Talk:Raw foodism/Archive 2

This is an archive of past discussions about Raw foodism. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Vandalism Removal

Although disagreeing with the validity of such a diet I am sure that the word 'penis' does not belong half way down the section on it's own. As such I have gelded this article and removed it's penis. I couldn't be bothered to sign in to do it but thought I'd better announce it here in case somebody reverted my edit and brought the penis back. 194.223.81.88 (talk) 11:26, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Enzymes

I've done a little work on the criticism of enzymes section, listing the scientific objections a little more clearly and explaining why the enzyme theory goes against current knowledge of biochemistry. I've made the bold claim that there is no (good) evidence that exogenous plant enzymes can contribute to digestion in humans under normal conditions - I personally can't find anything in respectable journals, but maybe I'm just not looking hard enough, so if anybody has some evidence (not anecdotal) then feel free to list it.

I've also tidied up the strange claim about bromolain and superoxide dismutase, which appears to have been put in by somebody who didn't understand the scientific objection (of course these two enzymes can be absorbed ... after they're digested :-). Cheers!

--62.69.37.177 (talk) 19:35, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Some bad science, weak links, food religion

Many "good" links were removed from this page. I can put some back but why bother if someone else will just delete them?

The many refs to teeth and dentistry are astoundingly bad science here. The human oral structures are optimized for speech, and impacted by evolution driven by culture, tool use, and cooking. And yes, if desired I can back this up with cites to peer-reviewed research.

Raw foodism is effectively a "food religion" for its adherents. Pretty sad.

Research26 (talk) 20:33, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I added a counterpoint in the lead section to balance out the article a bit. Research26, if you have relevant sources, please put them back. I'll put this article on my watchlist. Thanks. --Phenylalanine (talk) 19:50, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

article name and terminology

'Tis odd rawism redirects here instead of vice-versa, and that the name here is used in the article. Rawism is more succinct, as 'Hindusim' is more succinct than 'Hindu religionism.' 'Rawism,' besides food, could apply to water that does not have ORME removed (ORME is also in food,) or air that has enough negative ions.Dchmelik (talk) 06:43, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Raw wiki

You are invited to help edit our raw wiki web site Raw.Wikia.com. Thanks for your consideration! User:Dandelion (talk|contribs) 23:55, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Supercharge Me

I've marked Supercharge Me as potentially needing to be deleted for non-notability. Maybe better off just merging it in to this article? Lot49a (talk) 23:12, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Re: Notability - Google search today yields approx. 11,000 results for "Supercharge Me!". Majority appear to be from independent sources.--Mem411 (talk) 13:35, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Logic absent

"Raw foods contain enzymes which aid digestion, meaning that the body's own enzymes may work unimpeded in regulating the body's metabolic processes, and heating food above 110-120 degrees Fahrenheit degrades or destroys these enzymes in food."

There is absolutely no logical link between the first part of that sentence and the part concerning body's own enzymes (putting "meaning" in there does not create one).
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.242.255.83 (talk) 08:06, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

I found that most of the anti-raw/pro-coooking info was presented as fact when, actually, even Wrangham has admitted that he still needs more evidence to support his claims re cooking being invented millions of years ago -plus, I thought it was also important to point out that Wrangham's views are not held by the majority of archaeologists/anthropologists, and that Wrangham is only a chimp behaviourist by degree/profession not an archaeologist. I therefore corrected it to make clear it's only a claim much like raw-foodism, and also added some much-needed links to support the pro-raw-foodist version re theory/evidence, as a counter-balance, in order to correct an obvious bias in the original Wikipedia article. Loki0115 (talk) 11:13, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, although the last user made changes days ago, his information is 5 years out of date. Evidence of ancient cooking has been found. Wrangham has published a new paper on the subject, based on this evidence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.126.85.108 (talk) 05:30, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

The previous poster has made a claim that my information was "5 years out of date" without providing a reference, but I presume he's referring to Wrangham's article "Cooking as a biological trait" which merely rehashes all of Wrangham's previous claims, again with no clear evidence re the advent of cooking(that is, archaeologists, even today, openly agree that no one can be sure when cooking was invented).Plus, again it should be noted that Wranghma is merely speculating about a field(palaeoanthropology) in which he is not a specialist in - he is, in fact, a chimp behaviourist by profession, judging from the CV that's easily found on Google.

Also, the previous poster has made the following statement which is completely illogical and entirely irrelevant to my previous main point (about how the decrease in brain-size by 8% in the Neolithic completely debunks Wrangham's claims that eating cooked starchy food such as tubers increases human brain-size)), namely:-"However, since the Neolithic era started too recently for any significant changes in human genetics, that argument seems to have little merit." I pointed out elsewhere in the article that Dr Weston-Price has shown that consuming cooked and processed food leads to long-term deterioration over the generations, with no reference to genetic changes at all. Besides, the whole point of Wrangham's argument is that an environmental effect(ie eating cooked-starches),NOT a genetic one, led to the formation of larger human brains, so, by the same token, the fact that a specific environmental, non-genetic effect(ie eating larger amounts of cooked-starches since the Neolithic) led to a decrease by 8% of the average human brain, means that Wrangham's ideas (linking cooked-starchy foods and higher intelligence)are debunked. I have therefore removed the relevant addendum, due to its irrelevance.Loki0115 (talk) 20:28, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

re my above statement. It should be noted that the new science of epigenetics has pointed out how a bad diet by one's parents can lead to health-problems/diseases in their offspring:- http://epigenome.eu/en/2,5,129

so this shows that genetic adaptation to foods is not the only aspect of diet.Loki0115 (talk) 21:32, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

"It has been pointed out as well that wild animals have very low incidences of malocclusion,[47], by comparison to humans. Since wild animals eat raw food, but humans eat mostly cooked, this might actually indicate that cooking food leads to poor dental health, rather than any evolutionary explanation."
Also, since wild animals are typically covered in fur, but humans are mostly not, this might actually indicate that being furrier leads to better dental health, right? Come on. I won't remove these sentences myself, as I have no way to remove this ridiculous "argument" without coming across as unbiased (and I _do_ think that actual scientific research, showing _both_ sides, is sorely needed in this section), but I recommend their removal by someone with a greater interest in this article than myself. 98.210.141.1 (talk) 19:22, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

The argument by the above poster is totally irrelevant to my previous points made on the wikipedia page:- after all wild animals are definitely not all "typically covered in fur" in the first place! I realise that he is trying to make fun of my previous point re all wild animals in general having much lower rates of malocclusion than humans, but the fact is that I have, unlike the previous poster, provided scientific references backing up this point completely, and I also noted that Weston-Price, a prominent nutritionist(and dentist), had directly linked the deterioration in dental health in the human population to the increased consumption of cooked and processed foods(and the increased avoidance of raw animal foods)- also backed up by a reference. So my point is a perfectly valid one to make, in light of Weston-Price's work. Rather than trying to remove my perfectly valid explanation of cooked-food leading to deterioration in human health, posters such as the above should simply add scientific references backing other possible explanations for the deterioration in human dental health, so as to be unbiased.Loki0115 (talk) 11:57, 20

July 2008 (UTC)

As regards the red herring provided by the other person re that fur-comment, I should mention that modern dentistry is perfectly well aware that the consumption of low-quality foods like sugar or refined/processed foods leads to poor dental health, so it's rather difficult to claim that poor dental health is not linked to diet to a very large extent. Also, I'd personally referred to Dr Weston-Price, the well-known nutritionist and dentist, who'd noted a significant deterioration in dental health among those native-tribes who'd abandoned traditional foods(which had included some raw animal foods).Loki0115 (talk) 12:50, 20 July 2008 (UTC)http://en.wikipedia.org/enwiki/w/index.php?title=Talk:Raw_foodism&action=edit&section=8

No, you've missed my point entirely. I was tired, however, when writing that, and so my cynicism may have covered the point which I believed was so obvious. I'll try to follow the civility guideline more closely here.

I'll put the original point I was making aside for a paragraph to point out that you haven't "provided scientific references backing up this point completely." Your reference in that paragraph leads to a secondary source with no link to the original. This is fine for Wikipedia -- but this is all observational research, something that the media in general misunderstands. Experimental research is needed to back up the sentence I poked fun at to begin with, which brings me to my original point. (I care about this particular point much more, so if you pick only one of these paragraphs to respond to, make it the next one, please.)

Regarding your "after all wild animals are definitely not all "typically covered in fur" in the first place!", of course they're not. I was afraid whoever read that would come back with that as a retort. I understand that poor dental health has been linked to modern diet, and if you notice, I made no claims to the contrary. But please, please understand the basic truth that correlation does not imply causation. It is responsible to say, for example, that "cooking food has been linked to poor dental health." It is irresponsible to assert, based on this, that "cooking food leads to poor dental health."

This is not a semantics war, and this is not nit-picking. It is a very real logical fallacy which is present in this article. 98.210.141.1 (talk) 17:56, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see, that's more reasonable. I'll see what I can do to change it to a more reasonable wordage Loki0115 (talk) 20:31, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

CLEAN UP

I'm going to remove all instances of original research (WP:Original research) and unreliable sources (WP:Reliable source) from this article. Many references will have to be removed. I'm open to discussing these matters if necessary. --Phenylalanine (talk) 03:10, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Please cite which parts of the Raw Foodism article you're concerned aboutLoki0115 (talk) 09:47, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Loki0115, please avoid using the word "claim" in the article (see WP:Words to avoid). Also, see WP:Lead: the intro is not supposed to be as detailed as the body of the article. One or two short sentences are sufficient to describe the controversy regarding the health effects of the diet in the lead. Also, read WP:NPOV. --Phenylalanine (talk) 11:07, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid I was copying the same style used by a previous poster who duplicated some text, so I did the same. I should mention that before I first added in various references, Wrangham's claims were (wrongly) represented as absolute fact, whereas his views are not held by most others in the field(see references). I'll see about shortening the intro.Loki0115 (talk) 13:23, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, why is the word "claim" wrong? I used it, as much of palaeoanthropology hasn't been proven to any real extent with many theories being just vague guesses based on inconclusive evidence. Therefore, using the word "claim" is a good way to refer to someone's views without misrepresenting them as fact(sorry, I'll read the guidelines - I'm new with all this). Also, the big problem for me is that someone(obviously biased) deliberately inserted info re Wrangham in the intro, whereas Wrangham should, IMO, be mentioned only in the Criticism section, not the Intro, as Wrangham is not relevant as regards describing the raw diet as such. That's why I felt I had to add the counter-points.Loki0115 (talk) 13:42, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

re the above:- Would it be OK if I removed the whole pro-Wrangham/anti-Wrangham comments from the Intro so that it's only in the criticism section? Just read the words not to use, and was surprised to find so many that are frowned upon()eg:- contend) - will have to be more careful in futureLoki0115 (talk) 13:50, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

No, "the lead serves both as an introduction to the article below and as a short, independent summary of the important aspects of the article's topic. The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview of the article. It should establish context, explain why the subject is interesting or notable, and summarize the most important points—including any notable controversies that may exist. The emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic according to reliable, published sources. While consideration should be given to creating interest in reading more of the article, the lead nonetheless must not "tease" the reader by hinting at—but not explaining—important facts that will appear later in the article. The lead should contain up to four paragraphs, should be carefully sourced as appropriate, and should be written in a clear, accessible style so as to invite a reading of the full article." (WP:Lead) --Phenylalanine (talk) 22:07, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough - Well, I've provided 2 sentences in the Intro, not 4. So that should be fine. I still heavily disagree re the idea of providing hostile viewpoints in the Intro as I view those as being more relevant to the Criticism section - Still , I've included the full data in the Criticism section.Loki0115(sorry, can't currently find the right symbols!) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Loki0115 (talk • contribs) 22:31, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

I removed unreliable references (WP:RS) from the diet table. To be notable, a diet must receive reliable media coverage, that means widely publicized newspapers, magazines, academic journals, etc., but NOT advertisement & personal websites. I will give the editors of the article ONE WEEK to find reliable sources to verify the notability of those diets. If after that period has elapsed, no reliable sources have been provided, I will delete the diets which I have tagged: the "Primal diet", "Raw Paleolithic Diet", "Wai diet" and "The Garden Diet" and the "Low-fat 80 10 10 diet".--Phenylalanine (talk) 22:53, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/6055506.stm Will this help? I'm new to Wikipedia but don't want to see the reliance and importance of raw animal foods that humans have historically depended on for health and nourishment dismissed from this resource.TreytonP (talk) 09:18, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

You need a source that specifically uses the names of the above dietary programs ("Raw paleolithic diet", "Primal diet", etc.). BUT, if you can find a source that specifically states that intuits are "raw foodists" and eat a "living foods diet", please include it. --Phenylalanine (talk) 09:38, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

The creator of the Primal Diet is Aajonus Vonderplanitz, who's been featured in various radio-interviews, and magazine articles. He and his Primal Diet have been mentioned by other people such as in the folliowing book(read excerpt:-)

http://meatalovestory.com/excerpt.html Y

A family following the raw-meat-heavy "Primal Diet" was the subject of an episode of the Reality TV-series Wifeswap on American Television:-

http://www.tv.com/wife-swap/haigwood-hess-webb/episode/977102/summary.html N

Here's an interview of Aajonus Vonderplanitz which appeared in the Natural Health M2M magazine:-

http://www.angelfire.com/ny2/bass/aajonus.html N

Here's reference to a radio-interview of Aajonus Vonderplanitz:-

http://www.modavox.com/news/june_0507a.asp N

). Aajonus Vonderplanitz has published two books already "We Want To Live" and "The Recipe for Living Without Disease", both available on www.amazon.com and elsewhere.

. Doug Graham of the 80/10/10 diet has published a book available on amazon.com , unsuprisingly called the "80/10/10" diet. Here's a youtube excerpt of a TV-interview of Doug Graham and his 80/10/10 raw diet, proving notability:-

http://youtube.com/watch?v=3AJ0TseveNI N

(I'll come back and provide further references but most of the above should easily be acceptable).Loki0115 (talk) 09:58, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Here's an online article mentioning the Raw, Palaeolithic Diet:- http://www.articlesbase.com/nutrition-articles/raw-food-diet-different-types-and-their-health-benefits-473578.html N

More articles referring to raw, palaeolithic diets. Here's a Washington Post article about the Nenets(a Siberian tribe) who eat a raw, palaeolithic diet(ie mostly raw meats, raw fish and raw berries):- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/13/AR2008051300583.html?sid=ST2008051302252 N

There's also a wikipedia entry for the "Inuit" which states(what can be found anywhere online) that their diet consisted of a high level of raw meats/raw organ-meats:- "In particular, he found that adequate vitamin C could be obtained from items in the Inuit's traditional diet of raw meat such as Ringed Seal liver and whale skin. While there was considerable skepticism when he reported these findings, they have been borne out in recent studies.[16]" taken from:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit N

The old,traditional Inuit diet is in fact a raw palaeolithic diet as it consisted of significant amounts of raw meats and raw organ-meats, and contains no non-Palaeo foods - which would be a requirement for being a "Raw, Palaeolithic Diet"(or "RPD" for short).

Here's a standard Info-page describing the Raw,Palaeolithic Diet as well as the Wai Diet. The Info-page is unaffiliated as such as regards diet, it merely lists them as standard well-known diets:-

http://www.newtreatments.org/diet.php N

(I'll post any of the above as notes as soon as you OK them). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Loki0115 (talk • contribs) 14:04, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Since a standard Info-page on AGEs was considered unacceptable, despite it being seemingly non-partisan, I decided to, instead, include the link to the standard Wikipedia page on Advanced Glycation Endproducts, which provides much the same info, anyway.Loki0115 (talk) 15:26, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Ooops, Somehow I managed to leave some dotted lines in the text which I don't know how to remove. I'll check back later to see what I can doLoki0115 (talk) 15:27, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

I crossed out the unacceptable sources, and check marked the one source I think is acceptable as a reference for the Primal Diet. (For further information, please see WP:RS and WP:ATT.) --Phenylalanine (talk) 02:28, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

re the above reviews of my online references to the Primal Diet:- The interview of aajonus was by a Natural Health magazine, so it should be valid(neither the interviewer nor the magazine were Primal-dieters, being Natural Hygiene-oriented instead). it seems as though you're asking for articles about those diets but only as long as they appear on sites which have nothing whatsoever to do with diet at all - somewhat contradictory ¬¬¬¬

Here's yet another interview of Aajonus, featured in an article on the anti-raw www.beyondveg.com website:-

http://www.beyondveg.com/nieft-k/rvw/rvw-we-want-to-live.shtml N

Another review of the Primal-Diet creator Aajonus Vonderplanitz's books(not sure if this is OK, but posting anyway as the article is neither too pro- or anti-raw, unlike the previous one which is somewhat biased):-

http://www.ralphmoss.com/Vonderplanitz.html N

Here's a standard description of Raw-Animal-Food Diets:-

http://www.rawpaleodiet.org/rvaf-overview.html N

Here's an Independent on Sunday(a British newspaper) article on raw-meat diets(otherwise known in the raw-meat-eating community as "Raw-Animal-Food Diets" or as "Raw Palaeolithic Diets" etc.(see the rawpaleodiet.org website mentioned earlier for the different terms used for diets including raw meats):-

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/the-raw-meat-diet-do-you-have-the-stomach-for-the-latest-celebrity-food-fad-493908.html ¬¬¬¬ (Loki0115) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Loki0115 (talk • contribs) 13:20, 26 July 2008 (UTC) N

Also, here's an article that appeared in the Los Angeles Times in 2001(as made clear at the bottom of the page), which is an interview of Aajonus and describes the Primal Diet:-

http://www.karlloren.com/Diabetes/p33.htm —Preceding unsigned comment added by Loki0115 (talk • contribs) 13:25, 26 July 2008 (UTC) N

- - Phenylaline, I just realised that you diverted virtually the entire list of studies on toxins in cooked-foods to the "Meat" wikipedia section. The studies on AGEs/PAHs/Nitrosamines/HCAs etc. do not exclusively focus on meat(AGEs are implicated mostly in cooked carbs, after all). So this is a somewhat inappropriate(!), as the studies in question focused on toxins created by cooking in general, not just meat. ¬¬¬¬ (Loki0115)

Also, you failed to notice that you transferred to the "Meat" wikipedia section a reference to a study showing the harmful effects of eating cooked-dairy on rats in a particular scientific study(what relevance does dairy have to do with meat?)

Again, you removed the reference to the studies showing the hamrful effects of microwaving foods. If you look at the reference(number 28 in the Wikipedia "Meat" section), you'll see that the studies mentioned show harmful effects for all kinds of microwaved-foods, such as dairy, grains, vegetables etc - not just for microwaved-meat. So, this is COMPLETELY out of place in the Meat section, and only relevant to the Raw Foodism section.

Re AGEs:- I had made it clear that AGEs existed in all cooked-foods, including cooked-carbs, not just cooked-meats. Here's a study(among many others) which shows that cooked-carbs can cause harmful AGEs(advanced glycation endproducts):-

http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/abstract/130/5/1247

On top of this, you transferred to the Wikipedia meat section a mention of a study showing the health-benefits of a raw vegan diet, also completely irrelevant to the meat section.

Nitrosamines, which you also removed mention of from the raw foodism section, are present in other foods, not just meats(for example they are in beer and milk:- http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/f-w00/nitrosamine.html

Similiarly, PAHs(Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons) are also found in all kinds of foods heated to high temperatures, not just with meats:-

http://ec.europa.eu/food/fs/sc/scf/out154_en.pdf

In short, references to various scientific studies have been provided(though many, many more can be provided if you ask) - plus, some of the toxins mentioned, such as Advanced Glycation En dproducts and Nitrosamines are already referenced elsewhere on Wikipedia(with additional references), so it's clear that the references are backed up by solid sources. So, verifiability is easily covered, and as far as original research is concerned, there are too many scientific studies covering the subject of toxins in cooked-foods for this to be a valid concern.¬¬¬¬ (Loki0115).

I'll start the whole subsection again, providing further references to a multitude of scientific studies on the subject of toxins in cooked-foods in general, in light of my above concerns. I would also advise eliminating most of the scientific references to toxins in cooked-foods which have been transferred to the "Meat" section, as almost all of them are either irrelevant to the issue of cooked-meat, as they cover entirely different cooked foods, or cover cooked-foods in general, not just meat -plus, not only is the data not relevant, but transferring such data solely to the "Meat" page for wikipedia would ultimately lead to a pro-raw-vegan-bias in the "Meat" section, even if completely unintentional. ¬¬¬¬ (Loki0115)

I'll provide here further links re studies showing toxins such as AGEs in cooked foods other than meats. After that, I do think that those other studies should be put back in their place in the raw-foodism section.

 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Loki0115 (talk • contribs) 14:10, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia takes some getting used to

Loki, thank you for your efforts to improve the "Raw foodism" article, but I don't think you understand exactly how Wikipedia works. I've been here almost 10 months, and there are still aspects of wikipedia that baffle me. One thing I do know is how to spot original research when I see it. Trust me, I learned the hard way when I got an article that I worked on "sustainable eating" removed on the grounds that it was original research. Basically, if the wikipedia article's title or a synonym of that title does not appear in a source you want to use to verify material, the source should not be used per WP:OR. The way to proceed to build a Wikipedia article is to look for reliable sources that specifically use the terms which correspond to the wikipedia article's title or synonyms of that title (e.g. "raw foodism", "living foods diet", "rawism", "raw foods diet", "raw vegan diet", "raw foodists"... BUT NOT "raw foods", "raw meat", "raw veggies", "uncooked food", etc. etc). I know, it's very restrictive (and sometimes, you have to exclude useful and interesting information), but that's the policy. See for yourelf: Wikipedia:No original research. That's the reason I removed (and moved) the material and sources I removed. Also, regarding the links you have provided, I crossed them all out – except one – since those sources that I crossed out do not reliably show that the Primal diet (Primal-Diet created by Aajonus Vonderplanitz) is notable enough for inclusion in Wikipedia. To be notable, by Wikipedia's standards, a diet must receive reliable media coverage, that means serious and reliable newspapers, magazines, academic journals, notable books, etc., BUT NOT unreliable, promotional and/or agenda-driven online magazines and newsletters, and agend-driven, promotional and/or personal websites (note that these sites can be used to (to describe the diet) as secondary sources once the diet has been showed to be notable by the above standards). --Phenylalanine (talk) 21:17, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

You also ignored the article about raw-meat diets in the Independent on Sunday - The Independent and its sister newspaper The Independent on Sunday are among the biggest newspapers(circulation-wise) in the United Kingdom(ie not mere regional ones or a tabloid), so hardly merit exclusion and they specifically mention raw-meat diets(if you wish I can simply reword the term "Raw Palaeolithic Diet" as "Raw Meat Diet" as both terms are used for the same thing) - you can't simply discount a newspaper article because it's UK one.¬¬¬¬

Sure, "raw Meat Diet" would be fine and properly verified by the Independent article. Good find.

