Uncooking

[Grub]

...She went off to college and started eating VERY CLEAN chicken (it cannot look like what it is, is the rule. No bones, skin, etc.........NEVER a blood vessel!  ) ...

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That's really interesting; peculiar, that... Cannot look like what it is -- "clean." Is that to prevent the eater from realizing what the meat is, or where it came from?

[fodgycakes]

That's really interesting; peculiar, that... Cannot look like what it is -- "clean." Is that to prevent the eater from realizing what the meat is, or where it came from?

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I think this sort of attitude comes from the mixed feelings a significant number of people have about eating meat.. those that feel that there are some moral issues involved with eating meat yet don't feel strongly enough about them to feel it is worth it to give up enjoying the taste of it. I don't think it's that they don't want to know what the meat is but that to enjoy meat they need it prepared in a way that isn't a reminder about their more dubious feelings about eating it.

[dockhl]

...She went off to college and started eating VERY CLEAN chicken (it cannot look like what it is, is the rule. No bones, skin, etc.........NEVER a blood vessel!  ) ...

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That's really interesting; peculiar, that... Cannot look like what it is -- "clean." Is that to prevent the eater from realizing what the meat is, or where it came from?

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both, I think. when you realize that her objections were moral, I presume she had little discussions going on in her head about whether it was OK to eat meat. She seems to have gotten over it......

[Jason Perlow]

The Raw Foods movement is so 2000-2001. Hell, even the prominent California raw foods restaurants have all closed down. That should say something right there.

[johnsmith45678]

"Were they already dead?"

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I don't understand that question. I'm not aware of meat being eaten alive (except however often in the rest of the animal kingdom), and plants were/are alive too (at least until they encounter the GI tract). Or is it a matter of the animal already being dead and not being killed just to eat? That definitely doesn't sound healthy (roadkill, sick/diseased/old, etc.).

Edited July 22, 2006 by johnsmith45678 (log)

[offcentre]

The Raw Foods movement is so 2000-2001. Hell, even the prominent California raw foods restaurants have all closed down. That should say something right there.

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Is that right? I had read that it is big in California. I hear a lot about Woody eating all raw, this raw chef dude Chad Sarno being a bit of a superstar, and raw restaurants opening by the dozen.

Thanks for the responses - I have ordered Nina Planck's book as instructed and will be reading it with great interest.

These are the main reasons cited for eating raw

1. Raw food is more easily digested.

2. Life force (as seen through Kirlian photography) of raw food is beneficial.

3. Increased levels of energy and health.

4. Reduces strain on pancreas as body does not need to produce enzymes to digest the food - the enzymes are still in the food when eaten.

Its this fourth one I'd like to be able to shoot down - for some reason.

She did eat a nice french onion tart and a little roquefort last night though. That sweet smell of caremelising onions got to her in the end!

[dockhl]

"Were they already dead?"

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Or is it a matter of the animal already being dead and not being killed just to eat?

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Yes. She was FIVE................

[jsolomon]

The Raw Foods movement is so 2000-2001. Hell, even the prominent California raw foods restaurants have all closed down. That should say something right there.

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Is that right? I had read that it is big in California. I hear a lot about Woody eating all raw, this raw chef dude Chad Sarno being a bit of a superstar, and raw restaurants opening by the dozen.

Thanks for the responses - I have ordered Nina Planck's book as instructed and will be reading it with great interest.

These are the main reasons cited for eating raw

1. Raw food is more easily digested.

2. Life force (as seen through Kirlian photography) of raw food is beneficial.

3. Increased levels of energy and health.

4. Reduces strain on pancreas as body does not need to produce enzymes to digest the food - the enzymes are still in the food when eaten.

Its this fourth one I'd like to be able to shoot down - for some reason.

She did eat a nice french onion tart and a little roquefort last night though. That sweet smell of caremelising onions got to her in the end!

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1 and 4 are pure unadulterated bullshit. Cooking breaks many of the chemical bonds that hold proteins, fats, and sugars in indigestible forms, thus making many more of them digestible. That is why we notice that many cooked forms of meat are more tender than their raw form: chemistry has changed, releasing certain nutrients. Ditto with things like beets, where our teeth cannot possibly grind through beet cell walls. Cooking releases more nutrients by breaking the cell walls.

