(NaturalNews) There was a time when Stacy Stowers tried to fight her debilitating fibromyalgia and chronic pain with a daily combination of coffee, sleeping pills and alcohol. "I couldn't get out of bed or get dressed," Stowers says. "Eventually my teeth started to fall out." She lived with such pain and an unhealthy lifestyle for nearly 20 years.

Flash forward to today, and Stowers is a vibrant woman. She beat fibromyalgia pain and has been healthy since 2007.

Her secret? Raw foods.

She was introduced to raw foods in 2007 and says that after just 10 days, she stared to feel so good, she was able to get out of bed. These days, she spreads the word about the power raw foods and has authored the book, "Eat Raw, Not Cooked."

The healing powers of a raw food diet

"There are two basic reasons why raw food heals," she says. "One is the live enzymes. Our body has all these metabolic enzymes that keep us young, and digestive enzymes that you find in raw real foods. When we kill the natural digestive enzymes with cooking, our metabolic enzymes that are healing us and keeping our skin healthful have to stop what they're doing and work on digestion."

She explains that the other reason raw foods heal is because they keep the body's acid/alkaline levels balanced; an acidic body is riddled with the harmful effects of bad foods, ongoing stress and pollution. Raw foods make the body more alkaline.

Busting the raw food diet myths

She also busts the notion that many raw food newcomers or even raw food naysayers think, which is that the choices don't provide a nutritional variety. Clearly she begs to differ, as does raw food guru David Wolfe.

Wolf says, "You can't be eating food that makes you feel terrible. That's what's great about raw food. Sure, not everybody should be eating massive amounts of lettuce or kale, but if you look at what's out there, all these different categories -- fruits and different vegetables, nuts and seeds, seaweed, wheat grass, superfoods, sprouts, and kimchis and sauerkrauts -- it's just unbelievable the choices we have before us."

Another raw food myth is that food is always eaten cold. Raw foods can be "warmed" by serving them at room temperature, adding warming spices and even heating at temperatures below 118 degrees.

Others fight the notion that raw foods are costly, arguing that so too, are junk foods and meats. They stress that well-planned raw meals can fit a variety of budgets.

Stowers plans to keep the lifestyle going. "The only thing hurting on me were my smile muscles, because I couldn't stop smiling," Stowers says. "I had my life back after 17 years."

Sources for this article include:

http://www.examiner.com

http://stacystowers.com/about/

http://rawandnaturalhealth.com/?s=raw+food+myths

https://www.naturalnews.com/021540_nutritional_medicine_raw_foods.html

About the author:
Raw Michelle is a natural health blogger and researcher, sharing her passions with others, using the Internet as her medium. She discusses topics in a straight forward way in hopes to help people from all walks of life achieve optimal health and well-being. She has authored and published hundreds of articles on topics such as the raw food diet and green living in general. >>> Click here to see more by Michelle