Why do we overeat time and time again? Why do we make poor diet choices while we want to be healthy? What makes losing weight so difficult? These and many other vital questions are addressed in 12 Steps to Raw Foods in an open and sincere dialogue. Based on the latest scientific research, Victoria Boutenko explains the numerous benefits of choosing a diet of fresh rather than cooked foods. This book contains self-tests and questionnaires that help the reader to determine if they have hidden eating patterns that undermine their health. Using examples from life, the author explores the most common reasons for people to make unhealthy eating choices.

Rather than simply praising the benefits of raw foods, this book offers helpful tips and coping techniques to form and maintain new, healthy patterns. Learn how to make a raw food restaurant card that makes dining with co-workers easy and enjoyable. Discover three magic sentences that enable you to refuse your mother-in-law s apple pie without offending her. Find out how to sustain your chosen diet while traveling. These are only a few of the many scenarios that Boutenko outlines.

Written in a convenient 12-step format, this book guides the reader through the most significant physical, psychological, and spiritual phases of the transition from cooked to raw foods. Embracing the raw food lifestyle is more than simply turning off the stove. Such a radical change in the way we eat affects all aspects of life. Boutenko touches on the human relationship with nature, the value of supporting others, and the importance of living in harmony with people who don t share the same point of view on eating. Already a classic, this enhanced second edition is aimed at anyone interested in improving their health through diet.
Customer Review: Support for raw food journey
Reviewed by Juanita Watson for Reader Views (1/09)

Victoria Boutenko’s revised and expanded “12 Steps to Raw Foods” is magnificent! If you have ever attempted to incorporate raw/living foods into your diet to any degree, and hit the wall of resistance, you absolutely must read this book.

Through sharing her own experience, Victoria’s humility really serves to strengthen her message. Now a pioneer in the raw food community, Victoria’s enthusiasm for eating raw in her early years led her to teaching many classes on the benefits of adopting a raw/living foods lifestyle. But even though her students loved raw food, and wanted to change their eating habits, it was typically reported that the found it too challenging to stay on a raw diet. It was a defeating contradiction that puzzled everyone.

It wasn’t until Victoria began researching the field of addiction that she discovered the missing component. As she can attest from her own experience, the struggle and suffering wasn’t caused by eating raw food, but it was from not eating cooked food. Victoria’s cravings, as well as her student’s were actually withdrawal symptoms – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual withdrawal symptoms! Armed with a greater understanding of the addictive nature of cooked foods, Victoria devised coping techniques for new students to overcome their cravings and manage their detox from cooked foods.

Victoria’s 12-Step outline, which is very loosely derived from her personal research into AA and OA, has helped countless people rise above the struggle of changing behavior, and into an empowered state of raw consciousness. To date, Victoria has taught close to 200 workshops worldwide on this subject and continues to this day.

Her step process guides readers to:

Become aware of their dependency
Acquire the skills and tools needed to go raw.
Recalibrate inner thoughts and emotions.
Avoid temptations and get the support you need.
Adopt healthy habits.
Reframe life goals and/or spiritual mission.
Support others on their raw journey.

There are a few recipes in this book, but it is not designed as such. It is more a declaration of reasons to go raw, and a realistic and honest look at the road to get there. “12 Steps to Raw Foods” by Victoria Boutenko is absolutely a must read for anyone that may be struggling on their raw food journey, as well as anyone interested in the addictive nature of food in general.

Customer Review: Inspiring
I have become more and more interested in becoming a raw foodist. This book was helpful in describing the reasons their family became raw and some of the hurdles they had to go through. I have been making green smoothies every morning since I read the book and have even created my own. Buy Now