Starting in the early 1990's, raw food "gurus" emerged, leading what is now known as the Raw Food Movement. These gurus, with perhaps sincerest intentions, created this movement to foster a more healthy approach to eating food in their natural state. Over the past three decades, some aspects of this movement became more cult-like and "religious," moving away from their original intentions to help the consumer, and placing it more on the personality of these gurus themselves. New products, educational seminars, conferences, etc. marked this growing movement. Based on industry reports, today, the raw food movement is nearly a half-billion dollar industry. As this category has grown, retailers such as Whole Foods Market have become concerned on the safety of raw food products, and a growing and urgent need emerged to understand: What IS raw food? Such questions and concerns reveal an underlying inability to know not only what is "raw" food but also what is "good" and "clean" food. These questions resulted in the emergence of two 21st Century standards: Certified R.A.W. and Certified C.L.E.A.N.
The consortium of industry leaders, with the leadership of Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai, employed a multi-criteria, systems based approach in arriving at the critical elements underlying the Certified R.A.W. and Certified C.L.E.A.N. standards. Three important principles emerged from this systems based analysis. One principle was that the product must be Minimally Processed, second, the ingredients in the product must be Bioavailable, and the third was that it should be Safe.
Download a current copy of the Certified R.A.W. Standard (v1.3) [PDF]
Download a current copy of the Certified C.L.E.A.N. Standard (v1.3) [PDF]
Certified C.L.E.A.N. and Certified R.A.W. standards, philosophically, appear to reflect the nature of food and preparation found in many indigenous traditional cultures. These cultures, after many millennia of trial and error, indigenous and traditional cultures had a profound sense of what was good food. They knew how to combine food, when to eat food, and how to process food so our bodies received the optimal nutrition.
These cultures recognized that food had multiple purposes:
This is what food was about.
People in indigenous and traditional cultures did not have to worry about GMOs, since everything was organic and bio-dynamic. They didn’t have to worry about not eating too much fat, or salt, because they were in touch with their bodies and connected to the earth.
Their food was, by its very nature, real, alive and whole. By real, it meant that the food was prepared in a safe manner and was not engineered or filled with pesticides. By alive, it meant the food had good enzymes to support digestion. By whole, it meant the food was minimally processed and was nutrient-dense.
Another way they thought about their food was that it needed to be: conscious, live, ethical, bio-active, and nutritious. By conscious, they paid attention to the entire process of gathering, producing and digesting food. By live, they focused on processing methods that did not "kill" the food, by using excessive temperatures. By ethical, they expressed a deep reverence for nature, and the process of using the resources in their environment. By bio-active, they were deeply concerned with ensuring that the food was "active" with the gut and our own internal bacteria. Nutrition meant that they chose high quality nutrient dense ingredients.
The truth is indigenous and traditional cultures knew what was good and clean food.
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Geoff Palmer, CEO, Clean Machine
Geoffrey Palmer is the is the CEO and Founder of the Clean Machine line of supplements. He is a 31-year vegan and has over 25 years of experience in working in the supplement industry. He has worked with Whole Foods, Vitamin Shoppe, 24 Hour Fitness and many more. Geoff became vegan after experiencing a healthy energy, attitude and lifestyle after turning to a plant-based diet. He was fascinated by the science behind it all and has a degree in biopsychology.
Shari Leidich, Founder and CEO, Know Brainer Foods
Shari Leidich is the founder of Know Brainer ketogenic creamers and beverages that provide sustained energy for the mind and body and support ketosis, an essential metabolic process where the body burns fat, not sugar, for energy. Shari has a long history in innovation, research and development as the founder of Two Moms in the Raw, an organic raw foods snacking company that made sprouted raw snacks accessible to all consumers. She is now on a mission to make "butter coffee" accessible so that people can easily enjoy a fuel driven ketogenic beverage with no added sugar.
Dr. V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai, Founder, International Center for Integrative Systems
Dr. V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai, Ph.D., an MIT systems scientist, the Inventor of email and creator of EchoMail. He is also Chairman & CEO of CytoSolve, Inc. CytoSolve has developed the world’s first computational platform for scalable integration of molecular pathway models. The platform provides an important contribution to the field of Systems Biology.
Prabhakar Deonikar, Senior Scientist
Prabhakar serves as a Senior Scientist the Center. He has tremendous experience and expertise in Biology and Microbiology and is one of the driving forces behind CytoSolve, Inc.
Michelle Jeffalone serves as Executive Director for the Center. Michelle comes from a deep commitment to non-profit work and her experience as a biologist and her expertise has been valuable in educational outreach programs for the local community.
Warmest regards,
Michelle Jeffalone
Executive Director
International Center for Integrative Systems
A new study published in the peer-reviewed journal AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES applies modern computational systems biology methods to reveal genetically engineered soy creates significant disruption to the levels of formaldehyde, a known carcinogen, and glutathione, an important anti-oxidant necessary for cellular detoxification. Ayyadurai, co-author, shares, “This is not a pro- or anti-GMO question. But, are we following the scientific method to ensure the safety of our food supply? Right now, the answer is no.”- Read More
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