Rhio, Raw Food writers and teachers discuss her book, Hooked on RAW

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Kevin: You are pretty much an innovator when it comes to passing along message. I mean starting your own radio station, you're also a raw food chef and you had raw food potluck meals. Tell us about those potlucks.

Rhio: Okay. As I told you in the beginning, I became introduced to raw and living foods at that health juice bar that I worked at for the summer. Then when I went over to the other side, I had bought books from Ann Wigmore and read more about the raw foods. But at that time, I didn't really jump on it. What I did at that time is I transformed my diet in the sense that I eliminated all junk foods, white flour, white sugar, all of that. I went to whole foods. I went to lots of juices. I went to basically a really, really good diet, but not a raw food diet completely at that time. Then later on in my life, a few years after that, I had a situation where I was impacted negatively by an event that happened in my life. I use food, unfortunately; at most people do to assuage myself, to pacify myself, to keep myself sort of numb. Because I did that, I gained at that time 88 extra pounds. I'm only 5 feet tall. One hundred five, 110 pounds, that's my normal weight, but I had gained 88 extra pounds. I had that weight on for four years. Before that happened, I have been singing and my career was going pretty good . But then after gained the weight, I didn't feel like singing, of course. It just sort of stunted my whole life and my partner Lee, he saw that I was unhappy but he saw that...I kept telling Lee, you know I need an incentive. I knew I had to get the weight off, but I needed a really incentive. One day, he did this wonderful thing for me. When I think of it now, I mean it just moves me to tears practically. He went to one of the clubs that we used to work at and he got us a booking, and it was six weeks ahead. He said, "Okay now you have a really strong incentive." Boy was he right because I didn't want to show up in that club 88 pounds over my weight.

Kevin: Sure.

Rhio: What I did is there is a spa in Upstate New York called the New Age Health Spa and they had juice fasting here. I went up to the spa and immediately and I started juice fasting and doing exercises, the whole spa thing. I was able to stick to it, and by the time that six weeks rolled

around, I had lost half the weight.

Kevin: Wow!

Rhio: Half the weight in 6 weeks. And then, we went - we did the booking. It was a maybe 6- to 8-week booking and what happened is we worked like Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and then on Monday, I'd go back to the spa. So I kept working on it and working on it. It took me about, I would say 6 months or 8 months to lose the weight completely but I did lose it. And after that, that was a life-

changing situation for me because I saw how much better I looked and how much stronger I was and how this raw food was just such a healer and such so fantastic. I just couldn't go back.

Kevin: Alright.

Rhio: So then I told my partner...I said Lee, "I'm going on raw foods." And he said, "Well I'm not." Because he had become a vegetarian after he met me. Six months after he met me, he decided himself that he was going to become a vegetarian. So he figured he'd done his bit. That was it. He wasn't going to do anymore. So I'm telling you this long story by way of telling you how I came to have a book in the first place. I don't want to force anybody to my view. It doesn't work. So I've started looking at the kind of foods that Lee liked to eat. And I went to my kitchen. I started experimenting and I came up with substitutes to have the same flavor or similar flavors that he could enjoy. And so, I kept doing this and then through situations like for example if he was working late, I made dinner. He would come home. Is he going to start cooking now or is he going to eat this raw food?

Kevin: Right. Well that's extremely male.

Rhio: So you know he'd eat the raw food. So it went like that and after a period of let's say 2 or 3 years, I ended up with all these recipes and they were fantastic and I would be serving them at my raw food potlucks and people would go crazy for them. And Lee and the people would say you got to do a book, you got to do a book. And that's how I got my book. It wasn't something that I planned. It was something that just happened. I ended up with the recipes. But, also my book has a beginning section that is nothing about the recipes and I included that section in because I thought I needed to put all the things in there as to why it would be so important for people to think about adopting a raw food diet or at least incorporating more raw foods into their diet. You know what - give them all the reasons

why. And that beginning section of the book, and again, I'm talking about how it is out there when you're trying to get a book published. Two publishers came to me. They wanted the book, but they didn't want the beginning section.

Kevin: Yes.

Rhio: They just wanted the recipes. And I said no. I said no, this book has got to go with the reasons why.

Kevin: Yes.

