There are plenty of very good reasons to make the switch to a higher concentration of raw foods in your diet. Ideally, of course, you would make the switch to an all-raw diet if eating for energy was your main priority in life. However, sometimes life gets in the way of your ideal eating goals.

But when you feel yourself wavering between a healthy raw option and that processed chocolate bar at snack time, here’s a few thoughts you can review in your mind to remind yourself of why you chose to eat more raw foods in the first place.

Raw foods take less preparation time. Sure, it might not seem like it at time, but overall, a raw diet means you spend a lot less time in the kitchen, and a lot more time out enjoying your life. No longer will you have to baste roasts, cook pasta, thaw turkeys, or wait for water to boil. A raw diet means, at most, you have to put something in the dehydrator overnight. Otherwise, it’s a few minutes of prep time, and straight onto the plate.

Eating raw also means less energy waste, both in your home and in your body. Cooking foods means electricity-hogging appliances like your stove are used, spilling excess heat into your home and adding big bucks to your bills.

But while eating raw means less energy used, it is also a high energy diet for you, in that the essential vitamins, nutrients and living enzymes in the food that sometimes are lost to the cooking process are instead brought into the body. You will probably notice, almost immediately after you begin eating more raw foods that you will have energy levels you haven’t felt since you were much younger. You won’t believe how tired and sluggish you used to feel, and it is that feeling of power, energy and vitality that you need to remember when you feel your will power slipping, and the lure of something cooked and unhealthy beaconing to you.

What other reasons do you need to keep yourself on the raw foods straight and narrow path? Eating for energy in its raw form means you will be taking in more fibre, which will aide in digestion and help you to feel full on less food.

Eating raw also usually means an intake of fewer calories, but more good calories. Many people try to lose weight by simply cutting calories, but in the end, their body craves the energy. Eating raw doesn’t deprive the body, it floods it with good fuel, and encourages the body to become a more high-powered and efficient machine in the process.

A diet high in raw foods will, by its very nature, have less processed sugar than the average person’s diet. But with all of the fresh fruits available, you will never have to deny your sweet tooth.

In the end, when you make the change to eat more raw foods, the biggest benefit will be the higher levels of energy, and how good overall you will feel. Can a moment on the lips replace that? Fat chance.