Raw Food Summit Excerpt with Brenda Cobb, the founder of The Living Foods Institute.

Kevin: Sure. When you talk about illness and you talk about people who have disease and who can heal themselves, it's more than just food?

Brenda:: It really is. I believe that it's much more than the food. I think that's one of the reasons that the program that I used now have developed over the nine years of have been doing this. It is become so effective to the healthy people because we look beyond the food. Now, we certainly do use a 100% organic, the raw food and the living food.

The way we describe raw food and living food is raw food we believe fruits, vegetables and not seeds that have not been cooked. We believe a living food is a sprouted food, something that's growing when you eat it. Among bean and lentil sprout and sun flower, and buckwheat sprout. And so, that certainly is a part of the program. But we believe there has really four main reasons that people get sick. The number one reason we believed is because of how people think and emotional stuff sometimes that has got been buried so deep. And then another part of that number reason is stress because the world we are living is stressful. So that's the first area we help people with.

The number two area, we help people with is toxicity because there's toxins that have build up over years of breathing the air, drinking water that is not pure, of eating processed foods with additive colors, chemicals, dyes, over the counter medications, drinking alcohols, smoking cigarettes whatever it might be. So, we believe you have to get all the toxins that are already in there out so the body can do what it was created to do in that field itself.

The third reason we think people are getting sick is because of their decisions and we are believing that deficiency is the vitamins, the minerals, and the enzymes. Now, we are doing our best to get these through the good nutrition, but also realize that the soil today is not what it was in great, great grand daddy's day. So, there are some super foods and allergies and some products that we used that helped to boost that along with the good nutrition. But we do believe that you cannot take a product in place of good nutrition. You got to have good nutrition as your foundation and then supplement only with food sources, you know a raw food powder or an allergy and we also use herb and essential oils to help the body to cleanse and detox and nourish. We found that to be very effective.

And then the fourth thing that we found make people sick is the dirty toxic impacted colon. So, our program also focuses on cleansing the colon, getting out the impacted waste, mucoid plaque, worm, parasites. You know from years of eating, maybe foods made was flower and water that makes a glue or a paste and people get that gunk [ph] in that sticky stuff inside of their colon and it sticks in there and sometimes it can become really hard and there's a barrier than between the good nutrition even if you're eating good food. You've changed your ways and now you're eating raw in living food. If you got a lot of plaque built up in the colon, you can't really assimilate the nutrients as well. So, we like to simultaneously be putting in the good food while we also getting out the bad stuff and then when we do all of it together, we really feel that, that supporting the body, the mind, the spirit, the mental, the emotional, the physical, the spiritual, and that the body can bounce back from most anything.

Kevin: Let's talk about number one. How are some of the ways that someone can deal with the way that they're thinking or not even deal but free themselves of some of the stress and some of the emotional issues that they have?

Brenda:: Well, first thing is a lot of times we are thinking thoughts that we don't really even realize are negative. Many people, if you talk to them about negative thinking or negative speaking and you ask them, ?Do you speak or think in a negative way? Most people will say, ?No, I don't.? But then when you really kind of get down to how they are talking to themselves, you will see that the way that they're talking is not really positive, that they are meaning to say something positive but they're saying it in a negative way.

So that's the first thing, it's really just kind of teaching people to unprogram themselves. One way we do it is to teaching people some very simple affirmations and even though they may sound very simple, almost too simple and people will say, ?Gosh, it seems so easy, how can it work if it's so simple?? Well, you know anytime you say the words, ?I am? and then you feel that blanking with another word, you're saying the most possible...a positive or a powerful three words that you can say. So, if you say ?I am healed? then you're going to create the energy of healing. But if you say ?I am sick? you're going to continue to create the energy around sickness. So, that's one thing, really being careful when you say ?I am?, you know let's say you work really hard all day and you're tired so you're saying ?I am so tired?. Well, the more you say it, the tired that you get, you know instead if you go out and take a little walk around the block and say ?I am energize, I am enthusiastic, I am excited to be alive.? You begin talking to yourself in that way, breathing the fresh air, getting the body moving a little bit, you'll see that at the end of that 20 or 30 minute, well you are actually feeling better. So, that's one thing.