Rhio: So that's another way. Now, somebody else, one of the publishers published a book from a friend of mine. She gave them what they wanted. What happened was the beginning part of my book, I think; it's about 130 pages if I'm not mistaken. And one time I was talking to the

editor. They had already sent me the contract and everything. I was ready to sign. I was talking to the editor and he said to me, "Can you possibly cut the beginning part down to 20 pages?" And I started laughing. I mean, it was incredibly rude I know. But it just...something struck me funny. I mean I had spent so many nights researching and you know making meticulously sure that checking my facts and rechecking.I couldn't. I couldn't. Now, the other lady that they went with, she did, she did a good job. But I couldn't do it.

Kevin: Yes. It was similar to the theme of the media.

Rhio: Yes it is.

Kevin: That we discussed before. There are people who are sensing the information. And they may not be the health experts.

Rhio: Right. And then I had, when I was trying to get my book out to these publishers, there was like an agent, a literary agent that I had talked to. And I sent her the manuscript and she told me "Take all that personal stuff out of the book." And I said, "This shows my experience and it will

help people to understand." And she said, "If you want to write a book about a memoir or something, you know, write a different book." But she just didn't understand. And I know that she didn't understand because even though my book is self-published, I have had tremendous success with it and I have, you know thousands, of letters that people had sent me telling me how much that book has meant to them.

Kevin: It's incredible.

Rhio: It was like a baby coming, you know. It had become, even my partner, Lee, and I love him, you know, but he was like putting the pressure on me to accept that deal from that one publisher.

Kevin: Right.

Rhio: Because you can write another book. And I said, "Look, this is like a baby coming. It's going to come the way it's going to come."

Kevin: What advice do you have to people out there who would listen to this, who have a book in them?

Rhio: Oh, I think they should write it. Because anything that you written from the heart, you know sometimes people tell me well you know all of these raw food books that are coming out now, isn't it impinging on your sales? I said "That doesn't matter." What matters is that this information gets out whether they pick it up from my book or from somebody else's book. I don't care. Just write it from the heart. Get a good editor. And then, you know, shop it around. I mean some books are being published now from publishing companies who are publishing raw food books. Try to get them not to meddle in what you what to say too much.

Kevin: Yeah. What are some of the issues that we're going to be facing in 5 to 10 years with our health, the media, and food industry? What are some of the main things that you think are coming?

Rhio: Well, I think it's already starting to happen now. Number one, on a positive side, there are numerous raw food, living food outlets, teachers, potlucks, restaurants, all kinds of information is coming forth. I just find that so, you know, empowering and this is what I see in the future. That cooked food restaurants are going to start incorporating some of these stuff. Just like in the past vegetarian offerings had been made available in regular restaurants. Now they are going to make raw food offerings available. So that's on the positive end. I just see the whole community growing by leaps and bounds.

The negative part that I see happening and starting to happen is that since the regular mainstream community doesn't understand what raw foods are about and doesn't understand how healthy they are, they look at it with some kind of trepidation. And so what happens is if a parent tries to raise their

children on raw food some of these parents are losing their children to child services or because those organizations don't understand what the raw food diet is about and so they think that the parents are like depriving or abusing their children in some way when they really are not. So this is a major problem that's happening. I know a lot of families who have lost their children and other families that could come to their aide aren't coming to their aide because they are afraid of losing their children.

So because of this problem, myself and another lady called Karen Ramsey who is writing a book now called Creating Healthy Children, and she is very involved with children and she raised her children on the raw food diet, her and I are trying to form an organization that will have two major goals. The first goal is like long term. It's really big. It's like we need to have in this country a constitutional amendment that guarantees us freedom of choice in health matters - freedom of choice in choosing how, if we have a disease, how we want to proceed with it? Not something that is forced on us like for example in California and many other states, there is only certain sanction like if you have cancer, there are only certain methods that are sanctioned. And if you go like a naturopathic doctor or any kind of alternative doctor and he gives you a different method that does not encompass like radiation, drugs and chemotherapy and surgery If you go try to do a natural system, it's not sanctioned and it's not legal.

Kevin: Yes.

>Rhio: So, the doctor can get in trouble. Even the patient can get in trouble. So, I see that as a problem because as I said originally in the earlier of part of this tape is that we have to create within our community an understanding of what really constitutes and creates health. And once that idea is

out there, and then more doctors, more even allopathic doctors are going to come over and understand that that creates health and there is nothing weird about it. And then they're not going to report parents that are feeding their children like what they consider strange, you know.

