History of Cooking and Thoughts on Raw Foodism

by Jack Norris, RD Response To This Article From a Reader (Below) Introduction The vegan diet is often used as a health gimmick for preventing various diseases. I would prefer not to see this because:

There is often not enough evidence for it (such as for preventing osteoporosis) It dilutes the message of compassion to animals It can create a complacency that keeps us from addressing real health concerns

And as I read more and more raw foodist propaganda in vegetarian circles, I have to wonder if even more dietary dogma helps the cause of animal advocacy. Raw foodism is, after all, an ism. It's a belief system based on the idea that people should eat like our prehistoric ancestors (or other animals), with assumptions made about how our prehistoric ancestors actually ate, how healthy they were, how long they lived, and how relevant other animals' diets are to our own. I Was a Twenty-Something Raw Foodist From 1993 to 1995 I ate about 90% of my foods raw. I also read any and every book and article on raw foodism that I could get my hands on. The diet simply made sense. After all, humans are the only animals who cook their food. We'd have to be better off eating a more natural diet of raw foods...Wouldn't we? On the raw foods diet, I lost significant weight. As a regular weightlifter, I noticed my strength decline considerably. I got frequent colds (some say this is the body "detoxifying"). I thought about how much I wanted to eat cooked food almost constantly. One day, I finally had to admit that it wasn't working. So, I slowly weaned myself back onto cooked foods to curb my cravings while still eating "as much raw foods as I could." It became less all the time. By early 1997, I was still struggling to prevent myself from eating too much cooked food. One day I decided to eat as much cooked food as I wanted. I came to believe that the hunger signals and cravings for cooked food were more "true" than any theory of raw foodism or natural eating.

This experience turned me to science. Raw foodism made so much sense, how could it be wrong (for me)? It made me question how anything can really be known about nutrition, and I came to the conlusion that the scientific method was the only sure way. Unfortunately, when it comes to nutrition, the scientific method is neither quick nor easy. Truths emerge very slowly only after many years of research. Still, some things are known. And as I read more and more scientific research, it became clear that many of the claims made by raw foodists are not in sync with the science of food, cooking, and the human body. History of Cooked Foods In September 2003, an article was published in the journal, Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology called Cooking as a Biological Trait. It was written by Richard Wrangham and NancyLou Conklin-Brittain from the Department of Anthropology at Harvard. The main thing in this article that peaked my interest was their compilation of information about how long humans have been cooking foods. If you read many books promoting raw foodism, you would get the idea that humans have only cooked foods for a relatively short period. Wrangham and Conklin-Brittain cite much research to indicate that, in their words, "Cooking is therefore widely accepted back to at least 250,000 years ago." Some evidence points to 1.6 million years. They also argue that it takes only 5,000 years or less for the human body to adapt to different methods of eating. The implication is that humans have been cooking long enough to have adapted to a diet of cooked foods, and that in a normal state of nature there may be no turning back. This could explain why so many people who try raw foodism fail to thrive. My point is not to say that people should not be raw foodists, but rather that the idea that cooking is a relatively new method of food preparation to which the human body has not had time to evolve is likely untrue. Of course, people no longer live in a state of nature and it may be, and apparently is, possible for people to live a long time as raw foodists in the modern world by concentrating on eating raw foods that are relatively high in calories and/or by living a sedentary lifestyle compared to our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Another point along the same lines is that there are theories in scientific circles that meateating was the key to the human brain becoming larger. There are also competing theories that cooking food is what allowed humans' brains to develop. By cooking food, we were able to make it more digestible (by breaking down plant fiber and muscle tissue) and therefore eat more calories with less digestive effort. This allowed our bodies to have more energy for developing our brain. It also allowed us to decrease the size of our digestive tract, diverting energy away from digestion and to brain development.

This article is not meant to be an exhaustive look at raw diets, but rather to report on this one study that I found interesting. For more information, BeyondVeg.com (a site providing a critique of raw food vegan diets - and to a lesser extent other vegetarian diets) has created a list of peer-reviewed studies and abstracts relating to raw foods diets here. Note on BeyondVeg.com. Below is a modified article I wrote about raw foods for VegNews. How Much Raw Food Should One Include In Their Diet To Be A Healthy Vegan? Unfortunately, not much research has been conducted looking at the question of what proportion of raw foods will prevent the most disease or result in greater life expectancy. Additionally, there have been no studies on the disease rates of raw foodists. So, we must make the best guess about how much raw foods is best with the information we have available at this time. Cooking has both negative and positive affects. Cooking, for long periods especially, can damage some vitamins. Boiling and steaming causes vitamins and minerals to seep out of the food. Chemicals thought to cause cancer are formed when food is burned or oils are heated above the point at which they smoke. Deep-frying foods causes trans fats to form, which increase cholesterol levels. On the plus side, cooking can break down food components that would otherwise bind minerals and prevent their absorption. It can soften fiber which allows more food to be eaten. Cooking liberates some nutrients, such as beta-carotene and other antioxidants, for easier absorption. It denatures proteins, essentially flattening them out, which can aid in digestion. Cooking destabilizes toxic components of some foods, such as goiterpromoting properties of broccoli. It makes many foods, such as beans and many grains, edible. While fiber is a good thing, and most Americans should eat more of it, some vegan diets can be too high in fiber. Fiber provides very little energy while filling you up. Vegans with high energy needs might benefit from having more cooked food in their diets, which will generally increase the calories they are able to consume. On the other hand, people who want to lose weight could help themselves by increasing the amount of high-fiber, raw foods in their diet. Enzymes Enzymes is a buzzword in raw foods circles. They are proteins that assist in chemical reactions and without them, you would die. Digestive enzymes aid in the breaking of molecular bonds. Although the body is designed to make and secrete enzymes constantly, some people say that eating raw foods will extend lifespan because raw foods contain digestive enzymes which prevent the body from using up its own.

