About Raw Food

Raw food is awesome and delicious. There’s a lot of information about why it is so great, so I’ve split this page into four parts:
1. a general introduction to raw food,
2. a list of problems associated with cooked foods,
3. a list of benefits associated with eating raw foods, and
4. a review of the raw diet in a historical context.

1. INTRO TO RAW FOOD

Vegan raw food diet is a pure vegetarian diet of fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds, in which no food is heated above 118º F. 118º F is significant because that’s the temperature at which the whole live enzymes and nutrients in the food start to break down and be destroyed. Most raw foodists try to buy organic food whenever possible to avoid ingesting the chemical pesticides and fertilizers found in mainstream produce.

It was initially difficult for me to accept the idea that cooking food wasn’t ideal. After all, a typical American meal is usually 99% cooked food and that’s what I’d been eating all my life. However, after reading a lot of research on the subject and the history of the human diet, I learned that cooked food is not ideal. Cooking food kills the enzymes, amino-acids, vitamins, and minerals that are alive in uncooked food. It also destroys antioxidants and creates carcinogens. Also, our bodies have to work harder to digest cooked food — that is, if you eat a baked apple right now, your body has to work harder to digest that apple than if it was eaten raw. All of this weakens our organs, immune system, and respiratory system, making us more susceptible to disease. On the other hand, raw food contains intact, living substances that nourish our bodies. Raw food strengthens our body’s immune system, assists our digestion, gives us energy, and helps us live to our physical potential. In short, cooked food weakens the human body and contributes to disease, while raw food strengthens the body and helps maintain health.

If we eat our foods raw, with the living substances in them that strengthen our body, then we are much less likely to suffer from the illnesses that have, unfortunately, become “normal” in our society. These illnesses would include: the common cold; the flu; allergies; heart disease; cholesterol and blood pressure problems; digestive disorders; head and body aches; hormone and endocrine system problems; thyroid conditions; asthma; chronic fatigue; celiac disease; fertility issues; nutritional deficiencies; skin problems; sleep disorders; obesity; organ failure; cancer; arthritis; osteoporosis; ear, nose, and throat infections; mononucleosis; strep throat; viruses; pneumonia; diabetes; and other illnesses.

It is certainly true that we can stay alive without ever eating a raw piece of food; our bodies are amazingly adaptive and can live off poor nutrition for a long time. This is why humans can live while eating diets lacking in digestible nutrition and laced with chemicals and other toxins… but surgery, chronic disease, strong medication, fatigue, and other illnesses become a “normal” part of this life. Raw foodists such as myself think that illness is NOT the normal state of our bodies; health is our natural state, but to maintain excellent health we need to eat the pure and whole nutrition in uncooked foods. (And no, fortifying cooked and processed food with artifically-produced vitamins is NOT an equal substitute for the live enzymes and nutrients available in raw foods.) The body needs living nutrients — whole vitamins, minerals, enzymes, amino acids, essential fats, phytonutrients, antioxidants, bioflavonoids, and plant hormones — to function at peak capacity, and these can only be found intact and ready for assimilation by the body in living raw foods.

2. PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH EATING COOKED FOOD

Cooked food creates toxins
When foods are heated, their molecular structure is altered, and free radicals form. Free radicals are really bad; they cause cell damage, primarily to a cell’s mitochrondrial DNA. Extensive DNA damage disrupts all levels of cell function, and ages organs and tissues faster. Free radicals have been linked to strokes, arthritis, heart disease, brain damage, cancer, and other conditions. (Luckily, antioxidants, which can be found in abundance in living foods, fight free radicals.)

Additionally, cooking creates toxins called acrylamides. Acrylamides, which have been linked to cancer development, are formed by frying, baking, roasting, grilling, or barbequeing foods like bread, coffee, meat, and potatoes. A raw potato does not have acrylamides; a cooked potato does. Scientists have known about this chemical reaction for years, but only recently did further studies garner international attention (see the UK Daily Telegraph 2007 article).

