Revised on 24.12.2022
Many people are concerned about the cost of maintaining a raw food diet. Is a healthy raw food diet lifestyle expensive? Even if you’re not into raw foods, the following discussion pertains to health and healthy lifestyles in general, and I believe you will benefit from reading further.

I want to take a step back and ask a couple of questions. First, is it a cost? Second, is it expensive? And the last one – does a raw food diet worth it?

Healthy Eating: Is It a Cost?

Your health is an investment, not a cost. It is arguably the single most important investment you can make in your life — more so than your home, education, career, or even your retirement account! With the possible exception of investing in your children, your eating healthily sets a positive example of the life-long skill of loving and taking care of oneself. Plus, being healthy and energetic is an indirect investment in them when you are more available and present for them.

Take a moment to consider the importance of this investment:

• If you’re not healthy, how effective can you be in your career? Where will your income come from if you have to take time off work?
• Without good health, how can you enjoy your home or your retirement?
• How can you be available for those who depend on you?
• What good is your education if you’re not healthy enough long enough to make the most of it?
• Could health issues keep you from doing all the essential things you want to do in life, like being around to watch your grandchildren blossom?

Here’s another, more pragmatic view: It’s preventive maintenance. When you are healthy, you’ll save money on medical expenses — doctors, medications, and the like. For example, I take no regular medications (in fact, I can’t recall the last time I took ANY medication).

I’ve seen a doctor once in the past eight years, and the last time I saw a dentist was ten years ago! (These are my circumstances, and I’m not recommending that you skip professional health care to such an extreme.) How much money do you think I have saved as a result?

Your health is one of the most critical assets in your life. Invest in it accordingly; the dividends are priceless.

Are Raw Foods Expensive?

Prepared raw meals/snacks and specialty ingredients can indeed be pricey. But when you consider that the basis of a raw food diet is fresh, whole fruits and vegetables, is it so bad?

Over the past six months, my family’s grocery spending has averaged $535 per month for three people. That’s an average of $1.98 per person per meal. Bear in mind, we live in one of the most expensive counties in the United States and buy organic whenever possible. Compare that with the cost of a fast-food meal, and you’ll see just how much of a bargain healthy eating can be!

Here’s another way to look at it. You know that fresh, whole fruits and vegetables are healthy and good for you and your family. If your current diet is cheaper than fresh fruits and vegetables, what does that say about what you’re eating now? What is it made of?

One more thing. How much of what you eat now has marketing expenses associated with it? When you buy advertised food or have coupons, part of what you’re paying is to cover those marketing expenses. On the other hand, when have you last seen a television commercial for fresh fruits and vegetables?

Maximize the fruits and vegetables. Minimize the packaged foods, advertised foods, hard-to-find specialty ingredients and equipment, and exotic non-local produce. Keeping things simple will go a long way.

Raw Food Diet: Is It Worth It?

A raw food diet is a special diet whereby processed/refined cooked or heated foods are replaced with raw ones. Foods commonly ordered in restaurants and on special occasions such as parties and weddings are replaced with natural, unheated, and uncooked foods.

Raw food diet means more fruits and vegetables though they form bulky of the diet. Therefore, in this diet, 75% of the foods taken or consumed must be raw, whereas 25% of them must come from whole grains to meet the body’s energy or calorific requirements and, most importantly, vital organs.

This diet is vital as it helps revitalize the body’s energy and improve your eating habits, and above all, it helps meet weight loss goals and demands. This is a challenging diet to follow, and if taken up for seven days, the results will be tremendous in achieving weight loss.

Foods that you can take for breakfast for one week: Coconut water, fresh carrot juice, oatmeal, blueberry smoothie, fresh fruit salad, and green juice, among others, depending on availability and preference Mid.

Morning snacks:

• fresh fruits such as an apple
• green juice
• chocolate milk

Lunch Lettuce:

• avocado
• carrot soup
• tomato
• olive salad

Afternoon snacks:

• superfoods (an apple, blueberries, blackberries, green tea)
• vegetable soup
• carrot juice, among others, depending on preference and availability

Dinner Seaweed salads: raw vegetables and fruits, juiced fruits and vegetables (the juicing must be done at temperatures below forty-two degrees Celsius). You can also utilize foods taken for lunch for supper. Throughout the seven days of the week, take plenty of pure water.

Related: Why There Are So Many Misconceptions About Paleo Diet?

