Comments on: Barbara vs. The Raw Food Fad

Comment on Barbara vs. The Raw Food Fad by: Max Thunder

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 18:25:56 +0000

First, meat is perfectly edible raw and humans have done so for hundred of thousand of years before they mastered fire, and many societies have done so until very recently (such as the eskimos, which name mean: these who eat it raw). Eskimos have done very well on raw meat, fermented meat (which is raw) and slightly cooked meat.

Second, humans did not eat crap like grains and lentils, as these are not edible unless cooked. Most traditional diets that include grains have special ways to prepare them that neutralize the toxins, special ways which we do not do anymore most of the time. Bread used to be flour fermented for many days, not quickly fermented with one single species of yeast.

By the way, a dehydrator does not cook food. All it does is remove water, and thus remove the possibility for pathogens to grow (within certain limits).

The problem is rarely too much stomach acid, rather it is a lack of stomach acid which cause maldigestion of proteins and a disruption of the pH in the intestines, making it a favorable milieu for many pathogens. Many factors are involved in this lack of stomach acid. A lack of stomach acid also cause malfunction of the stomach valves, which will cause some of the not-enough-acidic-but-still-acidic-enough to-cause-pain stomach content to move up in the oesophagus.

Enzymes are not denatured in the stomach. Read the studies done with bromelain and antibiotics. It is shown that a bromelain supplement will increase the absorption and effectiveness of antibiotics. There is also a ton of testimonials of people who benefits digestion-wise from supplements of enzymes.

Traditional diets that include a lot of cooked food will often include fermented food as side dish, which contain a lot of enzymes. These fermented food are often changed nowadays for crappy food with vinegar, such as most condiments, some sauerkraut, pickled ginger, etc. Fermented daikon radish is very right in starch digesting enzymes.

Comment on Barbara vs. The Raw Food Fad by: Barbara Fisher

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 15:59:59 +0000

Yep, I am an everything in moderation person, too, Elizabeth.

Eat some of this, some of that and some of that other thing. Cook some things (like rhubarb--if you eat it raw, it is poisonous), leave some raw, and be happy. And if you eat too much, go take a walk and burn off some of the calories.

That is it. Simple.

Hey, Aunt Judy! I do love raw vegetables and fruits, too. I don't know if you remember, but when I was a kid, I used to refuse to eat turnips cooked, and would only eat them raw. Same with carrots. In fact, anything that grew in Grandma's garden, I would cheerfully eat raw. Corn on the cob--tastes just fine the way the raccoons eat it. Green beans--lovely straight from the vine. Pea pods--you know, the part normal people throw away--tasted sweet as candy.

Grandma always called me her little rabbit.

And I still like all of that stuff.

What I don't like is grinding up things that are better cooked, like grains and lentils, into weird glops and then calling them things that they most certainly are not.

And again--I don't like the mythology that the raw foodists subscribe too.

Hey, Dr. Biggles--I am with you.

No gravy.

That says it all.

How can one live without gravy. Pha!

Comment on Barbara vs. The Raw Food Fad by: drbiggles

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 15:59:59 +0000

Yeah, you tellem’. And there’s no GRAVY !!! Even vegans have veggie stock. mMmMmm, stock.

Comment on Barbara vs. The Raw Food Fad by: yourauntjudy

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 15:59:59 +0000

Food fads are always “unbalanced.” If there was a single diet that always worked, the proof would be easily seen in the health records and appearance of the practitioners of that diet. I agree that most of us need more raw foods; I can eat raw broccoli easily as a salad. Add tomatos, raw peppers, a bit of onion and dressing and yum! However, the rigorous self-denial that some people practice is, in my view, self-hatred. Love yourself. Eat that occasional bowl of ice cream (but make it GOOD ice cream–Haagen Daz) So long as you eat a balanced diet the rest of the time, indulgence isn’t going to do you any harm. One of the worst things health food addicts try to do is tell you that carob is a substitute for choclate. UGH. There IS no substitute for chocolate!

Comment on Barbara vs. The Raw Food Fad by: ejm

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 15:59:59 +0000

Any of these food bandwagons drive me mad. The low-carb one seems to be fading (I’m SO glad - although one downside is that the price of dried pasta is going up.)

I’m happy to say that I haven’t met any of the raw food faddists. But the description reminds me of that “Fit for Life” diet that claimed it was unsafe to eat fruit with anything else and one could NEVER eat a non fruit directly after eating fruit.

And I as I vaguely recall, there was some nonsense about never combining starch with protein, as well as further nonsense about the stomach being unable to digest the wrong combinations because they became too acidic? As if digestive fluids in the stomach aren’t just one big bowl of acid already. (I just googled and see that there is even more ludicrous stuff about ‘live’ and ‘dead’ foods - ‘live’ food is salads and ‘dead’ food is protein or starch… the page I looked at didn’t say what kind of food fruit is….)

Personally, I’ve always preferred the “everything (within reason) in moderation” diet.