Say what you want against raw foodists, you can’t argue with the way they feel.
Like many living the raw-food lifestyle, Maureen Veto-Slater of Kansas City says eating raw helped her regain her health after a serious illness.
Nationally, the same thing is happening. Supermodel Carol Alt, now 48, credits her raw food diet with helping her overcome an array of chronic health problems while making her feel better than she did in her 20s. She has even written two raw food books, “Eating in the Raw” and “The Raw 50.”
Veto-Slater still remembers the desperation she felt a few years ago.
Facing the stress of raising four children as a single mom and working 12-hour days, she couldn’t sleep, was anxious and depressed and was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Doctors gave her a pill for every ill, 15 prescriptions in all. She just kept getting worse.
Bed-ridden and more than 200 pounds, she landed in the hospital. She was convinced the drugs that were supposed to help her were making her worse.
That’s when she found raw foods. She threw away her pills and began to eat a healthy diet of fresh, real food — greens, cucumbers, carrots, nuts, seeds, fruit and soups. Her weight melted off, her energy returned and the depression and anxiety vanished.
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Ecstatic, she started a raw group at meetup.com and began to host a monthly potluck.
Today her group has 637 members, and she’s not surprised.
“Heart disease is rising. Obesity is rising. Diabetes is rising,” she said. “It’s like something is wrong here. What is it? Look at your plate. Unless you’re shopping in the produce section or around the edges, everything else is not real food. It’s chemical. It’s from a lab. Your body doesn’t recognize it.”