What foods existed over all that time? Foods provided by nature -- raw, uncooked and unprocessed berries, nuts, seeds, vegetables, roots, fruits and so on. This is what was available to the body, so it only makes sense that raw foods offer perfect compatibility with the human body. That's one reason people might choose to eat raw foods, but it's not the only reason.
You might also decide to pursue a raw foods diet because of the taste experience. Even if you don't care about health benefits, the taste experience is incredible. A raw foods diet is not about eating salads, carrots and celery sticks all day long. It's nothing of the kind. A raw foods diet is about making cuisine -- like smoothies and blended recipes -- that you have never experienced in your life.
These experiences go way beyond what cooked foods, processed foods or restaurant foods offer. If you think about snack foods, processed foods and fast foods, you will realize that all those foods taste terrible unless the manufacturer adds chemical excitotoxins to enhance their taste. That's why manufacturers add monosodium glutamate (MSG), yeast extract, sugar and salt to their foods. These ingredients are specifically used to give some kind of taste to foods that otherwise taste dead and boring because the life has been cooked out of them or because the depth of taste has been milled out of them during the grain processing. Processed foods taste nothing like real food from nature. When foods are processed, cooked or put on a shelf in a grocery store, they're little more than a shadow of the original food.
If you think you've tried all kinds of foods before and you've never tried raw foods, you have no idea what you're missing. You're missing out on a whole universe of taste experience that goes beyond anything you've ever dreamed of. The first time you put raw foods cuisine in your mouth, you begin a whole new adventure. You take a journey into a new realm of food experience that will expand your reality because it's like nothing you've ever tasted before.
You might try a raw foods diet because you want to experience tastes you've never experienced before. I always find it funny when people who are addicted to restaurant foods and junk foods say, "You eat such a clean diet, Mike, but I can't live without my Big Mac!" From my perspective, I'm thinking, a Big Mac tastes awful compared to the foods I'm eating on a daily basis. And many of the foods I consume are raw foods.
I'm not giving up anything by living a super-healthy lifestyle. In fact, I'm gaining in every area. The taste experience is more interesting and more expansive. The health benefits are phenomenal. The expanded awareness happens automatically. I'm not giving up anything at all! You might say, "Well, you're giving up a Big Mac, French fries, ice cream and pizza." So what? Once you've tried raw foods cuisine, everything else seems irrelevant.
I wonder, "Why would anybody eat junk food or restaurant food when they could have this raw foods cuisine? Why would you spend your money on a Big Mac when you could have a raw cacao smoothie made with avocadoes, real chocolate from Peru, chia seeds and stevia that tastes like the most delicious chocolate ice cream mint milkshake you've ever had in your life?" That's the level I'm living at with the raw foods diet, and, believe me, it is a whole different level that goes far beyond subsisting on junk foods, processed foods or restaurant foods.
I grew up in the Midwest, and the Midwest isn't exactly known for its cuisine. I used to think that ground beef and potatoes, with Velveeta melted on top, was a good meal. Years ago, that was the limit of my taste experience. Today, I know that that's just a tiny, little dot on the map of taste experience. Now, I'm living way out on the edge of that map, exploring new realms of taste experience with raw foods cuisine. These are foods that awaken your senses. I believe they actually enhance your intelligence, because having sensory complexity is the most effective way to create new connections in your brain. The taste experience can be an enlightening experience, and that's what you get with raw foods.
To learn more about raw foods, check out books like Raw In 10 Minutes, or Dr. Gabriel Cousens' Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine. You can find books and raw foods ingredients from RawFood.com, my top recommended source for raw foods via the internet.
By the way, my diet is currently about 50% raw foods. I make sure to eat a raw food element with every meal, and I drink at least one raw foods smoothie (blended with live sprouts that I grow myself) every day.