Kevin: Yes.

Rhio: And so, that's one part of this organization that we want to develop. We want to have this constitutional amendment. We should have been there originally, but it wasn't. But, you know many of the amendments were added later anyway. We want to create a coalition of people, doctors, nurses, social workers, scientists, and researchers that will come to be aid of these families in trouble - these families that have lost their children. So, when a family is struggling, they will be a coalition of people that will come to their aid whether it's in court, whether it's in filing papers, whether it's in

backing up what they're doing, you know to extract these families from this problem.

: Wow! It's a pretty powerful mission.

Rhio: It is. It is, probably more than I can chew but I always seem to do that anyway.

Rhio shares her secrets and mission to educate others on a healthy lifestyle with Kevin Gianni at the Raw Food World Summit.

Kevin Gianni the host of "Renegade Health Show" - a fun and informative daily health show that is changing the perception of health across the world. His is an internationally known health advocate, author, and film consultant. He has helped thousands and thousands of people in over 21 countries though online health teleseminars on abundance, optimum health and longevity.

Author of Uncooking shares his personal journey to a Raw Food Lifestyle

In this article, Jameth Sheridan shares on his journey to a raw food lifestyle. Jameth Sheridan is the co-author of Uncooking with Jameth and Kim and the co-founder of the superfoods company HealthForce Nutritionals.

Kevin: Dr. Jameth Sheridan, I want to welcome you to the program. Let's first start with raw foods, because, hey, it's pretty appropriate for this program. Why raw foods for you?

Jameth: I originally got into raw foods for health. I wanted to be as healthy as I possibly could. I started out being a whole-foods vegan, being very athletic prior. Raw foods has had tremendous benefit for me personally in my health. However, there's some concerns about raw foods that, when people go from a regular, conventional diet to a raw food diet, it can be counter-productive in many cases, because they go from Kentucky Fried Chicken and regular pizza, hamburgers and junk, regular junk food, into a raw food diet, and usually someone doesn't go cold turkey forever, they fall back, they do the best they can, you go back and forth. And when they go back and forth, they're eating, and when they binge, they'll be eating cookie dough and Kentucky Fried Chicken and animal products and other things that are absolutely horrible for you, and I see that happen more often than people staying on a 100% raw.

Kevin: So explain that in terms of default. The animal products, like if you don't develop that, right, then you go back to your default, correct?

Jameth: Yes. And it goes on a misconception that a raw food diet, that the benefit of a raw food diet, the single benefit of a raw food diet, and this is what is taught by virtually all raw food teachers, is the fact that it is raw. And that is a major misconception, people get into trouble with that. When you go on a raw food diet, you don't go from cooked Twinkies to raw Twinkies. You don't go from cooked milk to raw milk, you don't go from a cooked piece of animal flesh to a raw piece of animal flesh, that's not the only factor that's changing. It's one of the many. A raw food diet, immediately, you are a vegan. Right away you're a vegan, and just by becoming a vegan you can lower your chances of heart disease, of cancer, of arthritis, of osteoporosis, of kidney disease, so many challenges just alone by becoming a vegan. But in raw foods, there's two categories of food - raw, or cooked. Nothing in between. So it doesn't really matter. If it's cooked, if it's either cookie dough or a vegan bran muffin, it's in the same category, it's just bad for you, in the raw mentality.

Kevin: In the raw mentality, right.

Jameth: Yes. So becoming a raw fooder, all of a sudden you're a vegan, that's a huge, immense increase in your health. You also, almost all raw fooders are focused on eating organic foods, which is another huge benefit to your health. You also become a whole fooder, versus a raw fooder. For example, you can go on a vegan diet and eat white sugar, white flour, and hydrogenated oil and be sick. Be sick, look sick, feel sick. Or you can do things like eat all whole foods, like grains as they come off the stalk. Potatoes, other tubers, fruits and vegetables, even if you're cooking them, it's all whole foods. When you're a raw fooder, for the most part, everything you're eating is the whole food, you're becoming a whole fooder. That is a huge benefit to health. You also tend to eat a different class of foods now, it's not just that you're a whole fooder and a vegan, you're now eating a large percentage of fruits and vegetables. And even if you do that cooked, your health is immensely increased. That's another benefit when you become a raw fooder that tends to be automatic.