Cooking foods changes the chemical structure of the food itself, making nutrients less beneficial for the body
- Cooking causes minerals to lose their live organic form and, instead, they return to their inorganic state as they occur in soil, sea water, and rocks. In this form, they are unusable, and combine with saturated fats and cholesterol, which clogs up the circulatory system with hard plaque.

- Cooking also destroys amino acids, which are required by our bodies to make protein. This process also results in the generation of mutagens. Even though most contemporary dietitians stress the importance of ingesting protein, it’s tragic to think that most of the amino acids in food — which are required to synthesize protein — are actually being destroyed before getting digested.

- Cooking destroys naturally-occurring antioxidants. Antioxidants are required to fight disease; they’re commonly known to combat carcinogens.

- Cooking alters foods’ naturally-occurring enzymes. Above 118º F, the structures of enzymes (which are proteins) change, and they no longer can do what they are supposed to do, which is to help us digest our food. Then, our bodies are required to use our own metabolic enzymes to aid digestion, which over time overworks the digestive system, pancreas, and other organs. All of this decreases the body’s ability to eliminate toxins efficiently and even fosters the growth of harmful bacteria in the intestines. This creates an ideal environment for parasites, harmful yeasts (such as the prevalent candida), and the development of chronic illness in general.

Eating cooked foods creates mucus
As an immune response to the toxins ingested in cooked food, the human body expels some of the toxins through the creation of mucus. Excessive mucus and congestion is directly related to ear, nose, and throat infections, colds, flus, lung problems, and other related illnesses. This is why long-term raw foodists generally report suffering from NO infections, colds and flus, even during peak flu seasons.

A human immune system reacts to cooked meals in the same way that it reacts to disease
After a person eats cooked food, their body immediately increases the amount of white blood cells in the blood. This is a stress response — the same response that a body has when reacting to something harmful such as infection, toxic chemicals, or trauma. In the medical field this is called “digestive leukocytosis.” This reaction occurs when a person eats ANY cooked food, although it is most extreme when a person eats food that is refined (white flour, white rice, white sugar), pasteurized or homogenized (milk and dairy), or preserved. This stress response does not occur at all when a person eats raw food.

3. BENEFITS OF EATING RAW FOOD

Raw foods help maintain an ideal alkaline/acid balance in the body
Nearly all raw foods are alkaline-forming, and maintaining an ideal alkaline/acid balance in your body is important to your digestion and overall health. Many researchers believe that eating alkaline-forming foods can help the body fight cancer cell growth since cancer cells can only survive in low-oxygen (acidic) conditions. (This connection between acidity and cancer was discovered way back in 1931 by a scientist named Otto Warburg, who won the Nobel Prize for this research.) For more info, here is an acid/alkaline food chart.

Raw foods are appropriate for our herbivore bodies
Our bodies, particularly our digestive functions, are built to function more efficiently on plant foods. Specifically, our teeth, saliva, stomach acidity, stomach capacity, jaw structure, intestines, colon, liver, and kidneys are all similar to herbivores and dissimilar to that of carnivores and omnivores. Here is an interesting article and grid with more detailed info.

Raw food is easily digested
Raw food passes through the digestive tract in a half or third of the time as is required for cooked food. The large amount of energy required to digest cooked food is one reason that people get so tired or sleepy after eating a “regular” meal.

A long-term raw food diet increases quality of life
Raw foodists typically experience improvements in their physical and mental being. This can include having more day-to-day energy, stronger health, better digestion, less body aches and pains, and a more effective immune system. Weight loss or weight gain, to help a person naturally reach his or her ideal weight, is another typical response.

Raw food helps the body to detox
Raw foodists generally experience a period of detoxification in which the body eliminates excess toxins that have built up over years. This can be an unpleasant process since it may involve periods of weakness, irritability, digestive changes, body aches, and other symptoms. However, the end result is a healthier body with a stronger immune system.

