Product Description

The Live Food Factor is the first comprehensive guide to not only the raw food diet, but also the raw food movement itself. This diet is sweeping America as people discover its power to not only make a body lean, but also keep disease at bay and bolster the immune system to heal from what are typically considered "incurable" diseases. Everyone who eats should read this book!

This 520-page book contains four sections. Section one entails the benefits of raw and includes a chapter that details ten good reasons to stop cooking, as well as 17 personal testimonials. Section two has the science and includes not only why raw food helps the body heal (as Hippocrates said, "Let food be thy medicine") but also over 50 published studies demonstrating the superiority of an uncooked diet, and in many cases, the toxicity of a cooked one. This is a book that can be presented to the most skeptic of all. Section three informs the reader of the history and modern day leaders of the raw food movement. Section four is a complete "how-to" manual. It tells you how to go raw and what to expect. It also includes 13 common pitfalls of beginning raw fooders as well as discussion of 16 controversial nutritional issues and answers 27 of the most frequently asked questions. In Chapter 15 there are also over 60 raw recipes: gourmet dishes such as raw desserts, entrees, soups, etc. The appendices document how the food and drug companies keep us ignorant of true health. It also summarizes radical branches of the raw food movement (such as the raw meat eaters). In the back of the book is a useful resource section for raw gourmet foods, kitchen devices, raw restaurants, and doctors/healing centers familiar with the program.

This book won first place in the Independent Publisher's Awards (IPPY) as "The Most Progressive Health Book of the Year

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #314195 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 548 pages

Review
"This 620-page tome, arguably the most comprehensive book ever written on the raw diet and lifestyle, is surely destined to become a classic." --Get Fresh! Magazine (from England)


The Live Food Factor is destined to become a classic. This bookrepresents the most comprehensive study of the raw food diet and theraw food movement ever put on paper. When I received the manuscript, I simply couldn't put it down and read the book in two days. In my classes, people have asked me over the years, Where is the scientific research backing up the raw food diet? I'm thrilled that now we have The Live Food Factor, which contains data that is thoroughly backed upwith a list of over 60 scientific studies. I am a raw food teacher, writer, and researcher myself. I have taught hundreds of workshopsabout this subject for many years, and I have learned a great deal from Susan Schenck's book. I highly recommend this book to all readers interested in improving their health.
--Victoria Boutenko, raw food author and educator


The Live Food Factor is the very best book on alternative health care ever done. It contains more research on the benefits of raw foods as well as the dangers of cooked foods ever amassed in one place.
--Dr. Vivian V. Vetrano, DC, hMD, PhD, DSci


This is one of the most thoroughly researched books on nutrition. This book is easy to read.
--Dr.Jeannette Vos, co-author of The Learning Revolution 2.0

I can't imagine any better gift to yourself than this book, along with a commitment to read it and apply its wisdom to your life, even if that means only increasing the percentage of raw food in your daily diet. ----Chiwah, The Light Connection

About the Author
Susan Schenck is a licensed acupuncturist (LAc) with a master of traditional Oriental medicine (MTOM) degree from Pacific College of Oriental Medicine. She also has a BS in education and MS in applied linguistics from Indiana University. She has taught all levels of education and is currently an avid health writer and educator. She has read hundreds of books on nutrition, and is fully convinced that what you eat is the most important factor in health. Extensive world travels broadened her mind to novel ideas.

Customer Reviews

"Live Food Factor" Gets It Right
Occasionally someone comes along and just plain gets it right in a field of study, and Susan Schenck does just that. Her new book, "The Live Food Factor" is a work that intelligently makes a multi-layered subject understandable for the neophyte while addressing the complexities that arise for those already initiated.

I have been involved with raw foods and Natural Hygiene for nearly twenty years and having been exposed to almost every significant work on the subject, I'll say that Ms. Schenck has produced something that I've wished to see for a long time: a single-volume, easy to read book about raw foods that I can confidently recommend to others and not have to personally explain the many caveats about the subject. Ms. Schenck identifies and explains them for us right in the book.

