12 Steps to Raw Foods.

Victoria Boutenko.

To my mother, Valentina Boulgakova, and my father, Valeri Gladkikh, whom I love and miss deeply, and who continue to inspire me even from the heavens.

Acknowledgments.

I am grateful to my family for their ongoing love, patience, and support that I especially needed while writing this book.

My sincere thanks go to my angel helper, Christopher Sabatini, who took over my entire office work for several months, providing me with optimal conditions for a creative effort.

I am especially thankful to my friend, biochemist Ed Kellogg, PhD, for reading through the chapters containing scientific information.

I feel truly blessed with my friends who volunteered to spend many hours, sometimes at night, editing my ma.n.u.script: Victoria Bidwell, Laura Hamilton, Christopher Sabatini, Robert V. Grater, Verawnika Clay, and Caryne Palmer.

Finally, I would like to express my grat.i.tude to Phyllis Linn, Lonny and Carmen Doi, Graham W. Boyes, and Pamela Joy for providing their generous financial support of my research during the months that I dedicated to writing this book and did not lecture.

Thank you, dear friends. May you always be blessed with health, joy, love, and prosperity!

Foreword to the Second Edition of 12 Steps to Raw Foods.

The first edition of this book (published in 2000) was excellent. The second edition is masterfully outstanding. In the last six years, Victoria Boutenko has established a fresh outlook on nutrition and revealed herself as a live-food woman of wisdom. She offers tremendous insights on the benefits of raw foods. Her studies of the importance of greens in the human diet are particularly interesting and const.i.tute a breakthrough for the live-food movement. Her work using blended greens is valuable both as a transition diet for people with a very poor digestive system, and as general nutritional support for just about anyone consuming the greens at least once a day. Victoria highlights the importance of greens by explaining how she attained a high level of health by adding a sufficient amount of greens to her live-food diet.

Victoria successfully conveys the significance of live foods. The depth of her book is marked not only by copious new research on the benefits of raw foods, but by a clarity that shines through these pages-the clarity of her own soul. Victoria's wisdom and understanding of the live-foods lifestyle is communicated with enthusiasm and pointedness.

Scientifically, she shares many interesting facts that have only become available in recent years-for example, her excellent research on how humans went from a raw, primarily vegan diet (similar to that of the chimpanzee) to a meat-eating diet.

Victoria's review of the research on advanced glyc.o.xidation end products (AGEs) is particularly relevant because AGEs play a major part in the degeneration process when there is an excess amount of sugar in the system. A high level of AGEs in the diet can lead to neurodegeneration, cardiovascular problems, and kidney failure. As we see with diabetes, the AGEs are literally a form of accelerated aging.

It is really gratifying to see the level of doc.u.mentation and research of scientific journals that Victoria provides throughout her book. Victoria mentions research about acrylamide-a carcinogenic substance a.s.sociated with cooked starches. This is now a global problem, since acrylamide seems to be considered a carcinogen for humans. Cooked and processed meats and fish create heterocyclic amines, along with other mutagens and carcinogens. So obviously we avoid all of these toxins when we eat live foods.

Victoria also brings to light lots of scientific studies that ill.u.s.trate the presence of multiple beneficial elements in living foods, such as phytonutrients and antioxidants, as well as many others. For example, molecules of resveratrol can activate human longevity genes, and falcarinol in raw carrots aids in preventing and healing cancer.

Overall, 12 Steps to Raw Foods is a breakthrough work for the live-food movement. One important point Victoria Boutenko humbly and with great wisdom articulates in this book is the fact that some people are dependent on cooked foods, for the variety of reasons she talks about. Because of this addiction, it is difficult to transition gracefully to a full live-food diet. Victoria outlines a clear solution to this problem with her 12-Step program. People need a lot of support to move into live foods, and they also need a thoughtful and compa.s.sionate program to support them after the initial decision. This book, 12 Steps to Raw Foods, helps significantly. Victoria fills her 12 Steps with really practical information and insight for the transition.

