Add Life to Your Years and Years to Your Life with Raw Foods

By Hilde Larsen

Contributing writer for Wake Up World

I used to think eating fruits and vegetables were boring. That I would go from indulging in life`s abundance to eating like a rabbit. Ever hear that one? Me, the cheese doodle, diet coke, nachos, lasagna, cheeseburger with beer high and mighty would laugh in your face had you offered me fruits only for dinner. So, I totally get it, believe me. I have been there.

I also remember the stomach pain, acid reflux, joint pain, swelling, fatigue, ulcers, bloating, edema, well, you get the picture. Some might even sound familiar. I bet you feel tired and ready for a nap after a large dinner if you have anything on your plate that is not living food. I bet you feel bloated and gassy even, after some meals. I know I did. So, stuffed at times, puffy eyes, the whole feeling like crap. Not to mention how it made me look!

Did you know that the bags under the eyes reflect nothing but your kidney health?

And the same goes for your eyelids?

Think you need an eye lift?

Nope, you need a new diet.

One that is worthy of your amazingness. Food that you are designed to eat, and that is not supporting cruelty. We are compassionate loving beings and it is time to stop playing small and step up to our plate so to speak. We are designed to eat fruits and leafy greens mostly. THAT, is science. We are also designed to heal, and THAT is science also. meaning, try it and observe, take notes and learn. Easy peasy once you are ready to take charge and allow change.

Needless to say, I no longer believe fruits and vegetables are boring. Heck, look at this picture! this is some of which I eat, and there are many more of my favorites out there.  All depending on where I am and the season.
I could add coconut water, all citrus, melons, coconut water, cherries, dates, and apples to the mix. The amounts of foods and colors are unlimited.

First of all, what is raw food?

Raw food is simply put food that has not been cooked or in any other way altered from its natural raw state. That means it cannot be heated past 47 degrees Celsius, or 115 degrees Fahrenheit, and still be considered raw. This way the fruits and vegetables will keep their enzymes and nutritional value intact. On top of that, they will keep their energy, their God given, life-giving energy. Furthermore – the enzymes help us digest our food. The body can also create them, but that is a process which takes a lot of energy. This is the process that can make us feel tired and heavy after a cooked meal. The unaltered food will also have its organic minerals intact, which are easy to absorb. The inorganic minerals are not easy for us to absorb and will therefore deposit in our bodies. It is further believed that your body has a limited amount of enzymes that it can produce. If the supply is finished, our bodily organs will function less and less. The lack of enzymes is also said to accelerate aging.

Raw food has all its vitamins intact and is therefore a nutritional powerhouse. Cooking anything will destroy the nutritional value, alter the food chemically and strip it of its life-force. Living food has living energy. Think about this – a raw seed will grow, a cooked seed won’t.

Life promotes life, and death promotes death. No other species on this planet will eat anything that has been cooked, fried, boiled or steamed. It is not natural, pure and simple. Most scientists seem to believe that our physiological composition tells us we are made to digest living foods, and this makes perfect sense to me. Not that eating is a science, or that we need to study what to eat. It is a natural thing, and by following our intuition we know what is best for us. We are designed to pick, chew and digest ripe fruits and vegetables, some nuts and seeds, period. In our society we most often wait until we get unwell and unhealthy to look at what we are eating. I know I did.

Whenever you are feeling heavy and tired after eating, the body is simply saying it has too much to do, and that it is too much to handle. It has to use all its energy on the digestive process. Further, the enzymes our body makes are not as efficient and effective as the ones that were destroyed in our food when we cooked it. Consequently, our food is not broken down as well it should be and is therefore harder to digest. This also results in food starting to rot in our digestive tract, our intestines, and our uninvited guests, the parasites, are happy as can be. Raw food is the sweeping, cleaning, vibrating, regenerating food from nature. Cooked and altered food is what breeds and feeds what we do not want. It feeds the parasites, leaves us lacking energy, diseased and in a state of physical degeneration.

We’ve learned that everything has a vibration, a frequency, and that every cell in our body will feel the frequency of what we put into it. We will therefore be affected energetically by everything we eat. We can connect with nature or stray from it. We can honor it or alter it. Raw food is simply food. It is food as nature intended, being everything we need, period. That is all. No list of ingredients, and nothing added that we do not need. All pure, perfectly put together food, vibration, nutrition, and love. Like every other species on this planet, we have been blessed with foods that will nourish and heal. Foods that will cleanse and hydrate, strengthen and regenerate. We have been given the perfect food, and we do not need to add anything to it. It is all perfect just the way it is.

