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Raw foodism

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This article is about raw food consumption in humans. For a raw diet for cats or dogs, see Raw feeding.

Raw foodism (or following a raw food diet) is the dietary practice of eating only uncooked, unprocessed foods.

Depending on the exact philosophy or type of lifestyle and results desired, raw food diets may include a selection of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, eggs, fish, meat and dairy products.[1] It may also include simply processed foods such as various types of sprouted seeds, cheese, and fermented foods such as yogurts, kefir, kombucha or sauerkraut, but generally not foods that have been pasteurized, homogenized, or produced with the use of synthetic pesticides, chemical fertilizers, industrial solvents or chemical food additives.

Varieties

Raw Vegan "Thanks-Giving Turkey"

Raw food diets are diets composed entirely of food that is uncooked or which is cooked at low temperatures.[2]

Raw veganism

Raw vegan "apple pie"
Main article: Raw veganism

A raw vegan diet consists of unprocessed, raw plant foods that have not been heated above 40–49 °C (104–120 °F). Raw vegans such as Brian Clement, Gabriel Cousens, Thierry Browers a.k.a. "Superlight", and Douglas Graham[3] believe that foods cooked above this temperature have lost much of their nutritional value and are less healthful or even harmful to the body.[unbalanced opinion?] Advocates argue that raw or living foods have natural enzymes, which are critical in building proteins and rebuilding the body, and that heating these foods destroys the natural enzymes and can leave toxic materials behind. However, critics point out that enzymes, as with other proteins consumed in the diet, are denatured and eventually lysed by the digestive process, rendering them non-functional. Typical foods included in raw food diets are fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and sprouted grains and legumes.

Among raw vegans there are some subgroups such as fruitarians, juicearians, or sproutarians. Fruitarians eat primarily or exclusively fruits, berries, seeds, and nuts. Juicearians process their raw plant foods into juice. Sproutarians adhere to a diet consisting mainly of sprouted seeds.

Raw vegetarianism

Vegetarianism is a diet that excludes meat (including game and byproducts like gelatin), fish (including shellfish and other sea animals) and poultry, but allows dairy and/or eggs. Common foods include fruit, vegetables, sprouts, nuts, seeds, grains, legumes, dairy, eggs and honey. There are several variants of this diet.[4]

Raw animal food diets

Main article: Raw animal food diets
A sashimi dinner set
Steak tartare
Steak tartare with raw egg, capers and onions
Main ingredientsRaw beef
VariationsTartare aller-retour

Included in raw animal food diets are any food that can be eaten raw, such as uncooked, unprocessed raw muscle-meats/organ-meats/eggs, raw dairy, and aged, raw animal foods such as century eggs, fermented meat/fish/shellfish/kefir, as well as vegetables/fruits/nuts/sprouts/honey, but in general not raw grains, raw beans, and raw soy. Raw foods included on such diets have not been heated above 40 °C (104 °F).[5] Raw animal foodists believe that foods cooked above this temperature have lost a lot of their nutritional value and are less bioavailable. Many believe that raw meats should come from sources such as grassfed meats or wild game rather than grainfed or factory-farmed meats.

Examples of raw animal food diets include the Primal Diet,[6][7] Anopsology (otherwise known as "Instinctive Eating" or "Instincto"), and the Raw Paleolithic diet[8][9] (otherwise known as the "Raw Meat Diet").[10]

The Primal Diet consists of fatty meats, organ meats, dairy, honey, minimal fruit and vegetable juices, and coconut products, all raw.

The "Raw Meat Diet", otherwise known as the "Raw, Paleolithic Diet",[9][11] is a raw version of the (cooked) Paleolithic Diet, incorporating large amounts of raw animal foods such as meats/organ-meats, seafood, eggs, and some raw plant-foods, but usually avoiding non-Paleo foods such as raw dairy, grains, and legumes.[9][10]

A number of traditional aboriginal diets consisted of large quantities of raw meats, organ meats, and berries, including the traditional diet of the Nenets tribe of Siberia and the Inuit people.[12][13][14]

History

In the 1830s, Presbyterian minister Sylvester Graham promoted dietary principles similar to the raw food diet as a proposed cure for the then-current cholera epidemic threatening to strike the United States. Graham, most noted for the famous graham cracker, claimed chronic disease in general and cholera in particular could be prevented by drinking pure water and eating simple fresh food not complicated or compounded by culinary practices.[15] Graham saw such simple fare as a method to cure lust; for Graham, an unhealthy diet stimulated excessive sexual desire which irritated the body and caused disease.

Raw food as a dietary health treatment was first developed in Switzerland by medical doctor Maximilian Bircher-Benner, inventor of muesli. After recovering from jaundice while eating raw apples, he conducted experiments into the effects on human health of raw vegetables. In November 1897, he opened a sanatorium in Zurich called "Vital Force," named after a "key term from the German lifestyle reform movement, which states that people should pattern their lives after the logic determined by nature".[16][unbalanced opinion?][unreliable source?]

Weston A. Price, in a 1939 work titled Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, observed dental degeneration in the first generation abandoning traditional nutrient-dense foods, which included unprocessed raw milk. Price claimed that the parents of such first-generation children had excellent jaw development and dental health, while their children had malocclusion and tooth decay and attributed this to their new modern diet insufficient in nutrients.[17] Price also noted, in his book, that the healthiest tribes he visited all incorporated some raw animal foods in their diets.[unbalanced opinion?]

