Chances are that if you are reading this article, you already fully subscribe to this way of life, but if you are still unaware of what exactly the raw food diet is and what its benefits are to your health in the short and long term of your life, here is a quick recap. Raw foodists base their diet on at least 75% raw foods, which include any foods that are heated more than 118 degrees. Most raw foodists follow a vegetarian diet, if not vegan, for maximized health effects, and eliminate or restrict meats and dairy foods as well.

The purpose of eating uncooked or raw vegetables and fruits is that as is, vegetables are built with a host of nutrients and vitamins vital to your body's nutrition as well as being packed with significant enzymes, which ensure proper and efficient digestion. In the short term, this efficient diet promotes a feeling of wellness, wards off digestive problems, and contributes to less allergies and intolerances of the body. In the longer term, helping your body to process foods by efficient digestion, elimination of wastes, and storing/use of nutrients and minerals helps prevent chronic conditions such as heart disease, liver conditions, and other serious diseases.

Osteoporosis is a silent disease that affects millions of Americans each year. Both men and women are affected, though postmenopausal women are 4 times more likely to develop Osteoporosis. Osteoporosis, a degenerative condition, is basically a thinning of the bones in your body, which once thinned become much more susceptible to breakage, fractures, and related bodily trauma. Luckily, Osteoporosis, though debilitating, can be prevented as well as treated, if the right measures are taken regarding lifestyle choices, such as diet and exercise.

So what are some of these measures to help combat the effects of Osteoporosis, whether you are genetically predisposed to the condition or if your lifestyle choices have led you to it? Obviously one of the most crucial needs of the body to be able to maintain and restore healthy bone mass is calcium.

There has been much talk of how a raw food diet greatly eliminates necessary nutrients and minerals from your body's functions and processes, and thus, contributes to unhealthy deficiencies instead of healthy functioning of your body. These deficiencies, those nutrients and minerals such as calcium predominantly derived from dairy products are present in raw foodists as most do not include dairy in their diets. This, in turn, they say contributes to a much higher vulnerability to Osteoporosis and related bone density conditions. While it is true that the body does need Calcium to maintain and restore overall bodily bone health, three points should be addressed to a raw foodist non-dairy diet.

First, there are many more sources of Calcium for our bodily health than just dairy products. You can find the necessary Calcium your body needs through the regular inclusion of these foods: tofu, collard greens, Brussels sprouts, white beans, bok choy, asparagus, almonds, spinach, rhubarb, turnips, broccoli, peas, sesame seeds, okra, and more. So, dairy is not a necessary for ensuring you have the right amounts of bone strong vitamins and minerals.

Second, just because you are getting enough Calcium and other minerals associated with strong bones, does not mean that you are doing all you can. There are two other must-haves for a healthy bone system, that is: regular exercise and Vitamin D. Ensuring that you participate in regular exercise helps promote healthy bones by ensuring regular cleaning out of wastes and deposits that can occur if you remain in a sedentary lifestyle. Moreover, Vitamin D, though gleaned through a variety of healthy vegetables, is most easily won by being out in the sunshine. The two of these are central to maintaining and preserving strong bone health, and should not be overlooked when deciding upon your Calcium sources.

Lastly, in many cases dairy foods retained in a diet can hurt, not help, the overall digestion, function, and absorption of the vital nutrients and minerals that people seek to get from dairy products. Aside from the bodily issues that dairy intolerances and allergies can cause, dairy can deprive our bodies, not fulfill them, of necessary Calcium and minerals.

Our bodies are constantly trying to maintain the right pH level to ensure acidity levels are correct. When there is too much acidity in the body, our bodies work to stabilize our ph by using Calcium stores from our bones. Dairy products contribute to this problem, in that they make our bodies produce acids and excess protein. This, in turn, makes our bodies work much harder (than in the case of raw veggies) to find Calcium, and absorb it for our body's maximum bone health and function.

By TTS Cofounder Botanical Chef Omid Jaffari