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Raw foodism

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For a raw diet for cats and dogs, see Raw feeding.

Raw foodism is a movement promoting the consumption of uncooked, unprocessed, and often organic foods, as a large percentage of the diet. A raw food diet consists fully of foods which have not been heated above a certain temperature. The maximum temperature varies among the different forms of the diet, from 92ºF to 118ºF (33°C to 48°C). Raw food diets may include a selectıon of raw fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, seeds, eggs, fish, meat and unpasteurized dairy products (such as raw milk, cheese and yogurt).

A raw foodist is a person who consumes primarily raw food, or all raw food, depending on how strict the person is. Raw foodists typically believe that the greater the percentage of raw food in the diet, the greater the health benefits. They generally believe raw food prevents and/or heals many forms of sickness and many chronic diseases. Freezing food is considered acceptable by many raw foodists; some choose to preserve nuts and seeds in a freezer.

Background

History

Raw food, being the diet of almost every kind of animal for all time, necessarily dates to prehistoric eras, before humans began cooking with fire. Some believe that prehistoric humans were largely vegetarians, and thus that the human digestive system is configured for raw vegetarianism.[citation needed] Others believe their primitive ancestors were chiefly hunters who ate raw meat.[citation needed] Analysis of postcranial and cranial remains of humans and animals from the Neolithic, along with detailed bone modification studies have shown that cannibalism was also prevalent among prehistoric humans. [1]

Raw foods gained more prominence throughout the 1900's, as proponents such as Ann Wigmore and Herbert Shelton claimed that a diet of raw fruits and vegetables is the ideal diet for humans. [citation needed]

Artturi Virtanen (1895-1973), a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist, showed that enzymes in uncooked foods are released in the mouth when vegetables are chewed. It is believed that these enzymes interact with other substances, notably the enzymes produced by the body itself, to aid the digestion process.[citation needed] (This research was unrelated to his Nobel Prize.)

Leslie Kenton's book The New Raw Energy in 1984 popularised food such as sprouts, seeds, and fresh vegetable juices, which are now moving into the mainstream. The book brought together research into raw foodism and its support of health, citing examples such as the sprouted seed enriched diets of the long lived Himalayan Hunza people, as well as Max Gerson's claim of a raw juice-based cancer cure. The book advocates a diet of 75% raw food in order to prevent degenerative diseases, slow aging, provide enhanced energy, and boost emotional balance.

The raw food lifestyle has gained acceptance, though not all nutrition experts condone it. Restaurants catering to this diet have opened, especially in large cities,[2] and numerous all-raw cookbooks have been published.[3] Celebrities including Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson, who have been known to follow a raw food diet, provide additional exposure.[4]

Beliefs

Those who follow this way of eating generally believe that:

  • Raw foods contain enzymes which greatly aid in their own digestion, freeing the body's own enzymes to do the work unimpeded of regulating all the body's many metabolic processes. Heating food degrades or destroys these enzymes in food, putting the onus on the body's own enzyme production.
  • Eating food without enzymes makes digestion more difficult, deprives the body of enzymes, and leads to toxicity in the body, to excess consumption of food, and therefore to obesity and to chronic disease.
  • Raw foods contain bacteria and other micro-organisms that stimulate the immune system and enhance digestion by populating the digestive tract with beneficial flora.
  • Raw foods have higher nutrient values than foods which have been cooked.

The benefits of the diet are said to include: a stable body mass index, clear skin, more energy, and minimising a range of common illnesses, from the flu to obesity-related illnesses.

Some raw food advocates believe cooked food is toxic because cooking the food converts some particles into harmful chemicals. They also often believe cooked food is less digestible than raw food because cooking destroys the enzymes contained in food. One source for this belief is the work of Artturi Virtanen, a biochemist.

Anthropologist Peter Lucas of George Washington University in Washington, DC, US, was reported in New Scientist magazine in 2005 as having the theory that man being the only mammal with chronic poor dentition, and the only mammal to significantly process and cook his food, are causally linked. He believes that the adoption of food processing and cooking reduced the size of our jaw through evolutionary processes, but not the size of our teeth.

