More and more, people are choosing a raw food diet for themselves and their families. Why is that? Predominantly, people opt for the raw foods diet for optimum health and wellness. In short, they want to alleviate chronic conditions, lose unnecessary fat, and give themselves a more efficiently functioning and processing system for short and long term health. Moreover, they want to feel better: less weighed down, anxious, stressed, depressed, and generally unwell. Trading in their processed foods, refined sugars, meats, and cooked produce for a diet that consists of at least 60% raw foods does this for them, and more.

To understand how these two diets differ as far as health is concerned, perhaps, it is best that we take a closer look at the differences between cooked and raw foods. Below, we examine the science of what happens to vegetables and fruits when they are cooked, in contrast to their scientific nature in their original state.

The main premise that a raw foodist diet is based upon is not allowing fresh vegetables and fruits to be heated about 115 degrees, which means lightly steaming. To get the optimum health results, it is wise to buy only organic and follow a vegetarian diet. Many raw foodists also modify their dependence on dairy as well to ensure the most demonstrative of health benefits from their raw foods diet.

What happens when foods are cooked? Basically, vegetables and fruits are built with scores of enzymes that are essential for our body's proper digestion. These enzymes once added to our systems help us digest all that we consume, eliminate wastes efficiently, and collect and store nutrients according to our bodies’ needs. Moreover, vegetables and fruits also have an abundance of vitamins, nutrients, and minerals in their form intrinsically-that once cooked are eliminated. So, not only does our digestion have to work harder with cooked foods-as our body does not know what to do with them-but our bodies also lose out on necessary, healthy nutrients that help our bodies have a strong immune system. Moreover, improper digestion leads to imbalances in functions and materials in our body that helps it to know when to store, eliminate, and use. This sort of biochemical confusion can easily lead to short and long term health conditions and disease.

Raw foods, on the other hand, if unmodified, are fruits and vegetables that have not been heated higher than 115 degrees. These fruits and vegetables are able to retain the necessary nutrients and minerals that they have been created with, and pass these vital aspects onto the proper and healthy functioning of our bodies.

Though many people do not know this, most of our digestive illnesses and conditions come from intolerances to certain foods, and cooked food should not be ignored when searching for the culprit. Sometimes it is dairy, while other times it is wheat, etc; but ever consider why these specific allergies and conditions may have presented themselves in your digestive tract at all? Perhaps, looking at a raw food diet-that retains the foods previously prohibited against would be something to consider. Our digestive systems start out with one purpose: to filter foods consumed to the appropriate areas of the body for optimum bodily function. This means, what is waste should be eliminated, what is nutrients and minerals should be stored, and what is needed for energy, should be converted accordingly. When we offer our bodies practically nothing but un-digestible foods i.e. refined sugars, processed foods, and cooked produce; we set our bodies up for problems. Once we start a pattern of giving and possibly subsisting on these types of foods, is when the real chronic conditions and allergies tend to set in, and cause our lives and health discomfort if not serious illness.

Deciding to fuel at least 60% of your diet with organic, raw vegetables and fruits helps your body regain its original digestive health, and maximize the functions that your body is designed to fulfill. Even if you opted to supplement your diet with the remaining 40% being cooked or processed foods, your body is already infinitely better off because it is already functioning at much more optimized rate due to proper absorption of nutrients and minerals and a healthy digestive tract.

Basically, what it comes down to is this: that your body craves raw fruits and vegetables for the nutrients and minerals they intrinsically have and supply. These raw foods help fulfill these needs and not only make your body more efficient at processing, using, and eliminating; but also, give you more energy and make you feel better physically, emotionally, and psychologically.

We have become a society of addition. If we add or change things, we make them better, we assume; but the world was not built that way originally, and there is a reason for that. Studies show conclusively that our bodies need certain nutrients and enzymes to ensure proper nutrition, function, and bodily health. With 70% of our food supply being tampered with on a regular basis with addictive additives, manmade ingredients, and the like; we have to take back control of the aspect of consumption that we can control: by ensuring that what vegetables and fruits we have to eat stay unchanged, and thus of optimum health to our bodies.

By TTS Cofounder Botanical Chef Omid Jaffari