By now you have heard of the raw food movement. There are restaurants and cooking shows and references to it on popular TV shows. Obviously it is quite difficult for most to maintain it, but have you ever wondered how beneficial it really is?
On one level, the raw diet has much going for it. Hardly anyone on this diet is overweight. With mostly fresh vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds and sprouted beans, the diet is low in empty calories and high in nutrients. Like many alternative diets, the raw food diet is grounded on a few solid principles. Western Americans eat too much processed food, and fresh, minimally prepared food is more nutritious. Blackened food, that delicious charbroiled taste, can cause cancer in the long run. Some followers believe that a raw food diet enhances your body’s ability to prevent and fight all diseases, especially chronic diseases, and it has high-profile adherents, such as Apple CEO Steve Jobs, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and adopted the lifestyle until his passing. People also tout more energy, as raw can be easier on the digestive system than cooked food. And the higher nutrients and lower waste means your organs such as liver and kidneys will function at a higher level, making way for clearer skin, better sleep, and elevated mood.
But on closer examination, the raw diet makes little sense biologically.
A primary claim among raw food advocates is that the raw diet is a “natural” diet. After all, no other animal cooks its food, and humans only started cooking after the domestication of fire. But “natural” is always a dangerous word. Humans have evolved to eat and survive on a wide range of diets. The Inuit have survived thousands of years almost entirely on a diet of raw fish and meat. Some cultures, conveniently in regions of prolonged growing seasons, shun all meat as unnatural and immoral.
That said, humans have always eaten some cooked food. So, too, do many land animals, and so did our human ancestors. How? Largely in the form of roasted grasshoppers or other small critters caught in forest fires and brushfires. Fire foraging was quite natural and helped secure our survival. This is how we developed the taste for cooked food.
Another main claim by raw food advocates is that heat from cooking destroys enzymes in the food. Enzymes are proteins that serve as catalysts for specific biochemical reactions in the body. There are indeed many forms of enzymes. There are plant enzymes, digestive enzymes, and metabolic enzymes. And, yes, heat can destroy enzymes. But plant enzymes, which raw dieters wish to preserve, are largely mashed up with other proteins and rendered useless by acids in the stomach. Not cooking them doesn’t save them from this fate. But more importantly, the plant enzymes were for the plants. They helped with the plants’ growth, and they are responsible for the wilting and decomposition of plants after they are harvested. They are not necessarily needed for human digestion. Human digestive enzymes are used for human digestion.
All raw foods certainly aren’t safer than cooked food, as some claim. Most commercial chicken and a good deal of beef and pork, sadly, are loaded with bacteria and parasites (try to stick to local farm produced.) Cooking kills this, unless the meat is rancid. Major and surprising sources of food-borne illness, however, are raw sprouts, green onions and lettuce. These must be washed thoroughly before consumption. Raw (unpasteurized) milk can be dangerous and most is illegal to buy (trust your source.) Raw (sprouted) kidney beans and rhubarb are poisonous. Bacteria is always present and no specific method of ingestion will save you from that. Nor would you want it to, considering some bacteria is absolutely necessary for your health and assimilation of nutrients. See probiotics.
Despite major flaws in the raw diet philosophy, one needs to question why a so-called natural diet leaves the dieter dependent on pills for B12 (impossible to get without animal products, such as meat or eggs) or zinc (very hard to get on a raw diet). Some nutrients, like lycopene in tomatoes and carotene in carrots, are actually better absorbed after they’ve been cooked. You may be getting an abundance of certain nutrients, but sorely lacking in others. While yes, you can certainly supplement with multi-vitamins, it certainly leaves a question mark shaped hole in this particular lifestyle choice.
So the ideal diet would seem to be somewhere in the middle. Not cooking all of our food within an inch of its life, but not resorting to eliminating all cooked foods completely either. High nutrient, low waste, healthy and delicious food. And this can be achieved with minimal effort, education, planning, and experience.
There is a lot of conflicting information out there regarding this diet and we understand that. If anyone has any questions about the philosophy, the theory, the restrictions, and the pros and cons, feel free to ask us. It’s what we are here for. We want you to live a healthy pain-free life. Not a restricted and baffled one.