Dr. Joel Fuhrman, Dr. Gabriel Cousens, Gillian McKeith and Professor T. Colin Campbell (author of the China project) advocate diets high in raw, unprocessed foods. They claim that social trends over the past several centuries have diverged from this diet, together with less active lifestyles, contributing to the increase of noncommunicable diseases and obesity-related illnesses in developed countries. These include cardiovascular illnesses, some cancers, diabetes and some auto-immune diseases.

Research

Early 20th century

A 1933 paper by E. B. Forbes says that "...cooking renders food pasty, so that it sticks to the teeth, and undergoes acid fermentation. Furthermore, the cooking of food greatly diminishes the need for use of the teeth; and thus tends to diminish the circulation of blood to the jaws and teeth, and to produce under-development of the maxillary and contiguous bones—thus leading to contracted dental arches, and to malocclusion and impaction of the teeth, with complications of great seriousness."[5]

In a 1936 work entitled Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, dentist Weston A. Price observed dental degeneration in the first generation who adopt diets high in processed and cooked foods. 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.

Dr. Edward Howell, an Illinois physician, published Food Enzymes for Health & Longevity in 1941. Forty years later he published Enzyme Nutrition, a book which claimed 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. The book was based largely on ideas from his previous book, and ideas derived from early enzyme research from the 1930s before it was established that enzymes were proteins.

Recent research

A study by the University of Toronto and another published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute suggest that ingesting cooked or pasteurized dairy products may increase risk of colon cancer. The increased risk is due to the effect of heating casein, a phosphoprotein found in dairy products.[6][7]

Several studies published since 1990 indicate that cooking muscle meat creates heterocyclic amines (HCA's), which are thought to increase cancer risk in humans.[8] While eating muscle meat raw may be the only way to avoid HCA's fully, the National Cancer Institute states that cooking meat below 212ºF (100ºC) creates "negligible amounts" of HCA's. Also, microwaving meat before cooking may reduce HCA's by 90%.[8]

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.[9]

Discredited research

Research was conducted by Dr. Francis Pottenger in 1932 to determine the effect of cooked foods in cats. For 10 years, Pottenger fed half of the cats a diet of raw meat, the other half a diet of cooked meat. At the conclusion of his study, he reported that the cats who were fed raw meat appeared to be in better health. In addition, the exclusively cooked diet led to congenital problems including birth defects and deformities, after several generations.[10]

Pottenger's study was conducted in a time before the nutritional needs of cats was understood - especially the role of taurine in the diet. Since cats cannot synthesize adequate amounts of taurine, they must get taurine from food. Heat renders taurine inactive; cooked food without taurine supplements can cause health problems in cats. However, this finding does not apply to humans - since humans, like most other animals, synthesize their own taurine.[11]

Raw food movement

Early proponents include Ann Wigmore and Viktoras Kulvinskas (co-founders of the Hippocrates Health Institute), Arnold Ehret (author and authority on fasting), A Hovannessian and Norman W. Walker (who advocated the consumption of juices, living up to the age of 99 years[citation needed]).

The principles of Natural hygiene promote a mainly raw vegan diet. Famous natural hygienists have included Herbert Shelton and Anthony Robbins.

Raw food diets

A raw foodist is either an omnivore, vegetarian or vegan. The following popular diets include only raw foods:

Diet Raw foods included in the diet Notable adherents
Fruitarianism fruit, nuts and seeds (including sprouted seeds)
Instinctive eating
(anopsology) 		fruit, vegetables and meat - excludes dairy
Raw paleolithic diet "wild" plants and animals
Primal diet fatty meats, dairy and vegetable juices
Raw veganism fruit, nuts, vegetables, sprouts and seeds (including cereals) David Wolfe
Raw vegetarianism fruit, nuts, vegetables, sprouts, seeds, dairy, eggs and honey
Wai diet fruit, nuts, fish, and eggs