--Phenylalanine (talk) 15:35, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

As regards the issue re scientific studies re the effects of cooked-foods, fair enough - but then they should be put in the "Cooking" section of wikipedia, not the "Meat" section - as, otherwise, Wikipedia then becomes biased towards the Raw-Vegan viewpoint(and, like I said, most of those scientific studies I references concerned cooked-foods as a whole, not just meats, so are not relevant in the Meat section).

I agree with you. I copied the material to the "cooking" article and removed the unrelated info from the "meat" article. Good point. --Phenylalanine (talk) 15:35, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Re the Wrangham/tubers debunking sentence which you've now also removed:- That was a perfectly valid statement, especially since it appears in a site (beyondveg.com) which happens to be anti-raw in its general outlook(!)

"Beyondveg.com" does not comply with WP:RS for the purpose of verifying contentious material.--Phenylalanine (talk) 15:35, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah well, I understand that Wikipedia may have certain restrictions, it's just that I always viewed it as a way to include all (verifiable) aspect of human knowledge - still, there's always Google Knol, wikinfo,anarchopedia with different guidelines etc.Loki0115 (talk) 10:25, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia IS the place to include all verifiable aspects of human knowledge... in a way that complies with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Wikipedia is not censored. --Phenylalanine (talk) 15:35, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Comment

I wish to point out that the current Raw Foodism page is full of bias against raw foodism. This ought to be a balanced article, yet Richard Wrangham, a mere specialist in chimp behaviour and not even an anthropologist or archaeologist, is effectively given far more weight than the majority of archaeologists/anthropologists who actually hold the opposite view that cooking was introduced, c.250,000 years ago. A minority-opinion such as Wrangham's should not be given more weight, as a result, re extra number of references etc.. I also have noticed that the scientific data re the deleterious effects of cooking which was transferred to the cooking wikipedia entry, has been deleted.

I should also add that the Zhoukoudian Caves reference(500,000 years ago) is seen by most as being inconclusive, with scientists stating that evidence from different eras has been mixed together etc. It is by no means a fact, despite somebody's attempt in the cooking section to promote this view. Loki0115 (talk) 13:14, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok. I restored the detailed criticisms. The material on the deleterious effects of cooking was moved per WP:NOR. None of it has been deleted in the cooking article. --Phenylalanine (talk) 14:29, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Attacks on Wrangham's background rather than on his ideas appear to be ad hominem criticisms and aren't the primary reason his thesis isn't widely accepted, according to the references. The archaeological evidence is the real evidence here, so changed article to reflect that.Czyl (talk) 22:39, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I moved some of the detailed discussion on Wrangham to the criticisms/research section, as this article really should focus on raw foodism in the introduction, not a detailed analysis of one critic's particular line of reasoning. Someone should add a second line in the paragraph about benefits for raw foodism in the intro to maintain balance. Czyl (talk) 22:50, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Reading over the article, I agree that there's not much support given here concerning potential benefits or motivations for a raw food lifestyle. Could someone dig up some sources and evidence? Czyl (talk) 00:16, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

That's exactly what I tried to do. I put forward all sorts of scientific studies showing the toxic effects of cooked-foods in order to explain why people do raw-food-diets. It was, unfortunately removed.Loki0115 (talk) 21:50, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

As regards Czyl's points, it is perfectly valid to point out Wrangham's lack of credentials in the field of palaeoanthropology, as his critics(who are credited, respected anthropologists and archaeologists) have specifically pointed out this lack:-

http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Abstracts/Pennisi_99.html

"Yet he, Michigan's Brace, and most other anthropologists contend that cooking fires began in earnest barely 250,000 years ago, when ancient hearths, earth ovens, burnt animal bones, and flint appear across Europe and the middle East. Back 2 million years ago, the only sign of fire is burnt earth with human remains, which most anthropologists consider coincidence rather than evidence of intentional fire."

The source you have cited here does not attack Wrangham's credentials or expertise, as you claim it does. It attacks the evidence behind his theory. In fact, the article you quote actually writes that Wrangham is an anthropologist. Czyl (talk) 23:58, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah, but it does NOT cite Wrangham as an anthrolpogist. When it cites "most other anthrolpogists" it's referring to "Loring Brace, Hilary Bunn", NOT Wrangham. Besides, Wrangham's "credentials" are self-evident, he has a CV online, which shows that he is only a chimp behaviourist, not an expert on human evolution:-

http://www.discoverlife.org/who/CV/Wrangham,_Richard.html

As you can see his entire career is based on chimp beahviour and nothing else.

Another attack on Wrangham's non-crednetials is shown here:-

" yet many archaeologists, paleontologists and anthropologists argue that he is just plain wrong. Wrangham is a chimp researcher, the skeptics point out, not a specialist in human evolution. He is out of his league. Furthermore, archaeological data does not support the use of controlled fire during the period Wrangham’s theory requires it to." taken from:-

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=cooking-up-bigger-brains

This is why I find the reference to cooking 500,000 years ago, to be absurd, as most anthropologists consider 250,000 years ago, to be more accurate a date - the evidence re 500,000 years ago is disputed, whereas there is a general concensus re 250,000 years ago, due to definite evidence - evidence from earlier ages is disputed due to bone-evidence from different eras being mixed up together etc.. As regards the evidence re cooking, there is NO clear evidence as to when exactly cooking was invented, so citing any date at all as proof is, whether Wrangham's idea or anyone else's is, technically, biased.

I also included a direct, obvious refutation of Wrangham's pro-cooked-food ideas(from ana anti-raw website!), but this was not allowed for some strange reason:-

http://www.beyondveg.com/nicholson-w/hb/hb-interview1f.shtml

"Recent tuber-based hypothesis for evolutionary brain expansion fails to address key issues such as DHA and the recent fossil record. As a case in point, there has been one tentative alternative hypothesis put forward recently by primatologist Richard Wrangham et al. [1999] suggesting that perhaps cooked tubers (primarily a starch-based food) provided additional calories/energy that might have supported brain expansion during human evolution.

However, this idea suffers from some serious, apparently fatal flaws, in that the paper failed to mention or address critical pieces of key evidence regarding brain expansion that contradict the thesis. For instance, it overlooks the crucial DHA and/or DHA-substrate adequacy issue just discussed above, which is central to brain development and perhaps the most gaping of the holes. It's further contradicted by the evidence of 8% decrease in human brain size during the last 10,000 years, despite massive increases in starch consumption since the Neolithic revolution which began at about that time. (Whether the starch is from grain or tubers does not essentially matter in this context.) Meat and therefore presumed DHA consumption levels, both positive *and* negative-trending over human evolution, track relatively well not simply with the observed brain size increases during human evolution, but with the Neolithic-era decrease as well, on the other hand. [Eaton 1998]"

The scientific study by Eaton is shown here:-

http://www.cast.uark.edu/local/icaes/conferences/wburg/posters/sboydeaton/eaton.htm

If people agree, I could add(yet again!) the scientific studies on the toxins found in cooked-foods - OK? Loki0115 (talk) 21:50, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

The anti-raw bias as regards the recent changes made by Czyl etc. is appalling. Weston-Price specifically stated in his books that the native tribes he saw only had greater health because they included some raw animal foods in their diet. The recent change falsely gives the impression that Weston-Price favoured cooked-foods over raw foods. The fact is that Weston-Price advocated a partially-raw diet, including raw animal foods, so it's irrelevant to state that he also advocated some cooked-foods - after all, not all raw-foodists advocate a 100% raw diet.Loki0115 (talk) 22:21, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah well, I can see that the only way to avoid such blatant bias is to keep correcting such deliberate "errors". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Loki0115 (talk contribs) 21:57, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Another "error" made by others was to cite scientific studies showing nutritional deficiencies among Raw Vegans/Fruitarians, but citing them as raw-foodist studies. In fact, Raw Animal Foodists were not involved in those studies so it should be made clear that the studies only concern Raw Vegans/Fruitarians.Loki0115 (talk) 22:21, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Loki0115, "beyondveg.com" is not a reliable source. If you disagree, you can ask the guys at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine. Also, the article must adhere to WP:NOR. --Phenylalanine (talk) 22:52, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I sincerely agree with you, Loki, that the article does not include enough information about why people choose to pursue a raw-food lifestyle. Please don't give up or feel slighted -- our discussion and your contributions will improve this article. As I stated earlier, we need more information about why people choose to pursue a raw-food diet; we can even include these as a separate "motivations" or "benefits" section.

However, we need to make a distinction between primary research we are assembling ourselves (ie, reasons why we think a raw-food diet is beneficial or evidence we are presenting that a cooked-food diet is toxic) and reporting the opinions of others who are representing particular points of view. Wrangham is mentioned in this article specifically because he is a representative critic of raw food lifestyles. Can we find a notable advocate of raw foodism, and reference the studies that they cite? This would be appropriate to balance the article. I've read many sources indicating that raw foodists tend to be healthier than their cooked-food counterparts so finding a suitable, Wikipedia-reliable source can't be too hard. Czyl (talk) 23:58, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I apologise for my outburst. Well, I have put my unchanged data on other info-sites so I'm less bothered than otherwise. My problem is this:- the Internet is still in its infancy, with much of the needed scientific info I could link to not being available for public use(unless you pay), detailed info on raw-foodist sites is not allowed on wikipedia with only very vague, data-poor articles on raw-foodism in the mainstream papers being allowed, and almost all of the scientific studies I can find which prove the benefits of raw diets focus specifically on the damaging effects of cooked-foods(as in toxins created by heat found in cooked-foods such as AGEs/PAHs/HCAs/NSAs etc.)- and these studies focusing on toxins in cooked-foods are not allowed on this raw-foodism page, which is strange.There are very few studies focusing only on raw-diets, as opposed to the negative aspects of cooked-diets, and the only ones I know of are Raw Vegan/Fruitarian studies, not Raw Animal Food studies. Still, I can always point out that any conclusions re those studies cannot possibly be applied to Raw-Animal-Foodists as they do a quite different type of diet, re nutrients.

Re beyondveg.com:- The beyondveg.com article was citing a specific scientific paper,by including a note to the bibilography section of beyondveg.com. I suppose I can get round the pro-Wrangham bias by citing that paper directly. I will also state that Wrangham is a chimp behaviourist and not an anthropologist as that is vital information(though I won't belabour the point, unnecessarily, thsi time)- I mean, Wikipedia is supposed to give more weight to those scientists who are specialists in their field - otherwise, absolutely anybody could give an oceanographer's worthless opinion on Space Science, or a dolphin-expert's useless opinion on desert-dwelling creatures etc.

I also insist on changing the current references to Weston-Price as those are a distortion of what Weston-Price and his followers promoted(ie a partially-raw diet).

I'll try adding stuff in a couple of days.Loki0115 (talk) 16:57, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Revert recent research edit

Loki0115, I reverted one of your edits because it was factually incorrect. One of the studies "Koebnick C, Strassner C, Hoffmann I, Leitzmann C. Consequences of a long-term raw food diet on body weight and menstruation: results of a questionnaire survey. Ann Nutr Metab. 1999;43(2):69-79. PMID 10436305" does examine raw omnivorous diets, see 4. "Cooking as a biological trait" (Effects of a raw-food diet) pp37-38. Also, there is no indication that "Ganss C, Schlechtriemen M, Klimek J. Dental erosions in subjects living on a raw food diet. Caries Res. 1999;33(1):74-80. PMID 9831783" only studies subjects following a raw vegan diet. --Phenylalanine (talk) 21:23, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid you're mistaken. All current studies have been on Raw Vegan/Fruitarian diets(that's why they mention common nutritional deficiencies common to those following cooked-vegan/vegetarian diets. I am well aware that the studies' few paragraphs refer to raw-food diets, but it's a fact that, until very recently, the term "raw-food-diet" specifically only referred to Raw Vegan or Raw Fruitarian diets, because 99% of raw-foodists were Raw Vegan/Fruitarian - so scientists and nutritionists routinely use the term "raw food diet" to automatically mean Raw Vegan/Fruitarian, in their papers. Raw Animal Food diets are much more recent in origin than Raw-Vegan/Fruitarian diets, so people, mostly, still refer to Raw Vegan/Fruitarian diets as generic "raw food diets". This is slowly changing as people are turning to raw animal food diets in greater numbers, so the term "raw-foodist" in a few decades will likely mean "raw omnivore". Anyway, this has been my concern, before, as the term "Raw Paleolithic Diet(ers)" is far more commonly used by Raw-Animal-Foodists to describe themselves so as to distinguish themselves from the term "Raw-Foodist" which is usually a term describing Raw Vegans/Fruitarians. Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to use this term of rawpaleodiet, even though it's in common use in the community.

Anyway, I am willing to bet that you cannot find one single scientific dietary study, in the next 7 days, specifically mentioning the consumption of specific raw meats by humans as part of an overall Raw-Foodist study. If you can't, then that just proves my point and I'll feel justified to reinsert the same sort of comment you removed. If you think about it, this makes sense. Given the usual hysterical phobias re bacteria/parasites, most scientific establishments would be way too terrified of the possibility of being sued, so wouldn't dare feed their subjects on raw animal foods.Loki0115 (talk) 10:05, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Incidentally, an obvious clue that at least one of the studies focuses on raw veganism is the fact that large amounts of citrus fruit were eaten by the test-subjects:-

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9831783

"The median intake of fruit was 62% (minimum 25%, maximum 96%) of the total, corresponding to an average consumption of 9.5 kg of fruit (minimum 1.5, maximum 23.7) per week" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Loki0115 (talk • contribs) 10:08, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

One thing that is very dodgy re citing the above study is that the dental erosion is clearly due to eating vast amounts of fruit(sugars are known to cause dental erosion, as proven in many studies), so this has nothing to do with the food being raw but with the food being fruit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Loki0115 (talk • contribs) 10:13, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Loki0115, there is no evidence that "Ganss C, Schlechtriemen M, Klimek J. Dental erosions in subjects living on a raw food diet. Caries Res. 1999;33(1):74-80. PMID 9831783" only examines a "raw vegan diet", although I accept that it's possible that the researchers were only studying raw vegan diets. Please see 4. "Cooking as a biological trait" (Effects of a raw-food diet) pp37-38. This proves that at least one of the studies "Koebnick C, Strassner C, Hoffmann I, Leitzmann C. Consequences of a long-term raw food diet on body weight and menstruation: results of a questionnaire survey. Ann Nutr Metab. 1999;43(2):69-79. PMID 10436305" does examine raw omnivorous diets. --Phenylalanine (talk) 16:05, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Re the above study:- The only raw-food movement in germany is the "Rohkost" movement(similiar to Instincto). It's almost entirely Raw Vegan/Fruitarian-oriented, except for a very small minority who include very small amounts of raw animal-foods(usually raw dairy and raw eggs, very rarely raw meats), generally only 10% of the diet. As regards the above study, it lumped together Raw Vegans and raw-meat-eaters into the same study and didn't differentiate between them - so it rather proves my point. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Loki0115 (talk • contribs) 19:09, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

"Some studies have indicated detrimental health effects stemming from a raw food diet". This sentence was changed to "Some studies have indicated detrimental health effects stemming from a raw vegan food diet." As shown above, this is factually incorrect. --Phenylalanine (talk) 19:21, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

useful data for the article

Christopher Wanjek, Live Science's "Bad Medicine Columnist" says on one level "the raw diet has much going for it [but on] another level, this is just whacked." He disputes claims that a 100% uncooked diet is more natural because our human ancestors ate roasted grasshoppers or other small critters caught in forest fires and brushfires. "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, for example. 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. Anyway, 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 needed for human digestion. Human digestive enzymes are used for human digestion. 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."^[1]

WAS 4.250 (talk) 21:48, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Potential danger raw dairy

I would like to include some data regarding the inherent bacterial contamination of raw milk products. Even in the "cow leasing" programs, outbreaks have happened. This danger should be included in the article. What do you think? ^[2]--—CynRN ^(Talk) 23:03, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea, but the info should be verified by sources which use the article title ("Raw foodism") or similar terms ("Raw foodist", "rawism", raw food diet"...[terms referring to aspects of the raw food movement]) in their terminology to avoid breaching the no original research policy. Thanks. --Phenylalanine (talk) 21:54, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Raw dairy is very popular these day. Why restrict our sources to "Raw foodism" vs "Raw milk" or "raw dairy"? --—CynRN ^(Talk) 04:25, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

If the sources discuss "Raw milk" or "raw dairy" in the context of raw foodism (which means the sources must use terms like "raw foodist", "rawism", raw food diet", etc. in their terminology), they are perfectly fine, if not, I'm affraid they don't belong in the article per WP:NOR. --Phenylalanine (talk) 04:48, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

If some raw foodists advocate raw dairy and raw dairy has inherent danger, (many studies about this), why must we have Rawism or some such in the title of the source? It's not OR, just common sense. There aren't that many studies on Rawism, it's a bit "fringe".--—CynRN ^(Talk) 05:18, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Rawism or some such doesn't necessarily have to be in the title of the source, as long as such a term is used in the source text. Raw dairy and raw dairy must be explicitely mentioned in relation to raw foodism. Or else you're breaching WP:NOR. --Phenylalanine (talk) 05:25, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Meaningful differences in nutritional value between pasteurized and unpasteurized milk have not been demonstrated, and other purported benefits of raw milk consumption have not been substantiated. Conversely, the role of unpasteurized dairy products in the transmission of infectious diseases has been established repeatedly. To effectively counsel patients attracted by the health claims made for raw milk, practicing physicians must understand both the rationale used by proponents of raw milk and the magnitude of the risk involved in drinking raw milk. This talks about health claims made for raw milk. ^[3] --—CynRN ^(Talk) 07:19, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

And then this is from Ref #18 in the article: Some followers of the diet also consume raw meat and dairy products, although most follow a vegan regimen, as animal products normally need to be cooked in order to be safe for consumption. (Dairy products are pasteurized, eggs are cooked to avoid salmonella, and many meats need to be cooked in order to avoid parasites or diseases.)--—CynRN ^(Talk) 07:23, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Relevance of raw food for cats?

I can certainly get behind a raw food diet for a carnivore, like a cat, but what does that have to do with humans? I propose deleting that sentence. --—CynRN ^(Talk) 19:47, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Which sentence? --Phenylalanine (talk) 21:57, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

It's in history, decribing Pottenger's work with cats. Now I see that it is in a historical context. IMO, it was a mistake to use cat studies to promote raw foodism, but I guess it should stay in the article.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 04:23, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Pottenger's work with cats belongs in "Raw feeding", not this article. The info should be moved to the "Raw feeding" article. Thanks for pointing that out. --Phenylalanine (talk) 04:52, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

More emphasis on preponderance of vegan in lead?

Most all the refs I have been looking at re. raw foodism emphasize veganism and actively discourage animal foods, even bee pollen, in some cases. I understand there are those that include raw meat/dairy, but it's not the norm. Can we make the lead reflect this important point? In the lead, one might conclude that raw foodists have that long list of foods to choose from, whereas most stick to the plant sources. --—CynRN ^(Talk) 21:45, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Wrangham/weston price

I removed 1 dud wrangham reference - nothing came up in the notes, nor was there a proper journal entry or similiar. Also removed a wrangham reference re primates supposedly preferring cooked-foods, as this has no relevance to evolution or a human diet - chimps and gorillas are, after all, not apemen, and certainly not humans. Plus, there are plenty of other reasons why chimps/gorillas might prefer cooked-foods, other than taste, such as addiction to the opioids in cooked-/processed foods etc. Loki0115 (talk) 16:50, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree that what apes like to eat is irrelevant, but there is evidence that humans used fire way way back in the mists of time (1.7 million years ago), which I've added. The new evidence comes from burned stone tools. Humans were undoubtedly cooking and eating, but the details (recipes) are hard to find!--—CynRN ^(Talk) 22:41, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

The "evidence" you cite is considered inconclusive, I'[m afraid, by the majority of palaeoanthropologists, who view 250,000 years ago as the most reliable timeline for the advent of cooked-foods:-

" Yet he, Michigan's Brace, and most other anthropologists contend that cooking fires began in earnest barely 250,000 years ago, when ancient hearths, earth ovens, burnt animal bones, and flint appear across Europe and the middle East. Back 2 million years ago, the only sign of fire is burnt earth with human remains, which most anthropologists consider coincidence rather than evidence of intentional fire. " taken from:- http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Abstracts/Pennisi_99.html

Only Wrangham and a tiny handful of others have suggested that cooking was invented from earlier times, and because of the likelihood of contamination of evidence from different, much later eras and the fact that wildfires were pretty common in areas such as East Africa, this claim is considered largely debunked. In short, feel free to cite it as a claim, but it's simply a minority view, with Wrangham actually admitting in 1 article that he still didn't have enough evidence for his theories.Loki0115 (talk) 09:33, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I altered the Weston-Price info as the previous author had inserted rather misleading information. He had claimed that the Weston-Price diet was a cooked diet but, in fact, it is a partially-raw diet, which incorporates hefty amounts of raw dairy in it - indeed the latter is the most popular food on the diet, in terms of promotion. And since Weston-Price, in his books, repeatedly stated that the healthiest tribes, of all those he visited, all incorporated some form of raw animal food in their diets, it is important to point out that he viewed raw animal foods favourably.Loki0115 (talk) 17:28, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I also removed a duplicated sentence re studies on raw food diets in the introduction. It's already listed elsewhere in the article, under research, where it should be put anyway.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Loki0115 (talk • contribs) 19:17, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Also added in a reference, in the beliefs section, to the hygiene hypothesis as it's part of the belief-system of most Raw Animal Foodists.Loki0115 (talk) 20:40, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Clean up

I removed newly added content that I consider to be original research and restored important information in the lead per WP:LEAD (from "01:22, 25 August 2008" to "02:20, 25 August 2008") (see edit summaries for rationale). This is not an article about raw foods, but about raw foodism. But an article dealing specifically with raw foods can be created and the deleted studies can be moved there. That raw foods article can then be wikilinked in this article. Feel free to seek a third opinion. --Phenylalanine (talk) 02:28, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

The following deleted material could be included in the raw foods article:

"A scientific review showed clear benefits re cancer-reduction for inclusion of fruits and vegetables in the diet, especially in the raw form.^[4]"

"There is a study on children living on farms that showed benefits for raw-dairy-consumption, as regards significantly reduced allergy-rates, partially attributable to consumption of raw dairy by these farm-children, in terms of lowered rates of asthma, hay-fever, and atopic sensitisation. However, the study's authors do not recommend the consumption of raw milk since it may contain pathogens such as salmonella or enterohaemorrhagic E coli and its consumption may have serious health risks ^[5] ^[6]"

Hmmmm, every time my contributions get knifed/deleted by someone, it feels almost tantamount to rape. Ah well, no matter:- first of all, I think you may have too quickly removed the reference I gave backing up the fact that human brain-size decreased in the Neolithic, without reading it. The new reference I added was COMPLETELY different from the last one, citing hard scientific studies within the text, re notes. I'll try again, citing the studies themselves, which I do feel justified to expect this time to stay, as they are factual, not based on opinions. It's all very well claiming that Wrangham's ideas should be allowed in the raw-foodism section(I would strongly disagree with this as Wrangham is focusing on the supposed benefits of cooked-foods so should be put in the Cooking section, if at all - I'll want third-party arbitration re this point, as I consider the wrangham reference to be inappropriate. For now, though, I'll just add the scientific studies debunking wrangham's notion re brain-size, as a counter-point.Loki0115 (talk) 09:43, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I definitely want 3rd-party arbitration for the issue re those deleted studies on specific raw foods. The fact is that a separate section for raw-foods is absurd, as "raw" and "cooked" are merely states/descriptions related to heating/not-heating foods, not a general category in themselves. It also would be a double-standard as there are now references to studies in the "Cooking" section which focus on the harmful effects of cooking specific individual cooked-foods such as muscle-meats or cooked sucrose, which is hardly a take on cooked-foods in general. And, besides, raw foodism is the belief that raw foods are superior, so citing studies showing benefits for individual raw foods is perfectly acceptable, since raw-foodism is split into numerous completely different camps, which promote widely different foods. To delete those studies which focus only on specific raw foods and not on (very vague) references to raw-foods in general, would automatically be a direct bias in favour of the subgroup of raw-foodists who are "Raw Omnivores/Raw Foodists", thus making it impossible for advocates of other raw-foodist subgroups such as Primal Dieters or Sproutarians or whatever to put equal weight on current and future studies focusing specifically on raw foods allowed by their own particular dietary community.

