Beliefs and research of Raw Foods

Beliefs and research

Those who follow this way of eating generally believe that:

• Raw foods contain enzymes which act as catalysts to regulate the digestive process in the body.
• Heating (or freezing) food degrades or destroys these enzymes in food.
• Food without enzymes is thought to lead in the longer term to toxicity in the body, to excess consumption of food, and therefore to obesity.
• Living and raw foods are thought to usually have much higher nutrient values than foods which have been cooked.

The main idea behind raw food diets is that cooked food is supposedly toxic, because cooking destroys the enzymes contained in food. This belief is based on the work of Artturi Virtanen, a biochemist, and on the research of Dr. Edward Howell, an Illinois physician born in 1898, who researched how enzymes played a role in a person's diet. He concluded that eating cooked food leads to health problems. In 1985, Howell published a book in which he claimed that laboratory rats fed cooked foods had an overly large pancreas size.

In one example he compared rat pancreas weights that had been
published in eight unrelated studies from different labs using a variety of diets and rat strains, ranging from 1924 to 1975; only one 1937 study used raw diets. Howell compared the pancreas weights in the seven other studies to the lower pancreas weights reported in the single raw diet study; he did not mention that in the raw diet study the pancreases had been extracted in alcohol before weighing, making direct weight comparisons to other studies questionable. Some raw food diet proponents believe that Howell's book shows that the pancreas is forced to work harder on a diet of cooked foods and that food enzymes are just as essential to digestion as the body's self-generated enzymes.

Additional research was conducted by Dr. Francis Pottenger in 1932, who conducted an experiment to determine the effect of cooked foods in cats. For 10 years, Pottenger fed half of the cats a diet of raw foods, the other half a diet of cooked foods. At the conclusion of his study, he reported that the cats who were fed raw foods appeared to be in better health. In addition, the exclusively cooked diet led to congenital problems including birth defects and deformities, after several generations. Research was also conducted by Dr Weston A Price as embodied by the Weston A. Price Foundation and The Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation.

In 1930, under the direction of Dr. Paul Kouchakoff, research was conducted at the Institute of Clinical Chemistry in Lausanne, Switzerland. The effect of food (cooked and processed versus raw and natural) on the immune system was tested and documented. It was found that after a person eats cooked food, his/her blood responds immediately by increasing the number of white blood cells. This is a well-known phenomena called 'digestive leukocytosis', in which there is a rise in the number of leukocytes (white blood cells) after eating. Since digestive leukocytosis was always observed after a meal, it was considered to be a normal physiological response to eating. No one knew why the number of white cells rises after eating, since this appeared to be a stress response, as if the body was somehow reacting to something harmful such as infection, exposure to toxic chemicals or trauma.

Around the same time Swiss researchers at the institute of Chemical Chemistry found that eating raw, unaltered food did not cause a reaction in the blood. In addition, they found that if a food had been heated beyond a certain temperature (unique to each food), or if the food was processed (refined, chemicals added, etc.), this always caused a rise in the number of white cells in the blood. The researchers renamed this reaction 'pathological leukocytosis', since the body was reacting to highly altered food. They tested many different types of foods and found that if the foods were not refined or overheated, they caused no reaction. The body saw them as 'friendly foods'. However, these same foods, if heated at too high a temperature, caused a negative reaction in the blood, a reaction found only when the body is invaded by a dangerous pathogen or trauma.

Professor Karl Eimer, director of the Medical Clinic at the University of Vienna studied the effect of a 100% raw diet on athletes. He placed his subjects on a two week program of intense physical training while they continued to consume their usual cooked diet. Their athletic performance was monitored and evaluated. They were then put on a 100% raw diet and continued their training. Without exception the athletes demonstrated improvements in reflex speed, flexibility and stamina. Eimer, and his colleague Professor Hans Eppinger, concluded that raw foods increase cellular respiration and efficiency. Their findings were reported in the July, 1993 edition of Zeitschrift fur Ernahrung entitled Klinik Schwenkenhacher.

Anthropologist Peter Lucas of George Washington University in Washington DC, US, was reported in NewScientist magazine on 19/2/2005 as having the theory that man being the only mammal with chronic poor dentition, and the only mammal to significantly process and cook his food, are causally linked. He believes that the adoption of food processing and cooking reduced the size of our jaw through evolutionary processes, but not the size of our teeth. Hence the expanding science of orthodontics. Conversely, the research suggests that a diet of unprocessed and uncooked food is more likely to promote health.
Raw food proponents claim that a raw food diet consisting of enzyme-rich raw foods will prevent many health problems, promote health and strengthen the immune system. The benefits of the diet are said to include: a stable body mass index; clear skin; more energy; and minimising a range of common illnesses, from the flu to obesity-related illnesses.

Foods cooked at high heat contain toxins not found in raw or boiled foods, such as acrylamide, benzopyrene, and methylcholanthrene. There is no consensus as to whether these toxins introduced by high-heat cooking methods are cause for alarm, and the World Health Organisation is sponsoring continued research.

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I went on the Raw Foods Diet for 5 months.

Took me about 2 months to get to 1000%(all raw) Raw.

Lost 40 pounds....drank plenty of my fresh wheatgrass juice also......BUT....

Decided that I preferred some "regular" foods in moderation ....and eat very little meat....but some at times now.

I gave away fresh wheatgrass (300 shots) at a talk he gave a few years ago....He really is a genuine raw food person....and his books are truely inspirational and full of good knowledge......worth reading. (The Sunfood Sucess Diet) is the one I recommend.(Davidwolfe.com)