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This is John Kohler with okraw.com. Today I have a very special treat for you. I've
never done this before on my YouTube show, but I'm goanna start today 'cause this is
a fun question to answer. So, I got a question through YouTube, and I don't often reply to
the questions I get over YouTube because if I did, I'd probably have a second full-time
job answering peoples questions, and I do my videos just for fun, actually, to teach
people about what I've learned about health and raw foods over the 16 years, actually
now 17 since we just cam into 2012, I've been doing raw food since 1995. That's a really
long time. More than many other YouTubers out there. So, I would encourage you to listen
to somebody who has a lot of experience, but also getting the results and looking the way
that you want to look. You know, if you have a youtuber that's doing raw foods and they're
not lookin' too healthy, and they're lookin' sick and they may be overweight, maybe they're
not doing raw foods the best way possible. So, I have strived over the last 16 years
following the raw foods path to be as healthy as I can, and I believe I have succeeded in
that. So, in any case, let's go ahead and get to this question. So, the question is
from polron75. 'Hi, John. I'm a new 100% vegan raw foodist. I've been working really hard
on getting all the old toxins out of my body, so this makes me wonder how it would negatively
effect me cheating on my diet will effect my body, health and aging. How much damage
would I do if I ate 2 days worth of goodies at Christmas, such as cookies, cakes, some
processed junk, and a little dairy? If this is going to undo all the cleansing I've done
or do any damage at all, then I'll have to avoid these things if I have to, however I
have found this Christmas to be pretty hard for me. Most of my holiday memories are of
baking and eating lots of Christmas treats, also with a latte. I love your videos and
would really appreciate the advice. Thanks, Andrea.' Alright, Andrea, because you are
100% vegan raw foodist, if you did eat 2 days worth of goodies at Christmas which is cookies,
cakes, processed junk, and a little dairy, guess what? You just blew your raw foods diet.
Just forget it, you've jumped ship! GO back to eating McDonalds and all the processed
crap foods in the grocery stores. It's not even worth doing raw if you can't keep it
up 100%. So, actually, I'm just kidding. Don't, you know, I'm joking about that. Nonetheless,
I want to take some time to explain what's going on here. So, people get this whole idea
about the 100% raw foods diet, you know. When you do 100% raw foods, you're like superhuman
or supermortal, I don't know. They think it's like godly or you're spiritually elevated
above everybody else, when you know what? 100% raw food, or wherever you're at, you're
a person, too, and you're just trying to eat the best diet you can. So, instead of focusing
on percentage, I would encourage you to eat as much raw fruits and vegetables as you can.
I mean, there are raw foods that in my opinion may be worse than eating some of the processed
foods at your Christmas dinner, depending on what some of those cooked, hopefully vegan
foods are. That being said, you now, I don't know, it says you're new into raw foods, I
don't know how long you've been doing it, but let me tell you if you've been raw for
just a few months and you've been all raw, you know, while you have done some cleansing,
you probably have a lot more cleansing to do. Cleansing can take significant amount
of time. I mean, one time my dad went on a 30 day fast of just water alone, and he definitely
cleansed out a lot of toxins out of his body, but let me tell you, even after that 30 day
fast of nothing but water, he still had a lot of toxins in his body. So, even though
you constantly detox with a lot foods, no matter how long you've been on it, and I've
into raw foods for a while, and I've been pretty well detoxed with a lot of things,
but another thing to remember is that we're constantly being bombarded with air we're
breathing, with gas fumes when we're filling our car if you're still burning gasoline.
