Does The Raw Food Diet Work?

According to alternative nutritionists, your cooked meals contain unhealthy compounds and diminished nutrition which results from the cooking process.

Foods can be heated to no more than 115 F.

Some raw foodists think you should eat nothing but raw vegetables, while other raw foodists allow for sashimi (raw fish) and carpaccio (raw beef).

Sometimes, you’re told to eat only raw food, while other times you’re allowed to eat 40% cooked foods.

Foods must also be unprocessed and organic. Food can be preserved somewhat using a dehydrator and is able to be refrigerated.

The social isolating diet

The raw food diet requires that you avoid cooked food, which forces you to eat only at Japanese restaurants and restaurants that serve salads. This also puts an end to most dinner dates unless you can convince all the rest of your friends to join you.

Organic foods are more expensive than processed foods and raw food meals are generally bland. Few can commit to a werewolf diet.

Raw food philosophy

Raw foodists note that no other animal changes its food before consuming it. Also, no other animal suffers from the diseases we suffer from. Finally, people who ate food before the invention of fire ate that food raw.

By this theory, people have done things to their food that their bodies never adapted to evolutionarily.

Raw foods, according to raw foodists, contain natural enzymes that help us digest and absorb our foods. The cooking process supposedly destroys these enzymes.

Intended health benefits

Raw foodists believe that raw food can lead to increased energy, better skin, improved digestion, a lower heart disease risk, and most importantly, weight loss. Raw foods have much less sodium and trans-fat.

This diet falls in line with the dietary requirements for lowering your risk of diabetes and cancer. This diet is primarily based on the belief that the body needs to be detoxified in order to lose weight.

Toxins clog up the body, prevent the absorption of nutrients and reduce the body’s metabolism, which makes it more difficult to shed weight.

Current research has shown that the cooking of red meats can lead to the creation of carcinogenic compounds.

Cooked starchy foods have been found to increase the risk of ovarian cancer. Excessive cooking of 392-536°F can actually ruin the digestibility of foods.

Is weight really lost?

Reports conclude that raw food works, though the benefits might come more from the lack of trans-fat and sodium than from the fact that all cooked foods are harmful. Many of the claims made by raw foodists are untrue.

Most animals suffer from all sorts of diseases. In fact, we are one of the only species that lives past our reproductive age.

We do this by not doing what’s natural. We take medicines, process our food and exercise. These are things that no other animals in nature do.

Harmful effects

Raw foods must also be prepared carefully because they can potentially spoil. Food poisoning has risen among raw produce since the seventies. Raw meat can lead to severe digestive disorders that can eventually lead to death by dehydration.

If raw food diets are not carefully planned, raw foodists can actually suffer from nutritional deficiency since cooking actually makes food more available. Also, 45% of women on the raw food diet have reported missing periods.

Weight loss benefits and some health benefits exist in the raw food diet. But the diet is not without its risks and it is certainly not a fun diet for some people. Fortunately, many raw foodists find that simply incorporating more raw food into your diet will lead to health benefits.

So whenever you can, eat more raw fruits and vegetables. Like always, the best diet is one with plenty of variety.