost of eating cooked foods is enormous!

The

above list is all unnecessary in a locally grown, organic, raw vegan

diet.

 

Veganism is on the first level ethical and compassionate. But a

deeper look

at the typical vegan diet reveals the enormous amount of harm done in

food

processing, refrigeration, storage, shipping, sales, and more. Mining

and

forging metals for pots and pans, cooking gas and fossil fuel

exploration

and removal, asphalt production, paving of roadways, production of

appliances with their myriad plastic and metal parts, etc. Each of

these and

many more are necessary for cooked food production. Each destroys vast

swathes of land and the plants, insects and animals that live there.

No

doubt this destruction has other uses, but its most basic is to

provide

cooked, processed foods.

 

The vegan diet in practice is grain and soy based. These foods are

integral

to our current system of " totalitarian agriculture " where all forms

of life

are subjugated to our desire for ever-increasing volumes of food.

The " amber

waves of grain, " doused with millions of tons of pesticides,

herbicides,

fungicides, and chemical fertilizers, are fields devoid of almost all

life,

but the target grain. These were once beautiful fields teeming with

life

including flowering and fruiting plants and other edible vegetation.

 

The system of totalitarian agriculture, of which cooked food veganism

is a

part, has led to ever-increasing food production and consequently

ever-expanding human population. It has also led to the ecological

disaster

in which we currently live. It is a vicious cycle where humans

populate

lands unfit for human existence, then create systems which allow us

to live

there, i.e., climate control housing, irrigation, apartment

buildings, etc.

In so doing almost everything that was there previously is destroyed.

 

Increased food production: increasing human population, requiring

more land

for shelter and increased food production — increasing human

population:

requiring more land, and on and on to our current ecological and

sociological catastrophe.

 

It is important to understand that humans are made from food, and the

more

food there is, the more humans will be created despite attempts at

birth

control. This has always been the case. It is impossible to produce

humans

without food and in fact, our rapidly increasing human population is

fed

year after year by global food surpluses. There may be shortages in

certain

areas, but these are filled by surpluses from other areas, i.e. " food

aid, "

" humanitarian relief, " also known as grain surplus from Nebraska

flown in to

feed the starving masses in Sub-Saharan Africa.

 

Because we produce our own food, rather than eating what Nature

provides, we

have grown well beyond what Nature can provide. Since we do not live

within

Nature's laws as we did for the first 2.5 to 3 million years of human

existence prior to the advent of totalitarian agriculture some 10,000

years

ago, (we have eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,

and

left the fruit-filled Garden of Eden in order to till the soil and

tend

animals), we also suffer from this strain on Nature in an endless

series of

famines, environmental disasters and wars — conflicts caused by too

many

humans unable to deal with each other under too crowded conditions.

 

The raw vegan diet can be a fully compassionate diet. Initially,

during a

transition period, many raw vegans may choose to eat gourmet raw food

recipes. These do use some resources such as manufacturing and

electricity

for blenders and juicers. Still, this is minimal when compared to a

cooked

vegan meal. Over time, most raw vegans do come to eat a more

barehanded diet

consisting almost totally of fresh, raw, organic, preferably home

grown,

locally grown or foraged fruits and vegetables. This means simply

wash and

eat, or even better pick and eat. Each meal is a major contribution

to the

health of the Earth by virtue of resources not used. It is an immense

saving

of time, effort, energy, and even more, it brings substantial health

and

happiness — a major distinction between the vegan and raw vegan diet.

 

There is no doubt that the vegan diet brings better health than the

standard

American diet. As commonly practiced, however, it does not bring the

vitality, deep balance and happiness that comes from raw veganism

after an

adaptation period which can be months or sometimes a few years. It

can be

difficult to stick with a diet for intellectual reasons, but far

easier when

one feels great from it.

 

These are areas in which vegans and raw vegans can and should learn

from

each other. Many vegans become such from an ethical or environmental

motivation. Raw vegans generally make the change for health reasons,

but are

often devoid, or have only a glimmer, of the ethical/environmental

principle. However, in ethical raw veganism, we have the most powerful

combination for the possibility of sustainable, long-term human life

as part

of a healthy Earth.

 

Raw veganism (raw food or live food diet) is currently expanding

rapidly.

Hopefully, vegans and raw vegans will reach out to one another,

combining

their knowledge and efforts to create dramatic global change —

together

stepping outside the destructive vortex of totalitarian agriculture

and

lifeless cooked food, and joining in a peaceful, quiet revolution

which will

allow humans to once again exist happily as viable members of Earth's

living

community.

 

Rob Miller is an accomplished writer, speaker, composer, saxophonist,

flutist, world traveler, avid yoga practitioner, and enthusiastic raw

vegan.

He has toured and recorded across the globe as a musician, lectured

throughout the U.S.A. and Asia on raw food and environmental topics,

and

organizes the annual raw food vacations in Bali and India. He can be

contacted at: http://www.rawfoodvacations.com and

robertmiller