Count Cracula Sucks the Water Right Out of Us

The other night Karmyn, Andrew and I went out to dinner and met some good friends at a raw food restaurant.

Little did we know what we'd be facing when we met the charming Count Cracula who was sitting at the table next to us.

I ordered a salad to start with and Karmyn ordered a taco salad for herself and for Andrew she ordered the raw vegan version of a hamburger which was a dehydrated hamburger with, a dehydrated bread bun and on top of that dehydrated flax crackers on the side.

I was enjoying my salad but I noticed Andrew was not touching his burger. He just picked at the lettuce and other vegetable toppings on it.

So I decided to dig in and help him finish it. Within a few minutes, I was bone-dry thirsty.

And hidden behind the scenes Count Cracula was laughing as he sucked the life fluids out of me while Andrew was onto him.

I asked for a glass of water for all of us.

Keep in mind we almost never actually have a drink of water with our meals for the simple reason that we're hardly ever thirsty. Personally, I'm almost always eating water rich foods and therefore I don't get thirsty.

But at the raw restaurant things were very different. Count Cracula lured us in with his charms and we fell for the bait.

What many people don't realize is that simply by eating dehydrated foods like raw crackers (Where I got "Crac"-ula) it will make you dehydrated. Because that food originally had some water in it, but it's been sucked out of it via the dehydrator.

And so you have to make up for that water otherwise you'll be parched.

Later on we got so thirsty that we asked for a whole pitcher of water. One or even two glasses was not enough.

Turns out Karmyn's taco salad was really salty and that made her so thirsty — she was bone dry.

Count Cracula was draining us of our precious fluids.

In fact, while driving back in the car she wanted to drink a gallon of spring water right there and then.

She told me "it felt like the water was being sucked right out of me."

When you've been 100% raw for a while and you've stopped eating salt you really notice the damage it does when you eat it again. Karmyn was also complaining that her eyes were bulging out.

I later ordered a taco salad myself and felt my eyes bulging out as well from the excess salt. Salt is a toxic cell destroying poison as I've explained before on my blog:

"Super-Food or Blood Burning Poison" the dangers of eating salt.

We learned a valuable lesson. In the car on the way home we made two decisions (I hope we actually stick to them) from now on we were never again going to eat dehydrated foods and we'd do our darndest to avoid foods with salt added to them.

Never again did we want to have that horrible feeling of having the water sucked out of us.

I did a little research on the dangers associated with chronic dehydration. It's amazing how many diseases and conditions can be created by dehydration.

The problem is that most people have no clue that they're chronically dehydrated. In fact, most senior citizens are dehydrated but they can't even feel it.

I'll give you a quick story to illustrate.

A few years ago, I decided to have a cooked food cheat day. For lunch and dinner I went out with a friend (senior citizen and cooked foodist) to all sorts of restaurants starting in New Jersey and moving to New York City and then back home in New Jersey again.

It was fun but I noticed many strange things happening to me that day and the next including me getting arthritis within 2 hours after my first "tiny" cooked meal.

The other thing I noticed was that I was constantly thirsty. While I drank at least 6 glasses of water my coooked friend didn't drink a single glass.

And we ate virtually the same foods. He had no idea how dehydrated he was. It wasn't until our last meal late at night that he had a glass of water. Even at that one meal alone I had three glasses of water to his one.

All the while, I was going to the bathroom constantly to urinate. I had to flush out all of these toxins from my body and I needed to constantly drink water because of how dehydrated and salty the food was.

The food I most hated that night was something that used to be my staple. The toast at the diner was absolutely HORRIBLY DRY to me.

"How can anyone eat something so dry?" I told me friend? I just couldn't believe people actually enjoy eating that. Yet when I was first trying to go raw, I couldn't even imagine life without eating bread.

Isn't it incredible how our perceptions can change?

At first eating all of these water rich foods feels strange to you. But over time, you end up hating dehydrated crackers, bread and cooked food; for after all, cooking is also sucking the water right out of the food better than Count Cracula.

But someone who's been eating cooked food for years is absolutely used to their low water state. They can't (at all) feel that they're chronically and severely dehydrated.

I noticed the same thing in my grandparents. They were so dehydrated but they couldn't feel it at all.

The body just gets used to a certain level of hydration and won't even give you thirst signals even though you should be drinking water like crazy.

(Be careful not to drink too much water either. You can actually die from drinking too much.)

I on the other hand was used to only eating water rich foods and so when I ate this other cooked crap I IMMEDIATELY felt like I was in a desert desperately searching for water.

Picture a healthy flowing river with lots of water, rocks, plants, fish and wildlife in it. What happens to that river in a drought?

The water levels drop to a trickle and many fish, plants and other animals die. Then picture how many rivers in the United States for instance are polluted. Imagine how sick the fish, turtles and frogs must feel with just a trickle of polluted and dirty water to live in.

Do you see how a cooked food diet gives you a double Count Cracula whammy?

Not only does it drain your internal river of health until its bone dry. It also pollutes this river with the millions of toxins that are created by cooking and all of the chemicals that are added to most foods.

While drinking lots of water helps. That's only part of the answer for radiant health.

The real answer is to eat water rich and low toxin foods like raw fruits and vegetables. Water is after all our second most important nutrient after oxygen. And funny enough a lack of water means a hampered ability to deliver oxygen and other nutrients to the cells.

A few days without water and you're dead.

Did you know that one sign of dehydration is food cravings. Often times you're not really hungry what you actually are is thirsty but your body gives you a hunger signal instead.

Also chronic fatigue can be caused by dehydration.

Headaches, mood changes and lethargy may be caused by mild to chronic dehydration.

Dehydration even impairs brain function and lowers the ability of your lymph fluid system to clean house inside your body.

How can anything work properly when the body is supposed to be about 70% water but for the average cooked food eater it might only be 55%?

Realize this lack of water also thickens your blood and yes, dehydration can lead to a heart attack.

Other serious diseases and conditions that can be caused by Count Cracula's water draining include constipation, kidney stones, and colon and breast cancers.

I could go on and on about  the problems linked to chronic dehydration.

And this by the way, is one of the HUGE problems with the Atkin's like High Fat style Raw Food Diet that most people new to raw eating find out about first.

They're constantly eating all of these flax crackers and other dehydrated and fatty foods. But I can tell you if you're eating that you're not gaining the benefits of eating raw.

You'll never ever get that glowing and radiant happiness feeling from dehydrated foods. Just because something is raw doesn't make it good for you. There are other prerequisite conditions for a food to be healthy.

One of the main reasons eating raw is so fantastic is because of the WATER.

That's why it's much better to eat grapes than raisins.

If you want to feel fabulous, eat loads of raw fruits and vegetables and stay away from salty, dehydrated foods.

Now go eat some grapes,

Roger Haeske
The Youth Restorer

P.S. This lack of water is one of the main differences between what most raw cookbooks show you how to make versus Savory Veggie Stews. Savory Veggie Stews contain no added salt, no dehydrated foods, no added fats and no oils.

Virtually all of the raw food preparation books and programs out there are dehydrated and salty FAT FESTS. Almost every recipe is loaded with fat because they use the fat to try and imitate cooked food.

Are they purposely trying to sabotage people on the Raw Food Diet? Who could live more than a few days on those crappy foods without feeling sick?

This is pure junk and you'll feel it afterwards.

Why not try Savory Veggie Stews instead to rid your dinnertime cooked food cravings? They take less than 10-minutes to make and satisfy like nothing else.

Check out my low-fat raw food recipe videos "Savory Veggie Stews" for more information.