I mean, those things are carcinogenic. Things you touch, if you're touching the receipts,
you know, that are thermal image receipts from when you buy something, they may contain
BPA. We're constantly bombarded wit toxins, so we want to number 1 minimize the toxin
exposure including receipts and cleaning products, hair care products, things you put on your
body, because your body absorbs all these different products and then also we want to
work on detoxing and cleansing. So, I don't know if you've done juice fasting, colon cleansing,
the master cleanse, or all these other cleanses, but, you know, cleansing is a process. It's
not just, you know, 'oh, I ate raw foods for a month, I'm clean.' So, what the raw foods
diet to me is about is about eating s much raw foods sustainably over a long period of
time and not beating yourself up about it every time you slip off the wagon or, you
know, 'oh, I'm only 80% raw, I screwed up,' and then you go back to McDonalds because,
'oh, I can't do it,' and then you do nothing. That's absolutely much worse than just like,
'oh,' making he conscious decision that you want to eat 50% raw or the rest of your life
and just doing it. It's very simple. Just eat more fruits and vegetables and you're
doing it. Maybe you want to get up to 70% raw or 80% raw. In general, I recommend most
people eat in 80-90% raw foods diet. Now, you know, I don't encourage, or I used to
encourage, people eating 100% raw, but I've been doing a 99.999% raw foods diet since
1995, and you know what? It can be challenging, and I don't necessarily recommend it, especially
like you said in the question, you have holidays 'memories of eating and baking Christmas treats
with a latte.' So, you know what? If that's what it takes to make yourself feel good instead
of beating yourself up mentally in guilt, which I'm totally not a believer in guilt.
'Oh, you know, you swore this week. Say 5 hail Mary's and repent, repent, repent.' No,
we need to get out of that whole guilt thing. It just beats ourselves up. It's just ***.
We need to just do the best we can every day and encourage and praise ourselves for when
we're doing things right, and not discourage ourselves when we do something bad. It's like
the negative feedback, you know. We want to be like the mouse that went through the maze
and got to the food on the other end and was happy, not the mouse that couldn't do it and
it got slapped, 'cause if you teach your kid that, guess what? The kid doesn't learn too
much, and neither will we, you know, as real life mouses in mazes trying to get that food.
So, I would maybe encourage you to give yourself a break, I don't know once a month have some
things that you like because then you won't feel left out and if you're only eating 70%
or 80% raw, that thing that you ate was cooked, you know, make that the 10% or 20% part, and
as long as you fill up before you eat the stuff that's not so healthy, and you want
to make sure obviously that you eat organic foods and minimally processed and low-heat
processed foods as possible for the cooked components, you know, you're goanna still
reap the benefits of raw food. So, if you're eating a 50% raw foods diet, you're goanna
get 50% of the benefits, and, you know, if you eat 70% raw foods diet, you're goanna
get 70% of the benefits. If you're eating 100%, you're goanna get 100% of benefits,
but that being said, if you're eating 90%, that' still 90% of the benefits, you know,
and that's much better than most of the population. Another thing to remember is the percentage
of cooked foods you eat. I'm not talking about cooked foods, McDonalds, or cooked foods,
Oreos or processed foods. I'm talking about whole natural vegan plant-based foods. So,
you always want to get organic things grown sustainably and minimally processed and/or
heated. So, some raw foods like raw agave syrup and all these other things that are
fractionated have been highly processed although they haven't been heated too hot. Some of
those foods, in my opinion, are worse than something like steamed vegetables, steamed
broccoli or a boiled, you boil some food up in the water where it doesn't get actually
too hot because the water is like an insulator. Those kinds of cooked foods, in my opinion
are better than highly processed raw foods that haven't been heated above 187 degrees.
That being said, you also want to eat your cooked vegetables with a salad, you know.
Mix the cooked vegetables together with a salad and eat it all at the same time. Hopefully
this video's helped answer your question. Number one, don't beat yourself up for when
you get off track a little bit. I would encourage you not to focus 100% on raw foods, but focus
on 100% health instead of 100% raw because things that are raw can be unhealthy in my
opinion. Focus on if you are eating cook foods, eat whole plant-based cooked foods heated
at low temperature, meaning steaming and/or cooking in water or in the oven at low temperatures,
not high temperatures, and don't even fry or microwave your food. Focus on supporting
and encouraging and praising yourself when you do well and not focusing on, you know,
slapping the hands when you screw up. With these steps, hopefully you'll more successful
at eating higher percentage of raw foods so that you can have the best health ever. Once
again, my name is John Kohler with okraw.com. We'll see you next time, and remember; keep
eatin' your fresh fruits and vegetables. They're the best.
