Organic Vegan Diet
Why Go Vegan? Health Benefits, Improved Appearance, Moral Choice
Health Benefits
1. The vegan diet is cleansing. It will clear your arteries! You will never have a heart attack!
2. You will lose weight easily.
3. Increased Energy
4. Less Need for Sleep
5. Happy Outlook on Life
Improved Appearance
1. No puffiness
2. No outbreaks
3. No liver spots
4. Lean sleek contours of the body and face
Tonya Zavasta (54 years of age) - 15 years on a Vegan Diet
In my case, I was searching for a dietary philosophy that would afford me not only perfect health and a speedy recovery from surgeries, but also a diet that would give me results in improving my appearance from the inside out, as detailed in my first book Your Right to Be Beautiful: Miracle of Raw Foods. This led me to the vegan diet, then onward to a raw vegan diet, of which I have been an avid proponent for the last thirteen years.
No matter what are a person's reasons for deciding to embark on a vegan diet, their efforts are certainly to be applauded. It's not easy to be a vegan in our modern society. It's even harder to be a healthy vegan. It takes commitment and courage. What's more, you must learn to play detective. You must navigate a wide variety of food choices and educate yourself about ingredients and ethics in food production, as well as deciding on issues of supplementation. As Kermit the Frog says, "it's not easy being green!"
How to Become Vegan?
There is oftentimes a natural progression when people start to improve their health through diet. They start out by becoming vegetarians. After becoming familiar with that phase, most people move on to becoming completely vegan. Often it's here that the first really dramatic improvements take place. And now you have Bill Clinton along with the respected Dr. Dean Ornish promoting this dietary lifestyle.
If you are a vegan, you already know your diet is a step up from the Standard American Disaster ... Oops! ... Standard American Diet. The next question: Are you ready for raw? If you are not yet experiencing dynamic results on your completely vegan diet, then going one step further to raw vegan foods might be just the ticket. A good number of vegans discover quite by accident that the more raw foods they eat, the better they feel and look. But if a vegan diet in itself were sufficient, why would this be? Cooked food, whether vegan or not, has its drawbacks, as explained in my FREE article Why Eat Raw.
Not All Vegan Foods are Created Equal!
The truth is: There are many vegan foods - quite a large percentage, indeed - that are prepared, preserved, and processed in such a way that they're actually highly toxic. It's a sad fact that many foods considered ‘vegan’ aren’t necessarily healthy. Take coffee, for instance. Add in vodka, french fries, frozen vegan pizzas and faux cheeses, and you begin to see the problem.
Moving to raw foods will ensure that you move away from ‘fake foods’ filled with preservatives, away from dense, hard to digest combinations eaten from a package, and on to fresh, cleansing vegan foods in their natural forms. Instead of pasta, for example, why not simply shred a raw zucchini into noodle-like strands and eat with your favorite vegan sauce? Voila! An easy change from a processed, cooked food to a completely whole, natural and raw one. In this ‘new,’ more natural food, you'll find an exact recipe substitute, but with more freshness, and free of toxins.
Beautiful On Raw
Uncooked Creations
Better Than Vegan!
There are a few minor adjustments vegans can make to bring their dietary experience to a whole new level especially if like Bill Clinton you are concerned about your heart, such as replacing some of the cooked ingredients in your favorite dishes with raw alternatives. My second book, Beautiful on Raw: unCooked Creations, contains scores of recipes and ideas, using ingredients vegans will likely already be familiar with. Daily juicing is another practice any vegan can comfortably embrace, incorporating fruits and vegetables you already love. Moving to a raw food vegan diet can take your culinary pleasure to a new level, expand your recipe repertoire, and effect a deeper cleansing and healing than you've previously enjoyed.
Since many vegan foods can lack necessary enzymes and nutrients due to cooking, processing, and added flavorings and chemicals - remember, these things can be considered ‘vegan’ too! - some vegans are more comfortable resorting to supplementation. For myself, I found that, once my health and looks improved so much on raw foods, I didn't need to supplement anymore. This, of course, is a personal decision everyone must make for themselves. But I found that, when I both embraced and understood a sound raw food diet and achieved a certain level of cleansing, most forms of supplementation simply became unnecessary. Naturally, every body is different, and every set of circumstances is an individual one, so your decision on supplements will be one you'll have to make for yourself, with appropriate medical advice.
If you have adopted a vegan diet, or are considering it, you are no doubt enjoying immense benefits and seeing positive external changes as well. On the other hand, if you are already eating a vegan diet yet are searching for something more, something to take you to the next level, then you are ready for raw! You may well be able dramatically to improve your health and expand your culinary pleasures by eating most if not yet all of your food raw. This, however, may only be the tip of the iceberg. Soon you will begin to see the profound effect your move will have on your looks and other areas of your life as well. Should you want a ‘roadmap’ for a successful transition, try my ebook 100 Days to 100% Raw for a detailed, methodical way of slowly, comfortably immersing yourself in the raw vegan lifestyle, step by step.
100 Days to 100% Raw
A Step By Step Guide to the Raw Food Lifestyle
It is Not Only Good for You, It is Good for the Planet
There's no doubt, as well, that, of all possible diet regimes, a raw vegan diet is easiest on the environment. No animals suffer, or are exploited in any way. As you move more and more toward locally, organically grown vegetables, you'll contribute less to the energy expenditure of transportation. And you'll expend, once you're fully raw, not a single kilowatt hour of energy in either your own cooking or in manufacturers' cooking and processing of foods. You'll produce almost no packaging waste, and what waste you do produce will mostly be easily recyclable. The planet will thank you, the animals will thank you, and more than likely your body will thank you by rewarding you with health, beauty and clarity the likes of which you may never have experienced before. Read this article for much more info on how the raw vegan diet is also the most environmentally friendly one!
No matter where you are on your health journey or your journey into veganism and raw foods, I want to encourage you in your efforts. Visit my blog. There you will find something for everyone and will find, specifically, the help you need to be successful in this very rewarding lifestyle by learning about issues such as getting enough protein as a vegan.
Ready to Try Some Vegan Recipes?
Many of those transitioning from meat-and-dairy-based diets are concerned that the vegan diet will not provide variety. Nothing could be farther from the truth! Every month on my blog I post FREE transitional raw vegan recipes that are easy to prepare and have enticing flavors. Here are some samples for you to try out (click on the links below the pictures to read the recipes):
Bon appetit!