Why Must My Food Be Activated?

Have you ever taken a look at your non-activated breakfast and thought, "Breakfast, you are just far too inert for my physical and spiritual wellbeing?" This breakfast may be be beautiful, balanced, chock-a-block with nutritionally significant ingredients, and quite possibly even mind-bogglingly delicious. But it's probably just laying there, like plain old typical lazy food, and that's just not good enough for you. Not when you know the food could be activated. For years—decades, even—you settled for sluggish, sedentary breakfasts that you had no idea could be optimized in any way. Awake, and take charge of your breakfast. Activate your food and seize its power for yourself.

Or don't. The whole idea of activating food is ancient, but talk of the positive health effects of consuming these foods—while currently trendy as all get out—may be a bit breathless. The basic premise is that developing nuts and seeds store their energy and nutrients as phytic acid, and that's what it uses as fuel during periods of rapid growth, such as germination. But as you may have noticed, the nuts you buy from the store aren't suddenly bursting to life. You're not going to come home, open your cupboard, and suddenly find yourself living in a pecan grove or a pumpkin patch.

Enzyme inhibitors stave that off, but along with phytic acid, they're not super compatible with the human digestive system which doesn't receive the full payload of nutrients. That's why some folks swear by soaking their nuts. Or, rather, activating them. The nuts and seeds are covered in filtered water for several hours, depending on the kind, then roasted at a low temperature until they are dehydrated, so as to stave off potential mold growth. (The Aztecs were reportedly fond of this as a storage method.) The net effect supposedly is a food that's much easier for the mortal body to benefit from, because there's no barrier to nutrient absorption.

You might see activated charcoal gothing up the drinks in your Instagram feed. It's also called coconut ash or activated carbon and like activated nuts and seeds, it's been around for a while. If you or your pet ever swallowed a potential toxin and made a mad dash to the ER, this is the black powder they gave you or your poor little muffin. It's called activated because it's been heated up to make it porous and dramatically expand its surface area. This substance adsorbs or binds poison and helps keep it from entering the body's systems. Thing is, it also nabs non-poisonous nutrients as well, so while it's awfully pretty in a smoothie, it prevents the good stuff from getting in, too.

So sure, soak your nuts and gobble down your Dracula shakes if it makes you happy. Or just keep loving your lazy food. That's fine, too.