Although every person is unique, the chemical composition and anatomical structure of the human species is the same. Therefore, all human beings, sharing the same physiology also share the same ideal source of fuel. There is no animal species in nature who's diet varies from individual to individual and we are no exception.

However, we have removed ourselves far from nature and a natural diet. We have based our diets mostly on unnatural climates, industrial practice, the medical model, and corporate influence. We have been eating this unnatural malnourished diet for generations upon generations with each new generation straying even further from the truth. Over the years we have been rationalizing our behavior and heavily compensating for our poor diets with pharmaceutical aids and dietary supplementation.

In recent years, with degenerative disease, obesity, and cancer on the dramatic rise, more and more people are beginning to see the reality and are seeking alternatives. The problem is that even when we find a great alternative diet we find that we have been physically, mentally, and emotional attached to our dietary habits. We find that we must transition ourselves back to a healthy natural diet.

An effective transitional diet should break us away from our destructive behaviors at a gentle enough rate that will not cause us dangerous levels of physical, emotional, or mental trauma. A transitional diet should satisfy your nutritional needs while safely conceding to some of your deeply embedded cravings. Over a reasonable amount of time, as you develop more mental clarity and reclaim the aid of your intuition, you should work towards an increasingly ideal diet.

In a raw food transition, the most common means of such a change is a "gourmet" raw food diet. In this type of diet you indulge in rich and decadent raw food cuisine that satisfies the mental and emotional attachments to the food you grew up on while restoring nutrient levels and aiding in the mass elimination of residual toxins.

The gourmet raw diet addresses your mental attachments to conventional foods by simulating your favorite cooked meals and snacks in the raw form. As you gradually increase the percentage of raw foods in your diet your body rapidly adjusts, and the physical transition reshapes your digestive system to an increasingly more natural state. As your body changes and you start to gain new perspectives on your food, the transition becomes easier and easier.

Gourmet raw food, however, is not a natural diet and therefore is not sustainable in the long term. Gourmet raw food is extremely high in fat. Although they are "good" fats that will not cause us to gain weight, it provides an imbalance that can lead to a great deal of dysfunctions and deficiencies.

Gourmet raw diets are also abundant in spices and other irritants such as garlic, hot peppers, and onions. Irritants like these cause the body to create a layer of mucus to line and protect the soft tissues of the digestive tract. When these linings are coated in mucus, it becomes very difficult for those linings to absorb any essential nutrients and often creates the illusion of a nutrient deficient diet.

The gourmet raw diet also tends to use a great deal of salt. Even the most expensive high quality pink sea salt is still salt. Salt in high doses is lethal. It dehydrates the body and prevents proper cellular function.

Dehydrated foods are also far from ideal as although they are still considered "raw", they are no longer a whole food.

Most gourmet raw foods are not well combined and can eventually lead to indigestion as your system becomes more sensitive.

All of these negative aspects of a gourmet raw food diet are at the same time what make them so mentally and emotionally appealing to us in our raw transition. We need to be able to understand the inefficiencies of the gourmet diet while accepting it as a relatively healthy means of transitioning.

As long as we understand the process, and we do not perceive it as the ideal diet, we can use it to find a more ideal ,healthier diet. As we eat cleaner and our bodies become more sensitive, it becomes very easy to cut out these inefficiencies of the gourmet diet. The more inefficiencies that you eliminate, the closer you come to a naturally ideal well balanced whole food diet.

The journey to such a diet is a training ground for your intuition and will teach you a great deal about yourself and your surroundings.