How Does The Diet Work?

The Raw diet means unrefined, unprocessed, uncooked, and unheated. It may not be palatable and appealing to many!! That is an important aspect as processing, and heating foods always disorient the composition of foods and even disturb their functional unit, making them less valuable to the body.

Raw foods have the following benefits to the body:

They have all the enzymes; enzymes are catalysts found in food and are known to reduce activation energy. But if food is heated or cooked, the enzymes, which are protein in nature, are killed or deactivated, thus making them less valuable.

Raw foods will ensure that the amounts of enzymes required for food digestion are sufficient as the body may not be able to synthesize the quantities needed for food breakdown. Improved digestion will ensure that food does not rot in the stomach.

An effective and efficient process of digestion will guarantee proper utilization of nutrients in the body, thus discouraging aging and at the same time enhancing weight loss.

Cooking or processing food mostly interferes with its general composition, such as vitamins and minerals. Most of these nutrients are the ones that are involved in weight loss; hence their loss will ultimately discourage weight loss as weight gain is encouraged.

It is said – cooked or processed food is dead. Thus consuming it will leave you dead, whereas raw food is alive and will supply you with live energy!

Raw Food Diet and one-week plan include intake of natural foods frequently. Frequent intake of raw food will keep the metabolism process at a steady state. It is essential in weight loss to ensure that energy input will be equal to energy output or less.

On the other hand, this will reduce the amount of food consumed in one meal compared to taking too long before taking a meal. A reduced amount of food intake will reduce the number of calories, hence weight loss. Fiber Raw foods such as vegetables and fruits are full of soluble fiber. As a complex carbohydrate, fiber works in various ways to affect weight loss.

1. Firstly, make a deficit of energy to the body, hence burning fat stores for energy. The utilization of fats by the body will reduce one’s total mass hence weight loss.
2. Secondly, fiber from raw foods may limit the amount of water available for digestion and bind fats from the diet, thus making them unavailable for digestion. It will reduce the number of calories getting into the body system hence weight loss.
3. Finally, fiber is bulky, and because of its bulkiness, it will tend to stay for long in the stomach, suppressing the appetite. Consequently, it will reduce the number of calories taken during the day and throughout the week, leading to weight loss.

Drinks such as pure water, young coconut milk are essential in this diet. Taking plenty of these drinks is of great benefit as they help flush out all the toxins from the body, hydrate the body, and above all, discourage the accumulation of fluids in the body.

Less accumulation of fluids will reduce the total body mass hence weight loss. Secondly, flushing the body of toxins and other foreign materials will ensure proper use of nutrients. It encourages weight loss as some discourage the accumulation of fats in the body.

Healthful whole grains Raw Food Diet and one-week plan focus on raw foods. As much as the diet focuses on raw foods, it should not lead to malnutrition or cause other adverse effects to the body. Vital organs such as the brain, the liver, and the heart must be supplied with energy to function well.

You can only attain this through whole grains, restricted to 25% of the total diet. Whole grains such as oatmeal can be wet-processed, meaning that they will only be subjected to low levels of temperatures. That will ensure that the original composition of food is not interfered with hence facilitating weight loss.

They are also rich in fiber, and as explained above, fiber works wonders when used for weight loss and improves bowel movements, ensuring efficiency in body functioning. It is worth considering organic raw foods as much as possible and locally available raw foods.

Your Money and Your Life

Think of healthy eating as a top-priority investment, not an expense. After all, what could be more valuable than your good health? You’ll find the risks few and the rewards many. And in the end, not the burden on your pocketbook you might fear.

References:

• U.S. News & World Report. Best Diets 2021. Raw Food Diet.
• Koebnick C, Strassner C, Hoffmann I, Leitzmann C. Consequences of a long-term raw food diet on body weight and menstruation: results of a questionnaire survey. Ann Nutr Metab. 1999;43(2):69-79. doi:10.1159/000012770
• National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Your Digestive System & How it Works. Updated December 2017.
• Woo KS, Kwok TC, Celermajer DS. Vegan diet, subnormal vitamin B-12 status and cardiovascular health. Nutrients. 2014;6(8):3259-3273. Published 2014 Aug 19. doi:10.3390/nu6083259
• Link LB, Jacobson JS. Factors affecting adherence to a raw vegan diet. Complement Ther Clin Pract. 2008;14(1):53-59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ctcp.2006.12.005