"Raw people flow and feel great all the time. Raw food helps you live your destiny! The universe loves you and wants you to be happy - you just have to do what it designed you to do," says Shazzie who has been eating only raw food for seven years and even during her pregnancy.
Although she was vegan before that, she felt she was lacking energy. "So many people get to 30 and their bodies ache, they feel lost, depressed and they wonder why," says Shazzie. "The difference in my physical, emotional and spiritual state before and since eating raw is like looking at black and white."
Eating raw food can benefit everyone, but every individual's needs are different.
"Pregnant and breastfeeding women need lots of long chain fatty acids, abundant in algae for the development of the baby's brain. People who train hard need lots of sustainable energy, so foods such as maca, mesquite powder and hemp protein powder are great."
"Growing children need good calories, good protein and good fat, so fruit, greens and fats such as avocados, olives and durian are great. Teenagers and anyone going through hormonal shifts need balancing foods such as maca, hemp and algae. But the basics remain quite similar - most of your diet should be green."
"Greens provide all the right nutrients in all the right proportions when we get enough. This is why I stress that green juicing is so important to all people. It works miracles with health and wellbeing."
"When people start eating raw, many eat too much fruit, they don't get enough greens and they don't do enough cleanses. I think herbal cleanses, flushes, colonics and fasts are really important when going raw. There's a lot of gunk in there, and it has to come out or stagnate. We should aim to clean out the colon so we can absorb all that nutrient dense raw food, otherwise most of it will go to waste!"
"I'm glad in so many ways that I live where food is of great quality and is abundant," continues Shazzie. "I can just go into my garden and pick a day's worth of greens for juicing and salads. If you live in an area where foods aren't of the best quality, it's probably best to try to grow your own from a good seed source. Once you've done it, you can gather the seeds for future years. There will be some food you can grow, and when you grow it with your own energy, then you really tap into something powerful and beautiful."
And what raw foods are top of Shazzie's priority list?
"Raw chocolate is my number one superfood! Chocolate has the capacity to open up parts of people's consciousness that have been closed down. It's essential that we get as many people into raw chocolate to tip the point of humanity. It's been brought to us at the perfect time and I feel so honoured to have been blessed with the ability to spread this information."
Chocolate can improve our lives and raise consciousness…?
"It works on so many levels," says Shazzie. "As many yoginis know, Ananda is Sanskrit for bliss. This is often viewed as being the highest state for us, and the state we're in when we're totally cosmically connected. Chocolate contains anandamide, known as the bliss chemical. "
"Chocolate is also high in magnesium - this is known as the heart mineral. So chocolate is great for the heart! A box of chocolate is the best therapy ever for heart wounds. Unfortunately most of the chocolate available in shops is not real chocolate. In the UK, for instance, the law states that a chocolate bar must contain sugar, and white chocolate must contain dairy! Chocolate is so prolific in our society that everyone knows it, yet they don't all know it in the form that will really set them free."
"Goji berries would be my other hot superfood, simply because you can just grab them and go! They are China's number one tonic because they help so many people. They take goji tea like Brits take asprin. I know which one I'd rather have!"
Maca is another great superfood, according to Shazzie. It's a root from Peru known as Amazonian ginseng. Although it's not actually related to ginseng it has similar effects. It is high in minerals, enzymes and all the essential amino acids. It's an adaptogen so it "adapts" to your body's metabolism, working to repair and rejuvenate your body. It's also a natural aphrodisiac and excellent for people suffering from menopause, osteoporosis, chronic fatigue syndrome, depression and menstrual difficulties.
Though Cacao, Maca and Goji have been used globally for centuries, I learn from Shazzie that they are all on the 'novel' foods list. This list flagmarks anything that hasn't been tried and tested in the EU before 1997 (!) making me wonder isn't it time we updated...isn't it time to bring on the raw food revolution?
Shazzie is writing a new book Ecstatic Beings and a recipe book based on the foods she fed her little girl Evie from seven months onwards. For more information check out www.detoxyourworld.com.