I also would like 3rd-party arbitration re my inclusion of the reference to the Wikipedia "Cooking" article for finding studies on toxins found in cooked-foods, as this was deleted. On the contrary, the cooking article is directly relevant to the issue of raw foodism, as raw-foodism is, technically, anti-cooked in theory.

There was a somewhat dubious reference in the criticism of Wrangham , further down, where someone had written "some archaeologists oppose Wrangham....". In fact, the very article which was the reference to this statement, stated very clearly that "most other anthropologists oppose Wrangham..." To change that wording from "many" to "some" is therefore definitely misleading/factually incorrect, at best(I've changed the wording, accordingly):- http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Abstracts/Pennisi_99.html

I tried to save my current efforts, but it was blocked by a new edit, while I was halfway through. I duly rewrote everything since the editor(phenylalanine) hadn't seemed to have checked the whole of my current effort(not sure, when he edited, timewise?). I checked the history and it said something about original research, yet this "original research" is replicated across several studies, so is not represented in only 1 scientific paper. Not sure why deletion was required. Please explain. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Loki0115 (talk • contribs) 11:32, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Loki0115, the rationale for my deletion is presented in the edit summary. The sources for the material added don't discuss raw foodism and the sentence that was reworded does not give Wragram's position on the validity of raw foodism. The previous sentence, was, in my opinion, more appropriate for the lead. Let's bring this matter to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine for third opinion. --Phenylalanine (talk) 11:42, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Fine, I agree. I'll check that talk-page out. Loki0115 (talk) 11:49, 25 August 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Loki0115 (talk • contribs) 11:48, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Done. --Phenylalanine (talk) 12:17, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I've decided to post the argument I just put over there, here as well, as it's more coherent, IMO:-

"== Raw Foodism ==

OK, I'm having three major or minor points of contention with an editor, who checks the Raw Foodism page. He contends the following:- that Richard Wrangham, who is known for his various papers/articles about his claims about cooked-food-consumption in the Early Palaeolithic leading to bigger human brains, should be mentioned in the Raw Foodism wikipedia page. I pointed out that Richard Wrangham should only be mentioned in the Cooking section of wikipedia, given that his main thesis is on the effect of cooking.

The editor's view is that Wrangham's pro-cooking claims are relevant to the raw foodism wikipedia page. On the other hand, the editor insisted that the info I wrote, earlier, mentioning studies showing the harmful effects of cooked-foods, be moved entirely to the Cooking section, because he claimed these studies were irrelevant to the issue of raw-foodism(it was duly moved by him). IMO, it seems to me that, in the interests of fairness/avoiding bias), either both the Wrangham-references and any studies on the harmful effects of cooked-foods should be moved to the "Cooking" page of wikipedia, or that both should be allowed to be included in the Raw Foodism page of wikipedia.

Also, I referenced an article , near the bottom of the raw foodism page which mentioned that "most other anthropologists" opposed Wrangham's claims re cooked-foods, and used those same words on the raw-foodism page. This was changed(by the editor?) into "some archaeologists" oppose Wrangham..."etc. The latter sentence "Some archaeologists oppose" did not appear in the original text. Here is the original text with the excerpted paragraph:-

"Yet he, Michigan's Brace, and most other anthropologists contend that cooking fires began in earnest barely 250,000 years ago, when ancient hearths, earth ovens, burnt animal bones, and flint appear across Europe and the middle East. Back 2 million years ago, the only sign of fire is burnt earth with human remains, which most anthropologists consider coincidence rather than evidence of intentional fire."

Here's the referenced article:-

http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Abstracts/Pennisi_99.html

It seems to me that stating "some archaeologists" is quite inaccurate as "most other anthropologists" are cited in the above article as opposing Wrangham's claims. For now, I've changed back the text to what I want.

Should the decision go against me, I would like to make a claim for a link to the cooking section, put in the raw foodism wikipedia page under "recent research", mentioning that that's the link to use to find studies detailing the list of toxins in cooked-foods.*

Also, the editor refused to accept some studies I listed focusing on the benefits of raw dairy foods. His opinion was that any such studies, focusing on specific raw foods, as opposed to studies focusing on raw foods in general, should be included, instead, in a separate, general wikipedia page for "Raw Foods", as he viewed such specific studies as irrelevant to the subject of raw-foodism as a philosophy. I strongly disagree with this opinion for the following reasons:- 1) there is no wikipedia page for "cooked foods" in general, just for "cooking" as a process, so why should there be one for "raw foods"? - forcing the creation of such a separate "raw foods" page would therefore be unbalanced re objectivity. 2) It also would be a double-standard as there are now references to studies in the "Cooking" section which focus on the harmful effects of cooking specific individual cooked-foods such as muscle-meats or cooked sucrose, which is hardly a take on cooked-foods in general. And, besides, raw foodism is the belief that raw foods are superior, so citing studies showing benefits for individual raw foods is perfectly acceptable, since raw-foodism is split into numerous completely different camps, which promote widely different foods. To delete(or move) those studies which focus only on consumption of specific raw foods and not to remove the references to studies on raw-foods in general, would automatically be a direct bias, on that raw foodism page, in favour of the subgroup of raw-foodists who are "Raw Omnivores/Raw Foodists", thus making it impossible for advocates of other raw-foodist subgroups such as Primal Dieters or Sproutarians or whatever to put their own contrasting info re current and future studies detailing the health benefits of individual raw foods allowed by their own particular dietary community.Loki0115 (talk) 12:39, 25 August 2008 (UTC)" Loki0115 (talk) 12:43, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

I just wanted to explain that I was the culprit who changed your wording re. "most archeologists". There is recent evidence that stone tools were subjected to fire...fire that is dated to 1.7 million years ago, indicating that humans have controlled fire for far longer than 250,000 years. However, changing the wording from the ref. is unacceptable and I apologize.

I support your inclusion of the raw dairy information, but if the reference article includes negative info re. raw dairy, that should go in, too.

I apologize for 'gumming up the works' by editing close to the time you were editing.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 16:20, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

The claim re the 1.7 million year figure is just that, not fact. Part of the problem is that evidence from different eras has been mixed up in the same areas(at least that's one claim), but also the actual evidence from 250,000 to 300,000 years ago is so tiny(and inconclusive), by comparison to the far more common evidence re cooking from 250,000 years ago, that most anthropologists do not view such older claims as being remotely realistic - they think that if fire for cooking was invented that evidence would have to be much more common. The rarity of finds older than 500,000 years ago points to natural wildfires as a more likely cause. - you see hearths are required evidence for cooking, and they just didn't appear until 300,000 years ago at the earliest. What is accepted is that fire for warmth was invented c.500,000 years ago, with cooking being only invented much later at 250-300,000 years ago. Thanks for your support re raw dairy. I do agree that any data criticising raw dairy should also be included. Loki0115 (talk) 19:33, 25 August 2008 (UTC) Loki

Hi Loki, Well, I'm new to this topic, so I defer to you for now. I do find it very interesting. In my limited research I have seen refs for longer than 250,000. I don't know about 'most anthropologists', as I am not that well versed in the literature. I do believe absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, and our smaller teeth and smaller guts make me think we've been 'cookin' for a long time, but I'm not going to be stubborn about it! Cheers, --—CynRN ^(Talk) 00:06, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Third opinion

I am responding to the notes left by Phenylalanine and Loki0115 at WT:MED. I have no connection to or particular interest in raw foodism, and therefore have neither a conflict of interest nor particular expertise in the subject. I have a few comments for the editors now, and the rest will have to wait, as I'm out of time for today. First, I want to address an issue of editor behavior:

Loki is clearly passionately invested in this subject and might know more about the benefits (as perceived by proponents) than any other editor here. Raw foodism is almost the only article that this editor works on. However, several comments ("Hmmmm, every time my contributions get knifed/deleted by someone, it feels almost tantamount to rape") suggest to me that this editor may not ultimately find Wikipedia a congenial home. This is a wiki, and there's a reason that the edit page says, If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly or redistributed for profit by others, do not submit it. At some point in the near future, Loki may want to carefully consider whether his/her talents are really suitable for a collaborative editing environment, the practical implications of his/her non-WP:OWNership of this article, and the benefits of making a reasonable effort to avoid comments that might discourage other editors' participation in the future. This is not a reprimand -- just a practical statement that wiki editing isn't good for everyone's serenity, and if your life is better without it, then you should choose a better life over a better article.

As for article issues (which I consider of much, much more importance), in no particular order:

I'm not convinced that Wrangham needs to be mentioned in the lead.
There are a lot of statements that require citations. I expect that many of these will be easy to source, so proponents are encouraged to get busy and do so. I've marked a handful of statements in the ==History== as an example. Presumably much of the rest of the article would benefit from similar work.
Hearths are not required for cooking. Today, many thousands of poor families do their daily cooking over a wood fire surrounded by couple of rocks (usually three), which we would not consider to be a hearth. Nomadic people and travelers have cooked foods for millennia, and used no hearths to do so. I seriously doubt that anyone can reliably differentiate "some big rocks used for cooking one day" from "some big rocks used to keep the campfire from spreading one day". Furthermore, most people consider solar cooking to be a form of cooking, and that method goes back at least several millennia -- and the sun itself, and therefore the potential for its use (accidental or not) is many, many millions of years old, if we are to believe the experts. So the perceived absence of properly constructed hearths is not proof that cooking was not done.
Specific foods studies. In general, I think the inclusion of a representative sample of specific food studies is acceptable, so long as the metes and bounds of the studies are clear to the average reader. However, I question these specific sources, and occasionally their presentation.
- For example, the "farm milk" in PMID 11597666 is not the same thing as "raw milk". See how this term is used here: "About half of the parents who told researchers that their child regularly drank farm milk said that they did not boil the milk before giving it to them. The protective results were the same, regardless of whether milk was boiled or not."^[7] Boiled milk is still farm milk, but it is certainly not raw milk. (This ref, BTW, better complies with WP:RS than the NaturalMatters.net website, and you should definitely find the newer and larger study that only partly confirms the results [eczema not being confirmed, if memory serves].)
- To give another example: PMID 8841165 in J Am Diet Assoc publishes something by two people from the World Cancer Research Fund -- but you wouldn't know from that study that the organization has a reputation for being biased in this area. It's like citing the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine on the health risks of drinking milk while ignoring the fact that the organization is financially supported by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals and always advocates veganism. They might be right, but they are not an unbiased source of information. Furthermore, the description here is misleading: it fails to note, for example, that the protective effect is only found for certain cancers of the digestive tract plus lung cancer, and it overstates the actual conclusion of the authors as "clear benefits" to eating vegetables. What really matters for this article is the difference between the benefit of eating a certain amount of raw veggies, compared to eating the same amount of cooked veggies -- and although I didn't look it up today, my impression is that the advantage of eating raw veggies is small.
I could go either way on the "toxins in cooked foods" issue. It's largely unimportant to history: Given the short average lifespan, and the many decades that it takes for the cooked-food toxins to do any clinical damage, it's seriously unlikely to have had any impact on the average prehistoric person. However, it might be a concern that motivates current adherents. If the source is a solid scientific review and directly addresses raw food diets (as opposed to, say, noting that acrylamide exists in baked and fried goods and may be harmful; it doesn't exist in boiled foods and therefore isn't a good argument for a raw food diet), then I would be inclined to include it.

I'll try to address the remaining issues tomorrow (or Friday). Must run for now, WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:44, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Talk page references

^ livescience article "The Raw Food Diet: A Raw Deal" published July 4, 2006
^ https://www.neha.org/position_papers/position_raw_milk.htm
^ PMID: 6481912 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6481912?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_Discovery_RA&linkpos=2&log$=relatedarticles&logdbfrom=pubmed
^ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8841165
^ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11597666
^ http://www.naturalmatters.net/newsview.asp?news=3124
^ http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070510093349.htm

Comments

Thanks for weighing in, WhatamIdong! I agree on all your above points. I just read a reliable source re. the 'no hearths needed' point. Evidence of those fires and bones would have been ephemeral. I hadn't thought about solar cooking, but it's very likely early humans did practice it. Anthropologists seem to be saying that humans have evolved in a way that indicates we had moved beyond raw food toward more calorie condensed food a very long time ago: small teeth, small guts, large brains. Phytoliths may show that ancient camp fires cooked food plants going back 1.6 or so million years, but it must remain conjecture for now. Human physical traits are more compelling for this argument.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 00:36, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Some articles about ancient cooking and evolution of man: "The earliest direct evidence of fire use, in the form of charred animal bones dating to between 1 million and 1.5 million years ago, has been uncovered in a South African cave, report two anthropologists" ^[1], . "The first definite controlled fires in the archaeological record date from about 300,000 to 400,000 years ago." ^[2]

"To find the drastic bodily transformations that they thought must have resulted from a steep improvement in nutrition, the researchers had to go back 1.9 million years, when humanity's ancestors shifted from being small-brained, jut-jawed australopithecines to being cortically enhanced, small-faced and modestly dentitioned Homo erectus, the immediate predecessors to modern humans"^[3]--—CynRN ^(Talk) 00:50, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

I just checked out the Paleo diet Wiki and found even more excellent refs re. ancient fire and cooking. Great article, by the way, Phenyl!--—CynRN ^(Talk) 06:41, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

First of all, I should reference the third party's comments:-

1) My own comments re "rape":- They were meant to be humorous. I'm concerned a little re recent accusations of bias elsewhere about Wikipedia re the cooked, paleolithic diet page, which is why I exaggerated things a little.

Re comment on my only editing raw foodism page:- The fact is that I only have so much free time for editing wikipedia, and there are no others among the editors interested in the pro-raw-foodism side of the argument, with almost all focusing on the anti-raw aspect. So, I stick to the raw-foodism page so as to provide a counter-point and avoid bias in general.

2)Re hearths/wrangham:- Maybe, but "most anthropologists" don't see it that way, viewing only hearths as being definitve evidence of any kind. I agree that the Wrangham reference should be removed completely, in which case the "hearths" mention could be deleted as well. Perhaps we could just have something referenced re "most anthropologists" viewing 250,000 years ago as being the most commonly-accepted date, with one source citing refs as early as 1.8-2.3 million years ago(with a reference to a wrangham study, not mentioning wrangham in the raw-foodism text itself) ) and other raw-foodists refs/notes citing dates for cooking as late as 40,000 or 10,000 years ago.

I'll see about including more relevant pro-raw dairy studies. I DO think that any studies which focus on the harsher aspects of cooking where boiled food isn't an issue(eg:- acrylamide) should be mentioned, at the very least, in the Cooking section.*I should mention that there's a strong misunderstanding here - acrylamide is a type of AGE(advanced glycation endproduct=AGE). AGEs are found in all varieties of cooked-foods, even if the subset, acrylamide, is only found in non-boiled cooked-foods(to date).Loki0115 (talk) 20:11, 28 August 2008 (UTC) Loki0115

I've included a reference to a study confirming that raw human milk is better absorbed by human infants than pasteurised human milk. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Loki0115 (talk • contribs) 20:24, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

The only point left, for my purposes, is the issue of toxins in cooked-foods. IMO, this is directly relevant towards the issue of raw-foodism and should be included in the raw-foodism section. However, if the decision goes against me, there really should be a reference made to the cooking section of wikipedia for those interested in the topic of tocins in cooked-foods, as it's directly relevant.Loki0115 (talk) 20:34, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Can't find a wikipedia-friendly reference re the raw-foodists in California, but it's a fact that most(90%) of rawists are found there. It is the mecca of alternative-health after all.Loki0115 (talk) 20:41, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

1) Humor's a dicey thing on a talk page. It's certainly tripped me up before.

2) I like the idea of presenting a range of dates for cooking, with a note that there's some disagreement. The exact details are not a hugely important point for the topic, and presumably different places developed cooking at different times, or with different foods.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to include the "toxins in cooked foods" in at least the context of it being a motivation for some adherents. Any pro-rawism magazine should be able to provide a good source for that. (The fact that some rawists believe cooked food to contain toxins is not exactly a scientific issue, and therefore doesn't require a scientific source.) If we want to add it in a more science-of-cooking way, then we need to have better sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:26, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

More opinion

The last item in the lists above (I think: correct me if wrong) is the Wrangham controversy.

In general, I think that Wrangham's views should be confined to the ==Criticism== section. As the primary question that the general reader will have is "What's this?", the lead and early parts of the article should focus fairly tightly on a general description of rawism, and rather less on evolutionary theory and the difficulties of identifying old campfires. It would also help if Wrangham's complaints are introduced with some reference to the typical rawist's view of human evolution (i.e., presumably a rawist thinks the human frame better adapted to raw foods than to cooked foods). As it stands, the reader is left wondering why this matters (especially if the reader is aware that individuals cannot evolve and therefore the individual choice of cooked food or raw food has no evolutionary implications for the size of that individual's brain).

The ==Criticism== section should begin with a general sentence about most scientists not agreeing with the proponents of rawism. It might be appropriate to mention the well-known infectious risks involved in eating raw meat and raw milk here. Some of potential problems (like poor teeth, from the sounds of it) could also be mentioned in this section.

Things you didn't ask about, but I suggest anyway:

I'd move the ==History== section down (perhaps next to ==Raw food movement==, perhaps merged into the same section). My point is to let the reader learn more about rawism before getting to all of the names and dates.
The information about nutrition (which is mostly children's nutrition) could be collected in a subsection of ==Raw food diets==. It's a little strange to have a paragraph on planning a balanced diet in the middle of food prep, and another at the end of ==History==. If preferred, the section could be titled ==Children==.
It would be nice to have a good, long paragraph (or two, even) about each of the subtypes instead of that table.
I wish we had an idea of how many rawists exist, or how many years people stick with the diet before changing, or some other information like that.
The "beliefs" section might benefit from being expanded and turned into paragraphs instead of a list. I might also add the belief that cooking creates toxins in the cooked foods and that the human body is better adapted to raw foods as two other beliefs that seem to be more or less common.

I will keep this page on my watch list at least through the end of the weekend. Please let me know if you have questions or if I missed a previous request. Hope this helps, WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:26, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Proposed merge

CynRN noticed that we also have a Raw veganism page, which I think could be profitably merged into this page. The non-duplicative information there would make a nice paragraph on this for the ==Diets== section. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:36, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Original research issues

"Wikipedia does not publish original research or original thought. This includes unpublished facts, arguments, speculation, and ideas; and any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position. This means that Wikipedia is not the place to publish your own opinions, experiences, or arguments. Citing sources and avoiding original research are inextricably linked: to demonstrate that you are not presenting original research, you must cite reliable sources that provide information directly related to the topic of the article, and that directly support the information as it is presented." (WP:NOR)

In the context of this article, that means that any source which presents research on the health effects of particular raw or cooked foods or diets without mentioning the raw food movement or philosophy should not be included in this article in accordance with Wikipedia's policy on "original research", since the topic of the article is raw foodism, a term referring not only to a set of dietary practices, but also to a philosophy, a set of beliefs. In the context of an article such as "cooking", "raw food" or raw food diets, such research (respectively, research on cooking, raw food and raw food diets) is perfectly acceptable, however, in the "Raw foodism" article, if you use such a source to verify the statement that study "X" found that raw or cooked food/diet "Y" had an effect "Z" on humans, you are presenting a statement that the source does not make in relation to (i.e. as an argument pro or contra) the raw foodism philosophy/lifestyle—i.e. in the "Raw foodism" article, this statement constitutes an unpublished argument relating to this dietary concept. Raw foodism is a belief system and, at the same time, a set of dietary practices. Using nutritional research focusing of specific aspects related to these dietary habits (raw foods, cooked foods, raw food diets, etc.) to discuss the merits of raw foodism, a specific term which encompasses both the philosophy and the dietary patterns, is exactly why it's original research. I see a fundamental difference between descriptive article names, such as "raw food diet" and article titles that correspond to specific terms such as "Raw foodism". In the case of the "raw food diet", it is not necessary to define the expression in the article lead, the expression being quite clear, while "Raw foodism" appears to be more specialized, it being necessary to define the term in the article lead. In the case of descriptive article titles, any sources and material about the topic should be acceptable in my opinion (when the article name is unusual, one or two sources using the exact article title in their terminology should be sufficient). For articles with specific titles, sources using the article name in their terminology (or synonyms of the article title specified in that article) are necessary in my opinion. For example, in the article "Raw foodism", I could examine how the term is defined in expert sources and see that some raw foodists avoid drinking boiled milk and I could use nutritional research papers employing the term "boiled milk", but not "Raw foodism" (or synonyms thereof). This in my opinion would constitute original research. --Phenylalanine (talk) 01:14, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Phen, I think your definition of OR is far, far to strict here. If we turn up a magazine article, or a book, or some other reliable source that asserts that a common belief among rawists is that raw food is healthier than cooked food, then it's not "original research" to name some studies on the relative healthiness of cooked veggies compared to raw veggies, or (for the counter-claims by critics) that raw milk is a hospitable home for zillions of potentially vicious bacteria. We're not synthesizing anything by making a statement like "Rawists say that foods such as (name a vegetable, and cite a decent study) are healthier eaten raw than cooked (cite a reliable source for what rawists say)": we're providing examples: they do actually believe this, and they do in fact use (and misuse) many scientific studies on this subject. There's nothing novel, analytical, or synthesizing in such a statement. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:06, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

The way I look at it is like this: If an imaginary nutritional researcher with omniscient knowledge and memory of all statements on raw foodism published in reliable sources looked at this article and said to himself, oh, I never thought of that aspect/research/evidence regarding Raw foodism before, then it constitutes original research. This may seem overly strict for articles on nutrition, but perhaps less so for articles in highly specialized fields, such as quantum mechanics. Nevertheless, we cannot have double-standards regarding OR. Take a look at my proposal at Wikipedia talk:No original research#Proposed text addition to the policy. Thank you very much for help! --Phenylalanine (talk) 13:02, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but no. In practice, you seem to be limiting "reliable sources" to "mainstream scientific and medical sources". This is just a (small) subset of reliable sources for this topic. For example, you'd never expect any scientific paper to explain the beliefs of rawists -- but these should be included in this article, even if there's no PubMed-listed journal article to support them.