Raw food diet practices

Food preparation

Many foods in raw food diets are simple to prepare, such as fruits, salads, meat, and dairy. 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.[citation needed] Many raw foodists believe it is best to soak nuts before eating them, in order to activate their enzymes.[citation needed] Fermenting raw foods such as pickles, yogurt, and kim chee are often time-consuming and require long fermentation periods.[citation needed]

Preparation of gourmet raw food recipes usually call for a blender, food processor, juicer, and dehydrator.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed] Some raw foodists dispense with these foods, feeling that there is no need to emulate the other non-raw diets.[citation needed]

Care may be required in planning a raw food diet, especially for children. There is little research on how to plan a nutritionally adequate raw food diet; however, nutritionists and raw M.D.s are usually willing to provide professional advice.[citation needed] Raw foodists claim that with sufficient food energy, essential fatty acids, variety and density, people of all ages can be successful at eating raw foods, although whether the diet works for any one person depends on their unique metabolism.[citation needed]

Avoiding poisoning

As the consumption of raw foods gains popularity, some unsafe foods have entered the diets of humans. The following should be consumed with caution:

  • Rhubarb: when eaten in sufficient quantity, leaves can be toxic when raw, stalks are completely safe to eat when harvested early.
  • Potatoes: a member of the nightshade family, produce the toxic alkaloid solanine when they turn green. Solanine can be neutralized by cooking in a deep fryer.[14] In processed potatoes such as chips and fries, there is little hazard since peels are removed and they are fried.[15][16]

Criticism

Raw food diets have been criticized in the mainstream medical community as being too harsh and restrictive. Critics of the raw vegan diet argue that it requires special care to include the recommended amounts of several important vitamins and nutrients, including vitamin B-12 and protein.[citation needed] They say that any restrictive diet can lead to nutritional deficiency, if adopted for an extended period of time without special attention to essential nutrients.[citation needed]

Research advocating raw food diets has been criticized as not meeting scientific standards.[citation needed]

Research has suggested that food proteins are rarely utilized in their natural form since they are broken down into base amino acids during the digestion process. The body then synthesizes required proteins from these amino acids.[citation needed]

The structure of some foods makes it difficult to utilize available nutrients without cooking. This includes the lycopene in tomatoes, beta carotene in carrots,[17] and much of the caloric content of starchy foods such as corn, potatoes, manioc, palm, and casava.

Advocates argue that nonhumans (who obviously do not cook their food) do not exhibit degenerative diseases and therefore, if humans refrained from cooking their food, they wouldn't contract these diseases either.[citation needed] However, animals in the wild have been shown to suffer from arthritis,[18] cancer,[19] liver and kidney diseases,[20]and degenerative brain diseases.[21]

Food enzymes in the stomach

Some raw foodists claim that ingesting enzymes aids digestion in the mouth, stomach, and intestines.[citation needed] The claim about stomach digestion, however, goes against well established knowledge regarding the biochemistry of enzymes. Enzymes are very sensitive to pH and their activity will be nullified outside a specific pH range.[22] The digestive enzymes produced by the stomach are active in the low pH (2-4) of the stomach, whereas enzymes found in foods will only be active at cellular pH (approximately 7).[23] Any enzymes capable of significant activity at a very low pH would be vulnerable to digestion by the body's own protease enzymes soon after they entered solution.[citation needed]

Anthropological disputes

The earliest indisputable fossil evidence for the use of fire to prepare food dates to approximately 350,000 years ago.[24] Other evidence traces cooking to more than 1.5 million years ago, well before the emergence of modern humans.[25] Evolutionary evidence indicates that the musculature and bone structure of the jaw evolved away from forms most suited for eating tough raw foods.[26]

Some critics believe, based on this evidence that humans have evolved to eat cooked foods. Advocates counter that this is repudiated by the incidence of malocclusion found in cooked-food-eating populations. However, this claim is disputed by dentists who state that malocclusion tends to be an inherited trait.[27] Research contradicts common opinion amongst dental practitioners and shows that malocclusion is essentially an aquired, and therefore avoidable, trait. [28]

