Living Foods for Optimum Health: Your Complete Guide to the Healing Power of Raw Foods

This was the first book I ever read on raw food diet and it changed my life. Within one week of switching to a living foods diet I went from being sick, depressed and suffering from horrible allergies, to happy, energetic and allergy-free. This book is extremly informative and, if you follow its instructions, can bring you to a state of health and well-being greater than you ever imagined.

A recent convert of raw foods vegetarianism, I saw this book in a health food store and bought it immediately. Within only a few hours over the span of two days, I had already read it completely and found myself re-reading chapters. Mr. Clement presents complete, factual studies to promote his theories on the proper human diet and so much more. Because it is a "new food fad," there are very few books on raw foods vegetarianism found in stores. Most are just recipe books, with little or no information on the benefits and challenges of the lifestyle. This makes finding proper advice a daunting task. "Living Foods" is one of the best books I've read that guides a person into becoming a raw foodist. Originally I found it intimidating, after discovering that the book is based on a dietary program in use at the Hippocrates Health Institute where Mr. Clement learns and teaches. As I read more, it seemed to me that the diet was rather restrained. For example, the author discourages the consumption of fruit due to its extreme influence on blood sugar levels. The diet is very concerned with regulating the pH balance of the blood. I was skeptical in the beginning, not knowing much about either subject and therefore not understaing the importance of each. But as I continued to read and ponder the material I found such information sensible and something to definitely consider. The book also includes a number of tasty recipes, some of which are simple and very welcoming. If I were to recommend a beginner's guide to eating raw foods, Living Foods for Optimum Health would be it.

Unlike some other books I've read on the topic of raw-foodism, this one manages to present a sound scientific basis for following the raw-food diet, *without* sounding preachy and condemning. As a student with more background than most in biology and chemistry, I recognize the truth of the author's arguments in terms of hard science (although he doesn't use much technical language.) However, the best part of this book isn't the recipes or even the inspirational stories culled from the author's tenure at the Hippocrates instutute. What was the most helpful to me was the author's friendly, non-judgmental introduction to raw-foodism and its many benefits. I'm already a raw-foodist, and the "yelling" in some other books really put me off--which I'm sure would be much worse to someone who hasn't decided to go raw. But this book really is different, and I think it would be ideal for gently inspiring someone new to the subject. It would even be great for continued inspiration for those who have already adopted the raw lifestyle! Overall, a great read--and a page-turner, too!

This book changed the way I eat. Since having breast cancer seven years ago, I have been exploring ways to improve my physical health. Brian Clement and Theresa DiGeronimo's clear explanations of the value of living foods and explicit instructions on how to grow them made improving my diet easy. I am now drinking wheatgrass daily and experimenting with delicious sprouts and germinated seeds to get more life energy into my diet--and into me! I recommend this book to anyone who has faced a health challenge. I feel the vitality that living foods have brought into my life. --by Barbara Stone, author of Cancer As Initiation: Surviving the Fire