This "Raw Foods" silliness

[Phaycops]

Has anyone else heard about this "raw foods" idea? I first read about it in the horrible magazine Vegetarian Times, and thought it sounded completely bogus. But I didn't think much of it because lots of stuff in that mag is completely bogus. Then, however, I saw an article in a recent Martha Stewart Living, plus she's had "raw foods" chefs on her show. The basic idea, I gather, is that eating foods heated to above 118F somehow destroys their vitamins and "enzymes." According to this chef on Martha's show, "enzymes" are why we eat food. I'm not sure I've ever read anything about eating food for enzymes, but I'm no nutritionist. Anyway, the whole thing sounds fishy, and bad for you to boot. Also, arent' some veggies really tough to digest if eaten raw? Any real information would be appreciated. The only articles I've seen so far are very credulous. No big surprise there, though.

[Suezoled]

I love the raw foodies who go back to eating meat... raw.

[roger]

I'm allergic to those raw veggie enzymes. Seriously. I count on cooking to render them edible, otherwise a little while after eating I'm practically clawing at my throat trying to itch the scratch. Not to mention my proclivity for breathing, which is hard to do with a throat that is rapidly swelling shut.

[Suezoled]

Girl who sits in front of me at work can't eat fresh fruit or she swells like a balloon. Any fresh fruit: oranges, apples, papaya, banana, grapes....

[jj]

Oh, where is that old thread about raw foods and "fruitarianism"?

It's somewhere on here.

Wear your waders.

[Psi Baba]

Originally posted by Phaycops
Has anyone else heard about this "raw foods" idea?
Don't you remember Bigfig? I thought you were around then. She claimed that because of eating raw foods, her sh** did not stink. Literally. She said this. I'm not making it up.

[geni]

Originally posted by Phaycops
The basic idea, I gather, is that eating foods heated to above 118F somehow destroys their vitamins and "enzymes."

Don't know about the vitamians but enzymes will be denatured if you heat them above 40C. Not that this matters.

According to this chef on Martha's show, "enzymes" are why we eat food.

the chef is wrong. Enzymes in food are just another source of protien. If the cooking process doesn't break them down then your digestion system will.

[cbish]

The raw foods idea is based on the 19th century philosophy of vitalism. That is that live systems have a "vital force" that separates living systems from dead.

Raw foods concept has been around for decades but has been most prominently promoted in the alternative health circles. One promoter of this idea is Jay Kordich, The Juiceman. Kordich claims that juicing raw fruits and vegetables is superior to canned or processed foods because "live foods contain live enzymes". According to Kordich, live enzymes can aid in digestion freeing up your own enzymes for more important work such as boosting immune response.

Of course, anyone who as ever taken high school biology could explain to poor ol' Jay why he's full of carp!;)

1. Plant enzymes won't work in animals.

2. Enzymes can't change function. (or substrate for that matter)

3. Enzymes are large proteins and will digested into their amino acids for absorption by the small intestine.

Juicing and consuming raw fruits and vegetables is nutritious. I'm afraid it won't do anything for your vital force, though.

[Jas]

Unfortuanately, all these raw foodists seem to die by the time they hit 70. Which means, unforuanately, they stop writing books about all this crap.

A guy I know is big on this. Anyone who opposes, is clearly working for Monsanto.

A lot of them will reference a woman called Anne Wigmore (sp?). Apparently after adopting a "more chlorophyll-rich diet", she recovered from the "condition" of grey hair, and it returned to it's "natural shade of lustrous brown" (clearly, Ms. Clairol could have nothing to do with this).

They're all a bunch of crackpots.

[Goshawk]

http://www.keratin.com/as/as011.shtml
Overall, it is extremely unusual to see hair color changes as a result of dietary deficiencies.

[Phaycops]

Originally posted by Psi Baba

Don't you remember Bigfig? I thought you were around then. She claimed that because of eating raw foods, her sh** did not stink. Literally. She said this. I'm not making it up.

I do remember Bigfig, but I mostly tended to ignore her. Heh. Aparently, this was a wise move ;)

What about this idea that if you cook vegetables, they lose their nutritional value? I thought this had been debunked pretty well.....not that that ever stopped these folks from claiming things.