Plants do contain "digestive" enzymes for breaking down unwanted matter in its cells. When the plant is crushed or chewed, these enzymes are released from the protective packages that normally contain them and they break down some of the plant material with which they come in contact. Cooking destroys these enzymes. But so does swallowing - the enzymes are destroyed by the acid medium of the stomach. The net effect is that they do not digest much of the raw food you eat. For more information on enzymes and raw foods, see Do "Food Enzymes" Significantly Enhance Digestive Efficiency and Longevity? of the article Is Cooked Food Poison? by Jean-Louis Tu. Conclusion In summary, fresh fruits and vegetables should be eaten regularly. I would suggest a few servings of raw foods a day. Above that, I would listen to your own body: If you feel like eating a higher proportion of your foods as raw, or all your foods raw, go for it! (But make sure you get a regular supply of vitamin B12, and I would also be particularly concerned about calcium. In fact, the nutritional issues to which vegans should pay attention are just as important on a raw foods vegan diet. See Staying A Healthy Vegan.) If you only feel satisfied if you eat mostly cooked foods at each meal, then I suggest you do so -- without guilt.

Response To This Article From a Reader

I'm sure many people know by now that what works for one does not work for all. Otherwise we wouldn't have the plethora of dietitc literature and regimens that we have. However, I think the type of diet that a lot of vegetarian and vegan societies promote is essentially a variation of a macrobiotic diet, with a very heavy emphasis on protein, especially soy. I just wonder why you would dismiss raw foods as "using a vegan diet as a health gimmick for preventing various diseases." The type of diet you promote is very gimmicky as well, though perhaps more similar to the standard meat eating diet in most people's eyes. It wasn't till I got into raw foods diets that I was able to become a successful vegan, both healthy and dynamic. When I followed the diets heavy in tofu and soy products, I was invariably unhealthy and sluggish, with heavy reliance on caffeine. Actually not much different than when I ate meat. Thanks to caffeine, the sluggishnes was totally masked and most people would have thought I was fairly dynamite. I don't follow a 100% raw foods diet now, more like 50% in the winter, mainly due to economics, and a lot more raw food in the summer, when it is fresh, ripe, local and economical.

The type of diet you promote, though well intentioned and providing a good experience for you, does not work for everyone. Neither does any diet. But I think for veganism to be properly presented, it has to be devoid of dietary dogma, a sort of separation of church and state. For a good presentation, I would simply define "veganism," and then write a comprehensive article on each type of diet that can qualify as vegan; either unbiased or perhaps let people following each diet write their chapters as gung ho and biased as they like. This would show people that there is no one vegan diet. Lots of people, upon learning that I am vegan, say something like, "Oh, I couldn't possibly handle all those soy products and beans." When I tell them that while some vegans eat that way, I dont eat any of those things and haven't since the start of my third attempt at being vegan, in 1986, they change their tune. And many people have been positively influenced in this way. Pretending that one type of vegan diet represents veganism is not in the best interest of veganism. And if people take veganism as being one type of diet, we get less converts to veganism. It makes me sad to think that I could have been vegan many years earlier, had I not first gotten my hands on all this literature that promoted heavy protein, soy, and bean-based diets, and thought that that's all there was. I tried really hard two other times, and it didn't work. A raw foods diet was what made it possible for me to lead a vital, healthy and crulety-free life.

Note on BeyondVeg.com
I have received a number of emails over the years saying that I should not link to BeyondVeg.com because it is an anti-vegetarian site. I continue to do so because the site contains some of the best articles on raw foods diets and related issues. Furthermore, I do not want to shelter people from the information or perspectives presented on BeyondVeg.com. Rather, vegetarians should be as educated as possible, and they should also read any nutrition article with a healthy dose of skepticism. For the reader's information, Tom Billings, one of the site owners of BeyondVeg.com, is a longtime vegetarian and personal friend. He has provided considerable research assistance to me while aware that my goal is to promote a vegan diet. We may disagree on some points, but we both share a concern for going beyond dietary dogma and presenting factual information.

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