This is John Kohler with okraw.com. Today I have a very special treat for you. I've never done this before on my YouTube show, but I'm goanna start today 'cause this is a fun question to answer. So, I got a question through YouTube, and I don't often reply to the questions I get over YouTube because if I did, I'd probably have a second full-time job answering peoples questions, and I do my videos just for fun, actually, to teach people about what I've learned about health and raw foods over the 16 years, actually now 17 since we just cam into 2012, I've been doing raw food since 1995. That's a really long time. More than many other YouTubers out there. So, I would encourage you to listen to somebody who has a lot of experience, but also getting the results and looking the way that you want to look. You know, if you have a youtuber that's doing raw foods and they're not lookin' too healthy, and they're lookin' sick and they may be overweight, maybe they're not doing raw foods the best way possible. So, I have strived over the last 16 years following the raw foods path to be as healthy as I can, and I believe I have succeeded in that. So, in any case, let's go ahead and get to this question. So, the question is from polron75. 'Hi, John. I'm a new 100% vegan raw foodist. I've been working really hard on getting all the old toxins out of my body, so this makes me wonder how it would negatively effect me cheating on my diet will effect my body, health and aging. How much damage would I do if I ate 2 days worth of goodies at Christmas, such as cookies, cakes, some processed junk, and a little dairy? If this is going to undo all the cleansing I've done or do any damage at all, then I'll have to avoid these things if I have to, however I have found this Christmas to be pretty hard for me. Most of my holiday memories are of baking and eating lots of Christmas treats, also with a latte. I love your videos and would really appreciate the advice. Thanks, Andrea.' Alright, Andrea, because you are 100% vegan raw foodist, if you did eat 2 days worth of goodies at Christmas which is cookies, cakes, processed junk, and a little dairy, guess what? You just blew your raw foods diet. Just forget it, you've jumped ship! GO back to eating McDonalds and all the processed crap foods in the grocery stores. It's not even worth doing raw if you can't keep it up 100%. So, actually, I'm just kidding. Don't, you know, I'm joking about that. Nonetheless, I want to take some time to explain what's going on here. So, people get this whole idea about the 100% raw foods diet, you know. When you do 100% raw foods, you're like superhuman or supermortal, I don't know. They think it's like godly or you're spiritually elevated above everybody else, when you know what? 100% raw food, or wherever you're at, you're a person, too, and you're just trying to eat the best diet you can. So, instead of focusing on percentage, I would encourage you to eat as much raw fruits and vegetables as you can. I mean, there are raw foods that in my opinion may be worse than eating some of the processed foods at your Christmas dinner, depending on what some of those cooked, hopefully vegan foods are. That being said, you now, I don't know, it says you're new into raw foods, I don't know how long you've been doing it, but let me tell you if you've been raw for just a few months and you've been all raw, you know, while you have done some cleansing, you probably have a lot more cleansing to do. Cleansing can take significant amount of time. I mean, one time my dad went on a 30 day fast of just water alone, and he definitely cleansed out a lot of toxins out of his body, but let me tell you, even after that 30 day fast of nothing but water, he still had a lot of toxins in his body. So, even though you constantly detox with a lot foods, no matter how long you've been on it, and I've into raw foods for a while, and I've been pretty well detoxed with a lot of things, but another thing to remember is that we're constantly being bombarded with air we're breathing, with gas fumes when we're filling our car if you're still burning gasoline. I mean, those things are carcinogenic. Things you touch, if you're touching the receipts, you know, that are thermal image receipts from when you buy something, they may contain BPA. We're constantly bombarded wit toxins, so we want to number 1 minimize the toxin exposure including receipts and cleaning products, hair care products, things you put on your body, because your body absorbs all these different products and then also we want to work on detoxing and cleansing. So, I don't know if you've done juice fasting, colon cleansing, the master cleanse, or all these other cleanses, but, you know, cleansing is a process. It's not just, you know, 'oh, I ate raw