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I was at the Sarasota Film Festival a few weeks ago to screen my short film, and came across a feature documentary in competition called Supercharge Me: 30 Days Raw. The film is director Jenna Norwood’s answer to Morgan Spurlock’s seminal Supersize Me, but in it she embarks on a diet considerably less familiar to most of us than what’s available on McDonald’s Super Value Menu: that of the raw foodist. Now, we’re all familiar with the basic tenets of vegeterianism, and some of us with what it means to be a vegan. But what exactly does raw mean? Well, to put it simply: not cooked. Here’s the reasoning, at least according to Wikipedia:
* Raw foods have higher nutrient values than foods which have been cooked.
* 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.
* Raw foods contain bacteria and other micro-organisms that stimulate the immune system and enhance digestion by populating the digestive tract with beneficial flora.
Yum … beneficial digestive tract flora. Of course, as with any radical diet, there’s considerable controversy out there: some say that certain raw vegetables, when consumed in great quantities, can be toxic; others argue that humans have been cooking food with fire for at least 350,000 years, which negates any claim that cooked food is somehow unnatural. Regardless, I’ve been considering trying it for a week just to see if it has any effect on my energy level. If I do, I’ll certainly blog about it. What do you guys think?
I would defintely be interested about hearing the results of this week long endeavor. Think of all the sushi you could eat!!!
posted by mescan on 5-1-2007 at 12:30 pm
I heard that’s how Demi Moore looks so awesome. I wonder what the cookbook (recipe file) would look like?
posted by Sarah on 5-1-2007 at 12:33 pm
I went on a “juice fast” for what I planned to be 3 days. I lasted one. You get terrible headaches and feel incredibly weak as your body expels the toxins that have accumulated in your system. I know I would have felt great if I had kept it up, but having to, well…live, made it very difficult. Also, the toxins accumulate in your colon. So when you take a crap, you feel great for about 30 minutes! I imagine a raw diet would be somewhat similar for the first few days. I’ll be interested in seeing your results if you go through with it. I would include “processed” in my definition of “raw.” No coffee, tea, soft drinks, etc. Good luck!
posted by Tommy on 5-1-2007 at 12:41 pm
you can’t eat sushi or any other animals on the raw diet… I could never succeed.
posted by ac on 5-1-2007 at 12:41 pm
First, no sushi. The rice has to be cooked for sushi, and cooking is out. Second, drinking only juice doesn’t magically expel toxins from your system. Third, many foods are actually more nutritious when cooked- pretty much all the grains for example. Last, go raw all you like- the only real benefit is a drastic increase in fiber intake, with predictable results in the bathroom department.
posted by Zach on 5-1-2007 at 12:49 pm
Sushi is out due to the aforementioned cooked rice, but sashimi is fair game. Delish. And shredded daikon on the side is raw too.
I recall seeing a story about this once. The diet fadders go through all sorts of food contortions to make raw veggies and such resemble things like spaghetti, pizza, and the like.
posted by Cathy on 5-1-2007 at 1:12 pm
Zach,
Saying the only benefit from raw food is fiber intake is saying that science is a fad. Not eating a lot of raw food is why Americans are the fattest nation on earth. You are what you eat, and America is McDonald’s. And eating juice doesn’t “magically” remove toxins from your system. It does it “naturally.”
posted by Tommy on 5-1-2007 at 1:23 pm
Google the following line:
BBC “Cooking vegetables improves benefits”
The first link is an article that refutes much of the ‘raw’ claims.
posted by n2y2 on 5-1-2007 at 3:09 pm
I am allergic to nearly all fresh fruits and vegetables; I can eat most all of them cooked.
I can eat leaf lettuce without a problem, but if you add carrots and cucumbers I will spend the next 2 hours evacuating my digestive tract (even if those items are removed before eating).
So if I tried this diet, I would certainly lose weight and would likely be in the market for a new dwelling - six feet below ground.
posted by n2y2 on 5-1-2007 at 3:16 pm
Every now and then I dip a toe into the raw food lifestyle (for so it is, a different way of living) and I have to say, I immensely enjoy it. Of course, there are different degrees of ‘going raw’, such as with vegetarianism. Some refuse to use sugar, claiming it was cooked at some point. Some say using maple syrup as a substitute is perfectly acceptable, as nothing is really harmful in it.
Many people believe that you can’t eat meat on a raw diet, but if it is cooked a certain way, some recipie books approve of it. Thin slices of beef on a dehydrator on low heat for a while makes decent beef jerky.
A lot of the raw ‘cook’books contain recipes for cooked things, it’s just that the process is done in such a way that it takes longer, on a lower temperature, so as not to remove quite so many nutrients.
