Raw veganism
Raw veganism is a diet that combines the concepts of veganism and raw foodism. It excludes all food of animal origin, as well as food cooked at a temperature above 48 degrees Celsius (118 degrees Fahrenheit). A raw vegan diet includes raw vegetables and fruits, nuts and nut pastes, grain and legume sprouts, seeds, plant oils, sea vegetables, herbs, and fresh juices. There are many different versions of the diet, including fruitarianism, juicearianism, and sproutarianism. The definition of a raw vegan diet can be loosened to include vegan diets with at least 75% raw foods.
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[edit] Motivations
In addition to the ethics of eating meat, dairy, eggs and honey, raw vegans may be motivated by health, spiritual or environmental reasons, or a combination of these.
In terms of health, some raw vegans believe that cooking foods destroys the complex balance of micronutrients. They may also believe that, in the cooking process, dangerous chemicals are produced by the heat interaction with fat, protein, and carbohydrates.
Other followers of a raw vegan diet place importance on spiritual gain. Ruthann Russo, Ph.D and author of two books on the raw foods diet, says that the movement aims to look 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." [1]
Forest gardening is a radical raw vegan lifestyle with a number of motives. For example, it can be viewed as a way to recreate the Garden of Eden.[2] Developed by raw vegan Robert Hart, forest gardening is a food production system based on woodland ecosystems, incorporating fruit and nut trees, shrubs, herbs, vines and perennial vegetables.[3] The three main products from a forest garden are fruit, nuts and green leafy vegetables.[4] Forest gardens are probably the world's oldest and most resilient agroecosystem.[5]
[edit] Nutritional considerations
Raw vegans must ensure that their intake of vitamin B12 is adequate, since it does not occur reliably in plant foods.[6][7][8] Vitamin B12 deficiency can have serious consequences such as anemia and neurodegenerative disease.[9] The Vegan Society and Vegan Outreach, among others, recommend that vegans either consistently eat foods fortified with B12 or take a B12 supplement.[10][11][12] Tempeh, seaweed, spirulina, organic produce, soil, and intestinal bacteria have not been shown to be reliable sources of B12 for the dietary needs of vegans.[6][13][14]
[edit] Research
Medical studies on raw food diets have shown some positive and negative health outcomes.[15] According to one medical trial, "long-term consumption of a 70% raw-plant-food diet is associated with favorable serum LDL cholesterol and triglycerides but also with elevated plasma homocysteine and low serum HDL cholesterol" as well as vitamin B12 deficiency.[16]
Another study regarding concentrations of carotenoid compounds associated with chronic disease prevention in the blood plasma of individuals who had adhered to a long-term diet consisting of 95% raw foods indicated satisfactory concentrations of the carotenoid beta-carotene. However, the study also indicated that these individuals exhibited abnormally low levels of lycopene, another carotenoid associated with chronic disease prevention. Additionally, the study subjects were only reported as adhering to a diet of mostly raw foods, but were not reported as adhering to a diet of vegan raw foods.[17]
A study, mentioned benefits of a raw vegan diet for lowering obesity and hypertension[18] A study has also shown short-term reduced fibromyalgia symptoms for some patients who engaged in a vegan diet.[19] Another study indicated that some rheumatoid arthritis patients who ate a raw vegan diet reported relief of subjective symptoms, but showed no measurable change in objective symptoms. The study further notes that half of the subjects had to be removed from the study because they were afflicted with nausea and diarrhea shortly after adapting the raw diet.[20]
German research in 2003 showed significant benefits in reducing breast cancer risk when large amounts of raw vegetable matter are included in the diet. The authors attribute some of this effect to heat-labile phytonutrients.[21]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ The Raw Food Diet Myth, Ruthann Russo, Ph.D, MPH 2008 http://www.therawfoodlifestylebook.com/downloads/TheRawFoodDietMythPreview.pdf
- ^ Graham Bell (2004). The Permaculture Garden, p.129, "The Forest Garden…This is the original garden of Eden. It could be your garden too."
- Also see Rob Hopkins (forward), Martin Crawford (2010). Creating a Forest Garden: Working with Nature to Grow Edible Crops, p.10 "Perhaps what Hart created was the closest to what we imagine the Garden of Eden as being."
- Helmut Lieth (1989). Tropical Rain Forest Ecosystems: Biogeographical and Ecological Studies, p.611 "Important food plants, such as sago-producing palms, fruit-producing trees and medicinal plants were purposefully aggregated and tended in convenient places. Eventually, the forest garden, a kind of Garden of Eden, emerged. These jungle gardens on good soils of easy access required little maintenance and hardly any hard work."
- Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier (2005). Edible Forest Gardens - Volume One, p.1
- Robert Hart (1996). Forest Gardening: Cultivating and Edible Landscape, p.80
- ^ Robert Hart (1996). Forest Gardening. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=N01940btQAQC&lpg=PA1&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false.
- ^ Patrick Whitefield (2002). How to Make a Forest Garden. p. 5. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3rd3e69BnC8C&printsec=frontcover&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false.
