What is raw food?

The raw food movement originated during the Natural Hygiene movement of the 1800s.

The “raw food” movement is defined as food that is not heated/cooked at temperatures greater than 115 to 118 degrees F. The thinking behind this is that it preserves nutrients and enzymes and uses less energy than cooking does while also keeping food in its most natural form.

A raw food diet typically consists of fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, sprouted or soaked grains, and legumes. Typically, raw foodists are vegan (100% plant-based). However, some raw foodists also consume raw fish, meat, and dairy products.

Why is eating raw so important?

Some experts say that the raw food diet is what we would have eaten in the wild before developing agriculture, domesticating animals, and creating processed foods.

Adherents claim that raw food diets enhance health. Based on anecdotal reports, the benefits of raw eating include:

• Clear mind
• Clear skin
• Improved bowel movements
• Improved sleep
• Improved energy
• Body fat loss

Digesting raw vs cooked foods

Raw foods do not stimulate the immune system much when we eat them. Opposite of that, after eating cooked food, the levels of white blood cells can go up, which might suggest a small amount of stress in the body.

Eating and digesting raw food costs more energy than other types of food. We need to chew our food more, and our bodies need to do more work to break down what we consume. We tend to obtain less energy from raw foods.

Today, some might view this as beneficial. While the idea of getting less energy from food wasn’t very appealing, it was still better than not getting any energy from food.

Raw nature

Some people think that since other animals become large and muscular when they eat only raw plant foods, people should be able to do the same.

First, think about stomach size.

Eating a lot of raw plant foods tends to increase the capacity of your gut. Animals like cows and sheep have stomachs with multiple chambers so they can digest the cellulose they eat from grass. The animals have bacteria in their stomachs that help them break down cellulose so they can digest it.

Second, consider chewing time.

On average, chimpanzees in Tanzania spend more than 6 hours per day chewing. This is significantly more time than what most humans spend chewing, even though chimpanzees are usually smaller in size. We would spend a significant portion of our day chewing if we ate the same diet as apes. When we eat cooked food, we can save ourselves the time it would take to chew it properly.

Third, while other animals (particularly primates) have many important genetic similarities, there are also key differences.

Consider that:

• Genetic differences between humans are perhaps only 0.1% of our DNA — and yet those differences can separate a Michael Jordan from a Leonardo da Vinci.
• Our closest primate relatives may share 97-98% of our DNA.

This means that even small differences can have a large impact. Studying other animals can be helpful in understanding how humans function, but it can also lead to false assumptions.

domestication is the only way to get many “natural” foods to taste good or be full of nutrients.

Wild plants are often smaller and not as nutritious as their domesticated counterparts.

For example, early tomatoes were small and sour. The early apples were much more similar to rose hips in both appearance and taste. If you dig up the plant known as Queen Anne’s lace, you’ll find an early carrot. These carrots are bitter, white, and about the size of a pencil.

It is argued by some that a 100% raw diet is possible today because there is an abundance of food available fresh all year round.

Before farming was developed, people often went through times when they were hungry and had to rely on stored body fat to stay alive. If you were to eat a raw diet, it would be less likely that you would be able to store body fat for periods of famine.

Some experts suggest that pre-agricultural humans would have starved if they only ate raw food.

Cooking

Some anthropologists believe that the invention of cooking was a major turning point in the history of life. They argue that cooking led to increased food value, a bigger brain, and a larger body.

Charles Darwin thought that “building fire” was the most significant discovery made by humans, excluding language. Humans learned that they could make hard and stringy roots digestible by cooking them over fire, and that they could make poisonous roots or herbs harmless by cooking them in the same way. Although Darwin acknowledged that humans could technically survive without cooking if we had to, he didn’t believe that it would be preferable.

Cooking meat is important for those who eat it. Once the cooking was discovered, eating meat became more appealing and beneficial as the human body cannot process and absorb large quantities of uncooked meat properly.

What does cooking do to food?

• It can make food safer.
• It can concentrate tastes and flavors
• It can reduce spoilage
• It can soften tough foods
• It increases the amount of energy our bodies can attain from food
• It breaks starch molecules into more digestible fragments
• It denatures protein molecules

This means that the body has to work less to get benefits from the food. Lots of cooked grains make “fattening up” animals easier.

Some scientists believe that one of the main reasons why humans evolved to be the dominant species on Earth is because we are able to gain more energy from the food we eat than any other species.

Cooking food likely increased the chances of survival and reproduction. Most humans cook their food, and no civilization is known to have survived without it.

Still, health-degrading compounds can form when foods are cooked. These include acrylamide, heterocyclic amines, and Maillard compounds. You can avoid these problems by eating a raw diet.

Types of raw food diet

Many people who eat raw foods only consume plant-based meals, making it a vegan diet. Some people also consume raw or dried meat products.

There are three broad types of raw food diets:

• a raw vegan diet excludes all animal products, focusing only on plant-based foods
• a raw vegetarian diet includes plant-based foods plus raw eggs and unprocessed dairy products
• a raw omnivorous diet includes plant-based foods, raw animal products, and raw or dried meat

What can I eat?

Different people have different interpretations of the raw food diet and what it entails. Some people prefer to eat cooked food while others do not. For some people, veganism is a way of life, and for others, it is simply a dietary choice.

The following foods are suitable for most raw food diets:

• raw fruits and raw vegetables
• dried fruits and vegetables
• freshly made fruit and vegetable juices
• soaked and sprouted beans, other legumes, and grains
• raw nuts and seeds
• raw nut butters, such as peanut butter and almond butter
• nut milks, including almond milk
• coconut milk
• cold-pressed olive oil or coconut oil
• nutritional yeast
• seaweeds
• dried fruits
• green food powder, such as dried wheatgrass or algae
• fermented foods, including kimchi and sauerkraut
• purified water, but not tap water
• other organic, natural, or unprocessed foods

Depending on the type of diet, a raw food diet may also contain:

• raw eggs
• raw fish, such as sushi or sashimi
• other raw or dried meats
• non-pasteurized and non-homogenized milk and dairy products

Foods to avoid include:

• all cooked or processed foods
• refined oils
• table salt
• refined sugars and flour
• coffee, tea, and alcohol
• pasta

Olives are not typically eaten raw because they are too bitter. Tins of olives have undergone a cooking process during manufacture. Olives can be consumed on a raw food diet if they have been sun-cured.

How to prepare food

When preparing food for a raw food diet, people use various techniques such as soaking, dehydrating and juicing foods. The diet allows for chopping and blending foods.

The diet avoids any food heated beyond a certain temperature, usually 104° to 118°F, though figures may change depending on the source. The only heating allowed is with a dehydrator, which is a device that uses hot air to remove water from food.

Some fruits and vegetables can be eaten with no preparation, while others may need some additional steps. Common methods for preparing raw foods include:

• soaking beans and grains in water
• eating sprouted rather than whole grains
• drying or dehydrating fruits
• juicing fruits and vegetables or making smoothies