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Raw Food Diet, Stone Age Thinking
By Linda | September 10, 2008
New research suggests the introduction of cooked foods some 150,000 years ago spurred the giant leap from stone age thinking to today’s human intelligence. The reasoning goes that cooked food is easier on digestion than raw. rendering nutrients more available to the brain. This flies in the face of raw food enthusiasts’ claim that raw foods are superior to cooked for health.
I know I will be punished by a few raw foodies for writing this, but my health, energy and digestion improved so much by cooking my foods a bit more, I feel it important to discuss.
Cooked foods are a central part of the diet of the world’s longest-lived cultures. Of course most cultures eat some raw food too, but soups, stews, congees, cassoulets, roasts, and stir fries are not only satisfying, they form the dietary foundation for many of the world’s longest lived people.
Ancient Ayurvedic and Chinese healing traditions are based on cooked foods, not raw. For certain soups, the longer the cooking time, the more powerful the healing properties. Raw foods are described as too “cold” and “damp” for our digestion and ultimate health. Weight gain, bloating, indigestion and diarrhea often result from such properties in excess.
My Chinese doctor once told me our overindulgence in salads was one of the reasons Americans suffer so from obesity. Nowhere but in the United States are salads such a popular “health” food. That should tell you something right there; we’re also the fattest population. Raw food zeal has expanded far beyond salads now days, to things like grains, lasagna, cakes and cookies and even raw poultry.
The concept of raw foods sounds healthy enough: all those vitamins and enzymes are unscathed by heat and thus at the ready to nourish our cells. Although good in theory, this is not the case in real life. Consider:
- The body can not utilize lycopene, the cancer-blocking pigment in tomatoes, unless tomatoes are cooked. Italians, well known for their longevity, consume a steady diet of tomato sauce cooked with olive oil.
- U.C. Berkeley conducted a study once that showed absorption of vitamin C goes up 20 percent when broccoli is cooked vs. eaten raw. Cooking softens cell walls of plants.
- Raw broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables can inhibit thyroid function and slow metabolism. Not so when cooked.
- Assimilation of beta carotene improves when carrots are cooked, especially with some kind of fat, like butter.
- Raw egg whites contain avadin, a chemical that locks up the B vitamin biotin, found in egg yolks. Cooking egg whites deactivates avadin and thus allows the body to absorb an important B vitamin.
- Raw grains contain phytates, which render minerals such as zinc, unusable. I remember a nutrition professor once showed slides of young men who failed to develop sexually when following a diet rich in raw and unleavened grains. Zinc is a key mineral for sexual maturation.
- Many legumes are toxic when consumed raw.
- Poisons in many mushrooms are deactivated when cooked.
Cooking is much needed pre-digestion. Bloating, gas, indigestion, diarrhea and fatigue are signs of cold in the digestive system and can be exacerbated by raw foods.
For more on the recent Shanghai research on intelligence and cooked food, see: http://www.livescience.com/culture/080811-brain-evolution.html
What do you think?
Topics: Uncategorized |
September 11th, 2008 at 4:34 am
I have to disagree with you here.
It’s absolutely true that a handful of vitamins become more available when cooked. Lycopene in tomatoes is the traditionally cited one.
However, what’s not mentioned is that the heat application that makes a few nutrients more bioavailable also damaged hundreds of thousands of other nutrients, making them less bio available.
We don’t even know for certain, like in the case of lycopene, if taking in more of the nutrient is better.
I think nature provided a perfect balance of the nutrients we need in fresh, raw plant food.
I’ve written extensively about a healthy raw food diet at http://www.raw-food-health.net
Andrews last blog post..Sep 11, A Natural Cure For Impotence
September 11th, 2008 at 7:08 am
Thanks for your insights Andrew. I used to be a big raw foods fan myself. But, here’s the rub: for many people, eating primarily raw foods results in bloating, loose stools, sugar cravings and weakness. Sometimes even weight gain. This happened for me and I have seen it in clients now for over 25 years. That’s thousands of individuals.
In the beginning it seems to work for some, but then the “cold” effect eventually sets in. This is an Eastern principle, which is foreign to Western vitamin/mineral thinking.
But even in western thinking, there is interesting evidence to substantiate this effect. I studied with an orthomolecular physician who discovered through lab work with his patients that the long chain wax on dark leafy greens (like spinach) remains intact when not cooked and in that form it blocks fat from entering the cells where it can be burned. The result is weakness and weight gain. Cooking breaks up this wax.
I have no doubt some nutrients are lost in heating, but the net value of cooking appears to be greater.
September 11th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Not to drag this out into an argument, and I’m sure you have seen such problems, but I’ve also seen plenty of people who do not have those problems over the course of decades on a raw food diet.
Symptoms like those appear in those who are eating fatty diets (over 10 percent of calories from fat). Fat blocks the uptake of sugar into the the cells from the blood stream. This is the cause of diabetes.