Keep in mind that no source is ever "inherently" reliable. Reliability can only be assessed in the context of what the source needs to support. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:18, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Convenience split

Re whatamidoing's recent comments:- I agree, there already was/is a sentence making claims for 2.3 million(wrangham) for cooking to 10,000 years ago(which many rawists claim). There were previous attempts to make Wrangham's claims seem to be fact when, in truth, they were only claims, and one should not be too focused on one or the other, given that most claims re cooking-dates are fraught by the very limited evidence found in the Palaeolithic(not just for fire/cooking- all such ancient Paleo evidence is limited). I do think it should be made clear in a separate sentence that most current anthropologists view 250,000 years ago as the more accurate date - a strong reference(s) for this should be easy to find.

There is a whole, reliable section already in the cooking section of wikipedia, which provides scientifically-reliable sources on the toxins found in cooked-foods(some of the toxins in cooked-foods have their own wikipedia pages, as of long ago).It's listed under the following paragraph:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooking#Health_effects

The belief of rawists that there are toxins in cooked-foods is such a basic element of rawism that it would be damaging to the article, info-wise, if there was no mention of toxins in coked-foods. Either studies should be mentioned in the rawism-page under a "recent research" paragraph or the belief should be stated in the raw-food-beliefs section followed by a link to the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooking#Health_effects page, which has all the relevant scientifically rigorous dat on toxins in cooked foods.

Re my wikipedia contributions:- I forgot to mention that I've once edited the robert sheckley page and the saturated fat page , and maybe 1 or 2 others I can't remember. I get the impression that it might be considered slightly inappropriate to focus just on one page?

. I agree with whatamidoing that wrangham's claims should only be referred to in the criticism section, not the intro, as that's the only relevant place for it. This seems only logical. Also, whatamidoing makes an excellent point that wrangham's claims re bigger brains are not really relevant to issues re health-concerns of raw-foodist diets.

Re numbers of raw-foodists/how long they stay raw. This is going to be very difficult to provide as exact figures are unavailable, only rumours - the guru aajonus vonderplanitz, for example, estimates a total of 20,000 raw-meat-eating Primal Dieters in the entire US, as a conservative estimate, but he can only go by estimates based on the numbers of people he meets at Primal Diet gatherings in different States etc., and would be considered biased as he's the primal diet guru. As for how long rawists stay on the diet, that's just the same as with other diets(ie from just 1 meal to the rest of a persons' entire life after going raw, depending on their choices). Some raw-animal-foodists, such as the Nenet tribe of Siberia, eat a raw-food diet(mostly raw meats/organs , some raw berries, rarely boiled meats) for their entire lives:-

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/13/AR2008051300583.html?sid=ST2008051302252

I do agree that 1 or 2 paragraphs should be given to each subtype of raw diet, as that provides so much more useful information, but, unfortunately, overly strong wikipedia-friendly references are usually required. Even providing references for some of the above diets was extremely difficult as only newspaper articles were allowed, for some reason. This causes problems as there are many 100s of 1000s of people doing these various diets, with 100s of websites providing general info, but, unsurprisingly, almost all the info on raw-food-diets of any kind is found on raw-foodist websites, which I understand are not accepted for wikipedia.

Of course, if it IS allowed to provide very basic information without references, then I could fill that in. Would it be acceptable to state, for example, the name/location of the relevant guru of the diet, the main diet foods, common dietary practices relevant to that diet(eg:- eating rotting meat for example), without needing a reference?

Re phenylaline's recent point:- I'm afraid his comments are based on a false premise. There is, really, no such thing as "raw-foodism" as a belief, in much the same way that there is no such thing as "Cooked-Foodism" as a belief.Technically, a "raw-foodist" is just someone who eats a diet of mostly raw foods. Some tribes, such as the Nenets, eat a mostly raw diet, but do not have any "raw-foodist" beliefs, as such, they just eat that way out of tradition or convenience. Strictly speaking, the "Raw Foodism" wikipedia page should be renamed "Raw Food Diets", in order to be accurate. There is also the question of substantial bias involved if we have a separate wikipedia page for raw foods and 1 for "Raw Foodism" - after all, we don't have an equivalent wikipedia page entry for "cooked-foodism" or a wikipedia page for cooked-foods, just a "Cooking" wikipedia page. I have yet to come across one single person on a modern, junk-food diet, who refers to himself/herself as a "cooked-foodist".Loki0115 (talk) 12:29, 29 August 2008 (UTC) Is it acceptable to mention native tribes who ate/eat partially-raw diets?(with references, of course). Also, re the above:- If one takes the unlikely view that raw-foodism is a belief, then one has to accept the fact that one of the raw-foodist "beliefs" is that toxins are found in cooked-foods - from that assumption, it's not appropriate to forbid mention of studies backing that core-belief, even if it focuses on cooked-foods. After all, there are a multitude of subjects that are , to some extent, defined by their opposites(eg:- darkness is the absence of light etc.)Loki0115 (talk) 13:14, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

One other thing:- I don't think that it's wise to merge the raw veganism page into the raw foodism page. Raw Vegans form the majority of raw-foodists, so far, so they deserve their own wikipedia page. Strictly speaking, given the mass of info online re raw veganism, its wikipedia page should be much longer than it currently is.Loki0115 (talk) 13:14, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Cooking#Health effects is seriously incomplete. It doesn't mention, for example, that if you die of a bacterial infection when you're three, then you have zero risk of getting colon cancer in your geriatric years. I do not recommend simply copying it. Leaving that aside, however, I agree that if the "toxins in cooked foods" belief can be substantiated as a significant aspect of motivation/belief/etc, then that fact should be mentioned. If it's a major issue among either proponents or detractors, then it must be mentioned. I'd prefer it in the "beliefs" section, myself. (It might be possible to rename ==Beliefs== to something more general, like ==Overview== or ==General principles==, if desired). Ideally, we'd have a good general source about rawism that happens to mention scientific studies on several specific foods.
I think that reading WP:SPA will provide you with a general notion of the, um, frowned-upon-ness of editing primarily a single article. People who only edit one article/one small area tend to be motivated by knowing that they alone hold the Truth.™ Consequently, they are out to Right Great Wrongs™ in a world that has Sadly Rejected the Cause™ when it's Perfectly Obvious to Anyone™ with the proper education and open mind that adoption of this minority view would Solve All the World's Problems.™^[4] Wikipedia seems to have more trouble with SPAs than with general editors. However, working on a single page is permitted, and it's not exactly uncommon among newer editors (you have to start somewhere). But yes, branch out: there are millions of articles. Surely there's another one that will interest you. (Hometown? Favorite food? Childhood hero?)
If we can only get a (probably) biased person's estimate, then we can use that—but we state it clearly, hewing as closely to the original source as reasonable (watching for copyvio problems): "The leading proponent of Diet Variant X, Joe Smith, says that zillions of people follow this diet full-time or part-time" instead of "Zillions of people follow this diet." The reader can then adjust the numbers according to his/her interpretation. (If you're me, you'd probably halve the number, and if you're my brother, you'd probably divide by a thousand—but the point is that we provide the context and leave that adjustment up the reader.)
You might want to read the actual rules for reliable sources. Newspapers are not the only proper source. Properly published books are another good option. Websites may be all right. It really depends on how you're using the source. The less controversial the information, the less exalted the source needs to be. We need good science sources for scientific claims, but if we just want a description of "Diet Variant X", and there's a popular book on your shelf that's all about "Diet Variant X", or a widely accepted description at the website for a major organization, "International Society for Advancing Diet Variant X", then we can certainly use that. Personal websites and blogs, however, are always regarded with distinct suspicion. Also, it's better to name a weak source than to have no source.
I don't support separate Raw foods diet and Raw foodism pages. Wikipedia articles are named after the most common name, and defining article content according to amateur etymology is discouraged. Whatever title is chosen, the term should be defined by reliable sources.
Yes, if you can ref a traditional ethnic group that primarily or exclusively eats raw foods, then that can be included as an example of people that eat raw foods.
Whether or not there are more raw vegans than raw non-vegans is unimportant. It's not a popularity contest. There's very little information in Raw veganism that isn't already, or shouldn't already, be in this article. The Wikipedia approach is to have one decent article, and if/when information specifically about raw veganism ever gets to be too large to handle gracefully on this page, then it can be split again. The page will still exist, after all (complete with it's history); we'd just move the information here, and have that page redirect to this one. As a first step, it would be reasonable to swipe information from that article to fill in the missing information here.

--WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:50, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Re only focusing on 1 wikipedia page:- I really don't have the time to alter other wikipedia sites, except perhaps once a month or so, at the most. I only volunteered for doing this page, not out of a desire to preach as such, but because virtually none of the past contributors/editors were raw-foodists. I suppose I'll have to compromise by editing occasionally some of the more obscure wikipedia pages which are, mercifully, rarely if ever checked/reviewed. That way, I won't be doubling etc. my time spent editing wikipedia.

My only concern is that any criticisms should be kept in the criticism page . In the case of the health-effects article, I would think that it would be appropriate to write some sentences or two on the dangers of bacteria and parasites(as long as I'm allowed to provide a balancing sentence or two with link/reference(s) backing rawists' claims that bacteria and parasites may be healthy in some cases(eg:- the hygiene hypothesis theory, backed up references to various studies on the benefits of bacteria/parasites) - I think there's already an unreferenced sentence, somewhere, on the raw-foodism page referring to the dangers of bacteria/parasites? Other than that, presumably, is it acceptable for the rest of the paragraphs on the toxins in cooking to be moved over to the raw-foodism page, intact? The references mostly cover toxins found in cooked-foods in general, rather than specific foods.

Re books by raw diet authors:- I'll put them forward on the page and see how they get accepted. Some of the books(non-raw vegan diets), in previous editings ages ago, were considered inappropriate because they were not best-sellers. For example, would this book be acceptable as a reference to the Primal Diet, even though it's no.233,000 or so in the ranks?:-

http://www.amazon.com/Recipe-Living-Without-Disease/dp/1889356840/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220105535&sr=8-2

I'll now include that reference to the Nenets and perhaps the Eskimoes who also ate hefty amounts of raw meats/organ-meats(and rotting/aged raw fish etc.). I don't think anyone would have a problem with it as the washington post is a reliable newspaper.

Fine, I accept your raw vegan points. I suppose if someone starts adding too much raw vegan data it could eventually be given another wikipedia page, but you're right, for now, it's probably unnecessary.

I'll also include that Primal Diet reference on the wikipedia page re aajonus' primal diet (reportedly) having 20,000 members. This can be moved to the appropriate seciton, as applicable, later.Loki0115 (talk) 14:31, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Loki, I am pretty sure 'rawism' or 'raw foodism' is a philosophy or way of life. Rawists have a set of beliefs (that are off the beaten path) and it takes a bit of dedication to follow the diet. I have friends who travel the country teaching the diet who have a TV show, as well, so I am familiar with the mindset. Rawists are distinct from tribes who eat raw foods because it's a choice, not the best adaptation to their environment. However, I am open to including studies from populations that eat raw food.
Also, I have a problem with the dogmatic assertion that 'most anthropologists' believe something, unless backed up by multiple refererences. This phrase comes from one article. But really, Wrangham's views and the whole 'when cooking began' question is a bit peripheral to this article and shouldn't be given too much space.
The belief in deleterious toxins in cooked foods should be developed as one the tenets of 'rawism', but it needs to be explained in a way so readers understand that it is not an accepted reason to avoid cooked foods. I'm willing to bet 'most nutritionists' would not agree that cooked food is to be avoided because of toxins, but I do not have references. It's just that the toxin hypothesis is considered 'fringe'.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 16:55, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Cyn, it doesn't matter whether you or I think that rawism is a philosophy or something else: we must have a reliable source that says that. Can you ask your friends to recommend a book that would tell us? Is there a big association of raw foods people somewhere? WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:18, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Sources

Here are three sources that clearly explain that raw foodism is a philosophy. The first is about a book on raw foodism:

Raw food is not just a diet. It is a revolutionary philosophy. A revolution is a fundamental change in the way of thinking about something. The raw food movement changes the way we look at food, therefore, it is a revolution. Philosophy is an interpretation of the way things fit together. The raw food movement looks at the way food, living, treatment of the earth, our treatment of each other, and our quest for physical, spiritual, and mental health all fit together. Therefore, it is also a philosophy.^[5]
RAW-FOOD PHILOSOPHY

The cornerstone of the "rawist" philosophy is simple: Nature is perfect. Proponents say that raw foods are nutritionally complete, and that cooking food is not only unnatural, but detrimental to its nutritional content.^[6]

Although raw food is a diet plan, it is also a philosophy. Living food, living body. Dead food, dead body. Now, if you don't embrace the living food philosophy, you probably won't want to become a 100% raw foodist.^[7]--—CynRN ^(Talk) 04:48, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Cyn, the first two are great sources. The book's website lists some of the "leaders" in the raw foods movement, which could be really useful for figuring out whether this book or that book is widely accepted. The second one is even better: a bona fide magazine article on raw foods published by Vegetarian Times. I'm sure that it contains facts that we should have in this article (for example, that ≥75% raw foods is generally considered enough to call yourself a raw food adherent), or that it supports facts that we already have here without any supporting reference.

Looking at the comments and links you provided, I think it would be fair to say that this article covers both "a diet" and "a philosophy". We should consider writing a paragraph that describes the distinction. Would you like to do that? I think it would fit well into a re-worked (and perhaps re-titled) Beliefs section. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:48, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I would enjoy writing about the philosophy aspect for the beliefs section, with help from other editors, of course.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 16:53, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

That sounds great. Presumably we should present both sides: "Raw veganism is just a diet, nothing more." There certainly seems to be some diversity of opinion and approaches. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:17, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

I have been repeatedly told that www.beyondveg.com violates reliable source. Therefore if it's included, then any other website that debunks beyondveg.com's ideas should be included as well. Though it would be best to avoid including both, I suppose.

Except in the most extreme cases, it's not really possible to determine the reliability of any source without considering how it is used. As proof that some people think it's "just a diet", BeyondVeg.com is acceptable. (There might, of course, be other, even better sources for this statement, but it's acceptable.) As proof of some scientific fact, it's not acceptable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:39, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Loki, It doesn't matter if a book made a bestseller list. It does matter if the book is actually on the subject (non-raw cookbooks having so little to say about raw food diets). It matters if the book was self-published (I can't tell for this one). It also matters if the book is relatively popular in its specific genre. So if this book is very popular among raw-meat-eaters, and you want to describe raw-meat-eating, then that's good. The fact that any kind of raw-meat-eating book is remarkably unpopular among all the other book buyers is unimportant. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:53, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I'll look at the standard wikipedia info-pages you gave me , now. In the meantime, I'm rather curious:- Exactly, how is this arbitration supposed to be normally carried out, wikipedia-style? I guess one can come to a concensus with all members eventually agreeing on what's OK/ whats' not. But if the sides are irreconciliable, does one put it to a democratic vote, or are there senior Wikipedians who get more than 1 vote each, as opposed to newbies who only get 1 vote? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Loki0115 (talk • contribs) 14:59, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Ideally, we'll be able to hammer out something that everyone can live with, at least more or less. I don't at this moment see any reason why that won't happen here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:18, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Re-open

Consumption of raw food is not a narrow topic which need constrain our use of sources. Most everyone consumes raw food and we have commonplace folk wisdom on the topic such as an apple a day keeps the doctor away. I favour moving the article to the title Raw food so that our treatment may be comprehensive and not overly concerned with particular sects or factions. Colonel Warden (talk) 16:38, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

The trouble is that there is no equivalent general "cooked-food" section, so changing it to a raw-food page would lead to bias. Secondly, raw food movements such as the raw vegan movement have been steadily appearing in the media, so they merit more than just a paragraph or two, on a wikipedia page devoted vaguely to raw foods in general. Another point is that mainstream-advice, such as to eat a raw apple a day, is a world away from a raw-foodist recommending people to eat aged, raw meat. Just not the same thing.Loki0115 (talk) 16:49, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

The equivalent general page on cooked food is cooking which contains similar material on the health implications. Colonel Warden (talk) 18:18, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid "Cooking" is not an equivalent page. Cooking describes a process(cooking) and its effects on food, there is no equivalent "rawing" or whatever, or a "cooked-foods" page. At any rate, raw foodism is interconnected with the concept of raw-foods that it would be impractical to separate the two. Deleting the wikipedia page on raw foodism and replacing it with "raw foods" would not be possible as raw food diets are already an established fact, having been mentioned in the media, numerous times, and need to be included in their own right.Loki0115 (talk) 20:33, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd support renaming it to something like Raw food diet, which is a little more expansive than Raw foodism (and also a little less patronizing: raw foodism smacks of "it's just another -ism"). I'd also support leaving it here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:17, 8 September 2008

(UTC)

I agree. "Raw Foodism" is a patronising term - eaters of cooked-diets don't get to be called "cooked-fooidtss" after all.Loki0115 (talk) 09:26, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Wrangham in the lead

The OR issues aside, I have a particular problem with this edit:

Richard Wrangham, a primate researcher, has argued, controversially,^[8]^[9] that cooking is obligatory for humans, as a result of biological adaptations to cooked foods.^[10]^[11]

was changed to:

Richard Wrangham, a primate researcher, has argued, controversially,^[8]^[9] that cooking foods led to an increase in human brain-size.^[10]^[11]

In my opinion, the original sentence was more on-topic and relevant in the lead than the new version. If I knew nothing about raw foodism, I wouldn't understand the relevance of mentioning in the lead that Wrangham believes "that cooking foods led to an increase in human brain-size."

--Phenylalanine (talk) 15:39, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't actually think that Wrangham needs to be mentioned in the lead at all. Why elevate Wrangham's evolution-based argument? It would be one thing if the lead included pro-raw evolutionary claims. If you want to present a criticism in the lead, why not use infectious disease? Food poisoning is definitely easier for the general reader to understand than Wrangham's claim. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:50, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree that Wrangham doesn't need to be in the lead, but I restored the original meaning to make it more relevant.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 06:37, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Per WP:LEAD, the lead should be a summary of the article, including the most important points presented therein. Since we have a separate section on controversies, we should at least point out that Raw foodism has been criticized. --Phenylalanine (talk) 13:45, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, we all agree that a bit about criticism should eventually go back into the lead. But perhaps it would be best to develop the criticism section first. It's kind of hard to summarize something that barely exists -- and presumably there are rather more criticisms than just Wrangham's one idea. Are you willing to expand that section? Food poisoning is easy to substantiate, and I see information about suspected teeth problems and vitamin deficiencies scattered throughout the text already. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:48, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Tribes

I disagree with Cyn's comment re raw-food-eating tribes eating raw as it's best for their environment, they simply eat raw food due to tradition and do not have a pro-raw-foodist/anti-cooked-foodist philosophy - wouldn't the Nenets in Siberia want to cook their meats instead, because of the cold? Yet they eat them mostly raw. Also, the reason why most people turn to raw-foods is generally not out of interest in a belief-system but because they are trying to recover their health(it would be very difficult to persuade people to switch from junk-food diets to diets consisting lots of raw-animal-foods, given current view among society re the dangers of bacteria/parasites, unless there was a predominant health-motive. Most would happily eat loads of Twinkies if it turned out that that would cure them instead.

I meant that the Nenets and the Inuits and the like have adapted to their environment in the best way they can, and tradition followed. IOW, over the years they learned that raw meat retained a vital element (vitamin C) that they needed and traditions were established...all very intuitive.

It still doesn't compute. If they were merely adapting to their environment, they should be cooking their foods because of the extreme cold requiring the consumption of heated, cooked-foods.This is one explanation given by some for the advent of cooking. However, when there is NO satisfactory explanation given for a given raw diet in a specific environment, then the only possible conclusion can be that raw foods were eaten by those tribes out of tradition. I might add that vitamin C is not necessarily 100% destroyed by cooking(see online references re Stefansson's Bellevue(cooked, all-animal-food) experiment:-

http://www.biblelife.org/stefansson1.htm (and parts 2 and 3).

Also, of course, the Eskimoes, Inuit, Nenets etc. all ate raw berries and organ-meats(liver, even if cooked, contains vitamin C).

Loki, please remember to sign your talk page statements.

There's more to "adapting to their environment" than temperature. If you are in a fuel-poor region, you might eat substantially less cooked food as a means of conserving fuel for heating. Also, if it's refrigerator-cold outside (or colder), then the risk of food poisoning drops substantially, so you might have less motivation for cooking as a means of killing microorganisms. Not cooking could easily be an adaptation to this environment. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:53, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree that many of the stories on the web talk about illness and how raw foodism was tried as a 'last resort' and then the subject becomes a believer in the raw food diet. Some of the leaders in the movement started that way. However, it's evident from the links I've provided that it's a philosophy as well.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 19:42, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Some think of it as a philosophy, but the majority view it merely as a diet of last-resort for health-reasons, given modern phobias re raw meats etc. It wouldn't make sense for large numbers of people to try raw animal food diets, for any other reason.

Re Wrangham:- I should point out that the words "many anthropologists" and "most other anthropologists" or "a lot of anthropologists" tend to be mentioned as opposing Wrangham in the more prominent articles featuring Wrangham's works:-

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=cooking-up-bigger-brains

http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/06.13/01-cooking.html

The first link you give says we controlled fire 500,000 years ago. The second one says 250,000 to 500,000 years ago. Yes, the two links say "most researchers" and "most anthropologists" but they seem to agree on an older date than 250,000 years ago. Just being a stickler, here. :) --—CynRN ^(Talk) 19:42, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the general agreement is that fire was controlled "for warmth" c.400,000 to 500,000 years ago, with "cooking with fire", as an innovation, being only introduced c.250,000 to 300,000 years ago. That's why there's only a vague generalisation given. But nothing older than 500,000 years ago for fire(for whatever use) is considered as remotely credible, given that there is no credible evidence for it. I could provide other references re the 250,000-300,000 year-date for cooking, if necessary. It's common knowledge, after all.Loki0115 (talk) 18:15, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

If early man controlled fire for warmth, it is logical that he would have started BBQing right about the same time.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 15:50, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Re comment "but it needs to be explained in a way so readers understand that it is not an accepted reason to avoid cooked foods. I'm willing to bet 'most nutritionists' would not agree that cooked food is to be avoided because of toxins, but I do not have references. It's just that the toxin hypothesis is considered 'fringe'":-

I'm afraid this is based on a misunderstanding. If you look at the various articles online, you will find that most responsible nutritionists actually recommend against many/most types of cooking such as baking/frying( http://www.lordsday.org/fryed_foods.htm ) , microwaving ( http://chetday.com/microwave.html ), broiling/grilling( http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8499202/ ) etc. etc.. These sites recommending against various types of cooking are all over the Net, and the majority of those sites are not centred around Raw-Foodism in any way, they just suggest ways to reduce the toxins in cooked-foods, either by special preparation (eg:- http://www.fitnessandfreebies.com/food/articles/carcinogens.html ) or by avoiding/limiting that type of cooked-food entirely. So, it is clear from the above(and any decent Googling) that toxins in cooked-foods are an established fact among mainstream nutritionists, not merely a fringe-belief among raw-foodists. The only difference in that regard is that nutritionists supporting cooked-food diets don't mind recommending lightly-cooked foods(such as steaming/boiling/simmering/poaching) as they claim that the toxins in those lightly-cooked foods are negligible by comparison to the larger amounts of toxins found in more heavily-cooked foods such as fried foods - whereas raw-food diet nutritionists claim that these toxins in lightly-cooked foods still cause some harm.