About enzymes....I'm not a biologist, so let me just be sure I have this right.... We humans have our own enzymes that do things in our bodies, and plants have other enzymes that presumably perform different functions, because plants are different from people, right? So eating one plants enzymes doesn't really help our enzymes any, except for the fact that we digest down the enzymes into their component amino acids to use for our own nefarious purposes? If this is the case, this whole (har!) thing sounds pretty silly....

[cbish]

Phaycops wrote:
We humans have our own enzymes that do things in our bodies, and plants have other enzymes that presumably perform different functions, because plants are different from people, right? So eating one plants enzymes doesn't really help our enzymes any, except for the fact that we digest down the enzymes into their component amino acids to use for our own nefarious purposes? If this is the case, this whole (har!) thing sounds pretty silly....

Well, without going into detail.....YEP!!

You've got it!:D

[Zep]

I'd suggest to them that they try eating trees instead of hugging them.

[BTox]

Originally posted by Phaycops
Has anyone else heard about this "raw foods" idea?

Yes, it's a complete load of crap. The most experience I've had in recent years with this issue is on pet health/nutrition sites, which are riddled with woowoos. Raw foods diets are the rage with many of these folks, fueled by books by nincompoops such as Ian Billinghurst from Australia. As others have correctly pointed out, the entire "living enzymes" story is complete fantasy.

[ktesibios]

Didn't the conept of "vitalism" also hold that compounds produced by living organisms were the product of the vital force and could not be synthesized from substances of non-living origin?

In other words, if vitalism were correct, wouldn't most of what's been accomplished in organic chemistry be impossible?

[epepke]

Originally posted by Suezoled
I love the raw foodies who go back to eating meat... raw.

Don't knock it. Raw meat tastes damn good.

[Eos of the Eons]

double post.

[Eos of the Eons]

I heard something that made me roll around laughing.

At our World of Women show in town, where vendors peddle their wares, there was a booth selling cookware.

They claim that it will keep foods in the "raw state" of nutritional value (not break down enzymes, etc.)

The kicker is, it costs $5, 000 for everything, or you can get a set for just $1500.00.

AND

You have to completely pay for it before you get the cookware.

:dl:


Yes, you can make monthly payments until you pay it off. You can get a loan too.

(Let's see, in five years the Co. dissappears with all the money before people have their cookware long enough for someone to point out the food is still cooked)

:D

Edited to add, Yes people did buy it. One person I know is putting off getting life insurance until the cookware is paid for.

[cbish]

ktesibios wrote:
Didn't the conept of "vitalism" also hold that compounds produced by living organisms were the product of the vital force and could not be synthesized from substances of non-living origin?

In other words, if vitalism were correct, wouldn't most of what's been accomplished in organic chemistry be impossible?

____

Ummm......YEP!!

and Louis Pasteur had a little something to do with the debunking of vitalism.

epepke wrote:
Raw meat tastes damn good.

Yes it does! I cook my steaks RARE!!

The point I want to stress again is that raw fruits and vegetables are nutritious and should be incorporated into a diet. However, there is nothing 'magical' about them as these people would have you believe. If you have cancer, powering down carrots isn't going to help you. Please see a doctor (a real doctor!)

[cbish]

Eos wrote:
At our World of Women show in town, where vendors peddle their wares, there was a booth selling cookware.

This may be another thead, but you know I 've noticed this. Cooking is my passion so I seek out food shows and the like. It always seems that at every food show there are several booth's selling woo-woo-isms like magnetic bracelets and such. Coincidence?!? Correlation?? Hmmm......

[Suezoled]

Let me rephrase myself: as a fan of beef tartar, and rare steaks, and stuff... there are raw foodies who eat meat on a regular basis totally uncooked. Their thinking is, since lions eat it, it's okay. They totally disregard that so many wild animals have parasites from eating raw meats, and that such little vermin as trichinosis is easily passed in domestic meats to humans.

[Eos of the Eons]

Originally posted by cbish
Eos wrote:


This may be another thead, but you know I 've noticed this. Cooking is my passion so I seek out food shows and the like. It always seems that at every food show there are several booth's selling woo-woo-isms like magnetic bracelets and such. Coincidence?!? Correlation?? Hmmm...... :D

The multi-level marketing...is how most of the wooism is sold, and getting in a show means potential prospects by the dozens, or at least sales. It's the only way to sell products that can't be sold in stores for obvious reasons.