Before reading this book in 2000 and talking with Victoria about it, I did not fully understand the addictive power of cooked foods. I applaud Victoria for this breakthrough. I am happy that this book is on the market, and I recommend it to all who come to the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center (a live-food center and oasis for awakening located in the mountains of southern Arizona where I am Director). This second edition is so much deeper that I am now also recommending it to my staff as mandatory reading so that they can be much more understanding, compa.s.sionate, and insightful about live foods.

Victoria's genuine humility and wisdom make this book even more powerful. By sharing the stories of her own transition and some of the difficulties in her family, the author gives us a very personal and heartfelt book. Victoria takes a good look at cultural attachment, social pressures, programming from birth, and addictive qualities of processed food, then gives people ways to deal with these problems so they can succeed in making changes. The stories of her family's struggles and the growth they have experienced in this process are truly a human inspiration, as well as a live-food one for the community.

While the most important contribution of this book is likely to be the clear insight that cooked food may be an addiction, Victoria also gives an in-depth overview of the importance of live foods for our health and well-being. She shares insights about live-food preparation, particularly her green smoothies. She focuses less on the recipes than on understanding how to play with the food in a way that encourages us to make our own creations, simply and in the manner that best meets our needs. Victoria's raw-food woman's wisdom gives the reader a sophisticated understanding of the ins and outs of transitioning to live foods. Like we try to do at the Tree of Life, she makes the point that raw food should be delicious, particularly in the beginning, because people need the psychological comfort of gourmet quality to make their transition. At the same time, she points out what most raw-food enthusiasts eventually learn: the more we are involved in the raw-food way of life, the less we need the gourmet level except perhaps at parties. Victoria gives people gems to which they can hang on to help them succeed in becoming raw-food people.

Another positive aspect of this book is its support for turning people into their own best expert. As the author points out, there is a lot of confusion in the nutrition field, live food or not, and Victoria's approach is to encourage people-once they are through the detoxification-to trust their own body cravings, because these cravings often tell us what we really need for our specific body health at the moment.

This book is a cla.s.sic. I appreciate the opportunity to write the foreword to the second edition. I emphatically recommend 12 Steps to Raw Foods to anyone who is involved in helping people move into a live-food lifestyle, to any teacher of live foods, and to any live-food friend who needs support. Victoria's book is one of the most supportive, nurturing, and wise offerings in the live-food movement that I have seen in years. I am very grateful for the breakthrough and the wisdom that she shares. Blessings to your health, well-being, and spiritual joy.

-Gabriel Cousens, MD, MD(H).

Diplomat, American Board of Holistic Medicine.

Diplomat in Ayurveda.

Director of the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center.

Author of Spiritual Nutrition, Conscious Eating, and Rainbow Green Live Food Cuisine.

Author's Note.

I believe that we are all designed to be healthy, that our beautiful bodies are perfect, and that sickness is not normal. Yet how many people can you name who are absolutely healthy? I understand that our health and liveliness largely depend on nutrition. Most of us have at least some idea about which foods can make us healthy and energized. I a.s.sociate being healthy with feeling an enjoyable lightness in my body, having a pleasant mood, and thinking clearly, but most importantly, having the energy to manifest my dreams. I remember how my former sickness eliminated much of the joy from my life; it drained my energy and kept me from doing the activities that would have made me most happy and fulfilled.

In our society, it is common to entertain the hopeless belief that a lot of illnesses are incurable. I contend that for many people this belief is based in a dependence on unhealthy foods and a feeling of being unable to change our eating habits. Unfortunately, doctors are powerless to compensate for this lack of nutrition, even though they do all they know to help.

Every day I observe people around me who are desperate to improve their nutrition but are still unable to change their habits. They find themselves-time and again-eating what they so resolutely had planned to avoid. Through much experimenting and research, I have come to the conclusion that becoming free from this dependency is possible, and that managing one's diet can drastically improve one's health.

Over the past twelve years, I have taught thousands of cla.s.ses and weekend workshops worldwide. I receive "Thank You" letters from the thousands of people who have used my coping techniques to successfully eat healthier. In this revised and expanded edition of 12 Steps to Raw Foods, I have updated my research with the latest scientific data; I have added more of my personal experiences; I have addressed historical issues such as how the human dependency on cooked food formed; and I have included my most successful coping techniques, along with my most delicious recipes.