I would also suggest that the current posters search for studies dealing with Advanced Glycation Endproducts or Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons or Nitrosamines or Heterocyclic amines, as there are numerous online scientific studies(on pubmed etc.) firmly establishing the harmful effect of these toxins in cooked-foods.

Loki, some of the refs are legitimate re. high heat grilling, with RDs as authors, but some are suspect. The microwave article seems to be cobbling unrelated studies together to 'blacken' microwaving. While fried foods are pretty well agreed on as being less than healthy food, the reliability of the "fried food, is it safe" article is in question with no references. We've known about carcinogens from grilling for some time. Again, I don't think we'll find many mainstream nutritionists writing about the dangers of cooked foods besides the problem of improper grilling. Wikipedia should rely on mainstream science and clearly delineate when a belief is controversial, much like how we deal with Wrangham's theory.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 17:10, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I can easily provide more wikipedia-friendly references criticising toxins caused by certain types of cooking, such as acrylamide etc, as they're all over the Web. Same goes for dangers of microwaving. For example:-

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1557249

http://www.defendingscience.org/case_studies/upload/EPA_Diacetyl_Study.pdf

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_n17_v141/ai_12100730

As I stated above, almost every type of cooking has some form of scientific study delineating the dangers of eating that kind of cooked-food. There is only a dearth of studies focusing on lightly-cooked foods(ie "boiling/steaming/poaching"), so the vast majority of nutritionists out there are recommending against cooking too much, and recommend cooking less, thus supporting raw-foodist claims that the less you cook your food, the healthier it is. The only difference is that raw-foodists claim that raw-food is even healthier than lightly-cooked food. Therefore, the notion that there are toxins in cooked-foods is not so much a belief as a scientific fact.

Two of these studies are on human breast milk (breaking down the IgA by microwaving) and the other is on emissions released from a bag of microwaved popcorn with relevance to workers in a microwave popcorn factory. We can't extrapolate to say 'nutritionists recommend against microwaving'. Sure, nutritionists say 'don't overcook vegetables' and 'be careful when grilling' but that is a far cry from 'nutritionists supporting raw food claims'. --—CynRN ^(Talk) 15:45, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I rather like the idea of the food-poisoning reference replacing Wrangham. This actually makes a stronger argument against raw-food-diets than Wrangham as more people are aware of the former whereas Wrangham is considered "fringe" by human evolutionists, even in their own field. I do think that any food-poisoning mention should be backed by references to scientific studies showing food-poisoning from raw-foods.Loki0115 (talk) 12:36, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Umm, has everyone, by now, agreed to remove Wrangham from the intro, and to remove the Pottenger study mention re raw food diet for cats(not humans)? If so, I'll remove both within a couple of days.Loki0115 (talk) 14:58, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

I think that we have full agreement on both of those. After the criticism section gets expanded, we'll probably add a sentence or two from the critics back into the introduction (probably at the end of the introduction), but Wrangham can be removed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:30, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, this is to report that I've removed the Wrangham thread and shifted the pottenger thread to the raw feedinmg section.Loki0115 (talk) 09:04, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Beyondveg.com

I noticed that one reference for the Pottenger Cat study in the "Raw Feeding" wikipedia page was from the beyondveg.com site. On the raw-foodism page, beyondveg.com was listed as being a site conflicting with original research rules.Can I remove it, therefore? Loki0115 (talk) 09:15, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Original research is all about how you use a source. Is says nothing about the source itself.

To say that a scientist once concluded that cats thrive best on a diet of exclusively raw meat is not original research. To say that a feline diet has any connection at all to humans, however, is (unless, of course, you have a reliable source that clearly makes that claim for you). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:54, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Out of place in raw food movement

These sentences seem out of place under Raw food movement: "The Nenet tribe of Siberia currently practice a diet consisting of mostly raw meats/organ-meats and raw berries"[16] "Those Eskimoes still following their traditional diet eat a partially-raw diet, including raw meats/organ-meats and aged raw foods in the form of caribou and fish, among other foods"[17]. These are cultures eating a large proportion raw food, not part of a "movement". Tribes that follow raw food diets are useful for studying health effects, but the mention is out of place in this section. If we develop a "meat raw food" section, maybe this can go there--—CynRN ^(Talk) 07:07, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I second that. --Phenylalanine (talk) 10:08, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking about moving them to the "History" section. That would expand that section beyond modern-history-among-white-people, which is what it pretty much is right now. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:39, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I think "History" needs some work. I have read more succinct histories on the web about the subject and I think this section could be streamlined. Adding the Nenets seems logical but "History" should be about the history of this movement. Did the raw foodists use the Nenets and Inuits to popularize the diet? I know they are part of the argument that the diet is healthy and so on, but are they part of the history of the "raw food movement"?--—CynRN ^(Talk) 07:07, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Technically speaking, the Inuit diet is always acclaimed as the reason for starting a raw animal food diet.Just a thought.Loki0115 (talk) 20:34, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

More clarity in lead

I don't think there is any agreement on merging this article with Raw veganism yet, but after reading comments over there, I am thinking there needs be a clarification early on in the lead that there are several main groups: raw vegans, raw vegetarians and raw omnivores. I think I can find plenty of refs saying that raw veganism is an older and more widespread movement and that should be emphasized. The raw vegans are diametrically opposed to animal products and this needs to be made clear. The second sentence talks about all the things a raw foodist can eat, implying 'all raw foodists' which isn't the case, of course. --—CynRN ^(Talk) 21:03, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

It would be a very bad idea, IMO, to include, in the Intro, specific data on the allowed/forbidden foods/history in raw veganism, as that would create too mjuch clutter, and give undue weight to raw veganism as a diet. This should only be included in a separate paragraph(s) in the diet-descriptions section under "Raw Veganism". The intro for raw-foodism should address all raw diets, in general, giving numerous examples of raw foods, as it is, right now. Because Raw Veganism has been around for longer with more history etc., that's why I thought it best for it to have its own raw veganism page. I don't actually disagree, any more, with its being merged with the raw foodism page, but raw veganism should be only specifically referred to, in detail, in the raw diet description section, with an explanation re its dominance in rawism etc.

I personally have never once heard of raw vegetarians as a raw-food diet description, there are either raw vegans, raw omnivores(with varying raw animal food intake of between 10-90%), and those following a raw version of a palaeolithic diet, and those doing a 100% raw animal food diet. Raw vegans eating just raw dairy and raw eggs still either call themselves raw vegans or raw-omnivores(if they eat lots of raw animal foods), despite eating only a little raw animal food - after a quick google under "raw vegetarianism", it seems I'm right. Perhaps we could include "raw vegetarianism" under "Raw Veganism"Loki0115 (talk) 10:37, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

One other thing, whatamidoing, there is a subsection of rawists who follow a raw version of the palaeolithic diet. A while back, I was not allowed to include a mention of this sort of diet, as I was unable to provide a specific reference(the several references I could find were to personal websites covering that diet). I compromised by including a newspaper reference to "raw meat diets" which is another term used by raw-animal-foodists to describe such a diet. I did previously include a reference, a seemingly public(?) website which wasn't oriented towards raw-foods specifically, which mentioned raw paleolithic diets in passing, I'm curious as to why it wasn't allowed:- http://www.newtreatments.org/diet.php

At any rate, is it OK for me to include a reference/paragraph in the diet description section for those doing a "raw , paleolithic diet", even if I'm not able to provide wikipedia-friendly references for it?Loki0115 (talk) 10:37, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I want to know what Phenylalanine thinks, but I think it needs to be clear in the lead that there are distinct types of 'raw foodists' and that the vegans are more prominant. 'Raw foodist' means raw vegan in most articles about rawists I've seen. Not to diminish raw meat eaters, but that is reality. I think I could provide many refs for this. The lists of which foods allowed and so forth does not need to be in the lead more than 'unprocessed' vegetables, fruit, seeds, raw meat, etc...not a whole long list of foods.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 18:52, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I should add that the raw vegans simply appropriated the term "raw foodist" for themselves, ages ago, which is why raw-meat-eaters(palaeo-oriented) took to calling themselves "raw palaeolithic dieters", instead. However, due to a mass transfer of people from Raw Vegan diets in the last few years(due to nutritional deficiencies), the term "raw foodist" is increasingly being used in the sense of "raw omnivore", instead, and it's more factually-correct for describing raw food diets, in general. I don't mind raw veganism being cited as the most popular diet, but it would be wrong, currently, to use the term "raw foodism" to mean "raw veganism".Loki0115 (talk) 21:00, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Loki, I don't know why you haven't heard of raw vegetarians. Raw vegans seem pretty obvious. Raw meat eaters are quite rare. But raw milk and raw cheese is easy to come by -- heck, butter is available in every grocery store -- and has a much lower "gross" level than raw meat. I'd be astonished if there weren't more people that refuse to eat raw meat but are perfectly happy with a little unpasteurized cheese compared to the very small number of people that regularly eat raw meat. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:58, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid you're quite mistaken. As I pointed out with that other reference on the raw foodism page, there are at least something like 20,000 Primal Dieters in North America alone, all of whom eat lots of raw meat(the staple of their diet) as part of their diet(a very large number of Primal-Dieters also eat bacteria-rich rotting meat after the first year or so, as well, as it's recommended very heavily by their guru and is an old Eskimo-food used for enhancing one's health. You may not agree with that 20,000 figure, having never met a raw-animal-foodist in person, but I correspond with enough people online to know that there's at least that number of people doing this Primal Diet in the US/Canada, given all the regular raw-animal-food-diet meetups set up between members in California etc..Then there are all the other types of raw-meat diets such as people doing raw versions of the Palaeolithic Diet. And this doesn't include the masses of people doing partially-raw diets(for example, many people who follow the Weston-Price diet eat a large number of raw-animal-foods such as raw liver/raw fish etc. etc., and there are those tribes I mentioned which eat some or most of their meats raw or aged. This also doesn't take into account the multitude of non-rawists who happily eat lots of steak-tartare, beef carpaccio, sashimi(raw fish), sushi(raw fish plus cooked-rice), raw oysters etc. etc. Also, of course,many Raw Vegans/Fruitarians are turning in increasing numbers to raw animal foods due to deficiencies incurred on 100% plant-food diets(as outlined in Shazzie's blog).

Still, I'm not opposed to the mention of Raw Vegetarianism as a separate mention, it's just that people who eat raw plant-foods and raw dairy/raw eggs, usually prefer to call themselves "raw omnivores" instead.But this is merely from my own anecdotal experience as a former Raw Vegan/Fruitarian. Another unsigned comment by .Loki0115 (talk)

Please sign your talk page comments. Even if there really are 20,000 raw meat eaters at any given moment, that's just one out of every 26,000 people in North America. I think that 1:26,000 qualifies as quite rare by any definition. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:11, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, the 20,000 figure is just for the Primal Dieters. Those eating significant amounts of raw animal food in their diet, including the tradition-diet-eating Eskimoes and raw animal foodists not from the Primal Diet would no doubt multiply the figures by a significant factor to at least, say, 1 in 4,000, or, likely, more frequent than that. But that's by the by. I'm happy enough that RAF diets are at least mentioned, here. Loki0115 (talk) 14:47, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

We need to portray what's out there as accurately as possible. Most refs seem to equate raw foodism with raw veganism.

This is a clumsy sentence, can we improve it? "Vegans usually equate Raw foodism or a raw food diet with raw veganism in which only unprocessed plant foods are eaten^[12], but raw animal products are also a traditional option for non-vegans"--—CynRN ^(Talk) 02:10, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The above definition by Cyn is 100% inaccurate. Raw-Animal-Foodists do NOT refer to themselves as "raw non-vegans"! The true definition of "Raw Foodism" is the original one used before on wikipedia:- "

Raw foodism is a lifestyle promoting the consumption of uncooked, unprocessed, and often organic foods as a large percentage of the diet. ... "

Similiar online definitions:-" My definition of a raw foodist is someone who eats at least 75% raw, live food."

Simply put, it's semantically-incorrect(and poor english) to state the above sentence""Vegans usually equate Raw foodism or a raw food diet with raw veganism in which only unprocessed plant foods are eaten^[13], but raw animal products are also a traditional option for non-vegans". First of all, it implies that that the few who do eat raw animal foods only eat small amounts of them, by comparison to the raw plant-foods in their diet - yet there are communities of raw-animal-foodists who don't eat any raw plant-food at all, just raw meats/organ-meats and nothing else, and, indeed, most Raw-Animal-Foodists(such as Primal Dieters/Raw Palaeolithic Dieters etc.), given dietary guidelines from their gurus, actually eat far more raw animal foods than they do raw plant-foods. In short, I very strongly disagree with the suggested sentence and would like to push for it be removed/replaced.

How about a sentence

stating:- "Raw Vegans are the most prominent community among Raw-Foodists, but there are other groups devoted to raw vegetarian or raw animal food diets."

The definition of "raw food diets", in terms of basic English, does not refer to "Raw Plant-Foods", in and of itself, just "raw foods" in general. Extrapolating from that, especially when raw omnivores and raw carnivores also use the term "raw-foodist" to describe themselves and their particular diet-style, is completely erroneous.

Here's a more logical definition of raw food diets from the web:-

"Firstly, it is important to start with a working definition of the raw food diet. In general, it means consuming food, drinks, and supplements that have not been heated above about 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 degrees Celsius). This temperature usually varies about plus or minus 10 degrees depending on who you talk to, but the idea is that around this temperature, certain food enzymes start breaking down" taken from:-

http://www.naturaw.com/raw-food-diet.html Loki0115 (talk) 11:52, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

This is what your ref (above) says about the raw food diet usually considered to be the raw vegan variety with a useful mention of 'raw vegetarians'. Nobody is saying that 'raw paleolithic' is not valid community...but these diets seem to have come on the scene later than the raw vegan and are not as well known. It also has stuff about microbes...

" The diet usually consists of raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, grains, shoots, sprouts, super foods such as algae, sea vegetables, bee pollen, honey, etc. Most people on the diet tend to be vegan (no animal products), or vegetarian (some animal products). Animal products strengthen the electrical properties of the body while vegetable products strengthen the magnetic properties of the body. Raw animal products can include dairy, eggs, fish, meats, insects, etc. There tends to be higher microbe and parasitic content in raw animal products so people consuming those products must be made aware of that and take that into account in handling and consuming raw animal products. Depending on the situation, sometimes some cooking is desirable if the environment in which you are eating is overrun with viruses, bacteria, microbes, parasites, etc. Cooking actually helped humanity explore and populate the planet."--—CynRN ^(Talk) 16:28, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Re "raw Palaeolithic diet":- This is a perfectly valid diet-community, IMO. Here's two examples of webpages which describe it, as a type of raw-foodism:-

http://www.rawpaleodiet.org/rvaf-overview.html

http://www.rawpaleo.com/Loki0115 (talk) 12:03, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Here is the current sentence in the lead:

"Raw foodism or a raw food diet is usually equated with raw veganism in which only unprocessed plant foods are eaten[2], but raw animal products are also an option for non-vegans"

It needs to get the point across that there are two main divisions in raw foodism, vegan and meat eating. How about:

"Raw foodism or a raw food diet is usually equated with raw veganism in which only unprocessed plant foods are eaten[2], but other raw foodists emphasize raw meat and other animal products(insert ref)."--—CynRN ^(Talk) 16:40, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Well it sounds like a good start at least towards being more descriptive. Unless others disagree, I say go for it! --CrohnieGal^Talk 16:45, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I dislike the term "equated". It implies that the two terms are completely interchangeable, which they haven't been for the last 20 years or more, at the least, - indeed, many raw vegan sites no longer simply state that they are "raw foodists" but have to now quailify/clarify themselves by making it clear that they are NOT promoting raw animal foods in any way - this is because, otherwise, they get new forum-members coming in etc who assume "raw-foodism" means "all raw foods" not just raw plant-foods, and thereby annoy the squeamish raw vegans with posts about preparing raw animal foods. Here's websites referring to raw food diets which are raw omnivorous:-

http://www.karlloren.com/human-raw-meat-diet.htm

Here's the clincher, a standard online scientific reference:-" Raw food diets may include raw fruits, raw vegetables, raw nuts, raw seeds, raw unpasteurized dairy products such as raw milk, raw meat, raw eggs, and raw honey.." taken from:-

http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/r/raw_food_diet.htm

My point is that the notion of "raw foodism" only equated to raw veganism, in those far-off years where 99% of all rawists were Raw Vegan - this was not because "raw food" meant "raw vegan" as such, but simply by default because most rawists happened to be "Raw Vegan" at the time, it was assumed that "raw-foodist" meant "Raw Vegan", since no other sizeable community was around. However, nowadays, the term "raw foodist" means more than just "raw vegan" because there are ever-larger communities of raw omnivores/carnivores who call themselves by that same label. Surely, it's enough to just state that the majority of raw foodists are raw vegan - otherwise, I reckon there's too much weight given to raw veganism as a sort of cited "default" raw foodism, perhaps violating NPOV in favour of a "mainstream(raw vegan) POV"-plus, it confuses people, as there should be 1 primary definition of a term, not two.Loki0115 (talk) 17:49, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

The ref re. Loren looks like a blog. The ref from Science Daily is not much more than a blurb. It actually refers readers to Wikipedia...kind of circular, no? Anyway, we should get your idea across: that raw foodists used to be vegan but there is an upcoming raw animal products movement, now.

"Raw foodism or a raw food diet has traditionally meant raw veganism in which only unprocessed plant foods are eaten[2], but increasingly, another group of raw foodists are eating diets of raw meat and other animal products." Does this capture your point?

(I took the liberty of indenting your comments, Loki) --—CynRN ^(Talk) 18:19, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

That's fine.I have no problems with that.THe old wikipedia entry, by the way, referred to "raw foodism being merely "raw, unprocessed foods", judging from a google. The karl loren page is run by a guy specialising in selling various products/consults etc., not merely a blog, but a resource-website.Loki0115 (talk) 20:40, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Raw meat eating

Am in the process of adding info to the raw-meat-eating section as instructed. I'm including only general info, of the sort that mirrors the kind of info given in the raw vegetable-eating section. I still strongly disagree with including mention of raw vegetarianism(and raw dairy) in the above general history section, unless the idea is to eventually include all information on the various raw subtypes in that section, rather than in the diet-description sections below - as it stands now, if the history section is supposed to be generalised, then any mention of raw dairy should be put in the raw-meat-eating section(I'm replacing the mention of raw-meat-eating with "raw animal food diets"). If the intention is to provide detailed info in the history section such as the dairy/raw vegetarianism mention, then I will move the Primal Diet info to the above history section, as well.Loki0115 (talk) 11:19, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Looks good so far! I just noticed a paragraph in Preparation talking about organic, grass fed beef. Doesn't that belong under Raw meat diets?--—CynRN ^(Talk) 19:15, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

The above paragraph re grassfed meats is meant to be used to counter the usual argument that eating raw meats is dangerous due to bacteria, it should therefore be placed next to whichever section/sentence which refers to the dangers of bacteria, therefore.Loki0115 (talk) 20:54, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Comments on cooking obligatory

I have a serious problem with the above inserted comment in the criticism section:- "The possibility that cooking is obligatory is supported by calculations suggesting that a diet of raw food could not supply sufficient calories for a normal hunter–gatherer lifestyle. In particular, many plant foods are too fiber-rich when raw, while most raw meat appears too tough to allow easy chewing".

First of all, many raw-animal-foodists don't bother with any significant chewing, they more or less just bolt it down like most carnivores such as dogs do, so the reference re chewing is somewhat out-of-place.Also, as I pointed out, Arctic tribes such as the Nenets have eaten a diet of mostly-raw animal foods for 1,000s of years without any problems re digestion or inability to obtain enough calories. Plus, in those days without freezers, much of the raw animal food eaten would have been aged, raw meat, which is particularly soft- and the Eskimos etc. all ate plenty of rotting fish etc - one reason why many RAFers eat such aged meats. I'm wondering if I could include the Nenets reference as a counterpoint. Is that OK?Loki0115 (talk) 12:16, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Studies on cooked foods

So, what about the inclusion of studies done on toxins in cooked foods?Loki0115 (talk) 12:53, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

For now, let's just have it as one reason for rawists following the diet, i.e. their belief that this is so. For claims like this (people are unhealthy because of the toxins in the cooked food they eat), very reliable references will be needed.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 19:03, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, the only objection to those studies was that they were original research or that some of the the studies weren't valid. I think the first argument has been countered already as it's too strict, and the 2nd one is easily countered with references to solid scientific studies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Loki0115 (talk • contribs) 20:51, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Original research is about how Wikipedia editors use the refs, not about what the author of the ref did. (WP:PRIMARY is the relevant concern about what the author of the ref wrote.)

