Thoughts on Raw Food Lifestyle and Eating Raw

A raw food lifestyle – the consumption of only or mainly raw foods and its corresponding health effects – is an issue which has been gaining prominence.

A raw foodist consumes mainly a diet of raw food, i.e. food which is neither processed nor cooked; usually, this would form at least three-quarters of his overall diet. The stricter a raw diet is, the higher the proportion of raw foods it must contain; correspondingly, it is believed that this increases the health benefits of such a diet.

Communities of raw foodists exist today, much in the same way that vegetarian groups, for example, share their common diet choice.

They believe that going on a raw food diet not only promotes good health, but also helps in weight loss, disease prevention, and even the curing of many dangerous illnesses, including diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

Some proponents of the raw food lifestyle have stood up and stated that a diet containing only raw fruits and vegetables is the ideal human diet. Besides these foods, other raw foods include nuts, seeds, sprouts and juices.

So, then, does a raw food lifestyle – eating a raw food diet – make sense?

Raw in the jungle

When I ponder such issues, I like to take a look at nature, and see how things are done out there, so-to-speak.

Taking a look at the wild, one thing is quite obvious – we human beings are the only animals which actually cook our food. All other animals consume their food – whether plants or other organisms – in its natural and so-called ‘raw’ form.

What is interesting here is that, animals in the wild which undertake a largely natural and raw food lifestyle generally do not get serious degenerative conditions like cancer and kidney disease.

On the other hand, humans eat cooked food and suffer from widespread chronic diseases, almost of epidemic proportions.

Further, animals which humans look after – domesticated pets as well as animals which live in zoos, which also eat the processed and cooked foods that humans eat, do get cancer and other degenerative diseases.

These are clues we could use, aren’t they?

Man’s history of raw and cooked food

Looking at historical documentation, it is very much unclear exactly when Man started to use fire to cook his food. Some put it at thousands of years ago; some say it was much, much longer ago. Available evidence has largely been inconclusive.

In any case, perhaps that is not totally relevant. What we do know is that humans used to undertake a raw food lifestyle sometime ago. And that, because of the change in our eating habits, our bodies have had to slowly adapt to eating cooked foods. How far along are we in that process? That is arguable.

Some say that the human body has in fact already evolved and adapted to eating cooked foods, explaining why our jaws, teeth and stomach have become smaller, and our intestines have grown longer in order to increase the surface area available for absorbing digested nutrients.

In my view, it is quite clear that our bodies find it a lot harder to digest cooked foods than raw food. Tests have been carried out to measure the body’s response after eating, and our bodies trigger a immune response which suggests that they don’t like cooked food very much. The main reason is probably the lack or practical absence of enzymes in cooked foods; heat destroys the enzymes found in raw plant foods.

Disadvantages of going all raw

The advantages of eating raw food, in particular its health benefits, are quite undeniable.

However, having said that, I do wonder about if the nutrition from a wholly raw food diet is suitable for everyone. I personally see a couple of negative points of a fully raw diet.

Firstly, I do feel that a raw diet seems to lack ‘heat units’, especially for those whose bodies are of colder constitutions, or who live in cooler regions.

Also, I have my doubts as to whether totally eating raw food can satisfy the body, not just nutritionally, but from the perspective of keeping the taste buds happy.

Personally, while I have been able to consume a diet of organic and vegetarian foods and be ‘tastefully’ satisfied, I did struggle a little with eating only raw foods. Click here to read more about the challenges of eating raw food diets, as well as some tips to deal with them.

Conclusion

Oh yes, just to clarify, when I talk about raw foods, I’m referring to raw plant foods; oysters and sashimi don’t count!

Here’s my take on this issue. Raw foods come with many benefits. Yet, the deal with most of us today is that we consume diets which are almost fully cooked.

However, a raw food lifestyle containing only raw foods is probably too difficult for most of us to take.

My suggestion? Let’s all try to eat more raw foods! Raw fruits, raw carrots, raw lettuce, raw cucumbers, freshly squeezed juices, raw sprouts, raw seeds, raw nuts, raw tomatoes – you get the drift!

That way, we can reap the health benefits of raw food consumption, without feeling as if we are depriving our taste buds horribly.