- ^ Douglas John McConnell (2003). The Forest Farms of Kandy: And Other Gardens of Complete Design. p. 1. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QYBSfUJPQXcC&lpg=PP1&dq=the%20forest%20farms%20of%20kandy%20and%20other%20gardens%20of%20complete%20design&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false.
- ^ a b "What every vegan should know about vitamin B12". Vegan Society. Archived from the original on 2007-02-20. http://web.archive.org/web/20070220130950/http://www.vegansociety.com/html/food/nutrition/b12/. Retrieved 2007-02-22. "Vitamin B12, whether in supplements, fortified foods, or animal products, comes from micro-organisms."
- ^ Jack Norris, RD (2003-04-18). "Staying a Healthy Vegan". Vegan Outreach. http://www.veganoutreach.org/health/stayinghealthy.html#vitamind. Retrieved 2007-02-22. "There are no reliable, unfortified plant sources of vitamin B12; therefore fortified foods and/or supplements are necessary for the optimal health of vegans."
- ^ "Vitamin B12 Information Sheet". Vegetarian Society. http://www.vegsoc.org/info/b12.html. Retrieved 2007-02-22. "any B12 present in plant foods is likely to be unavailable to humans and so these foods should not be relied upon as safe sources."
- ^ "Vitamin B12 (cobalamin)". Merck Manual Home Edition. http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec12/ch154/ch154h.html. Retrieved 2006-10-30.
- ^ "Healthy choices on a vegan diet". Vegan Society. Archived from the original on 2007-02-05. http://web.archive.org/web/20070205045758/http://www.vegansociety.com/html/food/nutrition/. Retrieved 2007-02-14.
- ^ Reed Mangels, Ph.D., R.D.. "Vitamin B12 in the Vegan Diet". Vegetarian Resource Group. http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/b12.htm. Retrieved 2007-02-22.
- ^ "Don't Vegetarians Have Trouble Getting Enough Vitamin B12?". Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. http://www.pcrm.org/health/veginfo/b12.html. Retrieved 2007-02-22.
- ^ Jack Norris, RD. "Vegan Health: B12 in Tempeh, Seaweeds, Organic Produce, and Other Plant Foods". veganhealth.org. Vegan Outreach. http://www.veganhealth.org/b12/plant. Retrieved 2007-02-22.
- ^ Jack Norris, RD. "Vegan Health: Are Intestinal Bacteria a Reliable Source of B12?". veganhealth.org. Vegan Outreach. http://www.veganhealth.org/b12/int. Retrieved 2007-02-22.
- ^ Cunningham, Eleese (2004). "What is a raw foods diet and are there any risks or benefits associated with it?". Journal of the American Dietetic Association 104 (10): 1623. doi:10.1016/j.jada.2004.08.016. PMID 15389429.
- ^ Koebnick, Corinna; Garcia, Ada L; Dagnelie, Pieter C; Strassner, Carola; Lindemans, Jan; Katz, Norbert; Leitzmann, Claus; Hoffmann, Ingrid (2005). "Long-Term Consumption of a Raw Food Diet Is Associated with Favorable Serum LDL Cholesterol and Triglycerides but Also with Elevated Plasma Homocysteine and Low Serum HDL Cholesterol in Humans,2". Journal of Nutrition 135 (10): 2372–8. PMID 16177198. http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/pmidlookup?view=long&pmid=16177198.
- ^ Garcia, AL; Koebnick, C; Dagnelie, PC; Strassner, C; Elmadfa, I; Katz, N; Leitzmann, C; Hoffmann, I (2008). "Long-term strict raw food diet is associated with favourable plasma beta-carotene and low plasma lycopene concentrations in Germans". The British journal of nutrition 99 (6): 1293–300. doi:10.1017/S0007114507868486. PMID 18028575.
- ^ Douglass, JM; Rasgon, IM; Fleiss, PM; Schmidt, RD; Peters, SN; Abelmann, EA (1985). "Effects of a raw food diet on hypertension and obesity". Southern medical journal 78 (7): 841–4. doi:10.1097/00007611-198507000-00017. PMID 4012382.
- ^ Kaartinen K, Lammi K, Hypen M, Nenonen M, Hanninen O, Rauma AL (2000). "Vegan diet alleviates fibromyalgia symptoms". Scand. J. Rheumatol. 29 (5): 308–13. doi:10.1080/030097400447697. PMID 11093597.
- ^ Nenonen, MT; Helve, TA; Rauma, AL; Hänninen, OO (1998). "Uncooked, lactobacilli-rich, vegan food and rheumatoid arthritis". British journal of rheumatology 37 (3): 274–81. doi:10.1093/rheumatology/37.3.274. PMID 9566667.
- ^ Adzersen, KH; Jess, P; Freivogel, KW; Gerhard, I; Bastert, G (2003). "Raw and cooked vegetables, fruits, selected micronutrients, and breast cancer risk: a case-control study in Germany". Nutrition and cancer 46 (2): 131–7. doi:10.1207/S15327914NC4602_05. PMID 14690788.
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