And, while digestive enzymes may still be in raw food, so are the defensive enzymes. That's why we don't eat raw beans or raw nettles. Bad things would happen.

And Jason, there are no raw food vegans in hell. You should be able to figure out why.

[johnsmith45678]

I'm pretty sure #2 is bullshit too. Unless the FDA starts including "life force" on nutrition labels.

Edited July 25, 2006 by johnsmith45678 (log)

[Ohba]

I'm extremely unversed in scientific matters. I suppose if I knew a whole let less, I might find this vaguely persuasive:

http://www.rawfoods.com/articles/eatonlyraw.html

http://www.rawfoods.com/faq.html

[Ohba]

No. 3 is bullshit is well. Beneath contempt, but bullshit, nonetheless.

[offcentre]

I'm extremely unversed in scientific matters. I suppose if I knew a whole let less, I might find this vaguely persuasive:

http://www.rawfoods.com/articles/eatonlyraw.html

http://www.rawfoods.com/faq.html

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Yeah - this is the kind of thing I am hearing on a daily basis.

Ignoring the obvious crap in these articles, it basically boils down to...

cooking/eating cooked food:

a. destroys much of the protein, vitamins and minerals and all the enzymes. The remainder being more difficult for the body to utilise.

b. depletes our bodies enzyme potential and drains our energy reserves.

c. suppresses the immune system (something about an increase of white blood cells after eating cooked food?)

d. is harder to digest than raw.

[johnsmith45678]

I'm extremely unversed in scientific matters. I suppose if I knew a whole let less, I might find this vaguely persuasive:

http://www.rawfoods.com/articles/eatonlyraw.html

http://www.rawfoods.com/faq.html

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Yeah - this is the kind of thing I am hearing on a daily basis.

Ignoring the obvious crap in these articles, it basically boils down to...

cooking/eating cooked food:

a. destroys much of the protein, vitamins and minerals and all the enzymes. The remainder being more difficult for the body to utilise.

b. depletes our bodies enzyme potential and drains our energy reserves.

c. suppresses the immune system (something about an increase of white blood cells after eating cooked food?)

d. is harder to digest than raw.

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a. I've always heard that cooking makes them easier to utilize, and that raw foods are more difficult to utilize.

b. BS

c. BS

d. I've always heard that raw is harder to digest.

[Patrick S]

2. Life force (as seen through Kirlian photography) of raw food is beneficial.

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Bwaaahaaahaa! That would have been a lot more sensible a century and a half ago, before we had a basic understanding of electrical phenomena. All that Kirlian photos show are corona discharges, which are created when you pass electric current through an object, making it in effect an electrode. The electricity ionizes the air around the "electrode," the ionized gas emits UV light, and that is what creates the corona, or "aura." That hypothesis is proven by, among other things, the fact that coronae don't appear when you do the procedure in a vacuum -- no air to be ionized, no corona. Also, corona discharges can be created using all kinds of conducting materials, and are not even a unique property of living or once-living materials.

[Kevin72]

Anthony Bourdain's Nasty Bits has a rather tasty dismemberment of the Raw Foods movement, followed by a rant in the postscript at the end of the book. It may not defeat any of her points, but it'd be a good cathartic read for you.

[Pontormo]

Watermelon instead of brownies?

Salad and a sandwich?

Sashimi?

In this weather we might consider uncooking our dinners once a week, or at least not cook our meals by combining leftovers with raw ingredients and restricting the use of appliances to nothing more powerful than a blender if a whisk, knife or grater will not do.

Raw Food is an easy target because its vegetarian advocates sound like zealots and the movement represents an extreme. Extreme heat calls for extreme measures.

A cold blended soup, and raw sauce of tomatoes, red onion, capers, parsley & tuna tossed with yesterday's rice might not be better for you than a slow braise, but it might be better for the environment were some of our stoves not turned on every night, she says not unaware of this post's preachy tone.

[cdh]

A diet of salad, gazpacho, sashimi, carpaccio, and fresh fruit doesn't sound all that hard to accommodate. Unroasted nuts don't appeal much, so I'd try to avoid them...

You'd have to eat the flesh for the protein if you're avoiding things that need cooking like beans and rice.

