Generally, animals enjoy good health because they consume nutritious food in the uncooked form. We, too, can enjoy perfect physical and mental health provided we include raw food in our diet. Appetite control precedes and enables mental and emotional control.
Naturopaths have found through research that raw food is the panacea for many human ailments. Raw food diet ensures retention of all nutrients and vitamins, which promote good health.
In the AGY program, food is classified into four categories:
- 1 Positive Pranic or energy giving food
- 2Negative Pranic or energy draining food
- 3Zero Pranic food
- 3 Food that should be avoided for a short period by those who suffer from respiratory problems such as sinusitis, wheezing, and asthma
Raw food helps in producing less acidity and more alkalinity in the blood and helps to calm the mind, thus lessening the impact of stress. Cooking or preserving destroys the natural energy present in the food in the fresh raw state. A raw food diet utilises the subtle energies of living plants and plant enzymes to ensure good health.
Doctors are waking up to the benefits of a high fibre diet in preventing a range of disorders from heart disease to bowel cancer.
The theme of a raw food diet comprising 75 percent raw food can not only reverse the bodily degeneration which accompanies long-term illness but can also retard the rate at which you age, bring you apparently boundless energy and even make you feel better emotionally.
Scientists have found that a variety of chemicals, between 50,000 and 100,000, go into making and running the human body. They interact with each other in ways so complex that even the world’s most advanced computer can be of little help to doctors in deciphering the various interactions.
Raw food provide nutrients that favorably influence the immune system. Zinc, Vitamins E, C and A, and many from the B-Complex Group present in the raw food strengthen the immune system and prevent premature aging.
As cooked food damages proteins, we are obliged to eat more of it to get the amino acids we need. High protein consumption causes early aging and the development of certain degenerative diseases. Thus, its maintenance mechanism impaired, the body loses its resistance to stress, fatigue and illness.
Naturopaths have found that uncooked food can successfully cure resistant illnesses such as heart diseases, hypertension, kidney and blood diseases, alcoholism and arthritis because they raise micro-electric potentials throughout the body. Increased electrical potential in the tissues is a direct measure of the “liveliness” or how alive the cell really is. Thus metabolic functions heighten – congestion and swelling in tissues decrease, cell respiration and oxygenation increase, the body’s overall resistance to illness improves and the healing process gets accelerated.
Plant Hormones and Enzymes
Plant hormones have beneficial effects on the human immune system, particularly the gibberellins and abscisic acid.
Enzymes are powerhouses for good health. Cooking destroys the plant enzymes. Enzymes are essential triggers for the metabolic machinery of every living creature. There are numerous enzymes in the human body—some 50,000 in the liver alone – breaking down the food and assimilating it, building new tissue and repairing damaged ones and helping in the manufacture of more enzymes which help vital body processes to continue. The enzymes in raw food are important as they help to support the body’s own enzyme systems.
Raw food not only helps in acquiring good physical health but also good mental health. It is said that the ‘Mind makes you a Buddha or a Beast’. Therefore, a raw food diet ensures an effective preparation for Meditation.
Some common and useful raw food recipes are given below
Raw Food Preparations
- 1Sweet Flat Rice
- 2Flat Rice – Savoury
- 3Carrots and Sprouts
- 4Beet Root – Sweet
- 5Cabbage and Knol Khol
- 6Ash Gourd with Curd
- 7Natural Flavour Coffee Powder
1. Sweet Flat Rice
Ingredients:
| Thick Aval (Flat Rice) | 1 kg |
| Jaggery | ½ kg, powdered |
| Coconut | One, grated |
| Cashewnut | 100 gms |
| Kismis (Dry Grapes) | 50 gms |
| Seedless Dates | 100 gms |
| Cardamom | a little |
Soak the flat rice for half an hour in water and then drain the water. Mix the grated coconut and powdered jaggery with soaked flat rice thoroughly. Add the other ingredients and mix well.
2. Flat Rice – Savoury
Ingredients:
| Thick Flat Rice | 1 kg |
| Capsicum | 100 gms |
| Pepper and Salt | To Taste |
| Coriander Leaves | One cup, chopped |
| Fried Groundnuts | 200 gms |
| Lemon | 10 nos. |
Soak the flat rice for half an hour in water and then drain the water. Mix with grated coconut. Mix the other ingredients thoroughly with flat rice. Add the juice of 10 lemons and mix well.
3. Carrots and Sprouts
Ingredients:
| Carrot | 1 kg |
| Sprouted Green Gram | ¼ kg |
| Coconut | ½ kg |
| Jaggery | ½ kg |
| Lemon | 5 nos. |
| Capsicum | 50 gms, small dices |
| Coriander Leaves | One cup, chopped |
| Salt and Pepper | To taste |
Mix the grated carrots and sprouts. Mix separately the grated coconut and powdered jaggery. Then mix the carrots and sprouts with the coconut and jaggery thoroughly. Add finely chopped coriander leaves and diced capsicum and mix.
4. Beet Root – Sweet
Ingredients:
| Beet Root | 1 kg, grated |
| Coconut | ½ kg, grated |
| Jaggery | ¼ kg, powdered |
| Ginger | 50 gms |
| Soaked Groundnuts | 200 gms |
| Lemon | 5 nos. |
Mix the grated coconut and the powdered jaggery with grated beet root. Add the soaked groundnuts and juice of five lemons and mix well.
5. Cabbage and Knol Khol
Ingredients:
| Cabbage | ½ kg, chopped finely |
| Knol Khol | ½ kg, grated |
| Coconut | ¼ cup, grated |
| Ginger | 50 gms |
| Coriander Leaves | 1 cup, finely chopped |
| Lemon | 10 nos. |
| Capsicum | 50 gms, chopped |
| Salt and Pepper | To taste |
Mix grated Knol Khol and Cabbage cut to fine pieces thoroughly. Add grated coconut, finely cut coriander leaves and chopped capsicum, juice of 10 lemons, salt and pepper.
6. Ash Gourd with Curd
Ingredients:
| Ash gourd (White Pumpkin) | a big one |
| Curd | Four litres |
| Flat rice thick | ¼ kg |
| Coriander leaves | One cup, finely chopped |
| Capsicum | 100 gms, chopped |
| Pepper and salt | To taste |
You may also add a small quantity of seedless grapes and pomegranate, and mango ginger during season.
Grate the ash gourd, squeeze out the water and keep the pulp. Add curd and mix. Soak flat rice for half an hour and mix with this. Add chopped capsicum and coriander leaves and mix thoroughly. Add pepper and salt to taste.
7.Natural Flavour Coffee Powder
Ingredients:
| Sugar | 1 kg |
| Coriander Seeds | 1 kg |
| Cumin Seeds | ¼ kg |
| Pepper | ¼ kg |
| Dry Ginger | 100 gms |
| Turmeric | 50 gms |
Dry all the ingredients except the sugar in the sun for some time. Grind the sugar separately. Grind the other ingredients thoroughly. Sift the seed powders. Mix all these except the sugar thoroughly. Finally add the sugar and mix well.
Serving
- 1Add half a teaspoonful of powder to one glass (200 ml.) of water and boil for one minute. Filter. You may add sugar or preferably jaggery to taste and serve. You may also add some lime juice.
- 2Add half a teaspoonful of powder to 50% milk and 50% water to make a glass (200ml). Heat for a minute. Filter. Add sugar or jaggery to taste and serve.
- 3Add half a teaspoonful of powder to one glass of water and boil with jaggery and some mint leaves after some time. Filter and add a little lime juice and serve.