Raw Food Movement

[Smithy]

Mr. McGee, please allow me to add my thanks and welcome to all the others' on this Forum.

Have you done any research on the raw food movement, or its underlying principles? If so, what do you think of it/them? I've read the assertion that enzymes needed for digestion start to break down above 118oF, and therefore we shouldn't eat things heated above that temperature. I remain skeptical, both because it doesn't sound like much fun and because it seems to counter almost everything in the human experience. I'd be curious to know your take on it.

[Harold McGee]

I too am skeptical of the temperature limits set in raw food preparation. The enzymes needed in digestion are digestive enzymes, and they come from our bodies, not from the foods. And any enzymes that might be thought to have health value are very unlikely to get into the body. Our digestive enzymes break enzymes down into amino acids (enzymes are proteins), and any enzymes that survive digestion won’t be absorbed in the intestine. It is true that the levels of some vitamins and other active compounds in foods are reduced by heating; on the other hand, what’s left may be more available because the food structure has been broken down and so is more digestible.

I did eat at Roxanne’s near San Francisco before it closed, and enjoyed it very much, but more for its inventiveness—making “noodles” from coconut shavings and “flatbreads” from nuts—than for its supposed healthfulness.