foods for a month, I'm clean.' So, what the raw foods diet to me is about is about eating s much raw foods sustainably over a long period of time and not beating yourself up about it every time you slip off the wagon or, you know, 'oh, I'm only 80% raw, I screwed up,' and then you go back to McDonalds because, 'oh, I can't do it,' and then you do nothing. That's absolutely much worse than just like, 'oh,' making he conscious decision that you want to eat 50% raw or the rest of your life and just doing it. It's very simple. Just eat more fruits and vegetables and you're doing it. Maybe you want to get up to 70% raw or 80% raw. In general, I recommend most people eat in 80-90% raw foods diet. Now, you know, I don't encourage, or I used to encourage, people eating 100% raw, but I've been doing a 99.999% raw foods diet since 1995, and you know what? It can be challenging, and I don't necessarily recommend it, especially like you said in the question, you have holidays 'memories of eating and baking Christmas treats with a latte.' So, you know what? If that's what it takes to make yourself feel good instead of beating yourself up mentally in guilt, which I'm totally not a believer in guilt. 'Oh, you know, you swore this week. Say 5 hail Mary's and repent, repent, repent.' No, we need to get out of that whole guilt thing. It just beats ourselves up. It's just bullshit. We need to just do the best we can every day and encourage and praise ourselves for when we're doing things right, and not discourage ourselves when we do something bad. It's like the negative feedback, you know. We want to be like the mouse that went through the maze and got to the food on the other end and was happy, not the mouse that couldn't do it and it got slapped, 'cause if you teach your kid that, guess what? The kid doesn't learn too much, and neither will we, you know, as real life mouses in mazes trying to get that food. So, I would maybe encourage you to give yourself a break, I don't know once a month have some things that you like because then you won't feel left out and if you're only eating 70% or 80% raw, that thing that you ate was cooked, you know, make that the 10% or 20% part, and as long as you fill up before you eat the stuff that's not so healthy, and you want to make sure obviously that you eat organic foods and minimally processed and low-heat processed foods as possible for the cooked components, you know, you're goanna still reap the benefits of raw food. So, if you're eating a 50% raw foods diet, you're goanna get 50% of the benefits, and, you know, if you eat 70% raw foods diet, you're goanna get 70% of the benefits. If you're eating 100%, you're goanna get 100% of benefits, but that being said, if you're eating 90%, that' still 90% of the benefits, you know, and that's much better than most of the population. Another thing to remember is the percentage of cooked foods you eat. I'm not talking about cooked foods, McDonalds, or cooked foods, Oreos or processed foods. I'm talking about whole natural vegan plant-based foods. So, you always want to get organic things grown sustainably and minimally processed and/or heated. So, some raw foods like raw agave syrup and all these other things that are fractionated have been highly processed although they haven't been heated too hot. Some of those foods, in my opinion, are worse than something like steamed vegetables, steamed broccoli or a boiled, you boil some food up in the water where it doesn't get actually too hot because the water is like an insulator. Those kinds of cooked foods, in my opinion are better than highly processed raw foods that haven't been heated above 187 degrees. That being said, you also want to eat your cooked vegetables with a salad, you know. Mix the cooked vegetables together with a salad and eat it all at the same time. Hopefully this video's helped answer your question. Number one, don't beat yourself up for when you get off track a little bit. I would encourage you not to focus 100% on raw foods, but focus on 100% health instead of 100% raw because things that are raw can be unhealthy in my opinion. Focus on if you are eating cook foods, eat whole plant-based cooked foods heated at low temperature, meaning steaming and/or cooking in water or in the oven at low temperatures, not high temperatures, and don't even fry or microwave your food. Focus on supporting and encouraging and praising yourself when you do well and not focusing on, you know, slapping the hands when you screw up. With these steps, hopefully you'll more successful at eating higher percentage of raw foods so that you can have the best health ever. Once again, my name is John Kohler with okraw.com. We'll see you next time, and remember; keep eatin' your fresh fruits and vegetables. They're the best.