Enjoy this reading-I look forward to running into you at a juice bar!

In Good Health, -Victoria.

Part 1.

WHY RAW.

FOOD?.

Chapter 1.

WHERE MY SEARCH.

BEGAN.

"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."

-Matthew 7:7.

We joke in my family that we were fortunate to get sick all together, but back then, in 1993, our health problems were no joke. All four of us (my husband, our two children, and me) were deathly sick. I was only thirty-eight, and I was already diagnosed with the same disease that took my father, arrhythmia, which is an irregular heartbeat. My legs were constantly swollen from edema; I weighed 280 pounds; and I was continuing to gain more weight. My left arm frequently became numb at night, and I was afraid that I would die and my children would become orphans. I remember always feeling tired and depressed. At last, my doctor told me that there was nothing else she could do for my health. She said, "I think you just have to pray now."

My husband, Igor, had been frequently ill since his early childhood. By the tender age of seventeen, he had already survived nine surgeries. Having progressive hyperthyroidism and chronic rheumatoid arthritis, by age thirty-eight he was a total health wreck. I had to lace his shoes on rainy days because his arthritic spine would not bend. Igor's heart rate was 140+ most of the time, his eyes were tearing on sunny days, and his hands were shaky. Igor constantly felt fatigued and in pain. His doctor told him to prepare to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.

Our daughter Valya was born with asthma and allergies. She was a pale, pasty girl, leading a sedentary lifestyle because she would start coughing and choking as soon as she ran or jumped. In 1993, at the age of eight, Valya woke up almost every night with a cough that wouldn't stop until Igor gave her a drainage ma.s.sage.

Finally, our son Sergei, who was nine, was diagnosed with diabetes. We were already spending two to four thousand dollars a month on our medical bills, insurance, doctors' appointments and prescriptions, when in September of 1993 the doctors told us that Sergei needed to go on insulin.

Igor and I were shocked. My diabetic grandmother had recently pa.s.sed away from an overdose of insulin. I couldn't imagine putting Sergei on this powerful drug. I remember sitting in the kitchen crying that whole night through, asking, "G.o.d, why do you punish my family? What did we do wrong? How much more can we handle? Why is our health getting worse and worse, in spite of all our efforts?" I kept saying, "I cannot put him on insulin. I just can't."

In the morning I went to the medical library and checked out several books on diabetes. All of these books explained that insulin shots would eventually weaken Sergei's eyesight and could cause kidney failure. Now my fear of insulin grew even stronger. I didn't know what to do, so I decided to procrastinate. I was hoping to be able to postpone Sergei's insulin treatments for two weeks or more while I looked for a solution. My grandmother used to repeat, "Seek and you shall find." With these words in my heart, I began actively searching for a solution.

I kept my eyes and ears open all the time. I started asking everyone I met about alternative treatments for diabetes. After scaring numerous people, I figured out that it made sense to ask only those people who looked healthy. I became pretty good at spotting healthy-looking individuals on the street and developed my own approach. First I told the fit-looking stranger, "Oh, you look radiantly healthy." Normally they would smile and say, "Thank you!" Then I asked them about diabetes. At first I got trapped by several sales reps; in one week, I had a thick stack of business cards from different companies that sold supplements or offered alternative treatments. I had no idea what I was looking for, but I kept searching.

In two months' time, a miracle happened! The universe placed before me a raw-fooder who lived in Colorado at that time. Elizabeth was standing in front of me in line at my bank, just two blocks from my home. When I looked at her, I understood firsthand what people mean when they say "glowing skin"! I told her that she looked radiantly healthy and asked her, "Do you think one can heal diabetes naturally?"

She shone at me with her smile. "Sure!"

"Why are you so sure?" I eagerly inquired.

"Because I cured my colon cancer, stage four, twenty years ago," Elizabeth readily offered.

"But it's not the same as having diabetes!" I protested.

"Oh yes, it's all the same," Elizabeth firmly corrected me.

"Can I please buy you lunch so we can talk?" I pleaded.

"Thank you, but I won't eat your food. I will gladly answer your questions," Elizabeth obliged me.