However, other research indicates that consumption of softened foods is major factor in severity of malocclusion, and that the occlusal transition found in one Kentucky community "could not be genetic in origin."[29] Other research indicates that Taiwan aborigines with nearly ideal occlusion. "They have adequate jaw growth since the muscular stimulation from mastication is quite sufficient," they say, and that "raw, dry sweet potato chips and vegetables are the major diet items."[30]

Advocates 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.[citation needed] Unfortunately, this ignores the large amount of fossil evidence which clearly shows the change in human dentition and its relation to the controlled use of fire.[citation needed]

Advocates also claim that humans live longer on a raw food diet, which, historically, is unproven.[citation needed]

Potential damage

A 2005 study has shown that a raw food vegetarian diet is associated with a lower bone density.[31] This may not be a problem however, as new research appears to indicate that high bone density early in life is associated with osteoporosis, regardless of genetic variation.[32]

One study of raw vegan shows amenorrhea and underweightness in women,[33] another one increased risk of dental erosion.[34]

The 2006 North American E. coli outbreak, involving raw spinach from specific farms in California, showcased one of the risks connected with raw vegetable consumption. The further outbreak at some Taco Bell restaurants was initially thought to be from scallions grown in California, but investigators now think it was lettuce.[35]

References

  1. ^ Paola Villa, et al. "Cannibalism in the Neolithic".Science 233. July 1986.
  2. ^ [1]
  3. ^ [2]
  4. ^ The Independent
  5. ^ The Ohio Journal of Science. Vol. 33, No.5 (September, 1933), 389-406
  6. ^ Promotion of colonic microadenoma growth in mice and rats fed cooked sugar or cooked casein and fat
  7. ^ Promotion of Aberrant Crypt Foci and Cancer in Rat Colon by Thermolyzed Protein
  8. ^ a b National Cancer Institute - Heterocyclic Amines in Cooked Meats
  9. ^ Nutr Cancer. 2003;46(2):131-7
  10. ^ Pottenger's Cats - A Study in Nutrition
  11. ^ Lesson of the Pottenger's Cats Experiment--Cats are Not Humans
  12. ^ Arbour, Gilles (December 2004). "Are buckwheat greens toxic?". Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients. Find Articles. Retrieved 2007-02-04. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  13. ^ N.D. Noah, A.E. Bender, G.B. Reaidi, and R.J. Gilbert. "Food poisoning from raw red kidney beans." British Medical Journal 1980 July 19;281(6234):236-7.
  14. ^ a-Chaconine [20562-03-2] and a-Solanine [20562-02-1] Review of Toxicological Literature, http://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntpweb/index.cfm?objectid=6F5E933B-F1F6-975E-7B1D19DE73F21505, Raymond Tice
  15. ^ The University of Nebraska, Lincoln, “The Potato Education Guide: Greening” http://www.panhandle.unl.edu/potato/html/greening.htm
  16. ^ Food Science Australia, "Greening of Potatoes" http://www.foodscience.afisc.csiro.au/spuds.htm
  17. ^ Cheryl L. Rock*, , Jennifer L. Lovalvo, Curt Emenhiser**, Mack T. Ruffin, Shirley W. Flatt*, and Steven J. Schwartz, Bioavailability of Beta-Carotene Is Lower in Raw than in Processed Carrots and Spinach in Women The Journal of Nutrition Vol. 128 No. 5 May 1998, pp. 913-916
  18. ^ J Zoo Wildl Med. 2001 Mar;32(1):58-64. Inflammatory arthritis in canids: spondyloarthropathy. PMID: 12790395 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
  19. ^ J Vet Diagn Invest. 2003 Mar;15(2):162-5. A poorly differentiated pulmonary squamous cell carcinoma in a free-ranging Atlantic bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus). PMID: 12661727 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
  20. ^ Types of renal disease in avian species. Vet Clin North Am Exot Anim Pract. 2006 Jan;9(1):97-106. PMID: 16407081 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]
  21. ^ Chronic Wasting Disease, USDA Publications, viewed August, 8 2006
  22. ^ Creighton, T.E. Proteins - Structures and Molecular Properties ISBN 978-0716770305
  23. ^ Berg, J.M.; Tymoczko, J.L.; Stryer L. Biochemistry ISBN 978-0716767664
  24. ^ "Early Human Culture"
  25. ^ Rincon, Paul, "Early human fire mastery revealed"
  26. '^ Wrangham R, Conklin-Brittain N. Cooking as a biological trait'. Comp Biochem Physiol A Mol Integr Physiol. 2003 Sep;136(1):35-46. PMID 14527628
  27. ^ Malocclusion of Teeth viewed August 5, 2006
  28. ^ Heritability of craniometric and occlusal variables: a longitudinal sib analysis.
  29. ^ Occlusal variation in a rural Kentucky community
  30. ^ Dental condition of two tribes of Taiwan aborigines--Ami and Atayal
  31. ^ Fontana L, Shew JL, Holloszy JO, Villareal DT. Low bone mass in subjects on a long-term raw vegetarian diet. Arch Intern Med. 2005 Mar 28;165(6):684-9. PMID 15795346
  32. ^ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15949902&query_hl=1.
  33. ^ 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
  34. ^ 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
  35. ^ [3]

