Real Raw Food Topic

[tracer]

And NOT cooking some foods can give you salmonella or botulism.

 

[mhaze]

I've been used to barbecued steaks and raw salads. Now I need to try raw steak and barbecued lettuce?

 

[tracer]

Country-fried barbecued lettuce, seared to perfection!

 

[Jorghnassen]

I've been used to barbecued steaks and raw salads. Now I need to try raw steak and barbecued lettuce?

I don't know, but a tartare and fries just go so well together.

/I wish I could have those right now...

 

[MelBrooksfan]

Now I need to try raw steak

Is there any other kind?

 

[Starthinker]

I quite enjoy raw peanuts. They move through me like a pipe cleaner race car.

 

[bluess]

Mr.Blue had a friend who went after everything faddish, including the raw food diet. Mr.Blue does very well on mostly salads with (cooked) chicken and other protein sources. On the other hand, my poor tummy can't deal, and I don't see why it should.

I once picked up the 'cookbook' Raw. I love food. I would starve to death on food prepared in that manner.

 

[g4macdad]

This all sounds very encouraging. I eat a diet of approximately 50% cooked foods and 50% raw. I guess I am 100% safe then.

 

[TV's Frank]

As I remember from Good Eats, cooking (say, boiling), does remove some nutrients from the food (especially if you toss out the water when done). However, it also breaks down cell walls that your digestive system can't always handle, releasing extra nutrients. Net result: cooking is good.

 

[g4macdad]

As I remember from Good Eats, cooking (say, boiling), does remove some nutrients from the food (especially if you toss out the water when done). However, it also breaks down cell walls that your digestive system can't always handle, releasing extra nutrients. Net result: cooking is good.

Yes cooking is good, and necessary, but no more or less than raw foods.

If you never eat raw foods you are going to have problems.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2371201605571520281

 

[luchog]

As I remember from Good Eats, cooking (say, boiling), does remove some nutrients from the food (especially if you toss out the water when done). However, it also breaks down cell walls that your digestive system can't always handle, releasing extra nutrients. Net result: cooking is good.

It really depends on the food. Did some research on this topic for a similar thread a while back, specifically about broccoli. Seems that there's a component to cruciferous vegetables in general, and broccoli in particular, that is undesirable. I don't remember exactly why, but it might have been that it interferes with calcium absorption. Light cooking destroys this compound without destroying other, beneficial nutrients. ISTR there was also something about overcooking causing something else to break down resulting in another undesirable compound.

 

[Dogdoctor]

It's important to eat both raw and cooked food depending on the food. Some foods when cooked can actually increase materials that cause various diseases including cancer. For example cooking some meats will produce Heterocyclic Amines which can cause cancer which wouldn't be present in uncooked meats otherwise. Link.

Studies also show that in specific vegetables, cooking release specific nutrients including beta Carotene, especially in carrots. Link.

This is why it's important to eat a both raw food diet and a cooked food diet.

The article about cooking meat doesn't show you should eat it raw. It says that if you cook at low temperatures for short periods of time then it should be safe. This would be much safer than not cooking it due to possible bacterial/parasite contamination. It also says you should microwave the meat and then cook it so less HCAs are formed.

 

[Jackalgirl]

I agree with the general premise that sometimes cooking is good, sometimes it's not -- it depends on what you're cooking, and how, and for how long.

Cooking releases the starches in a lot of stuff (grains and other highly fibrous plants, if I'm recalling correctly), so the discovery of fire (and cooking) was significant in that it allowed us, for the first time, to get extra nutrition out of something that wasn't all that nutritious at the time.

An anthropologist buddy of mine used to joke around about his absolute 100% guaranteed sure-fire austrolopithicine diet -- you can eat ANYTHING you want, but the only way you can prepare it is to beat it with a stick. "I guarantee you will lose weight!" he'd yell, in a "Craaaazy Watto" type voice.

On the other hand, it would not surprise me to learn that some of the highly-processed foods we eat are ultimately not so good for us -- especially since we're not biologically geared to eat them. Not that this automatically means that we should be eating an all raw diet, but that using evolutionary medical information to assess diet is a pretty good idea, and would give us some good insights about what we eat.

 

[Dogdoctor]

Whatever our digestive tracts evolved eating has nothing to do with what is best for us. Whatever is best for us wil be determined by science and not speculation about what we used to eat.

 

[g4macdad]

Whatever our digestive tracts evolved eating has nothing to do with what is best for us. Whatever is best for us wil be determined by science and not speculation about what we used to eat.

So what will you eat in the mean time?

 

[Dogdoctor]

So what will you eat in the mean time?

There is a bunch of info on what you should or shouldn't eat. I am not aware of up to date comprehensive sources of information but here is one source
http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/reprint/100/4/450
Basically you should eat a low fat diet with low amounts of sugars and a controlled amount of salt and drink alcohol in moderation. Maintaining a normal or thinner body weight might be good also as is regular exercise and not smoking.

 

[newlyfound]

I haven't read all thread and I am sorry if I am repeating someone else's comments. Cooked food is good because the cooking eliminates possible bacterias inside the prepared food. And to avoid maximum destruction of the nutrients, some cook their food the minimum time possible. As to the canned food, I think, the reason why it looks as if it's better than the non-canned is because the food get devitalized via the treatement it receives in adding all colorants, presevatives, chemicals to improve its taste etc. so to compensate that, the food industy goes out and tries to replace the lost nutrients by adding the corresponding vitamins, minerals. They also go ahead and display that on the package, I see it aaall the time "vitamin (this or that) fortified", please dont' take my word for it, next time you grocery shop, grab a can of something, read the ingredients section, and see how much stuff is in there that is anything but food. Turn around the can and read everything there is to read and see. Of course some companies are better than others, but basically the canning rules and laws are the same for all. Also, for common sense sake, preserved food (with preservatives and what not), would be less nutritious depending on how long it's been sitting in the can, I am not nutritionist but I would not expect a food that's been in a can for I don't exactly know how long to be as healthy as one that's just been packaged, so to be on the safe side, one should opt for fresh non-processed food.

