What is it About Raw Foods Anyway?

Happy Wednesday, everyone! It doesn't feel like 'hump day' or midweek especially: we're in Anchorage,  with good news on Phil's eyes again: his pressure is continuing to hold steady!

So he's off skiing right now and will continue to revel in many dimensions of the beautiful outdoors. We went for a beautiful hike this morning, too, with our friend Terry:

It was -8F (-20C) this morning in Anchorage, but by the time we were walking it was a bit warmer. Cold enough to make your nostrils crinkle!


The other major weather event the past few days has been wind. It has been blowing! We tried to hike along the beach in Homer for a little bit a couple days ago and the wind was spraying the waves up over the road! We had to walk backwards for some of it, and it was one of or shorter hikes, you'd better believe it.

When the snow has started to melt from the trees and then the chilly wind comes in again, it can freeze that dripping water into charming shapes. Look at this wishbone dangling from one of our spruces!

OK--moving to the ostensible subject of this post: What is it about Raw Foods Anyway?

For disclosure of my biases: I used to eat 100% raw very strictly, and worrying about percentage raw even at raw food potlucks was a serious ruling parameter in my life. Nowadays, I eat mostly raw food but I eat cooked food every day too, and I don't put a lot of energy on worrying about the percentage.

There are topics in food and nutrition that I've felt some confusion around as a result of all the recent discussion, but I bring up this topic because I feel that one thing that was clear in The Great Health Debate was that for most people, outside of the serious health crisis situation, the experts (perhaps excepting Robert Young) generally did not claim enormous additional benefits to accrue from a 100% raw foods diet compared to a diet containing some nutritious cooked foods. Even Gabriel Cousens, who is definitely a live foods practitioner, talked about 'protein types' eating cooked beans to obtain purines.

I mentioned at the time that I was impressed by Joel Fuhrman's take: that he didn't think that people gained anything by removing cooked beans and root veggies from their diets. In other words, there are foods that we can eat cooked beneficially.

It seems like a good time to revisit this subject, in the wake of the Great Health Debate, to reinforce the validity of both raw and cooked forms of nutrition and to feel grateful for them. There have been some good discussions of this topic out there quite recently, like Gena's clear and penetrating analysis in response to another blogger's rejection of raw food based on a short-term cleanse, also passionately written and researched. Bitt also has some insightful discussions of the balance between raw and cooked food, including this one. In continued and belated celebration of this little blog's own anniversary, there are also my own posts, written almost a year ago now, analysing and responding to Richard Wrangham's Catching Fire.  I wrote five posts about it in total: an initial overview, a summary, and a three-part analysis of the implications of the book for raw-foodists--part 1, part 2 and part 3. I noticed that during the Great Health Debate, both Dr Goldhamer and Frederic Patenaude mentioned Catching Fire, explicitly to point out that one of the major implications of the claim for cooking's antiquity is that it allowed an increased usage of starchy foods (not edible raw) that drove some great steps forward in human evolution: i.e. it was cooked plants, not raw--or cooked--meat, that made us what we are.

I think that it's important to note, as I did in part 3 of my analysis, that Wrangham's book can actually be interpreted as speaking in favor of eating more raw foods in this day and age of superabundance and super-refined and easily absorbed foods: or at least of more raw and otherwise minimally processed foods.

There is a semantic trap around raw foods too: raw implies "unadulterated," "unmanipulated," "not tampered with," and then much more charged and emotional judgments such as "pure," "clean," (morally) "good."... Of course, nowadays raw foods can be the most decadent, processed, worked concoctions, recipients of great artistry and creativity. When I got into raw foods eight years ago, agave and cacao weren't on the table yet, let alone flours. Things were chunkier back then. 

But even back then, we would sometimes philosophically agree, at our raw food potlucks, we raw food fanatics, that it could be argued that some steamed broccoli might be more nutritious/healthier than a raw pie with tons of nuts and dates. Outside of the sheltered world of the raw potluck, there may be times when the 'raw versus cooked' choice is even less clear-cut.

