The one thing I don't understand.

[Dr. Pink]

I mostly thought that Raw dieting was done becouse you cook the vitamins and minerals out of the food. So you eat it raw instead. As this may work for some foods like vegetables, Fruit, Nuts and Tofu where does that leave foods like Beans or Pasta? I mean you cannot eat a Pinto bean raw. That's bizzare. And it's unhealthy to eat raw Pasta too I am sure. Beans is a good source of Protein. So why get rid of it from you're diet becouse yoou have to cook it? I mean if you're doing it becouse some of the protein will cook away. Well at least you will still get some of it right? So how do you eat foods that cannot be eaten without cooking? I wanted to go raw once or twice but I need my protein flax pasta.

[Guest]

You can eat beans but you have to sprout them or if your lucky you can get them fresh/undried and in season. As for pasta its not something anyone really needs to survive but there are little tricks like slicing zucchinis really thin like spaghetti and making pasta with that.

[DV]

Pink,

 

You have to understand that part of the raw belief system is that all of the cultivation of foods that need to be cooked (ie, grains) are not natural or desirable in their cooked forms. While many people believe that humans have well and strongly adapted to a cooked grain diet, raw foodist do not hold this belief. Many raw foodist believe that grains are not healthy and many of the staple cooked foods that have sustained humanity for centuries are unhealthy. Of course, before even the last century, many humans died of malnutrition - we don't have the statistics for how many humans died of malnutrition before we discovered fire and the world of edible foods that it uncovered. But I digress......

 

Unless you live neat the equator, you cannot eat raw food NATURALLY. It will have to be transported by boat, plane, etc. with the use of much petroleum. This is not sustainable, and therefore undesirable IMO. Indeed, as we humans moved further from the equator we discovered ways of preserving foods (drying, cooking, fermenting, etc.) that sometimes even increases certain nutrients but certainly decreased others.

 

While eating certain foods raw certainly maintains their nutritional status, unless you believe you can only obtain sufficient nutrients by eating raw foods exclusively, I believe eating cooked foods are okay.

 

We have a lot of longevity in my family, eating an omni and cooked diet. I'm not saying that a raw or vegan diet is a bad thing but I will admit that an omni and/or cooked diet can give a healthy and long-lived life. Other factors must be considered.

 

As a health care professional, I have found no research to suggest that cooked whole foods cannot be part of a healthy diet. I have also found no research to suggest that raw whole foods cannot be part of a healthy diet.

I could give you my personal opinions but I'd rather do that in person.........

[tommybricks]

Raw foods have higher vibrations.

[flanders77]

I mostly thought that Raw dieting was done becouse you cook the vitamins and minerals out of the food. So you eat it raw instead. As this may work for some foods like vegetables, Fruit, Nuts and Tofu where does that leave foods like Beans or Pasta? I mean you cannot eat a Pinto bean raw. That's bizzare. And it's unhealthy to eat raw Pasta too I am sure. Beans is a good source of Protein. So why get rid of it from you're diet becouse yoou have to cook it? I mean if you're doing it becouse some of the protein will cook away. Well at least you will still get some of it right? So how do you eat foods that cannot be eaten without cooking? I wanted to go raw once or twice but I need my protein flax pasta.

1. Tofu is not raw usually

2. As DV already stated rawfoodists usually eat what they think the human body is perfectly designed to digest. And this is a lot of fruits with vegetables and some nuts, seeds and sprouts.

3. VP is right: you do not really need protein flax pasta to survive...

4. @DV: you made a good point about what has to be part of a healthy diet. Consider this: Do you think a healthy diet is possible on cooked food only? If not: What does the raw food provide the cooked food cannot provide?

5.@DV: The fact that humans eat preserved/cooked food including meat, eggs and dairy and survived does not mean it is natural to eat this food or that humans are optimally designed to eat it. Since homo sapiens evolved near the equator and reached the colder climates in europe only about 40.000 years ago – do you really think we are genetically adapted to this climate? IMO this time span is not long enough to adapt to cooked food including meat. Even 100.000 years is a relatively short time in the context of evolution. Eating natural food in the hygienic context means to eat the food we are naturally adapted to eat.

6.@DV: Congrats for having some family members living longer than the average (which passes away much too early due to western lifestyle). IMO there are many factors that influence ones lifespan, diet being an important one. Do you know what the Gaussian distribution is?

It means that 95% of the cases are within 2 standard deviations. Now guess where you will find your relatives? Does this proof they ate well?

[Veganitaliana]

Thank you Flanders for the post. I agree.