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Holistic Living
The Power of Live Foods
by Gabriel Cousens, MD
The power of live foods for healing is increasingly being supported by traditional research. Living foods or raw foods have not been cooked, processed, exposed to pesticides or herbicides, microwaved, irradiated, or genetically engineered. They represent an unbroken wholeness that is the original creation and nutritional gift of the Divine. The understanding that the food we eat is an energetic whole greater than the sum of its parts reflects a quantum mechanical view of nutrition.
Research by Dr. Israel Brekhman of the former Soviet Union illustrates a foundational truth—when he gave whole, live foods to animals, their endurance was two to three times greater than if he gave them the same foods that were cooked. From a traditional nutritional perspective, there should not be a difference since cooked and raw foods have the same amount of calories and therefore the same amount of energy. Brekhman’s results can be explained, however, if we understand the effect of cooking on the whole food. Thorough cooking destroys the ecological balance of the food. It makes 50 percent of the protein unavailable. It also destroys 60 to 70 percent of the vitamins, up to 96 percent of B12, and 100 percent of phytonutrients which boost the immune system and other body functions.
Moreover, cooking destroys enzymes in live foods. Enzyme reserve seems to be connected to life force, health, and longevity. Enzymes are living biochemical factors that activate and carry out all the biological processes in the body, such as digestion, nerve impulses, detoxification processes, functioning of RNA/DNA, repair and healing of the body, and even the functioning of the mind. There are natural enzymes in raw food, which minimize the enzymes that need to be secreted by the body for digestion. The body’s enzymes can then be converted and used for the process of detoxification, repair, and overall healing. The preservation of our enzymes by eating live foods seems to play an important role in slowing the aging process as well. With age, there seems to be a significant drop in enzyme reserve.
The famous European physician, Dr. Max Bircher-Brenner, who started the first modern live food clinic in 1897, felt that eating raw foods was a way of restoring the diseased body and the mind’s ability to heal itself. Many healers have gotten fantastic results using living foods with their clients. For example, Dr. Edmond Szekely saw over 133,000 clients at his live food clinic in Mexico from 1940 to 1970. With the use of live foods, he healed 90 percent of his patients, of which 17 percent were considered incurable. Later came Ann Wigmore and her clinics, and the next generation including The Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center, which has taken the next step by using live foods not only to heal physical disease, but to actively enhance spiritual life.
People have been eating live foods for thousands of years. Cultures who have eaten primarily live foods, such as the Pelegasians (ancient Greeks living in the Peleponnesus area in 3000 B.C. reported by Greek historian Herodotus to live an average of 200 years) and the Essenes seem to have an extended life span and a higher quality of health, vitality, and joy.
The foods that we eat, or don’t eat, communicate with our genes—for better or for worse. Foods do not change the genotype, which is the physical structure of the genes, but the food we eat does change the way the message in the genes is expressed in the phenotype. In other words, the genetic messages of our genes can be either turned off or on by the nature of our diet and our lifestyle. The point is to understand how to turn off messages that result in disease and turn on messages that result in health and wellbeing. Through our diets, we literally are able to turn on the healthiest possible expression of genetic information—the phenotypic expression.
Lifestyle and emotions can also regulate phenotypic expression. For example, when J.M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, experienced the traumatic death of his brother, it shut down his phenotypic expression. When he died in his 60s, he was 4’ 10” and never went through puberty—in essence, his story was about himself.
From a spiritual point of view, of course, this is important. When people don’t take care of themselves and they finally wake up to the importance of spiritual life, often their physical bodies and their mental states (as affected by the function of the brain) aren’t strong enough to optimize their spiritual pursuits. With this understanding in mind, the importance of eating and living in a way to activate our genes at their highest phenotypic health potential gives us the option to maintain our health for an extended period of time to optimize our spiritual lives.
Our genes do not themselves give rise to disease, but rather, in most cases, disease manifests when people live and eat in a way that turns on the poorest phenotypic expression of who we can be. According to Genetic Nutritioneering by Jeffrey S. Bland, gerontologists are now stating that 75 percent of people’s health after the age of 40 is dependant on what they’ve done to keep their genes healthy—and not on the genes themselves.
Vitamins and minerals also affect our gene expression. The B vitamins are particularly important—especially B6, B12, and folic acid. These clearly modulate gene activity to protect us against cancer and heart disease, as well as improve brain function. Minerals, of course, play an important role in affecting our phenotypic gene expression. Zinc is one of the most important of these, as it’s involved in over 300 enzymatic reactions. Zinc is important in growth function, immune function and hormonal development.
One of the most potent components of food that affects gene expression on the molecular level are phytonutrients. The research in the area of phytonutrients supports the general findings, for example that 82 percent of 156 different published dietary studies found that fruit and vegetable consumption helped protect against cancer. People who eat more fruits and vegetables have about half the risk of cancer mortality than those people who are not vegetable eaters.
It is important to note that we are diverse, unique human beings who operate on the principle of biological individuality. Therefore, we must customize our diet according to our constitution, our lifestyle, and obviously our genetic makeup.
There are many levels in which to understand the healing and rejuvenating power of live foods, but the simplest way I can explain raw foods is: If it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.
Gabriel Cousens, MD, is a world-renowned spiritual teacher, an expert in raw food nutrition, the founder and director of The Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center, and the author of six books including There Is a Cure for Diabetes and Spiritual Nutrition. Learn more at treeoflife.nu. Join Dr. Cousens live at The World Beat Center in San Diego February 26-28 for “Reversing Diabetes and Spiritual Nutrition.” Presented by The World Beat Center, welovesuperfoods.com and Positive Hope, this special three-day weekend will be Dr. Cousens’ only west coast event this year. Register and learn more at worldbeatcenter.org.