Sometimes we are all tempted by some very radical diet plans for the sake of our beauty (and health, too!), and one that is growing in popularity is the vegetarian raw diet. The idea is simple: eat only raw, fresh foods and no meat or dairy products. Why? According to research, bringing your foods to a temperature over 105 degrees Fahrenheit kills a large percentage of the vitamins and enzymes that are naturally present. Eating only raw foods will therefore greatly increase vitamin, enzyme and caloric intake with only a small amount of food. The diet is said to help you lose weight, detoxify your body and prevent the aging process. Sounds great, right? So how does it work?

The basic principal behind the raw vegetarian diet is simple. By cooking your food, you systematically kill most good elements present in the ingredients – raw meals will prevent this loss and benefit your overall health. Vitamins are important for you health because they provide the building blocks for chemical processes throughout the body. Without vitamins our bodies could not convert calories into energy or put nutrients into our blood streams – they are fundamentally essential to our wellbeing and survival as catalysts to all major chemical reactions within the body.

In particular, the raw vegetarian diet is catching on because it is claimed that this way of eating can put a halt to the aging process. Is it true? Simple put, yes! The high vitamin, mineral and fibre count that is present in uncooked foods like spinach, carrots, pineapple, seeds and nuts come with virtually no bad fats and no processed sugars: two things that make for skin problems galore. The truth is that eating this way can indeed keep your skin in top form for many years, keeping wrinkles, age spots and other blemishes at bay until long after most other people have succumbed. So what is stopping everyone from throwing away their pots and pans and getting on board with a fully raw, vegetarian diet?

Mainly, it is difficult! Most of us have unconscious addictions to certain types of processed foods, most commonly chocolates and other candies but also things like pasta and hamburgers. Dropping all these foods at one time will see you sprinting back to the fast food joint in a couple of days, guaranteed! If you want to succeed with this diet or simply incorporate more raw food into your existing pattern of eating, it is important that you do so carefully. Your body will not be able to tolerate purely raw foods all at once, so beware! If you have eaten cooked foods for your entire life and just switch one day to all raw, vegetarian, you are not going to have a smooth transition. The sudden high vitamin content is potent, and you will experience intense stomach pains and then full-body aches and sickness as your system tries to take in all the pure energy foods and rid itself of all toxins at once. This rush of detoxification is what will make you ill – if you don’t want to know how much bad stuff is hiding deep in your muscles and flesh, don’t take this diet on suddenly! Make small changes over a few weeks or months, and then you should be ready to go all out if you want to.

Whether you decide to incorporate a few raw foods into your diet or go for the radical measure, your skin will benefit. Any lowering of bad fats and processed sugars and higher intake of vitamins, minerals and fibres will result in a healthy and consistent glow. Give it a try!