The most important aspect of raw food, when it comes to our health, is not what it is, but rather what it is not.

 Are we designed to eat raw food?

We are all human beings, born with identical chemistry, the same organs, glands and systems. Our glands and bodily functions are all the same. On the inside we do not differ at all. Every human baby will drink their mother’s milk if available, and if not, they will still be given the same formula to drink. If we look at nature, all species eat the same within their kind, their species. Every lion has the same diet, and every gorilla does too. This is because what we thrive on eating, is what we have been designed to eat.

We are designed to eat raw fruits and vegetables, and this truly is our natural diet. We are tropical species, yes, we are primates.

We can easily define the difference between carnivores, omnivores, herbivores, and frugivores. They all have different teeth, intestines and stomach, saliva production, stomach acids, general physique, and much more. These differences are indicating what they eat, and how they are able to gather and hunt their food. It also indicates how they are able to break down the food to utilize and eliminate it. This food will leave them lacking and missing nothing – thriving, and functioning optimally. No animal will wonder if they got enough nutrition, or if they are eating what is good for them. It is a natural process. They eat what makes them feel good, and they eat until they are full.

• Carnivores kill other animals with their claws and tear them apart, eating primarily their organs and drinking their blood. The word carnivore is derived from Latin and means “meat eater.” Obligate carnivores are those that rely entirely on animal flesh to obtain their nutrients. Examples of obligate carnivores are members of the cat family, so know to feed your cat animal food only. Facultative carnivores are those that also eat non-animal food in addition to animal food. There is no clear line that differentiates facultative carnivores from omnivores though, but a dog is considered a facultative carnivore. This is why we see dogs healing on a diet high in raw vegetables. The wild cats, such as lions and tigers, are examples of carnivores.

• Omnivores will eat from the plant and the animal kingdom. The Latin term omnivore literally means “eater of everything”. This is not quite the case though, as omnivores cannot really eat everything that other animals eat. They can only eat things that are moderately easy to acquire while being moderately nutritious. For example, most omnivores cannot live by grazing alone, and they are not able to eat some hard-shelled animals, or successfully hunt large or fast prey. The omnivores have a long and complex digestive track. This is to allow enough space and time for microbial fermentation to occur. They have great sharp fangs, walk on paws/cloves, have a strong stomach acid and small saliva glands. A bear is an omnivore.

• Herbivores eat only green plants and herbs. Some of them are also grazers, like the cows. Herbivores are animals whose primary food source is plant-based. They have evolved digestive systems capable of digesting large amounts of plant material. The plants are high in fiber and starch, and this is what provides the main energy source in their diet. Some parts of plant materials, such as cellulose, are hard to digest, therefore the digestive tract of herbivores is adapted so that food may be digested properly. That means that many large herbivores have symbiotic bacteria within their guts to assist with the breakdown of cellulose. A giraffe is an herbivore.

• Frugivores eat primarily fruits, berries, and some tender leafy greens. They can easily grab ripe fruits off the trees. They have “hands” to pick, and teeth that can easily rip open a ripe fruit. The length of the intestines and the pH of the stomach acid, shows that they are designed to digest fruits. Chimpanzees and other primates are frugivores.

When we take the time to examine the human body, we will easily recognize the signs of a frugivore. No education needed, nothing but logical common sense. We would have a very difficult time ripping apart skin and flesh. Our nails are not claws, and our hands are like those of a fruigivore – designed to pick and peel.

Carnivores are made to thrive on a high fat diet, we are not. Our intestinal tracts measure about 30 feet. That is about twelve times longer than our torso. This is what allows the slow absorption of sugars from our food. The digestive tract of a carnivore is only three times the length of its torso, and it has ten times the amount of acid. This way it will be able to digest blood and muscle very easily. If a primate ate that same thing, it would sit inside and rot, and that is what it does, in humans. We, you and me, we sleep around 8 hours every night, while a carnivore will sleep around 18 to 20 hours per day. If you own a cat, you know this to be true. Your cat is not lazy. It needs its sleep to be able to digest all the animal proteins. So, you see, plant eaters thrive on alkaline foods, while carnivores thrive on acidic food. This is not a taste preference, but nature speaking.