Have you found a good ref that shows that cooked-toxins are an important consideration for people on a raw food diet? Any magazine article will do here. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:49, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by a good ref, but references to toxins in cooked-foods is present in most raw-foodist websites(eg:-

http://www.living-foods.com/articles/rawfreshproduce.html

http://www.watershed.net/raw-foods.aspx

Mercola is a doctor and nutritionist, one of the most popular on the web, and recommends a raw food diet on his main website, discussing the toxins in cooked-foods):-

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2002/05/22/cooked-food-part-one.aspx

Here's an article, which should do, citing raw-foodist beliefs re toxins in cooked foods, it's a hostile one:-

http://ca.lifestyle.yahoo.com/health-fitness/articles/diet/eatingwell/20621 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Loki0115 (talk • contribs) 11:09, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Loki, I see you have worked up a whole section on Toxins in cooked foods. I appreciate your effort, but I question whether this is too much for the Raw foodism article. Maybe Toxins in Cooked food deserves it's own Wikipedia article. A little can be mentioned here, but the bulk of the arguments can be somewhere else. I don't know if the idea of toxins in cooked food is that central to the raw foodist philosophy as opposed to the 'live foods impart vitality' belief that I see on all the websites.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 17:18, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but the belief that there are toxins in cooked-foods is absolutely central to raw-foodist-beliefs,(eg:-

http://www.bioperfection.com/health/raw/raw.htm

http://www.living-foods.com/articles/rawfreshproduce.html

http://ridfibromyalgia.blogspot.com/2007/01/benefits-of-raw-food.html

http://www.vegansociety.com/food/raw_food.php

http://www.cleanse.net/index.asp?PageAction=Custom&ID=23 )

and appears almost everywhere in rawist circles. If we exclude that, then there's no point in doing a raw-foodism page , other than the very minor notion that live, raw foods contain some form of "bioenergy" that "dead cooked-foods" don't have. The basic primary tenet of raw-foodism, above all else, is that "cooked-foods are poison" due to to the "toxins in cooked-foods". Without that belief, there's really no point in eating a raw food diet at all, as the bioenergy in raw foods issue, unlike the toxins in cooked-foods concept, hasn't been proven at all.Loki0115 (talk) 19:42, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

The only alternative would be to do a wikinfo-style approach, by doing both a pro-raw-foodism page and an anti-raw-foodism page, but this is not wikipedia's style. Another factor is that the anti-raw argument is now many tens of lines long, what with all the guff re food-poisoning. Therefore, according to wikipedia standards, the pro-raw info should, at the very least, be similiar in length. Even with the toxins in cooked food info, the anti-raw stuff is slightly larger, last I checked.Loki0115 (talk) 19:42, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Loki, you are right...two opposing raw food articles would be ridiculous. The trouble here is that the raw food movement is inarguably not 'mainstream' among nutritionists. Wikipedia needs to reflect the mainstream view, while allowing the raw food advocates to explain their postition. Wikipedia is supposed to be encyclopedic, not turn into a soapbox for alternate views.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 20:31, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia already reflects the mainstream anti-raw view in most other non-raw-related article on food, and also there is the Criticism section for mainstream views to be expressed fully(eg:- food-poisoning). I recall another poster/contributor to wikipedia mentioning recently how regretful it was that the original idea of NPOV, the neutral point of view, was being ignored, and that contributors only wanted to express the mainstream view. I disagree with that, both should be represented fully. First of all, the scientific studies which I cited which describe the toxins in cooked foods are all mainstream(that is, the relevant toxins, advanced glycation ndproducts, nitrosamines, polycylic aromatic hydrocarbons, heterocyclic amines and acrylamide, have all been mentioned routinely in government papers, scientific studies and mainstream newspaper articles(remember the c.2003 acrylamide scare in the media?), so it's extremely difficult to argue that these toxins in cooked-foods are not considered a "mainstream" belief, in any way. Secondly, the issue of toxins in cooked-foods is so central to raw-foodism that nobody would bother going raw, if they didn't believe fully in the concept that "cooked-food is poison". They simply can't be excluded, without making the whole raw-foodism article pointless re providing any real information.Loki0115 (talk) 20:48, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

As regards reflecting mainstream views, isn't the issue of food-poisoning re bacteria/parasites the central issue in the mainstream anti-raw view? Since that is already being covered extensively in the criticism section, I really don't see how the mainstream view is not being covered in detail - the only other one is the notion that raw vegan diets are deficient in certain vitamins, which is also fully covered already in the article. There really are no other anti-raw mainstream views, to speak of. Loki0115 (talk) 21:31, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Reliability of blogs

Re comment on raw foodism page:- "Increasing numbers of long-term raw vegans believe that to sustain the diet daily inclusion of superfoods and/or supplements are necessary, particularly for children and mothers. Many raw vegan children have been shown to have problems with tooth decay which is believed to be a result of vitamin D deficiency[citation needed], however this may simply be miseducation as vitamin D2 comes from plant sources and vitamin D3 can be manufactured by the human body upon exposure to sunlight." The above reference to raw vegans and tooth-decay should have a legitimate reference to a scientific study of raw vegans, otherwise it needs to be removed.

I agree that blogs are not reliable. If we can find comments in a magazine article by a registered dietician, that would be a good reference, IMHO.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 18:46, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Re "There are people strongly opposed to raw foodism, for example in this blog mothers are encouraged either to supplement or include raw dairy products or other raw animal foods to avoid irrevocable damage to their children's health.[10]":- First of all, note number 10 refers to a mere personal blog, which is not allowed by Wikipedia, AFAIK, so it should be removed. Secondly, that particular blog refers to a famous pro-Raw Vegan guru, called "Shazzie", who is most definitely NOT "opposed to raw-foodism", she is merely conceding the point that children on raw vegan diets MUST eat some raw animal foods, as well, or suffer healthwise. I will consider removing both of the above mentions, within 7(?) days, unless my points are answered.Loki0115 (talk) 13:04, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

How does one go about including pictures of raw animal foods on this page, I tried uploading once but it didn't work, perhaps it needed resizing? I'd like to include a photo of a Thai food("bplaa raa"), which is aged, raw fish:-

http://eatingasia.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/pla_raa_1.jpg Loki0115 (talk) 13:12, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

The instructions are at WP:UPI. Note that the front page of the blog specifies the copyright status: "EatingAsia's text and photos are published under a Creative Commons 2.0 license." You will need that information to get the licensing tag correct.

Wrangham redux

Also re Wrangham mention:- The comment re Wrangham stating that consumption of cooked-foods may be oligatory for humans because no other culture has ever been without some cooked-food in its diet. This is a totally illogical premise, IMO. I could just as well equally state that "no culture on Earth has ever been without some raw food in its diet, thus proving that raw food-consumption is obligatory by humans. I will await comments re this, before deleting it.Loki0115 (talk) 13:26, 3 September 2008 (UTC)Loki0115 (talk) 18:15, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Why don't we try to organize the article before we get into the details of criticisms? There is probably too much on Wrangham here. There are plenty of good refs for critiques on raw food diets out there without using Wrangham. I believe Wrangham's hypothesis is fascinating, but this article should first explain the different varieties of raw food diets in a logical way.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 18:59, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Another temporary ref list

^ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_n24_v134/ai_6924560
^ http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/T/timeteam/snapshot_cooking.html
^ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CEED7123BF93BA15756C0A9649C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all
^ except, of course, for the problems that it didn't solve. Your mileage may vary. Subject to various restrictions. And wasn't I just telling you that humor's easily misinterpreted on talk pages? I must learn to take my own advice. ~~~
^ http://www.rawfoodmyth.com/
^ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0820/is_n225/ai_18230841
^ http://www.bestdietfoods.net/rawdiet.htm
^ ^a ^b Cooking Up Bigger Brains: Scientific American
^ ^a ^b Pennisi: Did Cooked Tubers Spur the Evolution of Big Brains?
^ ^a ^b Wrangham R, Conklin-Brittain N. (2003 Sep). "Cooking as a biological trait" (PDF). Comp Biochem Physiol A Mol Integr Physiol. 136 (1): 35–46. doi:10.1016/S1095-6433(03)00020-5. PMID 14527628. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
^ ^a ^b Wrangham, Richard (2006). "The Cooking Enigma". In Ungar, Peter S. (ed.). Evolution of the Human Diet: The Known, the Unknown, and the Unknowable. Oxford, USA: Oxford University Press. pp. 308–23. ISBN 0195183460. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |chapterurl= (help)
^ http://altmedicine.about.com/od/popularhealthdiets/a/Raw_Food.htm
^ http://altmedicine.about.com/od/popularhealthdiets/a/Raw_Food.htm

How many pictures?

An IP keeps adding more pictures, may I suggest picking one or two and putting them near the topic where they are being discussed, then having them set up like they are? They seem to be just taking space with no connection to any content near them. --CrohnieGal^Talk 20:07, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Pics are important. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, at least in today's multimedia world. 68.123.64.94 (talk) 20:17, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Some possible sources

These major media stories might be useful:

This website has a long list of raw-food related newspaper articles

Additionally, the CDC still worries about raw milk and raw cheese, and NYT says that interstate sales are banned in the US and tells a little history.

As usual, media stories are primarily useful for non-scientific facts -- but this article needs a lot of that information. One of these (I forget which) says that health concerns is the primary motivation for adopting this diet; we can certainly use that in this article. Another talks about a raw-vegetarian restaurant (no meat, but uses honey), and another (or did I forget to grab the URL for that?) says that a quarter of the infectious disease outbreaks in the 1930s were due to unpasteurized milk. I'll bet that something similar is available at United States raw milk debate if I didn't. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:06, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't mind inclusion of references to bacterial outbreaks due to raw dairy, but I do think it's acceptable to also refer to any articles debunking such claims/media-scares. For example, it's been argued that those outbreaks are largely due to the relevant cattle being fed on grain, not grass(grass is their natural diet and grain-feeding encoruages growth of E-coli). Is that acceptable? Loki0115 (talk) 10:54, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be fine to say something like "Public health agencies warn of the dangers of food poisoning,^{[ref][ref][ref]} but proponents say that the risk is lower in grass-fed animals.^{[ref][ref][ref]}" WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:22, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Fine. I'll include the relevant paragraph(already in the article) once the whole food-poisoning references have been fleshed out.Loki0115 (talk) 20:37, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Unprocessed

I see several assertions in the article and on this page that raw foods must be "unprocessed" to count. This is clearly false, because deliberately rotting your meat by inoculating it with fecal bacteria is a form of processing. So does pickling -- as in the pickled herring and kimchi in the photos. So does fermenting alcoholic drinks, such as wine, which many raw foodists accept. These discrepancies need to be cleared up, either by removing all of one side or the other as an error, or by removing "unprocessed" from the lead and explaining that there is significant diversity on this point. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:27, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Good point! What about substituting 'uncooked' for unprocessed? --—CynRN ^(Talk) 08:40, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid that the above view is HIGHLY incorrect. First of all, it is extremely rare for raw-foodists to accept that fermenting alcoholic drinks is OK for rawists, normally alcohol is banned totally etc.)- the only exception is some partially-raw diets such as Weston-Price who recommend some alcoholic drinks made from dairy(like the mongols used). Fully-raw/mostly-raw-foodists do not recommend it, except those who allow the occasional "banned" food.

Secondly, I dispute the notion that allowing meat to rot is a form of processing. The Eskimos would leave meat rotting in the ground before eating, just as some carnivores do.Would you say that carnivores are "processing" their meats in this way - of course not!!! In short, fermentation is simply letting Nature do its work.Loki0115 (talk) 10:32, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Our reliable sources say that wine is accepted by some raw foodists. Where there are differences of opinion, we present them as different interpretations, not as "HIGHLY incorrect". This is not the Orthodox views of raw foodism as determined by one editor article.

Furthermore, the normal definition of "processed food" is quite expansive. If you peel or slice your raw carrots before eating them, then they are processed. You may believe that this is not "processed enough to count", but the fact is that the common definition includes peeling and slicing raw vegetables.

Freezing is another form of food processing. I looked at half a dozen raw-foods cookbooks (ISBN 9780060793555, ISBN 9781570671753, ISBN 9781556436130, ISBN 9780061176180, ISBN 9781591200604, ISBN 9781600940002), and every one of them approves of freezing foods (at least in certain circumstances). While "unprocessed" might have some special definition in the raw foods world (you are invited to provide a reliable source), from the perspective of the general reader, this statement is misleading at best. In short, the definition of "unprocessed" that you've asserted here has not been proven to be anything more than your personal POV, and it is directly contradicted by a number of published sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:35, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

The reason why I stated "HIGHLY" was because I've been doing years on Raw vegan and subsequent raw animal food diets without ever once hearing that alcohol was allowed, in fact I came across repeated mentions that it was forbidden unless you were doing only a partially-raw diet with some cooked-foods/junk-food etc. I apologise if it came across wrong.

In the case of wine, it's almost always heated or adulterated with suplhites so is not acceptable to rawism. A quick check shows we're both right and wrong(eg:- from a raw foods foods FAQ:-

"18. Is wine raw? Some are, but wine contains alcohol, which is not good raw or cooked."

taken from:- http://www.rawguru.com/rawfoodfaq.html

"Alcohol is out, but organic wine lives within the raw food guidelines." taken from:-

http://rawfoodsdiet.wetpaint.com/page/Raw+Foods+Diet+Drink+and+Smoothie+Recipes?t=anon

"Wine - Wine can be raw, but while it may have some health benefits - I say drink FRESH made grape juice instead. Exclude wine from the raw food diet. Alcohol does kill brain cells." taken from:- http://www.living-foods.com/articles/rawornot.html

In conclusion, it seems that, on a technical level, some wine is raw and so technically qualifies as a "raw food", but is not considered a suitabkle food-item due to the toxic nature of alcohol.

The definition that all raw-foodists use to describe processed-foods is shown here:- "How can you tell if something is a raw/living food?

Most foods that have not been processed in any way, shape or form are raw and living foods (until cooked). Processed foods (canned, bottled or prepackaged) are most often adulterated, (changed from their original state) by heating, additives, preservatives, colorings, salt, and sugar. taken from:-

http://www.living-foods.com/faq.html

I agree that any alteration to a food, no matter how tiny, such as knives, preparing raw foods with other foods as a recipe etc. could be seen by some as a "process", but this is taking the legal definition so far, as to make the word "unprocessed" mean almost nothing at all. However, since this is the raw-foodism page and raw-foodists "believe" in "unprocessed foods" according to their definition, their definition of "unprocessed" should, at the very least, be included in the Beliefs section, if not elsewhere.("processed" being defined here as "frozen/heated/smoked/containing additives/chemicals/dried/canned/

Re freezing:- I can state, for certain, that freezing is, actually, frowned upon by most Raw-Animal-Foodists, and by many Raw Vegans.Freezing is generally viewed as a last resort, for when you need to store raw foods for long periods, but, even then, frozen foods are generally viewed as inferior to fresh, raw produce and raw foods are preferred when possible(eg:- "

http://www.rawfoodexplained.com/selection-and-storage-of-foods-part-i/does-freezing-harm-foods.html

"It has been found out that sometimes freezing, processing and cooking food destroys vitamins and essential minerals and makes the food difficult to digest. " taken from:-

http://www.rawfoodstips.com/rawfoodeating.php

"Heating (or freezing) food degrades or destroys these enzymes in food" taken from:- http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Raw_food_diet_-_Beliefs_and_research/id/1725087

"Freezing food alters, damages, or destroys all enzymes as well as many vitamins. " taken from:-

http://www.life-enthusiast.com/index/Articles/Vonderplanitz/New_Theory_of_Disease:_Food_Safety

In short, freezing is accepted by some if only as a slightly lesser food to raw, frowned on by others, and forbidden by other raw gurus.

I could go on, but I think I've made my point. This is why I added an extra comment to the note re freezing in the beliefs section to show that freezing is frowned upon generally by raw-foodists, with raw foods being preferred unless that latter option is unavailable.Loki0115 (talk) 19:29, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

The fact is that some accept it and some don't. There's diversity on the point. So we say there's diversity on the point, not that it's wrong/bad/rejected/cooked.

If our reliable sources have an overall trend, then we can reflect the overall trend: "Wine is not cooked,^[ref] and so it is a raw food, although many raw foodists reject all alcoholic drinks as being unhealthy even if raw^[ref]", for example, or "Frozen foods are a matter of debate in the raw foods community.^[ref] Freezing is not cooking, but some consider it a destructive form of processing,^[ref] or accept it only when no alternatives exist^[ref]", or whatever seems to be the actual case.

This article needs to have a place for all the raw foods diets, from the most liberal to the most extreme. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:46, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I see what you mean. All I'm trying to point out is that every philosophy has a definite set of rules(such as raw-foodism banning alcohol/frowning on freezing) but there are always people who are going to be more lax re some of these rules, even though they follow a raw diet in all other ways. Similiarly, someone might call themselves a Christian, frown on murder etc., yet happily commit adultery, that doesn't mean that they are following a different variety of Christianity, it just means they're not as strict in their beliefs as the Christian commandments dictate. Sort of like an eater of a cooked-Palaeolithic diet who still eats a little dairy, but still considers himself a "paleolithicdieter", despite that.

All that said, as long as I'm allowed to put qualifiers, such as the ones you've stated, then that's OK.Loki0115 (talk) 12:42, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Errors in text

I just had to remove the unnecessary reference to "oats" in the raw animal foods section description. This is wholly inappropriate as oats are not eaten by raw-animal-foodists, only by those doing semi-cooked diets like Weston-Price or raw vegans, raw animal foodists avoid raw oats like the plague. Also, added in mention of raw eggs, which were left out.

I'm extremely dubious re mention of pemmican and gravlax. Pemmican is usually based on cooked- or smoked-meats, and only a very few raw-animal-foodists eat it, but even they just use a dehydrator and dry the pemmican up to 100 degrees fahrenheit, no further.I vote for its removal as it's a heated, not genuinely raw food, unless someone can find a reference to genuine raw pemmican. Same goes for gravlax which I believe is "smoked salmon" - smoked meats are banned, outright, on raw-food diets. I'll await opinions, before removing those references, though.Loki0115 (talk) 10:32, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

You need reliable sources to justify that. Are you familiar with cold smoking techniques? Cold smoked meat never gets any warmer than human body temperature and is considered uncooked by all sources. Cold smoking is essentially partial dehydration with flavoring. (A person concerned about carcinogenic chemicals in the smoke would still avoid it, but not because of its cooked/uncooked status.)

Gravlax is not smoked. It is cured with salt and sugar. If pickled kimchi is "unprocessed" and "uncooked", then so is gravlax. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:40, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I object to the gravlax and pemmican being included as they are not considered part of the raw food lifestyle, per se...more like local ways to preserve food.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 20:35, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree that cold-smoking may not involve serious heating, but all smoked meats will contain carcinogens(such as nitrosamines(also present in cooked-foods):-

My point is, as I stated above, that raw-foodism isn't merely about going in for raw foods and avoiding cooked-foods, it's also about avoiding processed foods, such as smoked meats, additive-ridden food even if raw etc. Sugar isn't generally allowed on raw-food diets(eg:- "Unfortunately almost all the traditional summer foods have been sweetened by cane sugar, which does not meet the raw food diet guidelines for better living " taken from:-

(wikipedia spamblocker blocked the page, but it can be foudn again easily by googling the quoted words). "15.No Refined Sugar" taken from a guideline to Aajonus's Primal Diet:-

http://www.karlloren.com/Diabetes/p32.htm

(Note that alcohol is banned as well in the above Primal Diet-oriented website).

Now I come to think of it,I do know of some rawists who have "cheated" the guidelines, so to speak, with smoked meats, so I suppose it's OK, though I do think a (mild)qualifier could be made that cold-smoked meats/sugar-cured/salt-cured meats are frowned upon by "some" in the RAF community. Is that OK? Loki0115 (talk) 20:04, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd rephrase it to something that sounds more formal ("While cold-smoked foods are not cooked, they are rejected by many some rawists as being unhealthy in other ways", or something like that. It needs a source. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:48, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'll see about putting in sources for the above references.Loki0115 (talk) 12:44, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I took the smoked meat out of 'beliefs' and put it under the 'raw animal food' section. I'm trying to group things together logically. --—CynRN ^(Talk) 07:00, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Intro/criticism

I think it's about time for someone to add in the references re food-poisoning (from raw foods) in the intro. Just a reference to food-poisoning outbreaks involving consumption of raw animal foods, IMO. I don't think anyone can cite food-poisoning from raw plant-foods? In a day or two, I'll start adding in those references re studies showing toxins in cooked-foods.

Ideally, we need a raw vegan to help merge the raw veganism wikipedia page with ours so as to add more info re raw vegans.Loki0115 (talk) 11:33, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, yes, if anyone could address/fix my 2nd point in the "reliability of blogs" section abovein the talk page. that would be greatLoki0115 (talk) 11:47, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Food poisoning from raw plants? Sure, it happens all the time. A dead child from unpasteurized Odwalla brand juice. Spinach in both 2006 and 2007. Jalapeños this summer. See List of United States foodborne illness outbreaks for a long, long list, many of which involve raw plants. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:51, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Good lord, I had no idea. All the media-scares re raw foods tend to focus on raw meats and raw dairy.Loki0115 (talk) 19:36, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Phenylalanine had a point a few days ago about not including food poisoning in regard to raw dairy and raw food in general when we don't have articles relating 'raw foodism' and 'food poisoning'. If we try to put them together, he says we are engaging in Wikipedia: Original Research There may be some articles out there relating the two ideas, where we find some raw foodists getting sick, that would be OK to use. --—CynRN ^(Talk) 21:20, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that this is OR (and Phen's proposal to update WP:NOR to reflect his overly strict preference was rejected, despite several revisions and strong perseverance on his point). There is solid evidence that raw plants can carry disease. There's even evidence that many of Odwalla's customers specifically thought it was healthier because it was unpasteurized/raw. (BTW, a similar outbreak had happened in apple juice a few years before, and hundreds of people were sick and another person died from unpasteurized Sun Orchard orange juice a couple of years later: Odwalla's experience is not exactly an anomaly.)

The fact that a person eats primarily raw foods does not exempt them from the same risks run by people that only sometimes eat raw foods. These are real, documentable, and obviously applicable risks. It is not necessary for a government agency to say "Anyone that eats raw milk -- and by that, we specifically include people that are eating raw milk as part of a raw food diet -- could get food poisoning from it." "Anyone" means "anyone", not "anyone except those not specifically mentioned." Rawists are people, too. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:19, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I personally agree that whatamidoing is right in including references to food-poisoning from raw foods among raw-foodists. Technically, this is indeed OR, in every way, and inappropriate as what is applicable to SAD-/cooked-eaters who eat a little raw foods is not necessarily relevant to raw-foodists who eat lots of raw foods - for example, raw-foodists have several explanations for why outbreaks re food-poisoning are almost unheard of in their community:- 1) rawists make strenuous efforts to buy only high-quality grassfed organic-raised meats/plants(or meats from wild animals etc.) so do not get the problems that followers of cooked-diets get from eating undercooked, intensively-farmed low-quality grainfed meats.2) rawists, by definition, are better adapted to eating raw than cooked-SAD-eaters, simply because their body has got more used to digesting raw foods over months/years, and 3)a large number of food-poisoning epidemics actually result from SAD-eaters eating canned, cooked/preheated foods after the latter have deteriorated; 4) rawists claim, as a primary belief, that "the environment is more important than the so-called "pathogen", so that if a person's body is "healthy"(ie from a raw diet), they will be far less likely to incur bacterial-outbreaks than someone who is "unhealthy"(ie on a cooked-diet). I'm just giving the above ideas as examples of alternatives, not as the "FACTS", to show how it might well be OR. That said, there does need to be some sort of serious counter-argument to the raw-foodist claim, and epidemic-style food-poisoning from raw foods is a cherished belief-system of the mainstream, so should be included. So, by all means cite examples of food-poisoning from raw foods - however, I do think it should be made clear whether the recipients of the food-poisoning outbtreaks were rawists or not.And should any articles be found describing actual food-poisoning outbreaks among rawists, then those should be given more prominence than any articles about non-rawists incurring food-poisoning from some raw foods.Loki0115 (talk) 13:39, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the fact that rawists spend so much time and effort to debunk food poisoning claims is, in itself, proof that such criticisms exist. We're not trying to prove that the critics are right; we're just saying that raw foodism is criticized on the grounds of food poisoning. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:14, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Hardly! The only reason raw-animal-foodists debunk such media-scares, is because almost every single (biased) article in the media about raw foods, especially articles about raw meat diets, contains endless(unsupported) paragraphs about how eating raw meat will kill you(re salmonella etc.) and we get annoyed given that no such bacterial-outbreaks/parasitical-infestations etc. exist in our community, despite all the media-hysteria - if there had been anything remotely significant, it would have been reported in the (somewhat hostile)media, long ago(such as those stories about raw vegans and their children) - for that matter, very few people would continue a raw animal food diet if the raw diet forums all had members screaming about how they were all dying from bacteria etc(LOL!). So, I'm all in favour of the anti-raw side referring to something that doesn't actually exist as a problem in the raw-food community.Loki0115 (talk) 16:32, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I noticed the ref for 'grass fed cattle have less E coli' didn't work so I went looking for a working references. I found this study which refutes the idea that grass fed cattle are more resistant to E coli:http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=91480--—CynRN ^(Talk) 17:30, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Err, the website you linked to, was a dud page/broken link. I managed to select the right letters and found the right link, but now I find that the study you referenced only concerned ("low-quality timothy grass HAY", not high-quality grass. So, it's invalid, it seems.Loki0115 (talk) 19:55, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Regardless, I provided several links in favour of the notion that e coli is not an issue for grassfed meats, so I'm not too bothered with 1 against, should you find one.Loki0115 (talk) 19:55, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry about the broken link. Here is a nice summary. The notion that grass fed cattle are more resistant to E coli is not a slam dunk.. http://www.marlerblog.com/2008/08/articles/lawyer-oped/grassfed-vs-grainfed-beef-and-the-holy-grail-a-literature-review/ --—CynRN ^(Talk) 20:44, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

And, from veterinarian epidemiologist Renter: "In Renter et al., 2003, he and his colleagues found E. coli O157 in 2.48% of fecal samples from rangeland cattle in Kansas and Nebraska, similar to a rate found in previous studies of "confined" (=feedlot) cattle. They also tested several hundred samples from wildlife, including coyotes, whitetailed deer, raccoons, and possums. In wildlife, the pathogen was only found in one possum sample."^[1]--—CynRN ^(Talk) 20:49, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Loki, you just proved my point. Rawists spend a lot of time "debunking" the mainstream criticism of food poisoning. Why do they do this? Because the mainstream view of raw foodism (especially raw animal products) harps continually on the theme of food poisoning.