4. RAW FOOD AND A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN DIET
For centuries, fresh fruits and vegetables played a big role in most cultures’ typical diets. Nearly all food was local and all of it was organic, and although veggies were used in cooked recipes, a significant portion of each family’s fruits and veggies were eaten “as is” straight from the farm or garden. Today’s mainstream diet in the United States, on the other hand, relies heavily on highly refined and processed foods, and our food supply is now tainted with all kinds of chemicals that our ancestors never had to worry about.

Here are some changes in food production that have happened in the past 100 years or so, most of which involve additional processing/refining and the use of chemicals or biologics in stock or crops, and ALL of which can have significant health consequences:

- The manufacture of packaged foods began during the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century

- Our fruit and vegetable supply shifted from local farms to profit-based commercial agriculture gradually during the past century

- Betty Crocker/General Mills cake mixes became popular in the 1940s, heralding the future popularity of processed, packaged meals and desserts

- Chemical pesticides started being used on crops after WWII

- The term “fast food” was first recognized by Merriam-Webster dictionary in 1951

- The first TV dinner was sold in 1953

- The use of antibiotics in meat production started about 45 years ago

- In 1993, dairy cattle in the USA started receiving the protein hormone rbGH to increase milk production

- In the mid-90s, the meat and diary industry started using steroid hormones in meat production, including estradiol, progesterone and testosterone

In addition to the changes in food production, there have also been environmental changes that have decreased the quality of available food. For example, minerals in cropland have been decreasing since the beginning of the 20th century so that fruits and vegetables are less nutritious than they used to be, both tap AND bottled water have all kinds of horrible chemicals in them and are more acidic than just 20 years ago, and crops live in polluted soil and breathe polluted air.

Although these changes have been quite recent in the history of humankind, most of society considers them to be traditional, normal, and safe. But at the same time, society’s health has become steadily worse! Over the past 100 years in the United States:

- Cancer is becoming more prevalent: lymphoma cases themselves increased by 73% from 1973 to 1991 (and skin and lung cancers are increasing even more rapidly)

- Childhood cancer is increasing: the incidence of children diagnosed with any form of invasive cancer increased by 29% from 1975 to 2004

- Diabetes cases in the US population have increased from .01% to nearly 20% in the past 20 years

- Heart disease went from being almost non-existent in the early 20th century to killing more then 700,000 people a year, and heart attacks are occurring at younger and younger ages

- The incidence of asthma is increasing

- The incidence of ear infections and common colds in children is rising
(For references, see the end of this essay.)

In summary, as described on the cover of TIME Magazine (December 2008), “Despite advances in medicine Americans are less healthy than we used to be, and the next generation may be even worse off.” The diet of our grandparents, great-grandparents, and ancestors was a very different diet from today’s mainstream diet. Raw foodists think that society’s recent love affair with processed and cooked foods is a mistake, and is contributing to the declining health of society. Considering the condition of our food sources and the increasing incidence of disease, it seems more important than ever that people today eat as much raw, organic food as possible; eating a diet that includes living enzymes, antioxidants, and nutrients is one way to rebuild our health and prevent disease.

__________________
References for RAW FOOD AND A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN DIET:
- Nathan HM, Conrad SL, Held PJ, McCullough KP, Pietroski RE, Siminoff LA, Ojo AO, Organ Donation in the United States, Am J Transplant. 2003; 3 (Suppl. 4):29-40
- Thomas RM, The rising incidence of asthma, Asthma Magazine. 4.5 (1999), 6-8
- Lanphear BP, Byrd RS, Auinger P, Hall CB, Increasing Prevalence of Recurrent Otitis Media Among Children in the United States, Pediatrics. 99.3 (1997) e1
- Yamamoto H, Schoonjans K, Auwerz J, Sirtuin Functions in Health and Disease, Molecular Endocrinoloy 21.8 (2007): 1745-1755
- Larson R, Lymphoma, Leukemia Are on the Rise, Insight on the News. April 5, 1999
- “Health Experts Call For Heart Checkups for Kids.” Morning Edition. Patti Neighmond. NPR. 28 Dec 2009
- National Cancer Institute. “Childhood Cancers.” 10 Jan 2008