Is raw foodism justified?

Sapsorrow

Right hopefully this will turn into an interesting thread (think we need one at this stage ).
As far as I know from studying physiology we do not use the enzymes inherant to the plant species to digest are food for us, we use our own endogenous enzymes so what's the big deal with eating everything or as much as possible raw when certain nutrients are made more accessible by the cooking process?
Is this diet-style inherantly contradictory in nature in that while it purports that eating the majority of your food raw allows for greater utilisation of the nutrients present in the food plenty of them are more accessible following the cooking process?

El_Dangeroso

Interesting question!

My two cents is that for what enzymes etc we lose with light cooking of vegetables, we gain more nutrients through destroying cell walls through heat. For example 90% of the phytonutrients in tomatoes are unavailable unless cooked, the protein in egg whites is indigestible raw and starchy tubers are entirely inedible in any form unless raw. I'd say cooking gave us some sort of nutritional advantage otherwise why would we keep doing it over a million years?

Having IBS I can't even look at too much raw veg, it will give me a bad stomach ache. Which is such a pity as I love raw carrot and raw turnip is a personal favourite (try it! it tastes nothing like cooked turnip which is horrible IMO).

Edited to add: Just read what you wrote about the enzymes being useless anyway, that'll teach me to speed read!

I've seen a few people do raw only, their eyes do shine and their skin glows and they say they feel fantastic, for the first few weeks anyway. I think the reason people feel so great on raw food, and is that a raw food diet will automatically eliminate wheat, refined sugar and industrial vegetable oils. I bet if they ate the exact same range of foods but cooked, they'd feel even better.

Sapsorrow

Intersting about the tomatos never knew about that! Carrot and beta carotene's the classic example isn't it!
One of my things about the raw food which doesn't make sense to me is that the food is more digestible raw, whereas anyone with a weak stomach (I have IBS too and salads are my enemy) often reacts quite badly to even moderate amounts of raw food in their diets. When I gave up having my smoothies for breakfast and salads for lunch and switched to porridge and soups etc my IBS improved drastically!
I've also read that people on prolonged raw food diets are prone to fungal infections and a few other ailments.
What about protein, Is the assimilation of protein compromised in a totally raw diet? What about meat, better rare/raw or cooked?
How big an issue is bone health on a raw food diet, it must be hard to eat enough calcium to compensate for all the raw greens (if a person eats them) with the food groups being so limited. Are sprouted grains and beans appropriate for use?
Has to be some raw foodists here to bring out of the woodwork!

El_Dangeroso

Very interesting about fungal infection, perhaps an indication of a nutrient deficiency that affects innate immunity?

Calcium intake definitely an issue. Even if you were eating a lot of spinach you couldn't absorb enough.

Re: Meat, I would always at least flash fry the outside to get rid of any pathogens but other than that, rarer the better (excluding chicken and pork of course). Beef carpaccio and sashimi are personal favourites, don't think I could risk making them myself though. Overcooked proteins are bad news which is unfortunate as the Irish seem to like their steaks well done.

I'm currently saving up for a sous-vide machine which cooks meat to a precise temperature really slowly thus excluding the possibility of the meat being overcooked.

Sapsorrow

Isn't calcium important for immunity? Ya I'd like to know more about the fungal thing alright, a lot of people start out great on the raw but after a few years it's too weakening for a lot of people (from those few people I've known doing it) and they can get quite run down.
I would have thought protein would be a fairly serious issue, it would be very hard to get the full spectrum of amino acids if you weren't able to consume grains and beans as a vegan (I know they can eat them sprouted but how many sprouted chickpeas could anyone handle?) esp when you take into account accessibility of proteins when the food matric is pretty much completely unadulterated.
Is there any argument for it from an anthro perspective?

brianthebard

I know you're looking for a detailed answer but tbh I just see raw foodism as poor anthropology let loose amongst the 'alternative' public.

El_Dangeroso

khrystyna100 wrote: »

Is there any argument for it from an anthro perspective?

Nope, the oldest generally-accepted evidence for controlled use of fire for cooking by humans dates to around 700,000-800,000 years ago and is from the site of Gesher Benot Yaacov in Israel, which is more than enough time to adapt. Couple that with the fact that there is not one raw-food traditional culture on the planet. There must be a significant survival advantage to cooking food.

Just checked up on the calcium-immune system link. That's so interesting! Makes perfect sense in a way given vitamin D's effect on immunity and the relationship between D and calcium utilisation.