Other notable proponents from the early part of this century include Ann Wigmore, Norman W. Walker (inventor of the Norwalk Juicing Press), and Herbert Shelton. Shelton was arrested, jailed, and fined numerous times for practicing medicine without a license during his career as an advocate of rawism and other alternative health and diet philosophies.[18] Shelton's legacy, as popularized by books like Fit for Life by Harvey and Marilyn Diamond, has been deemed "pseudonutrition" by the National Council Against Health Fraud.[19]

Leslie Kenton's book Raw Energy - Eat Your Way to Radiant Health, published in 1984, popularized food such as sprouts, seeds, and fresh vegetable juices.[20] The book brought together research into raw foodism and its support of health. It cites examples such as the sprouted-seed-enriched diets of the long-lived Hunza people and Gerson therapy, an unhealthy, dangerous and potentially very harmful[21][22] raw juice-based diet and detoxification regime claimed to treat cancer.[21] The book advocates a diet of 75% raw food which it claims will prevent degenerative diseases, slow the effects of aging, provide enhanced energy, and boost emotional balance.[unbalanced opinion?]

Beliefs

Beliefs held by raw foodists may include:

  • That raw foods have higher nutrient values than foods that have been cooked.[23][24][25]
  • That wild foods followed by organic whole foods are more nutritious than conventionally domesticated foods or industrially produced foods.
  • That cooked foods contain harmful toxins, which can cause chronic disease and other problems,[26]

Food preparation

Vegetables in a market

Many foods in raw food diets are simple to prepare, such as fruits, salads, meat, and dairy.[citation needed] Other foods can require considerable advanced planning to prepare for eating. Rice and some other grains, for example, require sprouting or overnight soaking to become digestible. Many raw foodists believe it is best to soak nuts and seeds before eating them, to activate their enzymes, and deactivate enzyme inhibitors.[27] The amount of soak time varies for all nuts and seeds.

According to some cookbook authors, preparation of gourmet raw food recipes usually calls for a blender, food processor, juicer, and dehydrator.[28] Depending on the recipe, some food (such as crackers, breads and cookies) may need to be dehydrated. These processes, which produce foods with the taste and texture of cooked food, are lengthy.

Freezing food is acceptable, even though freezing lowers enzyme activity. This view is only held by some raw-foodists, with many raw-foodists actually viewing freezing as harmful,[29][30] though not as unhealthy as cooking.

Research

A study surveying people practicing raw vegan 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 vegan diet cannot be recommended on a long-term basis".[31]

A meta-analysis of scientific studies from 1994 to 2004 concluded there to be an inverse correlation between the risk of developing certain types of cancer and eating both raw and cooked vegetables. Consumption of raw vegetables tended to be associated with decreased cancer risks somewhat more often than consumption of cooked vegetables.[32] The majority of studies included show an inverse association between both raw and cooked vegetables and cancer. On the other hand, certain studies have indicated detrimental health effects stemming from raw vegan diets.[33][34][35] A 2005 study has shown that a raw vegan diet is associated with a lower bone density.[36] One study of raw vegan diets shows amenorrhea and underweightness in women.[37] Another one indicates an increased risk of dental erosion with a raw vegan diet.[38]

Nutritional deficiencies in raw vegan diets

Care is required in planning a raw vegan diet, especially for children.[39] Dr. Joel Fuhrman, author of Disease-Proof Your Child, says there may not be enough vitamin B12, enough vitamin D, and enough calories for a growing child on a totally raw vegan diet. Fuhrman fed his own four children raw and cooked vegetables, fruits, nuts, grains, beans, and occasionally eggs.[40]

Food poisoning

Food poisoning is a health risk for all people eating raw foods, and increased demand for raw foods is associated with greater incidence of foodborne illness,[41] especially for raw meat, fish, and shellfish.[42][43] Outbreaks of gastroenteritis among consumers of raw and undercooked animal products (including smoked, pickled or dried animal products[42]) are well-documented, and include raw meat,[42][44][45] raw organ meat,[44] raw fish (whether ocean-going or freshwater),[42][43][45] shellfish,[46] raw milk and products made from raw milk,[47][48][49] and raw eggs.[50]

Food poisoning attributed to contaminated raw produce has risen tenfold since the 1970s.[51] Salad, lettuce, juice, melon, sprouts, and berries were most frequently implicated in outbreaks.[51]

Many raw plant foods have been contaminated by dangerous and even deadly microorganisms,[52] including jalapeño and serrano peppers,[52] alfalfa sprouts and other sprouted seeds,[53][54] green onions,[55] spinach,[56] lettuce,[56] orange juice,[57] apple juice and other unpasteurized fruit juices.[58]

Controversies

Richard Wrangham, a primate researcher and professor of anthropology, has suggested that eating cooked food is more "natural" for the human digestive system, because the human digestive system may have evolved to deal with cooked foods.[59][60] Wrangham thinks that cooking explains the increase in hominid brain sizes, smaller digestive tract, smaller teeth and jaws and decrease in sexual dimorphism that occurred roughly 1.8 million years ago.[59][60] Most other anthropologists oppose Wrangham,[61] stating that archaeological evidence suggests that cooking fires began in earnest only c.250,000 years ago, when ancient hearths, earth ovens, burnt animal bones, and flint appear across Europe and the Middle East. Two million years ago, the only sign of fire is burnt earth with human remains, which most other anthropologists consider to be mere coincidence rather than evidence of intentional fire.[62] The mainstream view among anthropologists [63] is that the increases in human brain-size occurred well before the advent of cooking, due to a shift away from the consumption of nuts and berries to the consumption of raw meat.[64][65]

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Raw food.

References

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