The Ups And Downs Of The Raw Food Diet

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Raw foodism has been IN for the past years, though it’s been around since the mid nineteenth century when it was fashioned by a doctor from Switzerland, Maximilian Bircher Benner. The core idea behind this nutrition regime is the focus on the instrumental relationship between food and health by eating completely fresh, uncooked and unprocessed foods. The aim is to eat mostly fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds, while leaving the meat and animal products behind (with an exception of eggs and sashimi, and fresh non-pasteurized dairy products). The strictest raw foodies abstain from caffeine and alcohol as well, not to mention processed sugars and store bought sweets.

When it comes to food preparation, the process makes your life much easier, as you don’t have to spend much time in the kitchen cooking, most of the food is served fresh, if at all possible straight from the garden. If you do feel like cooking your veggies, you can do so as long as the cooking temperature doesn’t exceed 46 degrees Celsius. This is why most raw food dieters don’t use stoves, but dehydrators to prepare their meals.

While all this sounds extremely healthy and good for you, there are things to consider if you are thinking about switching to raw food diet. The truth is, the way your body will react to this, drastically different eating regime varies from a number a factor, and the sum of those factors forms your bio-individuality.That is why it’s very important to discuss both good and bad sides of the raw foodism, because though the benefits are significant, there are some shortcomings you should be aware of.

The good: There is some evidence to the fact that when some foods are cooked, they can become potentially harmful for your wellbeing. The fact is that while preparing some foods in the way we’re used to, they release both free radicals and carcinogens that can prove to be bad for you. When your eating is based on the raw foods, you don’t have to worry about this problem, because the food you’re ingesting is fresh.

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The bad: Some plant foods, mostly vegetables actually need to be cooked if you want to get the most of them. So if you love your raw salads, go for it, but remember that veggies like carrots and tomatoes are healthiest when shortly cooked, because the vitamins and the nutrients get out to play when the vegetables are in hot water.

The good: The whole raw food concept is based on the fact that we should be eating living food, in the sense that we should consume plant foods still full of life energy. There is a whole philosophy behind this notion, but scientifically put, big part of the vegetables and fruit lose their best nutritional value when cooked. Opting out for raw food diet (even doing it partially will do you a world of good) enables you to get more enzymes into your metabolism, and those enzymes help your digestion.

The bad: If you decide to give the raw food a try, be aware that you will have to renounce meat almost completely, with the exclusion of sashimi. Eating raw meat can be very dangerous for your health, because meats are in the group of foods that has to be cooked, otherwise you risk getting very sick from the bacteria in the meat. Salmonella for example can have permanent consequences on your metabolism, so if you love your meat, then the raw food diet will be more difficult for you to handle.  

The good: It’s not a surprise that eating raw food will do wonders for your calorie intake, as you don’t consume refined and processed foods, which will drastically diminish your ingestion of saturated fats, sugars, trans fats and sodium. This is one of the strongest perks of raw foodism, along with the fact that you will replace all the unhealthy supplements with loads of fibre and fats that are good for you and help your metabolism establish a healthy balance. People often turn to raw diet when trying to lose weight, but it’s also very beneficial when it comes to hormone imbalance and other health problems that you haven’t managed to get under control.

When thinking about the raw food diet, it’s easy to conclude that the benefits outrank the pitfalls of this way of life. What’s important to remember is to listen to your body once you turn to raw foods. Sometimes people react beautifully to it, and sometimes it’s quickly clear that this lifestyle is not for you, so maybe work on finding a balance that will feel good for you.