The mistake somebody could make here would be trying to fake up substitutes for cooked food. Embrace the rawness... eat the raw on its own terms. Find raw crunch in things like jicama that can be whittled down into any shape you want your crunchy things in.

I don't think I could stick with something like this for more than a week or two, but it might make a nice change. Why not give it a probationary week and see?

Does pasteurized milk count as raw, or cooked?

Edited July 26, 2006 by cdh (log)

[jsolomon]

I don't think that the Raw Food Diet has room for tetrapyloctomy, cdh...

[Pontormo]

Banana tetrapyloctomy?

[Patrick S]

Does pasteurized milk count as raw, or cooked?

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Undoubtedly people have different ideas about what constitutes cooking, but according to the wikipedia entry for Raw Food Diet:

The exact definition of raw food varies, but the general consensus is that a raw food is a food that has not been altered by any method that would change its basic chemical structure through heating it over 118 degrees Fahrenheit (48˚C).

Since the minimal temperature for pasteurization is 140F, pasteurized milk would be considered a cooked food on that definition.

[Grub]

But of COURSE you should eat raw food -- fruit, some vegetables, sashimi, sushi, steak tartare, carpaccio, oysters, there's lots of great raw food!

What? You want to ONLY eat raw food? That makes no more sense than to completely avoid eat raw food altogether. Nutritionally speaking, it wouldn't be as bad as say, eating ONLY BigMacs, but intellectionally speaking it makes about as much sense.

It boggles my mind how people are drawn to such extremism -- culinary, politically, etc.

[pikawicca]

Not content with going from a fun-lovin lass to vegetarian to vegan in the space of 6 weeks, my (soon-to-be-ex-if-she-carries-on-like-this) partner has now gone raw.

God help me.

In order to counter the endless stream of mindless raw food propaganda she spouts at me - gleaned from a couple of books she has managed to read written by dope smoking, dreadlock-sporting, skinny little freaks with names like shazzie - does anyone have any actual evidence as to the benefits or (more hopefully) drawbacks of said boring-as-shit diet.

I quite like her so am hoping this will soon be forgotten and we can go back to a normal diet of pork fat and blood sausage.

thanks.

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[pikawicca]

But of COURSE you should eat raw food -- fruit, some vegetables, sashimi, sushi, steak tartare, carpaccio, oysters, there's lots of great raw food!

What? You want to ONLY eat raw food? That makes no more sense than to completely avoid eat raw food altogether. Nutritionally speaking, it wouldn't be as bad as say, eating ONLY BigMacs, but intellectionally speaking it makes about as much sense.

It boggles my mind how people are drawn to such extremism -- culinary, politically, etc.

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I recently purchased two raw foods cookbooks because I was intrigued by the unusual techniques. The books had beautiful photos and complicated recipes. I decided to try a sprouted-chick pea hummous. After sloshing, draining, refilling four-times-a-day chick peas in a sprouting jar, I ended up with a mass of stinking, fermenting beans. I'm done.

Edited July 27, 2006 by pikawicca (log)

[johnsmith45678]

I've played around with sprouting mung beans (after being mentioned on Good Eats) and they turned out okay. But they just didn't compare to the big bags of long, fat sprouts available for 79c at the asian food market.

[offcentre]

Salad and a sandwich?

A cold blended soup, and raw sauce of tomatoes, red onion, capers, parsley & tuna tossed with yesterday's rice might not be better for you than a slow braise, but it might be better for the environment were some of our stoves not turned on every night, she says not unaware of this post's preachy tone.

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Not much that a raw foodie can eat there I'm afraid. Maybe substitute the bread for some dehydrated crackers or something. Raw tuna is not on the diet as, in my experience, most raw foodies tend to be vegans as well. Capers are probably cooked too aren't they? Uncooked rice?

Now sprouted chick pea hummous is something my partner has had some success with. It turned out a bit bitter, but I think with with a bit of tweaking it could be pretty good.

Raw chocolate isn't too bad - made with raw cacao nibs, soaked nuts and seeds and dried fruits blended together with some fruit like banana. Well, it doesn't taste too bad, but the texture is obviously nothing like.

I agree, its easy in this weather - we have always eaten a lot of salads, made juices and smoothies. The salads would have been supplemented by some protein or carbs, now thats pretty much out for her.

I

Edited July 27, 2006 by offcentre (log)