Also, when you're eating lots of fruits and vegetables, high water content foods, you're getting much better hydration in your cells. Just hydration alone is an incredible asset to your health. You're also having more chlorophyll, when you're a raw fooder, which is also beneficial. There are so many levels that automatically happen when you become a raw fooder. However, people don't usually recognize that, they just recognize that, "I'm raw", versus "I'm cooked."

Now, I was a whole-food, health-conscious vegan before I got into raw foods. So in the early days when I was experimenting with what worked, and so forth, when I "fell off the wagon" or I was eating too much fruit or other things and I needed to go back to something, I would go back to brown rice or quinoa, or sprouted steam legumes or baked potato or steamed vegetables. And you just can't really get into trouble with steamed vegetables. And many raw fooders will say, "I'm having steamed vegetables, I'm cooking something, I'm evil, I've fallen off the wagon, I'm a loser, I might as well just go ahead and, you know, have a burger. I'll just go to Burger King or McDonalds, because it's all cooked anyway. It's all poison, it's all crap."

Kevin: Yeah.

Jameth: And that dramatic difference is not healthy.

Kevin: It creates neurosis.

Jameth: It creates neurosis, and it creates the all-raw neurosis. When I first, I was 100% raw for three years, I'm not 100% raw right now, haven't been for quite some time, but I'm mostly, depending on the seasons. The first couple of months that I was 100% raw, I was doing a lot of athletics. So I was determined to stay raw at all costs, no matter what. So for the first month, it worked beautifully.. I trimmed down a little bit, I got a little more ripped, got some more veins, which guys really like, it's like "got ripped to shreds." I was doing a lot of athletics, a lot of distance running and weightlifting. I only had a part-time job at that point, so I could spend a lot of time on athletics. I was burning so many calories that I had to eat a huge amount of food per day. And to stay raw, I needed to make a choice because I was starting to get really, really hungry and too thin, so I started eating a lot of dried fruit because I could not eat enough fresh fruit during the day, caloric-wise, to maintain my caloric needs. And that wasn't enough, and I couldn't just eat dried fruit because it starts to feel too sugary, so I started eating nuts and seeds. And I started eating a pretty good quantity of nuts and seeds.

And what I noticed is that by doing that, my teeth started to rot out, I started to have bladder infections from the quantity of fruit, and also I started to break out. Excess oils of any nature tend to make a lot of people break out and I'm included in that group. Now, the oils that I was having in the form of the nuts and seeds were healthy oils, but for acne and breakout, my skin could care less whether it was toxic or not. Other parts of my body did care. And I started actually gaining weight, I started to get a little heavy again, with eating all these nuts and seeds.. And then I found myself saying, "I don't really feel like running or lifting today, I don't really feel like exercising," I got kind of fat and docile, because I was determined to stay raw.

Kevin: Right.

Jameth: And when I went on these really long runs, and I actually did a 33-mile run that particular summer, just preparing for a marathon and some other things, I would crave complex carbohydrates. I would salivate at the thought of having something like a baked potato or quinoa. Because I needed those complex carbohydrates to fill my glycogen back up, and I was able to do it raw, but I did crave those things, and if I had just had a little bit of a baked potato, or a little bit of quinoa, I would not have had, you know, a hundred pounds of nuts. Just a little bit, it's like throwing the baby out with the bath water, but I did, I stayed raw. To my detriment.

Kevin: Right.

Jameth: I could have stayed mostly raw, but I was in that mentality that "if it was raw, it was law," it was the best, period, and that was the main factor, even though I had been a whole food health- conscious vegan.. But I also knew that when I was eating that much fat and sugar from raw, coming off of a whole food vegan program, I thought I felt better on my 40-50% raw whole-food vegan program than I do on this version of a raw diet.

Kevin Gianni the host of Renegade Health Show - a fun and informative daily health show that is changing the perception of health across the world. His is an internationally known health advocate, author, and film consultant. He has helped thousands and thousands of people in over 21 countries though online health teleseminars about abundance optimum health and longevity. He is also the creator and co-author of "The Busy Person's Fitness Solution."