Elizabeth and I sat outside the bank, and she told me about raw food. At first, I was disappointed. I was looking for a more serious solution. I was willing to work hard and pay any amount of money for some miraculous herb or treatment. Raw food sounded absurd to me-too simplistic. I'd heard of raw foods before, but I was not so naive to believe that kind of stuff. So I asked Elizabeth, "Do you really believe that humans can survive on just fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds, raw?!"

Elizabeth responded with three indisputable arguments: (1) animals do not cook; (2) I have been eating only raw food for twenty years and healed my colon cancer; (3) you did not come into this world with a cooking stove attached to your belly.

These points were far from being scientific, but I couldn't think of anything to refute them. Besides, I was greatly impressed with Elizabeth's youthful look, and I desperately wanted everyone in my family to feel better. Elizabeth loaned me a book about raw food and gave me her phone number. I went home and started reading the book.

I would like to point out that in 1993 there were only a few books about raw food available and they were not sold in stores, only by the authors themselves. I quickly read the book that Elizabeth loaned me, and suddenly the promises of the raw-food diet seemed obvious. Next, I became scared. I thought, "Now I have to give up the last pleasure that I have left in life." At the same time, I was already eager to try raw food and see if it would work.

Igor noticed my anxiety. He asked me, "What is that you're reading?"

I said, "Honey, I think I've found what will help our son-the raw-food diet! But I don't think he can do it alone. Igor, can we please try it as a family for just a couple of weeks to see if it works, please?"

Igor became very angry. "I am a Russian man, and I cannot live on rabbit food. I work physically. I love my Russian borscht with pork! Plus, food unites family. Dinner is the only time our family gets together. Now you want us to meet around carrot sticks?! Think a little. One has to study fourteen years to become a doctor! Do you think you know more than doctors do? Think of all the billions of dollars the government spends on medical research. Are you saying that they don't know anything and you do? If becoming healthy were so easy, doctors would have done it long ago. You know how much I love you. But if you are going to go on that crazy diet, you must realize that a divorce will be inevitable."

I was disappointed, but I decided to get back to the subject of raw food at a more appropriate time.

One morning my husband woke up feeling worse than ever before. He had a big swelling on his neck; he was in pain and couldn't talk. I took him to the hospital. After looking at Igor's new blood test, the doctor told him, "You need to have surgery. Your thyroid is no good anymore and needs to come out."

Igor protested, "I've already had nine surgeries. None of them helped me, and I have decided not to ever have another surgery in my life."

"This surgery is unavoidable," the doctor declared.

"What if I refuse?" Igor replied defiantly.

"Then you will die," the doctor calmly explained.

Igor inquired, "How soon?"

The doctor predicted, "Probably in less than two months."

"I will go on raw food instead!" Igor proclaimed.

We left. Little did we know that this day, January 21st of 1994, would mark the turning point in our family health history. Later that day my husband, our two youngest children, and I went on a diet of raw food as a family and have been eating only raw food ever since. However, while we were driving home from the hospital we were not aware of our destiny as yet and agreed to try a raw-food diet for two weeks to see if there would be any improvement in our health at all.

A couple of hours later, when Igor left for work, I went into the kitchen. I fully realized that this could be the only chance in a lifetime to make such a drastic change. Therefore, I was decisive. I carefully examined the food that we had in the fridge and in the cupboards and discovered that we had almost zero raw food in our house. Everything had to go! I took a heavy-duty garbage bag and cleaned out all the beans, macaroni, cereal, rice, TV dinners, popsicles, whipped cream, breads, sauces, cheese, and cans of tuna. Next went the coffeemaker, toaster, and pasta maker. I turned off the pilot light and covered the stove with a large cutting board. Now our kitchen looked as if we were moving out. The only item left on the counter was our huge, expensive microwave oven. When we lived in Russia, we couldn't have one because Russian scientists performed research and found out that microwave ovens are very harmful. For this reason microwave ovens were prohibited in Russia. As a result, when we came to the United States, we bought a big one. Now I was staring at this microwave oven and realized that I didn't know what to do about it. I started thinking about delicious melted cheese sandwiches, Pop Tarts, and all the "miracles" I used to bake in it. Then, I thought about Sergei and his diabetes. Most of all in the world, I did not want him to go on insulin. So I got a hammer and cracked the microwave's gla.s.s door. Then I put it in the garage. I took all our brand-new pots and pans (that I'd just gotten for Christmas) out onto the sidewalk, and they disappeared minutes later. Then I rushed to the local supermarket.

