Is What You Don’t Eat More Important Than What You Eat?

Sunday, November 16, 2008 by: Kevin Gianni
Tags: nutrition, health news, Natural News

(NewsTarget) This interview is an excerpt from Kevin Gianni's Renegade Roundtable, which can be found at
http:// www.RenegadeRoundtable.com. In this excerpt, Matt Monarch shares on the importance of mentors and why what you don't eat can be more important that what you do eat.

Renegade Water Secrets with Matt Monarch, a raw vegan and author Raw Success.

Kevin: You talk about mentors, and you talk about Fred Bisci, how important is it to you? And this is kind of my own question but I think people can relate to this, how important is it to you that you have someone there that you can ask questions to and to help support you?

Matt: Well, I mean I feel blessed and lucky. If I didn't have him, I'd probably be searching for someone. I would, it's actually really important, because it makes me feel like just more secure in what I'm doing. I mean it's like, you know you're doing it right but you also have to have a mentor who knows what they're doing. Yeah, I think it's a very beneficial thing.

Kevin: What about, you mentioned your theory on 'it's not what you eat', and I love the whole theory, the whole philosophy behind that. Can you explain that a little more thoroughly for people, because I've heard it a couple of times, can you explain that just so people can understand what that means?

Matt: Okay, so there's many diets out there today. I'm sure you've heard of many of them such as the Zone diet, the macrobiotics diet, the South Beach diet. And they all claim to get results with their diet. You know, some people they say are healing from degenerative diseases and people are losing weight. And in actuality they sometimes do have good results and these things are happening, and there's one common denominator on why all these diets are succeeding and that common denominator is they all leave certain foods out of their diets completely without an exception whatsoever. And the reason why the raw diet is the best diet is you're eliminating everything from your diet and only keeping in the good stuff. And as I was saying before, it's actually more important what you don't eat than what you actually eat. I mean, a lot of people they're preaching raw foods, super foods as if it's the god or something. I mean you can eat all that stuff until you're blue in the face, but if you don't eliminate the cause then you're just not going to get better.

Let me explain which foods are most damaging to the body, because you don't need to be 100 percent raw to be healthy, you can do an intermediate diet and not take it to such an extreme, and be very healthy for the rest of your life. For example, my mom is on an intermediate diet and she's been becoming younger for two years now, because that's how long she's been on it. She looks amazing and it's probably going to prolong her life for a couple of decades. So I like to break down the foods into the following food groups: refined sugars, processed starches, dairy, animal protein, and then raw foods. So if we understand that what you leave out of your diet completely without any exceptions is the way to ultimate health, then we obviously want to leave out the food groups that are the most damaging to the system.

From a moral standpoint, of course the first thing we want to lose, we want to get rid of the animal products. However, from what is most damaging to the body, the refined sugars and the processed starches is the answer there. That's like the key, that's like the secret, eliminating refined sugars and processed starches from your diet completely without any exceptions for the rest of your life. That's what every one of those diets do out there, that's how they succeed. And then they just make up their own little rules saying you can't have this type of nightshade or that or this. You know, it's just eliminating those products. And a lot of them also eliminate the red meat and of course the dairy, the pasteurized cow's milk. I mean you can get away with a little bit of raw goat's milk products in moderate quantities. Yeah, that's pretty much the concept.

Kevin: Yeah, and it's funny that you bring that up because that is what all the diets are about. You know you take out the processed sugar, you take out the processed flour and people lose weight. Surprise.

Matt: Yeah, and there's some processed starches, like the one's that are wheat and gluten-
free. I mean you can take it to the next level of an intermediate diet and get rid of those, but the quinoa, the millet, the whole grains, the things that grow from the ground. There's even wheat and gluten-free pasta if you want to do that sort of thing. You don't want to mix that with the animal protein because that's a horrible food combination that can develop issues, but yeah.

Kevin: So let's get into another question here. This question is from Michael and Michael says, "I'm a fitness model. I require more protein than an average raw foodie. How can I get more high quality protein in a raw food diet?"

Matt: Yeah. Okay. Okay so protein. Some good proteins are hemp seeds, hemp protein,
maca. There's these protein, there's a lot of protein powders on the market. A lot of people, you know, they like to, I don't know if you're truly 100 percent raw. You're a fitness model, a guy. You really don't need as much protein as you think. It's pretty crazy. You're not going to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger so to say but you're probably going to look more like Bruce Lee if you kind of live by this lifestyle. The key is to actually work out and the muscle will just come. That's the key. A lot of people think they're skinny on the raw food diet. If they just do the working out it's pretty intense what happens.

