It is inarguable that a vegetarian diet—high in fiber and rich in vitamins and minerals—can provide increased energy and protection from disease. What if you could improve this healthy diet to obtain the optimum amount of energy available to your cells?

"And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food" (Genesis 1:29 ASV). God gave man raw fruits and vegetables to eat after the Creation.

Even most vegetarians wince at the thought of an entirely raw food diet. Although this would be extraordinarily healthy, it is not necessary to eat a 100% raw food diet to enjoy optimum health. Foods rich in living water, however, should be consumed daily. Since the human body consists of about 70% water, your diet should contain at least that much. Evaluate your diet and modify it to contain 70 to 85% raw fruits, vegetables, and their juices, with at least five cups of water a day.

Begin your day with water, raw fruit, and juices to help your body cleanse the toxins it has been shedding throughout your sleep. Eat a raw vegetable salad for lunch with your favorite unprocessed starch, such as whole wheat toast, a baked potato, or brown rice. Have vegetable lasagna with tofu cheese and a salad on the side for supper. Make it a point to eat only raw fruits or vegetables after your supper has digested and stop eating two hours before bedtime. Your body needs to rest from digestion while it is asleep so that it can devote its energy for the detoxification process.

Besides providing a great deal of water, raw fruits and vegetables also provide their own enzymes to aid in digestion. Raw nuts, seeds, and sprouts also contain enzymes necessary for their digestion. God designed the human body to use its enzymes for other bodily functions, not only for digestion. He intended for the food itself to contain the enzymes necessary to digest it.

When fruits and vegetables are cooked, all of the enzymes are destroyed and 83% of most vitamins are killed, rendering a potentially healthy food choice … dead. Cooking enzymes above 118°F is plenty hot enough to destroy them, but some enzymes die at 105°F. In other words, even light steaming may kill all of the enzymes present in food. Most of the time, however, vegetables are cooked past the boiling point of water, 212°F. The enzymes, then, are more than sufficiently killed before ever entering the mouth.

Even frozen vegetables are blanched (boiled) before freezing in order to inactivate the enzymes and increase the shelf life of the food. If you are planning on cooking the vegetables anyway, frozen vegetables are better than the overly processed, highly salted canned vegetables. The best option, of course, is to buy fresh, organic produce and eat it raw.

Pasteurization is often used in the processing of fruit and vegetable juices. In fact, unpasteurized fruit or vegetable juices (or even dairy products for that matter) are an extreme rarity. The act of pasteurization heats a liquid to just below its boiling point in order to kill bacteria and spoilage organisms. Unfortunately, this also destroys the enzymes contained in the juice.

The healthiest way to obtain juice is to buy fresh fruits and vegetables and juice them with a masticating juicer. A centrifugal juicer is not recommended because most of the nutrients remain in the pulp, which is usually discarded, and the friction heat of the blade kills most of the enzymes. The masticating juicer, which is gentler with a much slower blade, keeps most of the vitamins and enzymes in the juice where they are needed.

The importance of enzymes cannot be overstressed. The pancreas, liver, stomach, and intestines will continue to produce enzymes throughout life; however, this process slows down with age. These organs wear down faster if cooked food is the primary source of nourishment. When organs start to wear down, the rest of the body is not far behind. Just think of eating raw food as lengthening your life.

Is raw food good enough? Unfortunately, in the modern world, produce is plucked before it is ripe, drowned in pesticides and preservatives, and irradiated until its shelf life is longer than Methuselah's puberty. Get organic.

The Organic Trade Association defines organic farming as "based on practices that replenish and maintain soil fertility, while assisting nature's balance through diversity and recycling of energy and nutrients. This method also strives to avoid or reduce the use of synthetic fertilizers and pest controls. Organic foods are processed, packaged, transported and stored to retain maximum nutritional value, without the use of artificial preservatives, coloring or other additives, irradiation or synthetic pesticides."

The absence of chemicals in the food that comes across the dinner table is reason enough to buy organic produce; however, the superior soil it grows in delivers exceptional nutrients compared to the denatured soil most farmers use. Organic food is richer and healthier for the human body as well as for the earth's ecology.

So, think about increasing your organic, raw food consumption to at least 70%. Make a conscious effort to eat only cleansing foods, rich in enzymes and nutrients. Then, enjoy your increased energy and use it to glorify God.

Read the Ask the Nutritionist column to learn more about how God intended us to eat. Also, check out the archived articles from the Article of the Month. Check out my recipe page, too!

Kenneth E. Loy, Jr., CN