Even if you have not ever pursued the “raw food diet“, you may well have heard a lot about it namely in the form of celebrities who have jumped on the bandwagon of this style of eating and equally who often look very healthy at the same time – however it is also worth noting that not all do well on this diet though whether that is through error or a natural result is open to conjecture. The concept of raw food is whereby food is not eaten cooked or if heat is applied that it does not reach past a certain temperature. This will automatically preclude to some extent or even wholly some foods – for instance rice can be eaten raw but also with difficulty because first it will need to be sprouted to be able to be consumed unless for example one were going to try and grind it. The concept of eating a raw food diet is that with an increase in the percentage of raw food consumed, that this will also implicitly produce greater health benefits in return. Furthermore, with the raw food lifestyle there are subcategories such as those who are vegan, vegetarian and pesco-vegetarian etc..
Of course, if one looks at the concept of raw food eating in nature as a whole, one can see that virtually all creatures apart from those that are domesticated such as pets etc., eat their food raw. It might be thought that by eating our food cooked, this is in someway more refined and civilised – of course that is true because animals do not possess the necessary intelligence or dexterity to create fire etc.. Nevertheless, by doing so, are we also damaging the food and for that matter, is it something that we should even be worried about? For instance, should we eat an apple cooked or raw before going on a run? Common sense will tell us that by eating an apple raw, it will be more quickly digested, whilst eating an apple cooked might be harder to process. Having said that there might be benefits, it is also important to recognise that there are other facets to health, such as sunshine, exercise etc., and that whilst perhaps extremely important it is by no means a “panacea” for good health ? as important as raw food might be for good health, it most likely cannot by itself compensate for lack of fresh air
etc..
Rawfood.org.uk – Information and guide on the raw food diet.
