Hi everybody this is Monica Reinagel the nutrition diva here with your quick and dirty

tips for eating well and feeling fabulous I thought I talk a bit today about raw food diets. This is a nutrition trend that's been picking up a lot of steam over the last couple of years and several of you have asked me to devote a show on the topic.

So what is a raw foods diet? Well it's made up mostly or entirely of foods that are not cooked or ever heated up past about 110 degrees or so. Now that doesn't mean that these foods aren't processed on the contrary. They might be

dried rolled juiced, juiced, blended frozen, soaked sprouted, fermented, or

ground up. They're just not heat processed.

Raw food diets are usually composed primarily of fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, grains, and legumes.

So what are the benefits of a raw food diet?

Well, one big advantage of eating foods raw is that they retain more of their of a

benefits food raw is that they retain more of their nutritional value

because when you cook foods

some nutrients, especially water-soluble vitamins

and antioxidants, are destroyed by heat.

And other nutrients, including certain minerals, may leech out into the cooking water.

I did a whole show on how cooking affects nutrients and you can find a link to that in the

show notes. It was

episode number 22. For example, cooking vegetables in water can reduce the

amount of certain nutrients by half. But check this out, according to the

USDA, freshly harvested vegetables can lose up to half of their

original nutritional value simply by sitting on your counter for two days or in your refrigerator

for two weeks.

And of course, nutrients are also lost when foods are dehydrated, frozen, soaked, or juiced.

So when it comes to nutrient losses, unless you can arrange to eat every meal in the field where

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