By all the criteria mentioned, in my opinion we fall into this last category. We are frugivores. We also love animals. We naturally have compassion for all of them, and if you leave a baby with a rabbit and a carrot, I will assure you, the rabbit will not be looked at as food. We are drawn to the produce market by the smell and the colors. These are the living foods, the source of our sustenance. When we see road-kill or even a slaughter house, we are revolted. Our mouths do not water from seeing a cow walk by, or a rabbit for that sake. I mean, there is nothing about a live animal that makes us hungry. We are simply not designed to look at them as food.

Mostly we have to have someone else kill for us, then we cook and season to taste. Nature is smarter than that, and we are living the consequences. You will never see an elephant eat a cat, or a lion eat a banana, not unless something was very, very off balance.

The natural diet of a primate is primarily fruits with some tender leafy greens, seeds, blossoms, some bark, pith and an occasional insect. This is an important realization to us, because by eating what we are designed to eat, our body will be able to heal and restore.

If you pass a monkey in a tree holding a banana, will you look at the monkey or the banana as food?

We are only as different as our weaknesses. That means that we are created equal but have been passed down weaknesses from our parents. Animals do not typically have our lifestyle generated weaknesses, and therefore they all thrive on the same species-specific diet.

What most humans are consuming today is very far from being foods from nature. We were not made to consume pesticides, fungicides, additives, carcinogens etc. We were made to eat food. All this poison is making us acidic. It is creating so many imbalances within our system that we think we are different from each other. We think we need chemical medicine to function. An animal will only get a human dis-ease when it starts eating human foods. Think about that, the food and health connection, is huge! No matter how spiritual we get, it is all energy, and foods are energy also.

Why is eating raw so important to our health?

Raw food is pure and natural food, and the simple sugars will feed our cells, not our parasites. The body will not create mucus in the need to get rid of the food, or because we have irritated the mucosa. The parasites will have no more playgrounds to play on. To see and experience the terror that the body is experiencing from being exposed to dairy, gluten, meats and processed food, is soul wrenching. The simple, yet so hard to grasp fact, that the body is in fact made in the same manner as any other mammal or primate, to be fueled on raw living food is a deal breaker for many. The social conditioning is so strong, that breaking free from the eating complex is harder than the will of healing. The parasites and the underlying emotional hurts are too strong to conquer.

Food is supposed to be fuel, and not a burden. Most of what we eat today in the Western world is actually a burden to the human body. Every time we eat something that is outside of our natural diet, it becomes a burden. I remember heavy dinners as well as you do. You know, when you just wanted to lie down afterwards, completely drained of energy. The problem is that we are surrounded with so much toxic waste that our pineal gland is clouded. Because of this, it is hard for us to see truth. When we detoxify our bodies, this change. We regain our awareness and our natural instincts.

Eating raw is important for our vitality and rejuvenation, and to live at the level of health that we were designed to do. Most importantly though, as we have fallen into the trap of social conditioning and programming, we need to go back to raw to be able to detoxify our bodies. Detoxification simply means cleansing, something that the body does naturally when given a chance. Every day it works to clean and restore, but because of what we are feeding this amazing organism, it is working to survive, not to thrive. So, in that sense, you might say that without raw living foods there will be no real health, because only when introducing the vibrancy and the healing effect of our natural food, will the body be able to clean and restore.

We need to let go of the burdens, to give our body the break that it needs. When we want something to change, we need to change something, and when in any way off balance, look to nature, always.

The body does not only need a break from the cooked damaged foods and the animal putrefying decaying matters, it also needs to be able to clean out what has been stored from years of consuming these poisons. The whole digestive tract is impacted with mucus plaque, but that does not appear overnight. It builds up over time. I will be bold and say that most of our everyday diet consists mainly of so called mucus forming food. I am talking about dairy products, soy and eggs, bread, pasta, processed meat like burgers, and any processed food, drink and product that contains additives and preservatives.

