How did you get interested in eating raw foods?
Dr. Cousens: In 1975, I had a spiritual awakening. When I was coming out of meditation, a voice said that I should eat and live in a way that supports Kundalini energy. As a holistic physician working with thousands of patients, I began searching for the best diet to help us to transform ourselves into superconductors of the divine.

Why do you believe raw food is healthier than cooked food?
Dr. Cousens: When you cook food, you destroy 50% of proteins, 70-80% of vitamins and minerals, and up to 100% of phytonutrients. Cooking food causes a loss of capacity to transfer energy and destroys enzymes, which are our life-force and an important element in health. Cooking food also destroys the biophoton energy in food. The more biophoton energy we have, the better we connect to the living biophoton field that we are all a part of.

If someone wants to switch to raw foods, what percent raw foods do you recommend eating?
Dr. Cousens: I recommend working your way to 80% and holding there. We stuff our emotions with dead foods. When you go on live foods, you have no junk food to suppress your emotions, so it’s better not to go too far too fast. It is important to work on your emotional elements as you transition into a more raw diet. At each meal eat more salads, leafy greens, nuts and seeds. Another way, is to start by giving up meat, chicken and fish over a month or two and then give up dairy. Next, slowly move to sprouted grains, nuts, seeds and greens.

What are the biggest benefits of eating a more live food diet?
Dr. Cousens: Here at The Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center, we have a master’s program in live food nutrition and one of our students, for her thesis, interviewed 525 people to measure the effects of people eating 80% raw foods for 2 years. Here are some highlights of the findings:

• Overall, 82% of people felt they naturally moved to their ideal weight.
• The number of people needing more than 8 hours of sleep a night dropped from 59% -19%
• The number of people reporting no body odor increased from 12-52%
• The number of people reporting no bad breath increased from 32-83%
• Those reporting constipation dropped from 73-30%
• Those reporting a general sense of well-being increased from 36-91%
• 68% increase in people saying they were free of previously chronic diseases

What are some successful healings you’ve seen with someone switching to live foods?
Dr. Cousens: We just had 6 diabetics here for a month. They were fast food diabetics. They had no concept of live foods. Within 4 days we had them all off insulin and all their diabetic medications. Out of the 6, 2 completely healed their diabetes, 1 dropped out and the rest were moving towards reversing their diabetes and did not have to go back on medications. We are now offering a 1-month reversing diabetes program at the Tree of Life. A movie about this, Raw for 30 Days: Reversing Diabetes Naturally, will be coming out on this topic.  You can view the demo video at www.rawfor30days.com

Do you recommend taking any supplements if eating a raw foods diet?
Dr. Cousens: In my book Spiritual Nutrition, I strongly recommend a B12 vitamin. Thirty-nine percent of meat eaters are B12 deficient and 80 percent of people eating live foods can become B12 deficient after 6 years.

Are there environmental benefits of eating a live diet? 
Dr. Cousens: When you eat live foods you use fewer packages, so you create less of a mess. You are not ecologically stressing the earth. For example, vegans save 1.5 million gallons of water a year and an acre of trees. It has a large impact on the environment.

Is there anything I’m missing that you would like to share with our readers?
Dr. Cousens: Yes, I see live food not as a diet but as a way of life. It is about becoming an alive, vital being on the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual levels. It is about awakening to the living truth of who we are. Put God at the center, and this helps us get away from egocentric ways of being and appreciate the mystical understanding of God and all things. This is what we teach at the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center. Live foods play an important role in helping people change their bodies into bodies of light that can operate and hold this frequency of consciousness.

Gabriel Cousens, M.D., M.D.(H), Diplomate of the American Board of Holistic Medicine, Dip. Ayurveda, is the founder and director of the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center, an oasis for awakening, inspiration, and whole person healing.  He is the author of Spiritual Nutrition, Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine, Conscious Eating, and Depression-Free for Life, and is a contributor to Healing the Heart of the World. Dr. Cousens is the host of the radio shows, Physician of the Soul and Creating Peace by Being Peace on the Internet. All information at www.treeoflife.nu

(Source: raw-vegan)