You get all the sugar you need when you’re eating a diet primarily coming from fruit, instead of fat, which is where most raw foodists get their calories.
Regardless of any differences, I wish you the best on your path to health
-Andrew
http://www.raw-food-health.net
Andrews last blog post..Sep 11, A Natural Cure For Impotence
September 11th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
I am not an expert on raw food but I can definitely attest to the fact that raw foods do lead to a heavy feeling. They may slim you down and take off inches in some areas of your body, but for me, too many raw foods (salads included) added to heaviness in my lower body. Over abundance of raw foods do not give you that slim and ‘less water retention’ appearance that steamed/lightly cooked veggies do…….
I agree with Linda that in the US, salads are highly deemed as a health food and yes they are compared to the junk that is out there, but I think a vast majority of people would feel the difference if they opted to lightly cook their food, either through steaming, sauteeing or grilling it….it makes a difference!!)
September 12th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
I eat cooked vegetables, no salads. Sometimes while I am chopping, I will take a few nibbles of whatever is on the block. One of my staple breakfasts is lightly steamed apples or pears with whole cloves accompanied by whole milk cottage cheese. However, I do eat raw fruits during the day between meals. (I eat five times a day, three meals and two light snacks like walnuts or sunflower seeds, sometimes with organic raisins, or a piece of fruit.)
If I eat raw vegetables, especially broccoli and the like, I get really stinky gas.
When I first learned about raw foods from a gorgeous German yoga goddess who was “going raw”, I had this fantasy of her and her boyfriend slaughtering and consuming raw rabbit. True story.
How is a raw vegetable diet “natural.” My studies of archeology indicate that our ancestors fulfilled their protein needs while walking about by eating slugs and bugs and other creepy crawlies.
A committed COOK, Craig.
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:47 am
What are your thoughts on legumes, grains and seeds sprouted and then eaten raw?
January 2nd, 2009 at 11:08 am
Sprouting many seeds and grains reduces the damp effects of these foods and thus improves their digestibility over dry and raw forms. Still some people find these foods too cooling and cleansing to eat regularly and one can end up with bloating and indigestion eating them regularly. So often, I see more digestive ease with my clients when they use fermented grains that are cooked a bit, and sprouted legumes that have had a brief stir fry. It is certainly an individual issue and those who feel good with sprouted raw seeds (especially if they need a cleanse) should continue. Some sprouted legumes need a brief cooking to inactivate some vitamin inhibitors, unlike seeds and grains. Hope that helps and feel free to share your experience.
January 2nd, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Thanks…interesting. I find raw sprouts good in summer but in winter when they are slightly cooked with some warming spices and butter they are sublime, especially organic red and green lentils!
Am also interested in your take on Olive oil. I read somewhere that Olive Oil is very difficult to digest(whereas olives aren’t). In my experience when I gave it to my dogs (mixed in their food) they got ill. Personally I try to avoid eating it as I find I put on weight when I do. Instead I use village butter to cook with and coconut oil for salads.
January 3rd, 2009 at 9:52 am
There is a lot of wisdom in your use of raw sprouts in summer and then warming them up a bit this way in winter. Some cultures insist on cooking some kind of meat/fish with legumes to improve digestibility, but perhaps the warming spice and butter does the same thing.
Interestingly, I have only come across studies on how olive oil is good for digestion. That said, some of the village elders in Turkey told me they had trouble digesting it. I would not think dogs would do well on olive oil as pure oil would not be something they would encounter in nature. I wonder if you get some oxidized (rancid) or old olive oil? Or oil that is not pure. It seems olive oil in many countries is contaminated with other cheaper oils.
In comparing fats for weight loss, butter has a big edge over olive oil: it contains omega-3 fats, CLA and thyroid stimulating vitamins and its fatty acids are short (not long) chain - all properties that make it an aid to weight loss.
Where do you get coconut oil in Bodrum? You might try hazelnut oil for salad.
January 6th, 2009 at 11:43 am
I can’t find the exact article on olive oil and digestion. However there are a number of doctors doing heart disease studies or working in this area who are not so positive about olive oil; Dr. Robert Vogel, Dr. Lawrence Rudel, Dr. Caldwell Esseltsyn and Dr. Dean Ornish to name a few. The articles I read were enough to stop me eating it on a regular basis.
Anyhow long live village butter and suzme yoghurt (do you know the translation if there is one? Full fat yoghurt?). From May to August we are able to get grass fed goat’s milk so there is a bit of a kefir trend going on here. We are even into making kefir cheese. There is an Australian guy who has a great website (see below) with recipes etc. if you are interested.
http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~dna/kefirpage.html
As far as Organic coconut oil goes Life Co. Istanbul/Turkbuku imports and distributes it to Zeynep’s shop near the Bodrum municipality building and to a woman who has a health/medical supply shop opposite Migros in Bodrum.