Further reading

  • Clear introduction to Radical Health & Raw Food Diet Step-By-Step Guide
  • Alive in Five" by Angela Elliott (The Book Publishing Company, 2007) ISBN 978-1570672026
  • Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine by Gabriel Cousens (North Atlantic Books, 2003) ISBN 1-55643-465-0
  • The 80/10/10 Diet by Dr Douglas N Graham (FoodnSport Press, 2006) ISBN 978-1-893831-24-7
  • Living Cuisine by Renée Loux Underkoffler (Penguin-Avery, 2003) ISBN 1-58333-171-9
  • 12 Steps to Raw Food: How to end your addiction to Cooked Food by Victoria Boutenko ISBN 0-9704819-3-4
  • Raw-Pleasure:Loving Living Foods by Piers & Sheryl Duruz (Pleasure Publishing, 2004) ISBN 0-9736539-0-6
  • The Raw Truth by Jeremy A Safron, (Celestial Arts, Toronto, 2003) ISBN 1-58761-172-4 (pbk.)
  • On the synergistic effects of enzymes in food with enzymes in the human body. A literature survey and analytical report Prochaska LJ and Piekutowski WV, Medical Hypotheses 42: 355-62 (1994).
  • Rebuilding the Food Pyramid by Walter C. Willett and Meir J. Stampfer, Scientific American January 2003.
  • Detox Your World by Shazzie, (Rawcreation Ltd, Cambridge, UK, 2003) ISBN 0-9543977-0-3 (pbk, 382pp)
  • The effects of heat-processed food... on the dento-facial structure of animals by E.M.Pottenger, American Journal of Orthodontics and Oral Surgery August 1946, p467
  • Living Food for Health, Dr G. McKeith 2000, Piatkus Books ISBN 0-7499-2540-X
  • Eat More Raw, A Guide to Health and Sustainability by Steve Charter, Permanent Publications, 2004
  • Human 'dental chaos' linked to evolution of cooking, John Pickrell New Scientist 29 April 2005
  • Angel Foods: Healthy Recipes for Heavenly Bodies by Cherie Soria
  • "We Want to Live" by Aajonus Vonderplanitz (Carnelian Bay Castle Press, US, 2005) ISBN 1-889356-10-7
  • The Sunfood Diet Success System by David Wolfe ISBN 0-9653533-6-2
  • Naked Chocolate by David Wolfe and Shazzie ISBN 0-9543977-1-1
  • "Hooked on Raw" by Rhio ISBN 0-9671683-3-3 (Beso Entertainment, US 2000) 358 pp
  • Raw Food Life - information about raw foodism
  • BeyondVeg - criticism of vegetarian and raw-food diets
  • RawGuru - A very complete site about raw foods. Articles, recipes, interviews, forums, resources and information about other raw food leaders.
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