I mean, when you become 100 percent raw, your body becomes a very efficient biological machine and you don't need that much fuel to maintain. So therefore all the green juice and the nuts and seeds are plenty of protein for people like us. I would say the key is to, you know, just do lots and lots of working out if you could, that would be the best. And you don't even really need to do that much, but just do it. You'll notice that you get cut, another thing is that society, you know, they think that everyone's big so they think like a smaller figure isn't that good. When in actuality, it's the way we're supposed to be and you actually become much more beautiful. You actually become model-like. It's quite amazing.

Kevin: I've seen actually some of the, some of the smaller people that I've seen, who are
fitness models, I think they show their musculature better than someone who's taller and bigger, I'd say. I've seen that over and over and over again.

Matt: Yeah, I totally agree.

Kevin: So let's see. Is it better to juice fruits and veggies or puree them in a blender? Katy wants to know what you think.

Matt: Katy, I have this juicing versus blending article on my website at (www.rawspirit.org) . It's awesome. But definitely, juicing is definitely the way to go in my eyes. And I can tell you why if you want me too.

Kevin: Let's do it.

Matt: Okay. Vegetables are known as the builders, the nourishers. That's where we get our
nourishment from and regeneration from. While the fruit is the cleansers. So, me personally, I wanted to just drink as much vegetable juice as possible to just get all this nourishment. Additionally, it doesn't have any fiber. It's just pretty much colored liquid. And what those colors represent is pretty much vitamins and minerals. And, because it's just pure liquid, it's in its most absorbable form to the body, which is liquid. I was actually just... my friend was just talking to some women today, and they were just talking about how they don't know what it is but the smoothies and the green tea powders don't have that electrical charge that straight, fresh green juices do, the people from the Rise and Shine. It's just totally true. Nothing alkalinizes your system more than vegetable juices. And the greens are key. It's like chlorophyll is just awesome. It's just like a huge beauty secret, drinking green juice. I can see it in people's faces when they drink green juice. Their skin is just smooth and beautiful. It's just quite amazing.

Kevin: Yes. What do you think, how do you eat fruit? You just eat it, not blended not smoothie
like or?

Matt: Oh, okay. If I were to choose between the two, it would be the juices but I usually just have a salad. Sometimes, I blend some apples and throw some stuff in there. Yeah, you could definitely blend. You can definitely get benefit from it. There is nothing wrong in it and you can even get away with blending over juicing if you really wanted to. But I usually just, that's where I usually get my fiber from, is from the meals I eat throughout the day. I might have a salad. I might have a fruit meal, with some nuts and seeds and things like that just mixed together with it, just small amounts of it.

Kevin: In what percentage are you eating, say, carbohydrate, protein, fat? I mean do you
subscribe to any sort of system on that or do you go with the flow?

Matt: Sure. As the years go by we evolve to need less and less food on the 100 percent raw
food diet. It just automatically happens, we become very clean very rapidly. In the beginning, I was eating a lot of fat just for emotional purposes. I was eating like three avocados a night. And I got away with something like that because it is such an improvement from my last diet. So, it takes a while to stabilize out on the 100 percent raw food diet, to where you're balancing. Everything is pretty much -- you are caught up with what you are doing and that you could live like that. And what had happened with me was that I was eating three avocados, which is not a problem. And I actually did that in one day. I did that for five years and that is how I did it actually. And then, after the fifth year, every time I would do the three avocados, I would get this huge running nose and I would wake up in the morning just like, "Oh, my God, I can't move." So, I had to take it to the next level and start reducing that quantity. So now after eight years of doing this, I mean I usually have less than half an avocado at the most. It is pretty crazy but I only eat two meals a day. I get a couple of vegetable juices, I feel like that is where the true nourishment comes from. And percentages, I really don't know but I'd probably say it's about equal or on the board.

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About the author

Kevin Gianni is a health advocate, author and speaker. He has helped thousands of people in over 85 countries learn how to take control of their health--and keep it. To view his popular internet TV Show "The Renegade Health Show" (and get a free gift!) with commentary on natural health issues, vegan and raw food diets, holistic nutrition and more click here.


His book, "The Busy Person's Fitness Solution," is a step-by-step guide to optimum health for the time and energy-strapped. To find out more about abundance, optimum health and self motivation click here... or you're interested in the vegan and raw food diet and cutting edge holistic nutrition click here. For access to free interviews, downloads and a complete bodyweight exercise archive visit www.LiveAwesome.com.