A very informational (and delicious-looking!) read is “Raw Food Real World: 100 Recipes to Get the Glow” by Matthew Kenney and Sarma Melngailis. It explains a lot of the technicalities, and introduces the reader to their reasons for going raw.
posted by Christine on 5-1-2007 at 4:35 pm
While not directed specifically at the
“raw” diet, the simplest argument against humans (or any member of the primate family for that matter) being “intended” to be vegetarian is that we possess:
1. Stereoscopic vision - you don’t need to gauge distance to that leaf of lettuce, it isn’t going anywhere (moving meals on the other hand, you need 3d). And before someone argues it is for evasion from predators - rabbits, mice, cows and the rest of the prey species have their eyes on the sides of their heads so they can see danger coming from all angles, not just right in front of them. Again, you dont need to know how far the wolf is, just that he is coming; your dinner on the other hand, you want to know how far to leap to kill.
2. Canine teeth - serve one purpose, to tear flesh, period.
3. The appropriate enzymes to digest complex protiens, you know, like those found in meat.
The list goes on and on. We’re omnivores, so we can eat what we want. Someone wants to cut out the meat, let them, but they do not get to tell the rest of us that it is because humans are not meant to eat meat. Then again, folks believe the earth is 6,000 years old - so facts probably don’t mean much.
posted by Ed on 5-1-2007 at 4:45 pm
I work in an organic/vegetarian restaurant and bakery, so we get a regular supply of fad diet fanatics. There is no one who’s a regular customer that has been able to stay on a raw food diet without cheating on it, including the one employee who expounds on its benifits at tedious length…
None of the other 40 employees are even vegetarian. Omnivores, the lot of us. But it’s a corner of the market that been doing great for us, plus it’s far easier to be kosher.
posted by Thursday on 5-1-2007 at 8:31 pm
The raw diet does have a higher concentration of nutrients, but the process of cooking allows one to retain more of what is available in the product. It doesn’t matter how concentrated the food is if most of it goes unabsorbed.
posted by Tim on 5-2-2007 at 12:13 am
I saw a show about extreme diets and one story was about a raw food lifestyle. This one dude they interviewed lived in NYC and he was very strict, he only ate raw fruits and veggies and raw grain. The interesting about him was that he said he didn’t need to bathe or use deodorant. His body was so clean and free of toxins that he didn’t ever have B.O. They interviewed him at a party (with other raw food eaters) and he had people smell him (just his arm or neck) and they all said he smelled very good and natural. They couldn’t believe that he hadn’t bathed in who knows how long.
posted by Michele on 5-2-2007 at 2:44 am
While the raw vegan lifestyle is recommended for optimum health, there are also people who do the omnivorous raw diet. That includes raw meat, fish, dairy and eggs. Carol Alt is an example of such a person and she has a book out about it called “Eating in the Raw.” One must obviously trust one’s sources of those raw items to avoid parasites and other harmful things, but even people who eat those foods in their raw form report significant improvements in their looks and health because the enzymes, vitamins and minerals are all still intact, not to mention protein. 50% of protein is degraded by heat, so you need twice as much if you heat it above 110 degrees.
I’m 40 years old and have been raw for 10 months. It’s not always easy, but I’ve never looked or felt better in my life. I have the waistline and vitality I remember from my teens.
Keepin’ it Raw!
Jenna
Jenna Norwood
Producer, Director & “Guinea Pig”
“Supercharge Me! 30 Days Raw”
View Sneak Preview at SuperchargeMe.com
posted by Jenna on 5-2-2007 at 6:10 am
I used to work with a guy who was vegetarian and used to rant about artificial ingredients and raw food diets. He’d go on and on about toxins and how anything not natural would basically kill you.
It’s interesting that it is impossible to find a description of the composition and source of all these “toxins” that supposedly accumulate into such vast amounts. And that this extra material doesn’t completely impair body functions. Except for the by-products of regular digestion, etc. that get expelled regularly, where is all this material stored?
And if all they’re eating is fruits and grains, what happened to the rest of a balanced diet. Oh, I guess the balanced diet concept is a conspiracy by the medical community to promote capitalism and oppress vegetarian lifestyle…
posted by Greg A. on 5-2-2007 at 6:16 am
A couple thoughts:
1. I really enjoyed hearing how some rawsters prefer maple syrup over sugar, because the sugar is cooked in processing. Have you ever seen how maple syrup is made? It doesn’t come out of the tree like that! It gets COOKED down! Roughly 40 gallons of sap makes 1 gallon of syrup.
2. All this stuff about “toxins” is a lot of pseudo-science. If there are toxins, they ought to be expelled in measurable quantities and chemically *identifiable* following a switch to the raw diet. Let’s see a link to a study where this was done in a double-blind manner. I’m betting that no such “toxins” exist.
posted by Sid on 5-2-2007 at 6:35 am
Did Jenna just spam us?
posted by n2y2 on 5-2-2007 at 9:12 am
Why does everyone assume that ‘raw’ means no meat? Animal flesh can (and in some places still is) eaten raw. Quite often, it is even aged (it turns a bit brown, and it is broken down for easier ingestion).
My mother’s one steady rule for cooking was to always cook on the lowest heat possible… the food tastes better, and is much more tender. (just an FYI).
Good luck on the ram thing.
posted by Jeff on 5-4-2007 at 7:29 am