 

[Jackalgirl]

There is a bunch of info on what you should or shouldn't eat. I am not aware of up to date comprehensive sources of information but here is one source
http://circ.ahajournals.org/cgi/reprint/100/4/450
Basically you should eat a low fat diet with low amounts of sugars and a controlled amount of salt and drink alcohol in moderation. Maintaining a normal or thinner body weight might be good also as is regular exercise and not smoking.

(Emphasis added by me) Why is this, I wonder? Why is a diet low in fat, with low amounts of sugar and controlled amounts of salt better for us than, say, a diet high in fat, with tons of sugar in it?

In opposition to your statement that "[w]hatever our digestive tracts evolved eating has nothing to do with what is best for us. Whatever is best for us wil be determined by science and not speculation about what we used to eat", I have this to say: a scientific (and paleoanthropological) study of what we used to eat is not speculation. I think that what we evolved to digest is very important in understanding proper dietary requirements now.

 

[Dogdoctor]

(Emphasis added by me) Why is this, I wonder? Why is a diet low in fat, with low amounts of sugar and controlled amounts of salt better for us than, say, a diet high in fat, with tons of sugar in it?

In opposition to your statement that "[w]hatever our digestive tracts evolved eating has nothing to do with what is best for us. Whatever is best for us wil be determined by science and not speculation about what we used to eat", I have this to say: a scientific (and paleoanthropological) study of what we used to eat is not speculation. I think that what we evolved to digest is very important in understanding proper dietary requirements now.

Whatever fossil evidence they have of our diets and digestive tracts it is limited I am sure and they are making generalizations to say anything about it but besides that why would study show anything about what we should eat? Do you suppose that evolution knew we were going to be eating commercially grown animals and plants? Do you suppose evolution had any idea what was best for us? If we follow what we evolved to be eating many of us would die from parasites and malnutrtion as what likely happened to us as we evolved. Is there any science behind your idea?
As far as the reccomendations it comes from studies showing that people who eat high fat diets are prone to getting various cancers and people who eat lots of sugar are prone to dental disease and people who are overweight are prone to various problems etc.

 

[Jackalgirl]

Whatever fossil evidence they have of our diets and digestive tracts it is limited I am sure and they are making generalizations to say anything about it but besides that why would study show anything about what we should eat? Do you suppose that evolution knew we were going to be eating commercially grown animals and plants? Do you suppose evolution had any idea what was best for us? If we follow what we evolved to be eating many of us would die from parasites and malnutrtion as what likely happened to us as we evolved. Is there any science behind your idea?

Sure. There's a branch of anthropology that studies such things, called "medical anthropology". In fact, there's a specialization in medical anthropology -- evolutionary medicine -- that even more specifically deals with such stuff.

Evolutionary medicine bases its prescriptions on the idea tht rates of cultural change exceed the rates of biological change. Our hunger-gatherer physiology was shaped over millions of years, while the cultural changes leading to contemporary lifestyles have occured rapidly. ("Cultural Anthropology: The Human Challenge", Haviland, Prins, Walrath, McBride, Eleventh Edition, p. 70)

So there is a branch of science studying this stuff. Some of the names mentioned are Melvin Konner, Marjorie Shostak, George Armelagos (all anthropologists) and a physician by the name of Boyd Eaton (I mean, these are the folks listed in the sidebar in my text book that talks about evolutionary medicine).

Please bear in mind that I am not saying that we all need to go back to hunter-gatherer lifestyles, or that there is no value whatsoever to modern methods of plant & animal husbandry, farming techniques, cookery, medicine, etc. I'm simply saying that there's something to be said for doing a systematic study of such paleoanthropological information (where it can be found accurately, of course), and that I suspect that some answers to problems we have with modern diets can be found, or at least, suggested there.

As far as the reccomendations it comes from studies showing that people who eat high fat diets are prone to getting various cancers and people who eat lots of sugar are prone to dental disease and people who are overweight are prone to various problems etc.

Oh, no doubt there. I'm not disputing the studies. But they don't attempt to answer the question "why" -- they are simply presenting cause and effect relationships. If you can get some data as to understanding the "why" of these things -- why are high-fat diets correlated to cancer, why do high-sugar diets lead to dental problems (and diabetes), and so forth -- then you can start making futher connections and plans as to figuring out how to have a balanced, moderate diet (and possibly also predict what new food products might be prone to causing dietary problems).

P.S. Let me add, just as a sidebar, that one of the arguments made in my Anthro book is that the development of culture has been one of humanity's most significant discoveries/developments. Culture -- as a means of social, economic, and technologic organization -- has allowed us to expand into areas in which we normally couldn't live, in numbers the land normally couldn't support. In other words, it allows us to bypass the rather lengthy process of evolution -- instead of having to wait millions of years to adapt to a cold climate, for example, we figure out a way to make clothing (and we discover fire), and through our shared culture, this idea ramifies through a large number of people and presto! you've got humans living in cold climates in practically no time at all. So that's what the book is talking about when they say things like "rates of cultural change exceed the rates of biological change."