It's the only way to push silliness to people who haven't heard of it yet.

Heck, the chiropractor made a 15 min. presentation at his booth about how people want to feel better and can't because their energy isn't at an optimal level. Then he said you could have a free book on the subject if you pay $150.00 to put your finger in the chiroquack's machine so it could measure your energy waves and let the chiroquack know just how much of what vitamin mix you should take, and see if your spine needs to be aligned. Um, the book isn't published yet. It's the only bestseller that hasn't been published yet. It's being published though...(I bet from the $150.00 pay for the machine to check them out, it's expensive to publish books).
http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/mlm.html

So yeah, raw food is a subject at many woo booths, and the cookware has a booth on its own and they do this neat cooking demo while explaining the woo theory. You need nutrition, and cooked food is just not as nutritious unless you cook it without water or some other such nonsensen.

[epepke]

Originally posted by Suezoled
Let me rephrase myself: as a fan of beef tartar, and rare steaks, and stuff... there are raw foodies who eat meat on a regular basis totally uncooked. Their thinking is, since lions eat it, it's okay. They totally disregard that so many wild animals have parasites from eating raw meats, and that such little vermin as trichinosis is easily passed in domestic meats to humans.

Well, this does seem like an argument that isn't very good. Personally, I've already lived longer than your average lion, and I'd like to keep on doing so. I also like the arguments of people who are into traditional Chinese medicine based on the idea that Chinese have been using it for 5000 years. Not to get into the details of whether what is touted as Chinese medicine is the real thing, personally, I hope to outlive by decades the average Chinese life expectancy over the past few millennia.

As for trichinosis, though, that's mostly pork. Cows and sheep don't get it. On the other hand, they do get anthrax, which is not particularly pleasant either.

[pupdog]

When I went to China, I was cautioned to eat NOTHING that was raw, and was given a few bottles of gut-clearing medications just in case. Even water had to be cooked (hence, I drank a lot of tea).
Of course, this had less to do with enzymes and vitamins and more to do with using "night soil" as fertilizer.

[JamesM]

Originally posted by Phaycops

What about this idea that if you cook vegetables, they lose their nutritional value? I thought this had been debunked pretty well.....not that that ever stopped these folks from claiming things.
It depends on the food, the particular nutrient you want to preserve and the method of cooking. As an example, the method of cooking broccoli (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3188558.stm) can result in losses of 11% of the antioxidants that are present raw, if you steam it, up to 97% if you microwave it in a load of water (although I don't really understand why you wouldn't just microwave them without the water).

I suppose this problem can be circumvented by avoiding eating broccoli.

Conversely, I also think there's an issue about whether you can absorb the nutrients in raw vegetables as well as with cooked vegetables. To confirm this suspicion, I engaged in highly detailed scientific research: I looked on the internet. But most of the websites I looked at that mentioned this "fact" were of the "alternative", "just do acupuncture on your vegetables to cure yourself of cancer" type. It would seem that Chinese tradition is keen on cooked veg over raw.

[epepke]

Originally posted by JamesM
Conversely, I also think there's an issue about whether you can absorb the nutrients in raw vegetables as well as with cooked vegetables. To confirm this suspicion, I engaged in highly detailed scientific research: I looked on the internet. But most of the websites I looked at that mentioned this "fact" were of the "alternative", "just do acupuncture on your vegetables to cure yourself of cancer" type. It would seem that Chinese tradition is keen on cooked veg over raw.

Heh.

The big problem with raw vegetables is the cell wall. Humans can't break it down properly in the gut. So, you've got the choice of juicing it (which breaks down some of the cell walls, but by no means all) or cooking it (which breaks down the cell wall but also destroys some of the vitamins).

Acupuncture on the vegetables, well, you'd have to poke them an awful lot of times with really sharp needles.

[Eos of the Eons]

http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/02/4.25.02/tomato_research.html

"Cooking tomatoes boosts disease-fighting, nutritional value"


Cooked food is great for you. If there is any nutrient loss, the amount is minimal. There are benefits to cooking food, even in water (soup). The nutrition is lost when you dump the water down the drain.

If you eat raw and cooked vegetable and fruits, you will not be lacking in anti-oxidants or nutrition of any kind.

Burnt food though, well you know. LOL.