Raw Dish!

Lunch- 1 1/2 lbs red seedless grapes

Dinner-1 1/2 lbs red seedless grapes, 10 large medjool dates

I sent Dr. Graham an email and asked him if he would elaborate on the meaning of his calendar entry for July 3.  Dr. Graham's response has been posted in "Dr. Graham, would you please explain yourself...." 

My mother recently browsed through a Natural Health magazine at her local health food store in Asheville, NC.  There happened to be an article about raw foods.  Here's the rundown on what my mother remembered and told me about from the article:

• The raw food diet requires a lot of labor and advance preparation.
• The raw food diet is expensive.
• The raw food diet causes gas and bloating.
• Cooked tomatoes provide more licopene than raw tomatoes.

All of this is true but in a limited way.  If your raw food diet consists solely of complex raw recipe preparations then yes, it will require labor, advance prep time and could be expensive.  If you ignore the concepts of food combining and haphazardly eat whatever the hell you want when you want it, then you will probably have gas and bloating.  Studies have shown that yes, cooked tomatoes supply more licopene than raw tomatoes.  However, how much licopene can the body use at one time?  Maybe nature knows the exact amount of licopene that we need and provides it in our raw tomatoes, and in the correct proportion to other nutrients. An excess is just one more thing that the body has to waste it's energy to excrete.

Problems arise with the raw diet when people attempt to mimic their old cooked food diet choices and behaviors.