If this mainstream criticism didn't exist, presumably the rawsists wouldn't spend so much time on this point. The fact that rawists have to spend (waste) so much energy on this single issue is proof that non-rawists criticize this diet on grounds of food poisoning. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:26, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Raw Vegans children raw dairy

I changed the words, deleting the reference to "there are some who oppose raw-foodism", as it was referring to Shazzie who is most definitely a pro-raw vegan, even if she's recommending that children of raw vegans eat some raw animal food as well. The paragraph in question needs a reference for the dental erosion and raw vegans link claim, and preferably a better wikipedia-friendly source than that blog.Though, I entirely agree with that blog's sentiments, mind you.Loki0115 (talk) 14:55, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I have some problems with the Vit D and teeth thing. I think there are more verifiable problems with a raw food diet and children. I also agree with WhatamIdoing that maybe we need a separate section for children and raw food.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 06:57, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, unless you can provide more solid wikipedia-friendly references, I really think that that paragraph has to go. The reference to children is a bit dodgy, but if a relevant newspaper article can be found, it should be given it's own small section.Loki0115 (talk) 19:26, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Wrangham

To go back to another delayed topic, now that others have been settled. Wrangham claims that "no human tribes have ever gone without at least some cooked-food in the past", to justify his stance that coooked-food is obigatory for humans. This is based on a false-logic. I could just as easily state that "no tribe of humans has ever been without at least some raw food in their diet, thus proving that raw food is obligatory for humans. Unless, there's a solid reference by Wrangham to a tribe which followed a 100% cooked diet, with no raw food whatsoever, his claim is factually-incorrect.

Then there's Wrangham's claim that raw-foodists simply cannot survive on a diet of 100% raw food. He purports that raw meat is not easy to chew and therefore by implication, indigestible), yet most RAFers report not needing to chew raw food and just bolt down their raw meats like carnivores(such as dogs) do. OK, this is anecdotal and so probably doesn't count wikipedia-style, but it's a bit ridiculous for Wrangham to claim that humans cannot survive on raw-food diets, when there are so many doing just that, for decades(eg:- The Nenet tribe from Siberia, who eat almost completely raw).Loki0115 (talk) 16:18, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Wrangham makes the claim; we report the claim. That you personally disagree with him is unimportant. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:10, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I suppose I'll have to accept that, despite the fact that Richard Wrangham has about the same credentials as I have,as regards human evolution(ie none whatsoever!)- he's only a mere chimp behaviourist, after all. Still, his methodology is so dodgy(he doesn't even give his references re his claim that raw foodists experience lethargy etc. and has, without a doubt, never studied raw-animal-foodists in any way, that I'm happy that he's mentioned rather than someone else, as Wrangham's ideas are more easily refutable and ridiculous in their own right.Loki0115 (talk) 20:34, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Uh, Wrangham is a professor of biological anthropology who teaches human and primate evolution at Harvard, and has published extensively on these subjects!.http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:duTeMfxBntUJ:www.fas.harvard.edu/~bioanth/Acrobatfiles/wrangham_cv_2005.pdf+wrangham+education&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

Mere chimp behaviourist, I think not! That said, his arguments do not need to have much prominence here in this article, which has enough to do to try and explain all the permutations of raw foodism.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 06:09, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I can only go by what anthropologists think of him:- "In the 10 years since coming on his theory, Wrangham has stacked up considerable evidence to support it, yet many archaeologists, paleontologists and anthropologists argue that he is just plain wrong. Wrangham is a chimp researcher, the skeptics point out, not a specialist in human evolution. He is out of his league. Furthermore, archaeological data does not support the use of controlled fire during the period Wrangham’s theory requires it to." taken from:-

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=cooking-up-bigger-brains

If you look at Wrangham's CV, you'll notice that it's almost completely weighted towards study of chimpanzee behaviour and other animals, not humans(this is likely why he makes unwarranted assumptions about humans, based on observation of chimpanzees, despite the fact that they're an entirely different species):-

http://www.discoverlife.org/who/CV/Wrangham,_Richard.html

But I agree that he did some basic study at University re anthropology, but he's no genuine specialist in human anthropology.Loki0115 (talk) 10:05, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

75%

won't argue re this point, but the 75%+raw figure to describe a raw-foodist is arbitrary to me. I've come across people doing 50% or 60% raw who call themselves raw-foodists.Just an observation. Well, I suppose they could come under "partially-raw", I suppose.Loki0115 (talk) 15:50, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Of course it's arbitrary. But that's what our reliable sources say. If we can find a reliable source that mentions other standards, then we can certainly add that. What I think is important here is the fact that the normal "raw foodist" eats up to 25% cooked food. I suspect that our general reader will assume that all raw foodists only eat raw foods with no exceptions. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:58, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, here's a source, a Raw Foodism FAQ, which gives a 60%+ figure for a raw-foodist:-

"And the last point I want to make is that I want to give a definition of RAW FOODIST: I define a RAW FOODIST as someone who eats mostly raw, more than 60% percent of his/her diet." taken from:-

http://www.rawguru.com/i3.html

Loki0115 (talk) 20:31, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Shall we make the sentence in the lead say 60-75% raw and include your ref? It's all about Verifiability. Your background and knowledge are important but we must have references. Again, a blog is OK for a reference to tell us what 'some raw foodists think', but if the article tries to make specific claims about the benefits of raw foods without that qualifier, then we have to use more reliable references.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 21:19, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

After looking at the ref. I see that it's basically one guy's opinion that eating over 60% raw qualifies one as a rawist. Are there more refs for this?--—CynRN ^(Talk) 21:24, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

"Some rawists think..." is a reasonable way to present that. We have multiple refs for the 75%; adding a half-sentence or so to indicate diversity of opinion (and citing this source, or other similar sources) is fine. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:48, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Here's another reference mentioning the 60% raw food point:- http://www.dnronline.com/flavor_details.php?AID=10611&CHID=40

Loki0115 (talk) 09:52, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Food poisoning

I've added information on food poisoning related to raw food. I excluded sources that seemed to think that the raw food would be cooked before consumption (i.e., bacteria testing in commercial slaughterhouses). WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:51, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Given that the anti-raw side has now finally been expanded quite a bit(wrangham/food-poisoning), I do think it's appropriate for me to now include references to scientific studies on toxins in cooked-foods, as a counterpoint. I'l see about including more references and studies, as time goes by.Loki0115 (talk) 10:35, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

CYN, I've decided you are absolutely right and have included the info re grassfed meats and E-Coli in the raw-meat-diet general-info section. There should be separate pro-raw and anti-raw sections, so as to make things more readable and coherent.Loki0115 (talk) 14:51, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Paragraph in Recent Research

"Studies on raw human milk showed that human infants absorbed human raw milk much better than heated(pasteurised) human milk[60],[61].

Increasing numbers of long-term raw vegans believe that to sustain the diet daily inclusion of superfoods and/or supplements are necessary, particularly for children and mothers. Many raw vegan children have been shown to have problems with tooth decay which is believed to be a result of vitamin D deficiency[citation needed], however this may simply be miseducation as vitamin D2 comes from plant sources and vitamin D3 can be manufactured by the human body upon exposure to sunlight. In this blog, mothers are encouraged either to supplement or include raw dairy products or other raw animal foods in their childrens' diets in order to avoid irrevocable damage to their children's health"

I'll get rid of this. Claims like this should be verified. --—CynRN ^(Talk) 16:23, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

The above paragraph really has to be deleted. It derives from a page which doesn't provide any studies to back up the quoted comments above - plus, the recommendation to eat raw animal foods is irrelevant in a section devoted to "recent (scientific) research", it should be put in a "Notes and cautions" section or whatever, if at all, given that the reference is just a blog):-

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/04/29/2230592.htm?site=science/greatmomentsinscience

The same website has been used to provide another(unreferenced claim in the raw-foodism page, under "nutritonal deficiencies":-

"Some nutrients in cooked foods, are more available to the body than in raw foods. Heating foods normally makes their nutrients more easily digestible by breaking down the husks and skin in the food, bursting open the cells so that the contents are more available, modifying the molecules, breaking down large indigestible molecules into smaller digestible molecules, and finally, breaking down toxins or chemicals in the food."

There are plenty of websites which describe how cooking removes toxins from (non-Palaeo) raw foods such as grains, so I'm sure a far better website(or rather scientific study) can be found to provide much the same information.Loki0115 (talk) 11:02, 7 September 2008 (UT

Don't delete "some nutrients in cooked food, are more available". This is information that can be verified. --—CynRN ^(Talk) 16:23, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

The article the claim comes from cites quite a few references regarding the point of food being more digestible when cooked. Take a look. --—CynRN ^(Talk) 17:22, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the above article referred to, doesn't provide a single reference for "cooked foods being more digestible than raw". I'm perfectly well aware that there are a few(viz raw grains being more digestible than cooked grains), but the article cited is so rabidly anti-raw and so free of any references in this particular instance, that it's not a valid choice for inclusion. Here's a webpage, which cites certain studies which prove that some raw foods(eg:- grains) are better eaten cooked than raw(and which might be referenced in wikipedia):-

http://www.beyondveg.com/tu-j-l/raw-cooked/raw-cooked-2a.shtml

(It will have to be made clear that these are non-Palaeo foods, as it would be misleading to suggest that cooked meat, say, was more digestible than raw meats -in fact, raw meats are more digestible, according to www.beyondveg.com).Loki0115 (talk) 19:25, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

The well-referenced article that talks about nutrients in cooked food being more available is "Cooking as a biological trait" by Wrangham. I don't know how to link the existing ref to the phrase: Some nutrients in cooked foods, are more available to the body than in raw foods. "Heating foods normally makes their nutrients more easily digestible by breaking down the husks and skin.."--—CynRN ^(Talk) 16:29, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure that other sources could be found, if necessary. It's more relevant for grains than for animal products, however. There are also a few plants that are poisonous if eaten raw, but acceptable if cooked. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:42, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Using Wrangham as a reference for the statement that cooking makes things more bioavailable is rather dodgy, given his anti-raw approach. I already know of a number of books etc. showing that raw meats are actually better digested than (lightly)-cooked-meats(the difference is slight something like 1%, I believe?), and will put them up when I have the time, to contrast Wrangham's sole contribution, either in the criticism section or elsewhere.

Wrangham seems to be more 'pro-cooking' than 'anti-raw'. I think he may be against a dogmatic assumption that we all ate 100% raw food up until 250,000 years ago considering that the biggest change in our physical makeup occurred 1.8+/- mill years ago. He seems to be against the assumption that 100% raw food is the best for our health. His paper includes references to back up his statements about 'husks breaking down' and so forth.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 19:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

"Husks" would be a reference to grains, hudging from the word. Trouble is that only raw vegans eat raw grains, and, in most cases, these are sprouted grains(which have their antinutrients significantly lowered). Raw animal foodists avoid grains like the plague, raw or cooked.Loki0115 (talk) 20:01, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with whatamidoing that the only easily-proven/well-referenced) point re benefits of cooking is that cooking makes grains, legumes and beans far more digestible in cooked-form than raw. This is something that I can hardly refute, as it's common knowledge, with numerous scientific papers attesting to that, unlike the claim that cooking renders all foods more digestible, which is unsupported. You would therefore be actually better off with referring only to those 3 foods being better digested in cooked-form, and removing the Wrangham sentence completely!Loki0115 (talk) 10:45, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, I've added in the studies showing better digestibility for raw meats.Loki0115 (talk) 12:27, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, it's not just grains and beans that are better cooked. It's difficult to get all the calories an average person needs from a raw vegan diet (which seems to be the bulk of the rawists). I've run across several mentions of this by nutritionists. Cooking concentrates food, so it is easier to get enough energy. Lycopene is more available in cooked tomatoes and there are other phytonutrients that benefit by cooking. There is some evidence that cooked starch is good for diabetics. And then there is the psychological factor...that cooking makes some foods taste better!

The raw meat diet is so drastically different from the raw vegan that we have to be very clear in this article when we are talking about one or the other.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 19:32, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid that the only reason why some cooked-foods taste better than raw (to those starting the diet) is due to lifelong habits(though addictive opioids in some cooked-foods are another, lesser reason). We RAFers actually get to prefer the taste of raw foods of whatever variety once we start getting into it after a year or so(and many report stealing pieces of raw meats as very young children, without feeling nauseous etc.). But, since the article is providing info to people who are most likely to be non-rawists, it's valid for them - mind you, a similiar argument could be made that unhealthy junk-foods with flavour-enhancing chemicals "taste" better than (so-called) "healthy" cooked foods - I rather doubt, though, that that argument would be allowed on the wikipedia entry for junk-foods!

I've also heard that raw animal foods actually contain more calories than cooked animal foods. I'll have to take some time to find that reference, though. The idea is that while cooking removes the water-content, so that it looks as though calories are higher weight for weight, the actual energy-density of cooked-meats shows a loss visd-avis the raw version. Loki0115 (talk) 20:01, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Furhmann/Food Preparation

There's a paragraph about Fuhrmann in the food-preparation section which was misleading. It stated that Fuhrman was of the opinion that it might not be possible to get enough vitamin D and B12 on a raw diet. Given that vitamin B12 and vitamin D are plentiful in raw animal foods(though not raw plant-foods), I had to change the term "raw diet" in that paragraph to a "raw vegetarian diet as Fuhrman used raw plant-food with some raw eggs(eggs are part of vegetarian diet as is dairy). I will also add in raw eggs for the raw vegetarian diet description, as well.Loki0115 (talk) 13:18, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

That's fine to add 'vegetarian'. Actually 'vegan' is more accurate. --—CynRN ^(Talk) 16:25, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

No, "raw vegetarian" is more accurate. Fuhrmann did, after all, feed his own children on raw eggs, which are not a raw plant-food. But, I agree that raw eggs likely contain some vitamin B12, so raw vegan, would be more accurate as a warning against too low vitamin B12 levelsLoki0115 (talk) 18:39, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Vitamin B12 comes only from animal sources, where as Vitamin D can be obtained from plant sources and humans can manufacture it in their skin from exposure to UV rays. 75.0.9.183 (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 19:12, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Life Extension Magazine March 2006 Vitamin D: "Vitamin D occurs in nature in two main forms: vitamin D2, or ergocalciferol, and vitamin D3, or cholecalciferol. While vitamin D2 is obtained from plant sources, vitamin D3 can either be obtained through animal sources or synthesized in the skin when its precursor molecule absorbs light energy from ultraviolet B rays. Vitamin D can refer to either D2 or D3. In the liver, both are converted into 25-hydroxyvitamin D, the primary circulating form of vitamin D. Conversion into its active form, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D, occurs in the kidney." 75.0.9.183 (talk) 19:26, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Food safety concerns

The article need not describe every single food safety issue associated with the consumption of specific raw foods, as it seems the article is heading in that direction. We should do some research on the net and look for sources that make the connection between Raw foodism and the food safety issues, and add the food safety concerns mentioned there, preferably with a wikilink to a separate article about "raw foods" or "food safety", where the the food safety concerns can be detailed. My two cents. --Phenylalanine (talk) 14:21, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Of course, there is lots of data on food borne illness and raw food, but it should be in the context of the 'raw food' philosophy. People who buy raw juice, like Odwalla, don't always subscribe to the raw food philosophy(so info about the danger of raw juice is not relevant), but people who go to the trouble to lease a cow for raw milk are more in that category and illness from that practice is notable.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 16:29, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

You're still faced with the problem that bacterial outbreaks/parasitic infestations etc.are nonexistent in the raw-food community, as regards reported by the media etc.Better to just include info re raw foods bacterial outbreaks among eaters of cooked-food diets. This is very weak, and completely irrelevant to raw-foodists as a community, but it's the best one can do.Loki0115 (talk) 19:17, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

No, what makes food poisoning relevant is the fact that this is a mainstream criticism of this diet. The critics do not have to be demonstrably right to get their points included.

In fact, no matter what the subject, everybody believes that their critics overlook critical factors, make erroneous assumptions, make sweeping generalizations, and so forth. A mainstream criticism of raw food diets is "you're going to get food poisoning". The mainstream view may well be entirely wrong, but that's their view, and so we include it. Sushi eaters hear the same thing, despite years of evidence and tens of millions of people that eat it. That doesn't change the fact that sushi is criticized as unsafe: See Sushi#Health_risks. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:40, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, I see your point. I don't mind the inclusion of mainstream beliefs as long as the central beliefs of rawists are also mentioned.Loki0115 (talk) 09:22, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Question

How does one find out exactly what changes some other poster has made? All I can do right now is to look at the notes in the history section and search the whole wikipedia raw foodism page to tell what's now different.Loki0115 (talk) 19:59, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Click on "last" in the "history" window (see example below):

(cur) (last) 19:17, 7 September 2008 Loki0115 (Talk | contribs) (173,974 bytes) (undo)

--Phenylalanine (talk) 20:17, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

See Help:Page history. 75.0.9.183 (talk) 19:03, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Toxicity of cooked foods

I appreciate Loki's work on the toxicity in cooked foods section, but it's too much weight for this particular aspect. See Wikipedia:UNDUEWEIGHT "Undue weight applies to more than just viewpoints. Just as giving undue weight to a viewpoint is not neutral, so is giving undue weight to other verifiable and sourced statements. An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. Note that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements."

I suggest that there is too much detail and quantity on the toxicity subject. What about making another Wikipedia article called Toxicity of cooked foods? --—CynRN ^(Talk) 22:47, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with CynRN that we don't need this amount of detail in the "Toxicity of cooked foods" section. There is a section titled "Cooking#Potential harmful health effects" in the cooking article. In my opinion, the detailed information in the "Toxicity of cooked foods" section should be moved over there and summarized in this article. Also, the heading "Toxicity of cooked foods" should be changed to "Potential harmful health effects of cooking". --Phenylalanine (talk) 00:39, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I think the toxicity stuff should be moved over to the cooking article. It is important to state that raw foodists 'believe' that cooked food has dangerous toxins. A little more of that could go in the 'Beliefs' section if the 'Toxicity' section can be pruned. --—CynRN ^(Talk) 03:04, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

As it appears to be a major motivating factor for some rawists, I think that this issue should be addressed with a substantial paragraph, not just a sentence. It might be more relevant to the raw meat diet than to a raw vegan diet; if that's true, then it could be mentioned briefly in the general section and more details be provided in a subsection that details raw meat issues. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:42, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

The argument re "undue weight" for the pro-raw argument is somewhat surprising, given that the anti-raw argument has c.44 lines from (including) recent research section down to wrangham downwards for the anti-raw argument, and roughly c.35 for the pro-raw side - counting lines with 1 word in either case)) - the whole point of wikipedia is to provide NPOV, and give each side their due, not just give the mainstream POV, and remove all other views because there are no more mainstream anti-raw points to be made. I agree that the title "toxins in cooked foods" should be changed to "potential harmful effects of cooked foods"(I'll change it now), but the issue of toxins in cooked-foods is so central to the concept of raw food diets, that it would be pointless to move it from the raw-foodist page). The argument that "most" raw-foodists are "only" interested in the idea that raw-food contains "bioenergy" is misguided, as the latter view is actually only held by a small number of raw-foodists, such as Leslie Kenton and one or two other authors, and is hardly mentioned in raw foodist forums that I frequent, given that no proof exists for that idea, whatsoever. Given that toxins in cooked-foods,(eg:- acrylamide, advanced glycation endproducts etc.), have been mentioned in the media, on numerous occasions, one cannot argue they merely constitute a "belief", to be mentioned in passing. The point I'm trying to make is that "toxins in cooked foods" is also a part of the mainstream POV, as, otherwise, why are there numerous websites out there which are not remotely raw-foodist-oriented, but which give intructions/recommendations as to how to reduce the amounts of toxins in cooked-foods:-

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0ZRQ/is_11_10/ai_n21107823

http://www.stopagingnow.com/news/news_flashes/4612/The-Anti-Cancer-Barbecue

http://www.fitnessandfreebies.com/food/articles/carcinogens.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1021464/Adding-rosemary-steak-help-prevent-cancer.html

Quiet aside from the above, most nutritionists recommend cooking less, avoiding frying/grilling in favour of steamed/poached or raw foods like fruit/veg, so, again, such nutritonists' views merely reflect part of the mainstream POV.

I have no problem with making a slightly more compact set of paragraphs, but removing any of the particular toxins mentioned or other info would be wrong, as they are featured elsewhere on wikipedia and are common knowledge in scientific circles and the media.

