We Want to Live: The Primal Diet (2005 Expanded Edition)

This is an amazing book. I read it back in 1997 after I attended a lecture by the author. Although I was vegan for 5 years and vegetarian for 2 years before that, I switched immediately to this diet. And that's the surprising part because I was so against meat eating on both a social basis as well as a health basis. You would never catch me reading anything by an author who recommended any other type of diet because I was so certain of my beliefs. So there I am walking by a seminar room in a shopping center back in 1997, and notice a sign describing a talk by Aajonus. For a laugh, since it sounded so absurd, I decided to pop in and listen for a few minutes. For the next hour, he described what he had been through in terms of his health challenges and what he did to overcome them. I walked out of there a different person and have stayed on the diet for over 11 years since that day. When I really think about it, this philosophy really is an extension of being a vegan/vegetarian. Vegans know that animal products are bad for the body, but the distinction here is that cooked meat, pasteurized milk/cheese/butter/cream and cooked eggs are what is bad for you. In their raw form they are extremely healthful, and I have had nothing but major improvement in my health eating this way. In fact, at 43 years old I look forward to each year passing because I feel better in every way due to the healing power inherent in food when it is not altered or processed in any way. It's also not as if you don't consume vegetables and fruit. The difference is that vegetables are juiced, since the nutrients they contain are mostly unabsorbed as they pass through the digestive tract if they are eaten in whole form. Fruit is eaten whole, albeit in a limited quantity. Another side benefit of eating this way is the amount of time and energy you save. No preparation, no cooking, cleaning of pots and pans, no gas or electric use. All this may sound austere, but the incredible taste of homemade milkshakes and smoothies with raw ingredients has to be experienced to be believed! This book is a good introduction to a different way of thinking about food, nutrition and health, but it is more for those who like getting their information in a novel format. For a more left-brain, straightforward approach, his other book "The Recipe for Living Without Disease" is probably a better way to go.

...as I did two years ago.Start today.Keep in mind that it takes years on this diet to roll back all the abuses that your body had to endure on cooked diet and "dead" food.There's no time to waste "to be ready or not".I wish I had discovered earlier this guy.True health depends on real and live food.I recomend it to anybody.Even if you think you're healthy it would be wise to give this diet a second look.

This is an amazing book. I read it back in 1997 after I attended a lecture by the author. Although I was vegan for 5 years and vegetarian for 2 years before that, I switched immediately to this diet. And that's the surprising part because I was so against meat eating on both a social basis as well as health basis. You would never catch me reading anything by an author who recommended any other type of diet because I was certain of my beliefs. So there I am walking by a seminar room in a shopping center back in 1997, and notice a sign describing a talk by Aajonus. For a laugh, since it sounded so absurd, I decided to pop in and listen for a few minutes. For the next hour, he described what he had been through in terms of his health challenges and what he did to overcome them. I walked out of there a different person and have stayed on the diet for over six and a half years from that day. When I really think about it, this philosophy really is an extension of being a vegan/vegetarian. Vegans know that animal products are bad for the body, but the distinction here is that cooked meat, pasteurized milk/cheese/butter and cooked eggs are what is bad for you. In their raw form they are extremely healthful, and I have had nothing but major improvement in my health eating this way.

My body was in dreadful shape after years of being a vegetarian and raw fooder. AV's approach to raw makes more sense than any raw food vegetarian diet. I have been eating raw chicken, beef, milk, butter, honey, etc. for over three years. My body is much stronger. I look better than all my friends my age. THANK YOU AAJONUS FOR THIS BOLD WORK!!

Having studied Cayce and other nutritionists for years, this book has given me the motivation to FINALLY make the transition to a TRULY healthy diet. The book blends a well written narrative of Aajonus' curing his son - doomed to death by the medical establishment - with facts on the connections between food and specific illnesses. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for anyone trying to strengthen the intuitive wisdom of their body's own nutritional needs. Shows the links between processed foods, heated fats and sweets to our bodies' inability to allow the natural healing flow that is our birthright.