Organic or Not

Organic or Not

Here's a question I received from Charles regarding the price of maintaining the Optimal Raw Food Diet. I thought this might be on your mind as well.

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1. The raw food diet… how expensive is it to maintain..
 
2. are there a lot of unusual ingredients, …. 3. all have to be organic???
 
smoothies, etc…. green drinks, etc???

Thanks, Charles

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Hi Charles,

Let me answer your Raw Food Diet related questions below. This way all of my readers can benefit from your questions as well.

1. Overall the raw food diet is not that expensive. Especially if you consider the fact, you aren't going out to eat all the time. This can be different if you have access to expensive raw food restaurants in your area.

But you need to think from a bigger picture. Certainly fresh produce is more expensive that noodles and bread. But then again those foods are toxic and contain few nutrients. All they really provide you with is calories, but they are empty calories in terms of nutrients and highly life destroying calories.

Eating raw will make you happier, you may never need to go to the doctor again. It will make you thinner and more energetic. Overall, your income may increase because you automatically become more productive.

You save money on doctor and dentist visits you no longer need. Therefore while your food bill might go up, your income should go up and your medical expenses will go down dramatically.

What about sick days. How much wasted time each year do you spend on sick days. When eating raw you may never get another cold or flu again. And if you do it will likely be minor compared to what you used to get.

Also think about the money your saving by not needing to buy all sorts of vitamins, supplements and extra fiber. These are now contained in the highly nutritious raw fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds you are now eating.

How much is that worth to you? I'd say overall, you are paying much less when eating raw compared to a cooked food diet. Do the math and you'll see as well.

2. Ingredients I consumed yesterday.

Bananas, blueberries, cherries, grapes, celery, cucumber, tomatoes, spinach, some truly raw agave nectar blended into my blended salad and some ginger.

These ingredients are available to anyone. I got the agave nectar via mail order.

Or you can also eat avocados, sunflower seeds and other raw nuts and seeds. Though the fat you eat should be limited to no more than 15% of your total daily caloric intake.

You're produce section is mostly all you need. Or go to a good health food store or ethnic market for the more exotic produce like mangos and young coconuts.

But in general you don't need any fancy ingredients to do a raw food diet.

3. Organic is the preferred choice, but I'd choose raw commercial or non-organic produce over cooked organic food, any day of the week. The cooking process does so much more damage to the food than the pesticides, etc.

You will get tremendous results even if you can only afford commercial produce. When the income increases you can switch to organic.

But just because it's organic doesn't make it better. Often the organic choices are not as fresh as the commercial produce. So you have to decide based on freshness and ripeness as well.

Also don't limit yourself to only organic foods, it might make it harder for you to stay raw. Especially if in your area, organic produce isn't as plentiful. The first choice is to go raw and then whenever possible eat organic.

Many of my coaching students couldn't stay successfully raw because they would only allow themselves to eat organic food. Then when they were in a pinch and couldn't get what they needed organic, they'd end up eating cooked food.

That's really skewed logic as the cooked organic food is much worse the raw and non-organic produce. Organic foods are becoming cheaper and more available as more people are buying organic all the time.

Also some foods are very lightly sprayed and really don't need to be organic. Avocados are such a food. I don't go out of my way to get organic avocados.

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Overall the raw food diet is a bit more expensive than a typical poor college student diet. But in terms of overall cost and quality of life, it is the best bargain imaginable.

If you wish to have all of your raw food diet questions answered by me, the most affordable way to do it is to become a member of http://www.HowToGoRaw.com.

To Your Radiant Health, Happiness, Fitness and Freedom, Roger Haeske