Like any study, "raw foodism" spawns diverse schools of thought, and "The Live Food Factor" satisfactorily deals with nearly all of them. Without the somewhat off-putting "absolute tone" that other raw food works occasionally assume, Susan Schenck even-handedly discusses arguments and counter-arguments about various doctrines within the field. She includes chapters on the history of the movement and the pioneers and leaders that brought it to where it is today.

The book also contains informative testimonials by raw food users, complete with before-and-after pictures that should provide inspiration for any reader. Add to this a question and answer chapter, a recipe section, sample menus, five appendices, a massive bibliography, lists of raw food restaurants, lots of raw food resources, and a very useful index, plus much more.

Although the book is very comprehensive regarding foods and their impact on health, it only touches upon other areas of Natural Hygiene like rest, fresh air, and exercise. However, these are studies unto themselves and beg to be sequels to "The Live Food Factor." I would hope that Ms. Schenck writes them, particularly if they are as well done as this first book

In summary, "The Live Food Factor" is a very informative one-volume course on the raw food lifestyle. As much as I've managed to learn on the subject over the years, this book still held for me new bits of information on nearly every page. It is well formatted and written in a good, readable style (thanks to the editing skills of Bob Avery, himself a leading exponent of raw foods). In my opinion, the book could be used as a text for anyone learning or teaching the raw food lifestyle for personal fitness or at spas, retreats, resorts, health clinics, etc., and I highly recommend it for such.

Giles Fischer
gcfischer@earthlink.net

Currently the best book on food:
"The Live Food Factor" is currently the best book of introduction to the nutritional concepts of Natural Hygiene, which I've concluded, after 35 years of study and 16 years of practice, is likely the only path to optimal health for living things, at least on this planet.

Everything that Giles Fischer has written about the book is accurate, so I will not re-state it.

If "The Live Food Factor" were available 35 years ago, it could have saved me decades of searching. The search for optimal wellness has been my full-time profession & avocation since about 1971 and at least a decade of that time was spent in unlearning the mis-information I was taught in medical/dental and other government-controlled schools.

This is THE book with which to introduce new friends to the relationship 'twixt food intake and health. It's worth buying the book just for the multitude of other sources of information. Even after years of reading every book I could find on Natural Hygiene and related subjects, I finished this book with 37 folded-over pages for future action and a couple hundred pages with margin notes, underlined & highlighted nuggets of intelligent information. Susan has done the most exhaustive research on all aspects of health related to food and integrated it into this one well-written book.

"The Live Food Factor" is the definitive nutrition portion of the Owner's Manual that each of should have received when we were issued our bodies. It is strongly recommended for anyone who cares to experience the rewards of taking responsibility for one's own health & life.

--Robert E. Wynman, DDS
[...]

Well-Researched and Comprehensive
I've been raw for a little over a year now and have spent this time reading all I could get my hands on about the raw food diet and lifestyle. This book is the most comprehensive I have found. Susan not only gives us the intuitive reinforcement and varied testimonials we need to keep us motivated, she also includes study after study proving that this diet improves and maintains health. It's this emphasis on research (not to mention a great orange-tahini sauce recipe!) that keeps me coming back to the book time and again.

"Going raw" isn't always easy, particularly when society's norms run counter to your choice, as it often does outside of certain circles in New York or California. I've used Susan's book to comfort worried relatives, give intelligently written information to curious acquaintances, and (most importantly) to remind myself that this truly is a wise choice, despite others' worries. Incidentally, while many of the raw food books I love are written by young people, it feels comforting, somehow, to read one by someone over 50. Some of the testimonials are about older people, as well. It rounds out the picture of the "typical" raw foodist.

This is one of those large, chock-full-of-information books that I didn't want to see end. I find myself wanting to read more books by this author on the topic, because I know she will research whatever she studies thoroughly and present the findings honestly.

There are times when I want propoganda-type books, and there are times when I want solid science. This book offers a little of the former, and a great deal of the latter, plus recipes and great tips. It has become the one book I lend to people considering going raw. I'm going to have to order more copies, because no one ever seems to want to return it!

Thank you for offering us such a comprehensive book, Susan! Keep writing!