I should add that the issue of toxins in cooked-foods is central to all raw diets, not just raw animal food diets(eg:-

http://www.thegardendiet.com/science/ http://www.rawfoodlife.com/Articles___Research/Science_of_Raw_v__Cooked/science_of_raw_v__cooked.htmhttp://www.living-foods.com/articles/cooked.html http://www.purerawcafe.com/philosophy.htm http://www.burningbodyfat.com/raw-foods-vs-cooked-foods.html http://www.therawfoodschool.com/benefits.asp etc. etc. etc.) Loki0115 (talk) 11:06, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

OK, I can live with the paragraph on potential negatives, etc, but Loki, you must understand that Wikipedia does not have to give the same weight to viewpoints that are not mainstream. The raw foodists are a tiny minority of folks, passionate and secure in their beliefs to be sure, but not mainstream. The fact that there are literally thousands of websites promoting raw foodism (with cited studies and so forth) means nothing. When you look at the 'anti-vaccination' issue, if you didn't know any better, you could be overwhelmed by the number of anti-vax websites and find it very difficult to find reliable information that actually reflects current scientific consensus. I propose an opening sentence in the toxins paragraph to the effect that this is controversial, if I can find a reference.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 16:46, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I think we need to look at Wikipedia:Fringe theories to decide how to present both sides. According to Jimbo Wales:

[...] Usually, mainstream and minority views are treated in the main article, with the mainstream view typically getting a bit more ink, but the minority view presented in such a fashion that both sides could agree to it. Singular views can be moved to a separate page and identified (disclaimed) as such, or in some cases omitted altogether. [1]

Articles which cover controversial, disputed, or discounted ideas in detail should document (with reliable sources) the current level of their acceptance among the relevant academic community. If proper attribution cannot be found among reliable sources of an idea's standing, it should be assumed that the idea has not received consideration or acceptance; ideas should not be portrayed as accepted unless such claims can be documented in reliable sources. However, a lack of consideration or acceptance does not necessarily imply rejection either; ideas should not be portrayed as rejected or labeled with pejoratives such as pseudoscience unless such claims can be documented in reliable sources.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 17:00, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem with the anti-raw side being projected in full, with more emphasis on it, but this has already been done,judging from numerous anti-raw cautions re nutritional deficiencies/food-poisoning etc. spread across the whole raw foodism page, and greater length being given to anti-raw arguments - the only concerns that the mainstream have against raw-foodism is the issue of bacteria/parasites(ie food-poisoning) and the issue of nutritional deficiencies among raw vegans/fruitarians, both of which are already fully detailed in the article - other than that the mainstream simply doesn't seem to have any other anti-raw concerns, last I checked, though I'd be happy for any such new issues to be added in, should they exist. But even if there may be no further adequate anti-raw arguments to make, that isn't sufficient grounds, IMO, for the removal of studies backing the central tenet-belief of raw-foodism, re toxins in cooked-foods.

Also, the fact is that the issue of toxins in cooked-foods is an established part of mainstream POV, mentioned routinely in non-rawist circles like mainstream newspapers, scientific journals etc.(both types of which I've provided previously, incidentally), such studies therefore cannot remotely be labelled "fringe" in any way, as that would be rather misleading.I mean, toxins in cooked-foods, such as heterocyclic amines, are mentioned in the well-known New Scientist magazine, for example, about the most famous (mainstream)Science magazine around:-

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6895

Another consideration is that any notable wikipedia subject deserved at the very least to have its primary views explained. Not including the "potential harmful effects of cooked-foods"(I've changed the original)section), and just including a link to the cooking section, would be like writing a page about Communism and covering Stalin, Marx,Trotsky as well as Lenin, all in just one sentence.Also, the word "potential" in the title is enough, IMO, to make clear that the section below isn't to be seen as gospel, it merely delineates scientific studies and the links that those studies have made. I could understand a disqualifier being necessary if that section contained overblown phrases like "cooked-food is poison", "we believe that cooked-meat kills", or whatever but the studies listed are pretty standard, references which anyone can find on the web after a quick Googling, and the toxins, such as acrylamide/AGEs, are already common knowledge in the mainstream, anyway. Still, all that said, writing a line stating "these studies are controversial is way better than the alternatives. Loki0115 (talk) 19:47, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

No, of course the point needs to be covered. My issue is that some concerns about toxins in cooked food is mainstream and some appears to be very tangential, i.e. a test tube finding that some chemical interacts with something else, or a study on rats exposed to huge amounts of the substance. I think an opening paragraph explaining this is in order.

While some potential harmful effects in cooked food are accepted by nutritionists, others are controversial...etc." I'll think more about it tomorrow.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 08:18, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Ah, that's better. I agree that the study on rats is a bit absurd and out-of-place in the toxins/cooked-food section as it should relate to humans - I don't mind its removal. However, all the other types of toxins are too well-documented in the media(newspaper articles, government-organisations, scientific journals etc.(polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, for example, while present in cooked-foods, are also noted as a nasty pollutant as part of inorganic substances derived from industrial waste etc.) And all of these toxins are so well-known in the mainstream, that most of them are already covered by separate Wikipedia entries of their own. There are so many 100s of studies done on toxins created by heat/cooking that it's difficult to list them as "controversial" when the general public already accepts that frying/baking is bad precisely because of the excessive amounts of toxins created by such processes.

Howevever, if something is labelled as "controversial", I would at least expect a proper reference backing this viewpoint as being from the mainstream.

As regards the fringe-accusation for raw diets, that's inaccurate. First of all, raw food diets are so well-known now worldwide, that there have been scientific studies done on raw-foodists and on raw foods in general, so it's notable. And it cannot be considered "fringe" in the way that real fringe-subjects, such as the Apolllo Moon-landings/UFOs are, as there are large raw-food movements worldwide(eg:- Rohkost movement in Germany, the raw food community in California, plus the numerous books and newspaper articles on the subject, and not to mention the numerous raw gurus(mentioned on the raw foodism page), each with their own particular followings, organised meetups:- http://www.rawfoodplanet.com/

Plus, as an obvious indication of the popularity of raw food diets, raw food restaurants have sprung up in numerous locations around the world.

And, given that mainstream nutritionists and scientist routinely recommend that the public eat lots of raw fruit and veg a day, it would be inaccurate to suggest that raw-foods are viewed with total suspicion.Loki0115 (talk) 10:35, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I would say 100% of nutritionists recommend hearty portions of raw fruits and vegetables. No question about that. What percent of RDs would advocate 75-100% of food be eaten raw? I doubt surveys exist, all we have are 'this nutritionist' or 'that RD' writing an article on raw food diets and recommending caution.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 19:45, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Part of the trouble with your above comment is that it's a litle misleading. The primary reasons why a number of nutritionists recommend caution is that a) they mistakenly think of raw-food diets as being only 100% plant-foods and are understandably concerned re falling vitamin B12 levels etc., and b) these nutritonists view raw meats as a deadly poison, due to the bacteria/parasites issue, so they never mention raw-food-diets in the context of raw animal foods. The point is that the bacteria/parasites issue has already been covered in the raw foodism article, and since nutritionists all vary in individual ways, some nutritionists like Aajonus recommend raw meats, others recommend a cooked-low-carb diet or a standard, balanced diet etc., it's not really valid to cite what you think nutritionists' views are, as a whole.There are too many differences of opinion.And like I said, it's not nutrionists who determine whether a diet is notable or accepted or not, but scientific journals, and, most importantly, the general public. The existence of raw-food restaurants in many areas implies, in and of itself, that raw foods are an acceptable form of diet among the generla public.Loki0115 (talk) 20:12, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The argument that raw foodism is "fringe" is further undermined by the fact that it's referred to as one of the 7 most popular diets on the web ina news article:-

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/5847.php Loki0115 (talk) 20:48, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Dubious

From "Beliefs":

Cooking in oil does not produce trans fats. The cooking oil might contain trans fats, but non-trans oils are very common. Raw milk and raw meat, on the other hand, frequently contain small amounts of trans fats (which are a naturally occurring kind of fat, after all).

Also, the Carol Alt source doesn't mention acidosis anywhere in it -- and you will need a good source, since Metabolic acidosis is a real disease, and I've never seen "eating cooked food" as a cause. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:39, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I didn't add those references in, someone else did. However, it is mentioned on the Web that cooking creates traces of trans-fats:-

"You can also make your own trans fat (in small amounts) by repeatedly re-heating cooking oil." taken from:-

http://www.tfx.org.uk/page13.html

"Some hydrogenation of oils occurs during cooking, causing normally healthy unsaturated fats like olive oil to convert to trans fats. But in non-industrial settings this process does not occur at appreciable quantities.[7]" taken from:-

http://www.answers.com/topic/cooking-fats

I propose, therefore, that the wording should change to "cooking creates trace amounts of trans-fats, which is factually-correct.Loki0115 (talk) 09:49, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I also didn't put in the reference to metabolic acidosis. However, checking the Internet shows that metabolic acidosis is viewed by Raw Vegans as the result of eating overly acidic cooked-foods and the idea is that raw, alkalinising plant-foods would prevent that condition. Here are some references:-

http://www.vegparadise.com/athlete7.html

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=v-8xz2eiAkMC&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq=raw+foods+metabolic+acidosis+cooked+foods&source=web&ots=sQoq3_0azV&sig=jYfQ1BfHyeta90Uiia2rch9doyY&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result

Most Vegan/Raw Vegan sites, however, mention all types of "acidosis", in general, rather than "metabolic acidosis" in particular:- http://www.selfhealingempowerment.com/articles/unnatural_eq_disease.html Loki0115 (talk) 09:49, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Removing new intro for toxins in cooked-foods section

There is a rather biased first sentence recently introduced in the "potential harmful effects of cooked foods section", which I will remove - (it's not been seemingly discusssed here, either). It cites a vague reference from an unknown nutritionist:-

"Raw foodists claim cooked food is less healthy due to chemicals like acrylamide and heterocyclid amines (HCAs) produced by high heat but "neither the American Cancer Society nor the National Cancer Institute goes so far as to recommend a raw food diet to reduce the risk of cancer from these chemicals"[63" reference= http://www.rawfoodlife.com/Latest_Raw_Food_News/Dallas_Morning_News_4_7_08/dallas_morning_news_4_7_08.html

First of all, against wikipedia rules, the above inserter has not directly quoted the (rather unknown)nutritionist who stated that remark, secondly the reference is from a rather obscure newspaper, thirdly, the remarks by the nutritionist have been reworded so as to make it seem that neither of the two above cancer organisations recommend raw food diets against cancer, when it is merely the nutritionist's claim. Given that governmental cancer organisations routinely recommend fruit and veg as a way to protect against cancer(and fruit is in most cases eaten raw), this is just somewhat dodgy.Loki0115 (talk) 11:15, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Hi Loki, We can quote the nutritionist and use her name. Here she is in another article. As we have discussed, we need a mainstream outlook to introduce the section, ie, some views on cooked food (HCAs) are mainstream and some (microwaved foods) are not mainstream:

Does Cooking Destroy Food?

Karen Schroeder, MS, RD

Raw foodists believe that cooking not only destroys enzymes, but also renders food toxic. To support this belief, some raw food proponents cite the National Academies of Science 1982 report, Diet, Nutrition, and Cancer, which names acrylamide and heterocyclic amines (HCAs) as possible carcinogens. These chemicals are formed in foods during cooking. However, neither the American Cancer Society (ACS) nor the National Cancer Institute (NCI) goes so far as to recommend a raw food diet to reduce the risk of cancer from these chemicals. Instead, they stress that following a healthful diet—one rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, both raw and cooked—is still the best known way to reduce cancer risk.

Acrylamide has caused cancer in lab rats, but has not been shown to do so in humans. The foods with the highest levels of acrylamide are those that should be limited in a healthful diet anyway, such as potato chips and French fries. Experts see no need to avoid cooked potatoes entirely. Likewise, HCAs, which are formed when meat is cooked to greater than 480° F, may increase cancer risk. However, HCAs can be reduced through minor shifts in cooking methods, rather than significant dietary changes. For example, varying cooking methods; microwaving meat before frying, broiling, or barbecuing; and not making gravy from meat drippings.

https://www.myhospitalwebsite.com/library/webdav/view/Crestwood/apps/HealthGate/Article.aspx?chunkiid=46086--—CynRN ^(Talk) 17:13, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The trouble with the above is that the American Cancer Society etc. does not necessarily support the idea that raw food diets are bad or good.They are actually undecided, for now, so the above amounts to misrepresentation by a nutritionist who does not represent the american cancer society etc, so her misattributions can't be put on the raw-foodism page.Here's a relevant excerpt from the web:-

"This confirms that there are a variety of compounds within fruits and vegetables that contribute to reducing the risk of cancer. Research like these studies contribute to our knowledge about what the impact of specific nutrients may be on specific types of cancer," said Colleen Doyle, director of nutrition and physical activity for the American Cancer Society. "Cooking leaches out some nutrients but makes others more absorbable. Until we know more in this regard, the bottom-line message for consumers is eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables each day, raw and/or lightly cooked. Focus on those with the most color, since, in general, fruit and vegetables with the most color have the most cancer-fighting antioxidants and phytochemicals."

taken from:-http://www.healthfinder.gov/news/newsstory.asp?docID=610680

The above comment implies that the american cancer society is still not sure re its position re raw and cooked vegetables, and recommends either "raw fruit and veg" or "minimal cooking". It would be wrong, therefore, to imply like that nutritionist did, that the american cancer society etc. frown on raw foods.Loki0115 (talk) 20:31, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The acrylamide-cancer link as regards humans has actually been established. Here's an example:-

"The team used a Netherlands study on diet and cancer, in which 120,000 people, and more than 62,000 women, aged 55-70 years, were asked details about their diet. The Dutch researchers used this data to estimate acrylamide intake from foods, and followed up the participants through cancer registries. After 11 years, women who had eaten around 40g of acrylamide a day were twice as likely to develop womb and ovarian cancer as those who'd eaten around 9g a day. There was no increased risk of breast cancer. The team did not look at the effects of acrylamide on men." taken from:- http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2007/December/05120703.asp

http://www.foodnavigator.com/Science-Nutrition/Acrylamide-linked-to-higher-kidney-cancer-risk

I'll make sure that any references to acrylamide will contain only human-oriented, not rat-related, studies. I'll do that, tomorrow.Loki0115 (talk) 20:28, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Good, let's have human-oriented studies. I added a lead sentence back into the toxins section with the quote from Schroeder. --—CynRN ^(Talk) 23:00, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but I have to strongly protest against the use of that nutritionist's comments. I don't mind a specific comment on raw food diets by a spokesperson of the Cancer Research Institute(or similiar government- or health-related body)(indeed it's necessary to relfect a mainstream view), but quoting the nutritionist's views of what she thinks the american cancer institute is or ought to be thinking as regards raw food diets, is wholly misleading - it's clear from my above excerpt that the relevant organisation is not committed to any real line vis-a-vis- raw foods,given that they claim they need further research on this issue of raw vs cooked.

It shouldn't be too difficult to find a rather less dodgy comment on raw food diets by a leading scientist or spokesperson working for the american cancer society or any of 1000s government- or health-related bodies, and even in the extreme unlikelihood that you can't find such a reference, you could simply quote the nutritionist's views re raw food diets re acrylamide or whatever without mentioning those organisations, and make it clear that this is her own personal view, rather than the current approach which seems to imply that she's speaking directly on behalf of those organisations, with their support.What do others think?Loki0115 (talk) 08:59, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Loki, I think it's important to present the mainstream view, i.e. 'adding more raw fruits and vegetables is great, but an all raw diet is not recommended by mainstream nutritionists'. Yes, I'm sure I can find a ref...no hurry, now though. Also, the whole article is becoming bloated. For instance, the toxin section could be pared down. The "movement" and "history" sections are too meandering. See Sandy Georgia's comments under 'history' for more suggestions.--—CynRN ^(Talk) 17:59, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Fine, as long as something suitable is found, sooner or later. It can't be difficult to find such a reference re raw food diets from a mainstream orgnaisation - indeed, that kind of statement(adding raw fruits/veg, but raw food diet unnecessary) is standard for such organisations.

The article is definitely not becoming bloated - indeed, if you have a look at the extremely lengthy Paleolithic Diet page, it's quite normal for notable diets to have lots of text devoted to them, especially when they're more than just a fad, and more scientifically-oriented than others - and the cooked-Palaeolithic Diet is actually much less popular than raw food diets. Plus, all the relevant beliefs need to be listed and explained(loss of nutrients/toxins in cooked-foods etc.) as do the concerns re raw foods re bacteria/parasites as well as typical examples, such as the Nenets tribes who follow raw food diets. Loki0115 (talk) 20:02, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

One way to reduce the length of this article is to remove all duplicated material re certain medical conditions. One example is the following paragraph in the Nutritional Deficiencies section, about amenorrhea, even though a study on amenorrhea and raw-foodists is already featured in the Recent research section:-

"A study surveying people practicing raw food diets of varying intensities found that 30% of the women under age 45 had partial to complete amenorrhoea and that "subjects eating high amounts of raw food (> 90%) were affected more frequently than moderate raw food dieters." The study concluded that since many raw food dieters were underweight and exhibited amenorrhoea "a very strict raw food diet cannot be recommended on a long-term basis."[121]" —Preceding unsigned comment added by Loki0115 (talk • contribs) 20:11, 10 September 2008 (UTC) Loki0115 (talk) 20:13, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

One possibility is to avoid leaving so many blank lines between the various statements, whether pro-raw or anti-raw. Loki0115 (talk) 20:29, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

New source for pure/raw foods at ABCnews.com

There's a news story at ABCnews.com today that specifically connects raw foods with both a desire for pure/living/spiritually correct foods and with orthorexia.[1] I think it could support a new paragraph in "Criticisms" (on the prevalence of orthorexia and emotional problems among rawists) and also some items in the beliefs. As a regular news story, it's a stronger reference than somebody's website, so I'm really pleased that this turned up. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:31, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

As long as it's made clear that the article is only about a 100% raw plant-food diet(the article makes very clear in the text that meats are avoided o this diet".Loki0115 (talk) 19:34, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Most rawists are vegans and most of the health studies are of vegans.

I still want to write a Philosophy section, some of this would fit there. The orthorexia part can go in Criticism. Good find. --—CynRN ^(Talk) 19:40, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm a bit nonplussed re this inclusion of an article on "orthorexia" for raw foods. Doing a quick check of atkins/zone diet and other diets on a par with raw-foodism, I notice that none of them have a section in the criticism section about orthorexia, despite the fact that orthorexia exists among all types of diets. I do feel this is a little extreme, therefore, singling out only raw foodism for orthorexia .However, I'm willing to listen to justifications.Loki0115 (talk) 09:21, 10 September 2008 (UTC) 09:20, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

It's because the reliable sources consistently relate orthorexia to raw foodism (and specifically raw veganism, if they happen to get specific). If you can find solid sources that say people on low-carb diets have gotten completely obsessive about eating pure low-carb foods, then that can certainly be proposed at the other articles. We are bound to our reliable sources. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:40, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Orthorxia involves ALL diets, unsurprisingly:-

Atkins:- http://www.eatingdisordershelpguide.com/orthorexia.html

Zone diet, macrobiotics, blood-type diet etc.:- http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Stossel/story?id=5735592&page=1

AHH! Just realised that the last article cited is the very one used to cite orthorexia among raw-foodists(on page 2). So, in other words, the above article is talking about orthorexia among ALl kinds of diets, but it is being wrongly used to imply that orthorexia is preeminent among raw-foodists only. There's a very clear bias, here. I( wish I'd noticed that earlier. This article, therefore, should only be used for the orthorxia page. Ah well! Loki0115 (talk) 19:56, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Not really. That sentence says, "Americans spend millions on diet books hawking things like macrobiotics, the Zone, the Blood-type diet." It does not go on to connect any of these specific diets with orthorexia. It does, however, interview rawist guru Viktoras Kulvinskas and specifically connect rawism with orthorexia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:28, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Loss of nutrients

Due to other concerns re this page, I completely forgot a rather more important point, the 2dn-most important belief of rawists is that cooking causes a loss of nutrients. I'll need to come up with relevant info re this rather vital point.I'll do that in the next few days-correction - done it now.Loki0115 (talk) 20:34, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

news articles

it might be an idea to include a few more media-articles on raw food diets in the diet descriptions section. I'll do that tomorrow.Loki0115 (talk) 21:02, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and I've included the point in the ntro re some rawists viewing themselves as rawists from 60% raw and above(as well as the 75% raw view). I included two definite references for the 60% raw figure, one more solid than the other, so I hope it's OK.Loki0115 (talk) 10:56, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

This is an archive of past discussions about Raw foodism. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

^ http://www.biotunes.org/bioblog/2007/05/truth-about-e-coli-and-cattle-feed.html

[1] vescience article "The Raw Food Diet: A Raw Deal" published July 4, 2006

[2] ttps://www.neha.org/position_papers/position_raw_milk.htm

[3] PMID: 6481912 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6481912?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_Discovery_RA&linkpos=2&log$=relatedarticles&logdbfrom=pubmed

[4] ttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8841165

[5] ttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11597666

[6] ttp://www.naturalmatters.net/newsview.asp?news=3124

[7] ttp://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070510093349.htm

[8] ttp://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_n24_v134/ai_6924560

[9] ttp://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/T/timeteam/snapshot_cooking.html

[10] ttp://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CEED7123BF93BA15756C0A9649C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

[11] xcept, of course, for the problems that it didn't solve. Your mileage may vary. Subject to various restrictions. And wasn't I just telling you that humor's easily misinterpreted on talk pages? I must learn to take my own advice. ~~~

[12] ttp://www.rawfoodmyth.com/

[13] ttp://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0820/is_n225/ai_18230841

[14] ttp://www.bestdietfoods.net/rawdiet.htm

[cooking-up-bigger-brains-15] Cooking Up Bigger Brains: Scientific American

[Pennisi_99%html-16] Pennisi: Did Cooked Tubers Spur the Evolution of Big Brains?

[pmid14527628-17] Wrangham R, Conklin-Brittain N. (2003 Sep). "Cooking as a biological trait" (PDF). Comp Biochem Physiol A Mol Integr Physiol. 136 (1): 35–46. doi:10.1016/S1095-6433(03)00020-5. PMID 14527628. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)

[isbn0195183460-18] Wrangham, Richard (2006). "The Cooking Enigma". In Ungar, Peter S. (ed.). Evolution of the Human Diet: The Known, the Unknown, and the Unknowable. Oxford, USA: Oxford University Press. pp. 308–23. ISBN 0195183460. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |chapterurl= (help)

[19] ttp://altmedicine.about.com/od/popularhealthdiets/a/Raw_Food.htm

[20] ttp://altmedicine.about.com/od/popularhealthdiets/a/Raw_Food.htm

[21] ttp://www.biotunes.org/bioblog/2007/05/truth-about-e-coli-and-cattle-feed.html

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

[12]

[13]

[1]

Vandalism Removal

Enzymes

Advertisement

Some bad science, weak links, food religion

article name and terminology

Raw wiki

Supercharge Me

Logic absent

CLEAN UP

Wikipedia takes some getting used to

Comment

Revert recent research edit

useful data for the article

Potential danger raw dairy

Relevance of raw food for cats?

More emphasis on preponderance of vegan in lead?

Wrangham/weston price

Clean up

Third opinion

Talk page references

Comments

More opinion

Proposed merge

Original research issues

Convenience split

Sources

Re-open

Wrangham in the lead

Tribes

Beyondveg.com

Out of place in raw food movement

More clarity in lead

Raw meat eating

Comments on cooking obligatory

Studies on cooked foods

Reliability of blogs

Wrangham redux

Another temporary ref list

How many pictures?

Some possible sources

Unprocessed

Errors in text

Intro/criticism

Raw Vegans children raw dairy

Wrangham

75%

Food poisoning

Paragraph in Recent Research

Furhmann/Food Preparation

Food safety concerns

Question

Toxicity of cooked foods

Dubious

Removing new intro for toxins in cooked-foods section

New source for pure/raw foods at ABCnews.com

Loss of nutrients

news articles