I was not aware at that time of the existence of raw gourmet dishes. I didn't know what raw-fooders ate, having never met any besides Elizabeth, who ate simply. I had never heard of dehydrated flax crackers, nut milks, seed cheese, or raw cakes. I thought of raw food as mainly being salads. Furthermore, I came from Russia, where fresh fruits and vegetables were available only during the summer. We were used to eating potatoes, meat, macaroni, lots of dairy products, and occasionally fruit. We were not accustomed to eating salads, and my family didn't like vegetables. Therefore, I was confined to merely the fruit section of the produce department. Due to our tight budget, we usually bought only Washington apples, naval oranges, and bananas. I loaded my cart with these three items.

When my kids came home from school and Igor from work, they asked, "What's for dinner?" I told them to look in the fridge. My children couldn't believe their eyes. "Where are our TV dinners? Where did all the ice cream go?" They threw a fit.

Sergei said, "I would rather take insulin shots for the rest of my life than stay on such a crazy diet." They refused to eat and went to their rooms to watch videos.

Igor ate a couple of bananas and complained that this food made him hungrier. We had lots of time that day. I remember everyone walking from one room to another looking at the clock. This was my initial realization of how much of my time had been spent thinking about, planning, preparing to eat, eating, and cleaning up afterwards. We felt hungry, uncomfortable, weird, and lost. We tried watching TV, but the grilled chicken commercials were unbearable. We hardly made it to nine o'clock. Unable to fall asleep due to my own empty stomach, I heard footsteps in our kitchen and the sound of drawers opening and closing.

In the morning, we woke up unusually early and gathered in the kitchen. I noticed lots of peels from bananas and oranges on the counter. Valya shared with us that she hadn't coughed that night. I remember telling her, "That is just a coincidence; the diet couldn't work that fast." Sergei checked his blood sugar. It was still high, but it was lower than it had been for several weeks. Igor and I noticed a slight energy increase, and generally, we felt lighter and more positive. We were also very hungry.

I have never told anyone that shifting to a raw-food diet is easy. In fact, it was very hard for the four of us. Our bodies were demanding foods that we used to eat. From the very first day, and for a couple weeks, minute after minute, I daydreamed of eating bagels with cream cheese, hot soups, chocolate, or at the very least, various types of chips. At night in my sleep, I was searching for French fries under my pillow. I sneaked two dollars from our family budget and kept them in my pocket. I kept plotting that one day, I would have half an hour alone to run down to the corner restaurant and buy a slice of hot, cheesy pizza, eat it fast without being seen, run back, and continue the raw-food diet. Luckily, I never found that chance.

Meanwhile, positive changes rapidly appeared. Valya stopped coughing at night and never had an asthmatic attack again. Sergei's blood sugar steadily began to stabilize. Igor's swelling in his throat subsided to normal. His pulse went down, and the symptoms of hyperthyroidism became less apparent with each day. I noticed that my clothes were loose on my body, even when they were fresh out of the dryer. That had never happened before. I was excited! Every morning, I ran to the mirror and examined my face, counting the disappearing wrinkles. My face definitely looked better and younger with each day of the raw life.

After one month on raw food, Sergei asked me why he had to check his blood sugar every three hours when it was now consistently within the normal range. I told him to check it only once, in the morning. Igor's pulse was down to 90, where it had not been for years. Valya was able to run a quarter of a mile at school without coughing. I lost fifteen pounds. All of us noticed that we had a lot more energy. I myself had so much energy that I could not walk anymore-I was always running! I ran from the parking lot to the store and between the aisles and up and down the stairs in our house. We had to come up with some exercise that would channel the extra energy we now had.

I once read that running is a must for diabetics.1 The author explained that while exercising, the muscles produce additional insulin. We decided to start running as a family. Eventually, Sergei's blood sugar stabilized due to his new diet and regular jogging. From the day that we began to eat raw food to the present, he has never again experienced any form of diabetic symptoms.