While raw food diets are made very popular by a number of svelte celebrities spouting its benefits and gushing about its goodness, to be sure raw is the way nature intended for us to consume our food, but fact is cooked food is safer to eat, easier to chew and digest and tastier.
Also thousands of years of evolution have probably caused our digestive tracts to evolve a different way and get more used to cook rather than raw food.
Evolutionary Reasons
As agrarian societies developed, grains began to predominate in our food, which can be difficult for the system to digest when uncooked and eaten in large quantities.
Also since human kind has been cooking food and pasteurizing milk for a while now, there are probably inadequate defense mechanisms in the body to contend with the problems that could arise from uncooked food.
Also some experts believe that increase in hominid brain sizes, smaller digestive tract, smaller teeth and jaws and decrease in sexual dimorphism that occurred roughly 1.8 million years ago can be explained by the fact of cooking food. Raw foodism faces other criticisms such as:
Food poisoning
Food borne illnesses are more likely to affect people when food is not cooked, since cooking eliminates elements that could be harmful. Gastroenteritis is more commonly seen in people who consume raw meat, raw organ meat, raw fish, raw eggs and raw milk.
Food poisoning can result from salads, juices, sprouts and berries. Dangerous bacteria and microorganisms that are destroyed by cooking will also remain in the food when it is consumed raw.
The FDA claims that there are no benefits to having raw or unpasteurized milk over pasteurized milk and milk products. Listeria and salmonella are some of the diseases that could be associated with raw food diets.
Nutritional deficiencies
A raw food diet could be deficient in a number of vital nutrients, such as calcium, vitamin D, vitamin B12, iron, zinc, protein and calories.
The nutritional benefits of certain items such as carrots and tomatoes actually increase with cooking. There is particular concern about children being subject to a raw food diet.
A raw food diet is also not recommended for long term because it can cause absence of periods in women. A raw food diet is also sometimes seen to result in digestive problems, low energy levels, dizziness and difficulty in concentrating.
So while a raw food diet may sound good and natural, it may bring a number of difficulties along with it.