These foods lack fiber and cannot move by themselves. They stay in your digestive tract and simply petrify and lead to constipation. The colon becomes sluggish from the lack of exercise, from mucus forming foods, and from the lack of fiber in the diet. Fresh fruits and vegetables are all very high in fiber. Made to move, as movement is lifesaving. Not only do the intestines carry out a major part of our waste, the small intestine is also where we absorb most of our nutrients. This hardened mucus is now hindering absorption, and we are in real trouble. A congested bowel may not absorb nutrients effectively or be able to eliminate metabolic waste and toxins from within the organism. Now, even though you might be getting your nutrients from your food, you are not absorbing them. We have mal-nourishment at our hands, or mal-absorption rather.

By switching to a raw food diet, we simply stop what is hurting us, and let the body start its own cleansing project. Mucus plaque provides the ideal conditions for harmful yeast, parasites and bacteria to grow, and this results in an imbalanced gut flora, and deeper troubles.

I was led to raw foods, as I was seeking truth. I was seeking true health and vitality. I was asking “show me the way”, and I was shown. I was shown the simple way, the easy way, and the natural way. Still it was not easy to do, but it need not have to be, health was more important to me than eating any type of food. I was finding my way back home, through re-connecting with nature and creation. Health is simple, change is hard.

Raw food is simply natural foods, straight from nature. There is no labeling or ingredients list necessary. There is no complicated list of additives of fillers. The body will be able to digest it with ease, and not be harmed or intoxicated. It is the real fast-food, pure and simple. The foods we eat are secondary to all the other things that feed us; our relationships, career, spirituality, and exercise routine. At the same time, they are the key to everything, as you will no longer harm what you now love. Raw living foods will raise the vibration and the awareness, and also magnify the feeling of love and compassion.

You can eat for health, for sickness, for spirituality, for the environment and for the animals. It is always your choice. It all is!

On a raw food diet, you will always get what you need, and nothing that you don`t. You might still believe that you need milk from an animal, mostly from a cow, to get the calcium that you need. Think about it, do we really need to drink breast milk made for a calf, to get the calcium that the mother cow made from grass? Do we need to keep drinking it, to stay healthy? No other species will drink any form of milk past the infant stage. Have you ever seen a cow drink milk? Of course not! They get their calcium from the greens, like we were also intended to. We are made to eat fruits and greens. We thrive on what we were designed to eat, and we will never lack any nutrients. It is obvious to me that animals eat to live, while humans most often live to eat. Eating can be a spiritual experience, and what we eat can kill us.

Look at the colors my friend.

Do you see the vibration?

The life-force?

It is pure vibration and a healing elixir for your entire life.

So easy, just like that.

Recommended articles by Hilde Larsen:

• How to Free Yourself from Codependency and Abuse
• The Healing Breath
• The Disease Identity: 10 Benefits of Staying Sick
• My 83-Day Juice Fast – An Authentic Experience
• Is Grounding the Missing Link to Better Health and Wellbeing?
• How to Write Your Life Manifesto, and Why It Will Change Your Life
• Why Is Our Society So Sick?
• Spread Your Wings! 8 Benefits of Living Outside Your Comfort Zone
• The Day I Died – The Dark Night of The Soul
• Deal With Your Own Shit – Then Serve Others

About the author:

Hilde Larsen, known as ‘the one who Inspires’, is the CEO and founder of inspiredbyhilde.com. She is a certified Health and Mindset Coach, an Author, a Keynote Speaker, Detox Specialist, Raw food Teacher and Life-Enthusiast. Her glowing enthusiasm for health and vitality has the leading role in her work. Her interest in healing and spiritual growth also led her to become a Reiki Healer. She is highly intuitive and has a strong connection to Mother Earth and the spiritual world.

Hilde Larsen writes articles, and has her own blog and YouTube channel. She is the author of three published books: ‘From HELL to Inspired’, ‘Know the Truth and Get Healthy’, and ‘No More Bullshit’. She creates online video programs and has her own membership site, The Inspired Members.

Born and raised in Stavanger, Norway, she and her husband of 29 years have a second home in Florida, USA. She is a proud mother and grandmother, and a tree-hugger at heart. Called by nature and spirit, she is inspiring many to take back their power, and to live a healthy successful life doing what they love. Hilde now spends her time traveling between Norway and Florida, speaking, and appearing on different media as the Inspired health and thought leader. She is an authority in her field who has walked her talk. She also values the time with her clients, and her time in nature with her closest family and friends.