Now, as far as emotional stuff, really we like to help people to understand what are the emotional components that are related to the disease or symptom that they'd manifested. I used a couple of books that I really like for that. I used a book call Feeling Buried Alive Never Die by Karol Truman and I used a book that a lot of people have heard of call You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay and then I used a book call Radical Forgiveness by Colin Tipping and we really study those levels of, okay first let's get real about what is that emotional component and does it bring through with you and sometimes people will say, ?Wow, I cannot believe how much that is like me, what you're telling me, this emotional thing.?

All the times people will even be in denial more and they'll say, ?Well no, I don't think that's it, I don't see how that could be causing my problem.? So we just gently and lovingly work with people to get them more aware. We have specific exercises that we do in our emotional healing classes to help people to be able to see within themselves and, you know we get them to face some of the things, you know asking them questions like what is it about yourself that you would like to see change and, you know how do you think that the way you've thought in the past has impacted you and do you think that you are fulfilling your mission in life and just get people dialoguing and thinking, you know when you start talking among yourselves, you can even create a wonderful mastermind group and all of the sudden just from hearing what other people are saying, many times we get our own answers. We're not looking to somebody else to figure it out for us, you know we can figure it out our self but it helps to be able to discuss it with others.

And so that is also a part of the way that we help people through emotional healing. Now, with stress, we are doing breathing exercises, relaxation exercises, stretching, yoga, you know helping people to learn how to relieve stress that gets impacted in their self and in their organs, in their glands. Most people don't breathe to their full capacity, that shallow breathing and they find that when they really use more of their lungs and breathe in deeply, that itself can relax.

That really was my great transformation ? was healing those emotional things as well as changing what I was eating. I think when I was eating meat, animals, and when I was eating sugar and dairy, I was getting antibiotics, and hormones, and toxins, and uric acid getting off in my body. Honestly, I think it was making me angry. I think that a lot of times the foods we eat can make us more loving and gentle, or can make us more stressed out, on edge, and angry.When I cleared those things out, the illnesses went away and I became a better person ? a gentler, a kinder, a sweeter, a more loving and more forgiving, I live and let live rather than...

I stopped criticizing other people or judging them. I realized, ?You know what, I got my hands full trying to make my own decisions and go through life.? I need to focus on making me better and not trying to fix somebody else's problems.

Kevin: Yes. A lot of people who are listening may have family members who are sick. Not even necessarily a debilitating disease or but they are sick. They are tired, lazy, and achy. How do you bring this information to someone like that? How do you get them to start thinking differently about the way they feel? I mean, would you suggest talking about how you're feeling?

Brenda:: Well, you can tell people you feel great. But you know what, there's nothing like looking good.

Kevin: (LAUGH)

Brenda:: You know, people can just look at your skin and they go, ?Your skin is looking great!? ?Your eyes seem really sparkly and clear.? You know your energy,look at how much energy. People say that all the time to me. ?Where do you get all your energy?? And I'll laugh. I'll say, ?Well, where do you think?? ?I get it from eating raw and living food.? And they seem surprised. ?Oh, is that really true?? I said, ?Yes, it really works.? ?It's really true.? And then of course to share your testimony and tell people; you know how good you feel. A lot of times people, when I start talking about eating raw and living food, some people are so out of touch with what that means, that they say, ?Is that ...you eat your meat raw??

Kevin: Yes. (LAUGH)

Brenda:: Well no, I don't eat meat. And I don't eat that raw. I'm talking about fruits and vegetables. They're like, ?Oh, oh yeah, fruits and vegetables. Yeah.? Forgot you could eat those raw, you know? And is not a difficult lifestyle; it's very simple. It's so easy just to eat an apple, or a stalk of celery, or a cucumber. You know, you don't have to make it complicated at all.

To read the rest of this transcript as well as access other raw food experts on healing and the raw food lifestyle just like Brenda Cobb, please visit http://rawsummitarchives.com.