Travel and Social

As someone who has traveled a lot, I'd be the first to say that it's easy to do so as a raw-foodist. But then I'd have to backtrack a little and to admit that there were times when my refusal to consider cooked food probably left me less well-nourished for my hiking along than I could have been. Off the road, when options dwindle, if all you're willing to eat is fresh fruit and veg, you may wind up with nothing but some tired bananas, whereas a little more flexibility could find some steamed veggies or baked roots. In airports, salads can be exiguous and exorbitant (not to mention covered in cheese, meat and gluten), but if you're not in a panic about whether the guacamole and salsa might contain cooked ingredients, you can get those and be fairly well satisfied.

And then there's the whole world of socializing and accepting hospitality. I accept that it's not good to pull ourselves down to the lowest common denominator, but being willing to share lovingly prepared food that you're not compelled by allergy to avoid is a practice that I have found to strengthen my immune system and open my heart. It's been a long road: initially my internal resistance to and judgments of the foods prevented my enjoyment on this level.

Better Raw, Better Cooked?

I don't subscribe to the 'enzyme theory' of raw foods' superiority. The 'enzyme theory' claims that raw foods spare our own enzymes by bringing their own with them, which have not been denatured by the application of heat. I don't subscribe to this for two reasons. First, I think that any enzymes left on raw foods are denatured in the stomach before the breakdown of the foods actually commences. And second, I believe that it's highly unlikely that there are many enzymes left even in raw foods unless they are literally freshly picked (which may be why microgreens and sprouts are such good food: peak of freshness). It's not just heat that depletes enzymes: many other experiences that each food item undergoes on its increasingly long journey to the table do so too. Roots are not repositories of enzymes to enable growth, but of starch. Seeds contain enzyme inhibitors to keep them dormant and prevent them from rotting (which is part of why sprouting them to remove this is recommended: but the improved hydration is another key).

Without going into too much more detail, I should say that very few raw-foodists that I know personally 'do it for the enzymes.' There are plenty of other good reasons. Interest in raw foods tends to correlate with interest in freshness and quality of the food, which always equates with better flavor and nutritional profile. Raw foods tend to have a higher moisture content--and the water contained in there is some of the best quality, structured water that you can obtain. This structure can improve the availability of the vitamins and minerals contained in fruits and vegetables. Vitamins, of course, are heat sensitive and are generally better available in raw than in cooked foods.

On the other hand, despite the fact that I've put some energy into eating broccoli and cauliflower raw, and have written about it, e.g. in this article, I have to confess that at this time, I'm enjoying them more cooked than I am raw! And of course, they contain goitrogens, which can be a problem for someone like myself with hypothyroid. I recently heard David Wolfe speculating that these goitrogens may be deactivated by juicing but I think that since they are not deactivated by krauting, that may be unlikely. And personally, I'd far rather eat my broccoli than juice it!

Similarly, onions are full of wonderful compounds, some of them not even fully understood--like quercitin, crucial for mitochondrial health, and important sulphur compounds. Well, aside from the fact that I can't stand raw onions, they make me feel sick! So, should I just never eat them? That's what I used to think. Now, going along with Dr Fuhrman's words, I feel good about eating some onions, cooked. If you cook them into a sauce, the huge amounts of vitamin C that they contain may be retained, dissolved in the liquid, so long as you don't boil it for too long!

Another piece of releasing from the black-and-white: I love that raw food techniques can be used with semi-raw preparations, like my peanut butter mousse brownie. Never mind that in retrospect, I think it would have been even better with a raw base...!

A recipe coming soon: this is delicious and part-raw. Peas, barely-blanched cauliflower, coconut oil-sauteed onions in a coconut curry sauce.

Do you think that raw foods are beneficial for everyone? Do you think that this benefit is lost if other kinds of food are included?
Love and balance!