The raw food diet (or living foods diet) is a dietary regimen consisting of uncooked and unprocessed organic food. Most of the foods consumed on this diet are fruits, vegetables, nut (fruit), and seeds. 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 pasteurization, eggs are cooked to avoid salmonella, and many meats need to be cooked in order to avoid parasites or diseases.) The exact definition of raw food varies, but the general consensus is that a food is considered raw if it has not been heated to more than 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46 degrees Celsius), and if it has not been frozen.
A raw foodist is a person who consumes only raw food. There is some debate over what quantity of raw food intake actually identifies one as a raw foodist. Most can agree that if someone eats 75% or more of their food as raw, they are a raw foodist.
Proponents of the raw food diet believe it dates to prehistoric eras, before humans discovered fire. They also (controversially) believe that man's digestive system is largely configured to eating a mainly raw, mainly vegetarian diet.
The earliest modern examples of the raw food diet date to the 1800s.
Artturi Virtanen, a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist, is often quoted as supporting a Living Foods diet. He showed that enzymes in uncooked foods are released in the mouth when vegetables are chewed. These enzymes interact with other substances, notably the enzymes produced by the body itself, to produce maximum benefit from the digestion process.
It gained more prominence throughout the 1900s, as proponents such as Ann Wigmore and Herbert Shelton advocated the belief that a diet of raw fruit and vegetable could cure various disease. The raw food diet continued to exist as a radical off-shoot of the vegetarian diet until 1975, when computer programmer-turned-nutritionist Viktoras Kulvinskas published Survival Into the 21st Century. It is considered to be the first modern publication that deals with the raw food diet.
The diet has gained recent mainstream acceptance. Restaurants catering for this way of eating have opened up in California and New York City, and numerous all-raw cookbooks have been published. It has also received celebrity endorsements from entertainers like Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson, who have been known to follow the diet.
Doctors and nutritionists such as Dr Fuhrman, Dr. Gillian McKeith and Professor Colin Campbell (see the China project) advocate diets high in raw, unprocessed foods. They see this as a remedy, together with an active lifestyle, for obesity-related illnesses which are prevalent in developed countries. These include Cardiovascular illness, cancer, diabetes and some auto-immune diseases.
Most foods in the raw food diet are simple in preparation, and can be eaten immediately. However, other foods can require hours, or even days, of preparation to make the food palatable. Rice, for example, must be soaked in water for more than a day to soften it. Depending on the recipe, some food (such as cakes) may also need to be dehydrated. This process, which emulates cooked food, is lengthy.
Preparation of raw food recipes usually call for a blender (device), food processor, juicer, and Drying (food).
Care is required in planning a raw foods diet, especially for children. There have been some recent cases in the United States of children on inadequate raw foods diets developing serious health problems and even dying of malnutrition. There is little research on how to plan a nutritionally adequate raw foods diet, especially for children.
The Tree of Life Foundation in Arizona, which advocates a vegan raw food diet, is currently conducting a survey of babies and children on a diet of 75% raw foods or more. Raw foodists claim that with sufficient calories, essential fatty acids, variety and density, people of all ages can be successful at eating raw foods.
Those who follow this way of eating generally believe that:
The main idea behind the raw food diet is that cooked food is supposedly toxic, because cooking destroys the enzymes contained in food. This belief is based on the work of Artturi Virtanen, a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist, and on the research of Dr. Edward Howell, an Illinois physician who researched how enzymes played a role in a person's diet. The results of his research concluded that eating cooked food leads to health problems. In 1985, Howell conducted further research, and cited a study where laboratory rats that were fed cooked foods had an increased pancreatitis (though rats are particularly susceptible to disease of all kinds). Raw food diet proponents believe this shows that the pancreas is forced to work harder on a diet of cooked foods and that food enzymes are just as essential to digestion as the body's self-generated enzymes.
Additional research was conducted by Dr. Francis Pottenger in 1932, who conducted an experiment to determine the effect of cooked foods in cat. For 10 years, Pottenger fed half of the cat a diet of raw foods, the other half a diet of cooked foods. At the conclusion of his study, he reported that the cat who were fed raw foods appeared to be in better health. In addition, the exclusively cooked diet led to congenital problems including birth defects and deformities, after several generations. Research was also conducted by Dr Weston A Price as embodied by the Weston A. Price Foundation and The Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation.
Raw food proponents believe a raw food diet consisting of enzyme-rich raw foods will reverse health problems and strengthen the immune system. The benefits of the diet are said to include maintaining stable body mass index, clear skin, more energy, and minimising a range of common illnesses, from the flu to obesity-related illnesses.
Some research does not support the idea that enzymes in foods somehow survive the stomach (pepsin in the stomach quickly breaks down nearly all proteins, including enzymes). It is accepted that foods cooked at high heat contain toxins not found in raw or boiled foods, such as acrylamide, benzopyrene, and methylcholanthrene. There is no consensus as to whether these toxins introduced by high-heat cooking methods are cause for alarm.
David Wolfe in the USA and Shazzie in the UK are two of the leading voices of the current raw food movement. They have helped thousands of people become more aware of raw foodism through their lectures, books and web sites. A leading voice of the RAF diet is Aajonus Vonderplanitz, who claims to have cured himself and many of his patients from cancer.
Latter day proponents include Ann Wigmore (founder of the Hippocrates Health Institute), Arnold Ehret (author and authority on fasting), TC Fry (natural hygienist), and Norman Walker (a man big into juices). It's reported that Walker lived to 118 and died in an accident.
Raw foodists argue that since no other animals cook their foods, and (according to some) they don't get the extensive degenerative diseases that humans do, it's clearly logical to not cook or process food. However, even if it were true that animals don't get degenerative diseases, this could be because animals in the wild are usually killed by predators before they are old enough to develop degenerative diseases.
Raw food diets have been criticized by some in the mainstream medical community as being too harsh and restrictive. A raw food diet requires special care to include the recommended amounts of several important vitamins and nutrients, including vitamin B-12, calcium, and protein. If adopted for an extended period of time without special attention to essential nutrients, any restrictive diet can lead to nutritional deficiency.
Much of the research advocating raw food diets has been criticized. Critics say that food enzyme cannot be fully utilized by the human body, since they are destroyed during the digestive process. Also, some nutrients are only fully released in cooking, including lycopene in tomatoes, and beta carotene in carrots. It is also argued that humanity has been cooking for such a long time that the human body can hardly be ill-adjusted to cooked food.
In response, advocates point to studies which show that some nutrients in food are either damaged or made indigestible through the heating involved in cooking (see McKeith 2000 p 165 ff for references). They also assert that since no other species cooks its food, it is impossible to estimate how long it would take to adjust to such a diet, or even to know whether it is possible.
Critics also say that the research supporting the raw food diet is out-of-date. In response, advocates point to support from eminent researchers who are professors and Nobel Prize winners in their field, and that modern research supports the inclusion of a high amount of raw food and vegetables in our diet.
