Posted by hanlie | Posted in Health and Fertility | Posted on 11-09-2009
I see more and more references in the mainstream media to the raw diet. Sadly it’s often being described as a new fad – unsustainable, anti-social, cultish and even “unhealthy”.
Eating raw food is far from “new”. Before the advent of cooking, all humans ate raw food. In fact, all other species, left to their own devices, still eat their food raw.
Our bodies are ideally suited to eating our food raw. When we chemically alter our food by cooking and processing it, nutrients are destroyed and our bodies degenerate.
Most health care professionals are taught that raw foods are difficult to digest and cope with. Yet, one of the first things people notice when they switch to raw foods is vastly improved digestion. Pythagoras wrote about the healing power of raw food as early as 500 BC.
Ironically many of the most enthusiastic pioneers of raw foods discovered their health-promoting qualities as a result of personal health problems.
Max Bircher-Brenner, a Swiss doctor, discovered the potential of uncooked foods when he had jaundice early in his career. He was unable to eat anything, until his wife offered him slices of apple. Not only could he stomach and digest it, but within days he was well again. Soon afterward he was called to treat a woman who was unable to digest anything and was slowly starving. He tried feeding her raw foods and she started thriving. This spurred Bircher-Brenner to eventually open a clinic in Zurich which, since 1897, continues to be one of the most highly respected centres for healing in the world.
German physician Max Gerson, a contemporary of Bircher-Brenner, experimented with his diet to treat his recurrent migraines. He started with milk, but got sicker. Only when he turned to uncooked fruit and vegetables did he experience dramatic healing. He ate fresh fruit and vegetables for the rest of his life. Gerson rose to be, in the opinion of his one-time patient Albert Schweitzer, “one of the most emininent geniuses in medical history”. The first time he suggested raw food to a migraine sufferer, the person not only healed his migraines, but lupus too! Gerson became famous for his treatment of cancer.
A Danish doctor, Kristine Nolfi, turned to raw food as a last resort to beat breast cancer. She won. She started treating her patients with raw foods and met with great success. Her work is continued to this day at the Humlegaarden sanatorium in Denmark.
Norman W. Walker, the “father of juice therapy”, rid himself of the excruciating pains of neuritis with raw foods. He lived actively and healthily until the age of 99 and wrote many books on health, healing and juicing. He also invented the Norwalk juicer.
The American dentist Weston A. Price traveled the world studying primitive societies and concluded in 1945 already that processed foods pose appalling dangers to human health. He argued that human health is related to the wholeness and freshness of foods we consume, and that a high level of health is almost impossible to achieve unless a diet is rich in uncooked foods.
Dr. Francis M. Pottenger’s studies confirmed Price’s findings. His laboratory discoveries on fresh foods and their effects on health paralleled Price’s epidemiological studies. He conducted the famous Pottenger cat study, which met the most rigorous scientific standards of the day and lasted for ten years, spanning several generations of animals. From these studies he proceeded to treat his patients with raw foods and became world famous for curing a variety of illnesses.
These doctors and individuals met with great resistance and ridicule from the medical establishment. They were, and still are, regarded as quacks because they dared to treat people without drugs and surgery, the lucrative, patented methodology of Western Medicine.
Today, many centers around the world use raw food to treat and reverse a wide variety of diseases and conditions. More and more people prefer to prevent illness in the first place by following a high raw lifestyle.
And of course, we now have the internet, where we can talk directly to people who have experienced amazing health transformations. The word is getting out there.
This is no fad. High raw eating is a way of living whose time has come.
Hanlie, although our diets and diet philosophies are different, this is one area where we agree (actually, I think we agree on a lot). An important part of my program is eating a lot of fresh, raw veggies. I also eat fresh, raw fruits. While I do eat cooked veggies too, I try to eat raw veggies as much as I can. Sometime soon I will do a related post on the success my step-sister has had on a totally raw food diet.
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I don’t know that it’s a fad, because I had a friend who did the raw food diet about 10 years ago. So it’s been around in some form or another for a long time.
It’s not for me, but I do so appreciate people like you who point out the value, and the necessity of healthy eating, including lots of fruits and vegetables.
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Interesting history/information. I must admit that when you mention the raw food diet, my mind goes to the Sex & The City episode where they went to the latest trendy raw food restaurant and Samantha hooked up with their waiter (whose name escapes me).
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I thought Weston Price was of the opinion that grains, beans, and fruits are very bad, and saturated fat just fine? I don’t like extremists of any flavor, personally, and he seems out there, from what I hear. I think cooking is what separated humans from the rest of the animals, and I don’t think raw is always best. A lot of foods, especially veggies, are full of toxins. Rhubarb, grains, cashews, none of these are edible raw. It’s too early for me to think of others, but I’ve learned some fascinating stuff about food (not from nutrition, but from toxicology and chemistry, my favorite subjects)
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i looooooooove smoothies, i wish i took more time to make them.
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I’m a big fan of green smoothies too!
I like to eat a mix of raw and cooked foods; in my mind they both have advantages and disadvantages. Plus, I like the variety!
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Well researched post and I agree with all.
As an aside what do you feel about steamed veggies?
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@pbdphoto: I steam some stuff from time to time, like butternut squash for instance. I’m not 100% raw! And steaming is probably the most benign cooking method…
Hanlie, I am so happy you wrote this!
I have been called a hippie and a Kook in recent months and I don’t eat 100%, just High Raw (especially in summer) and it hurts but I know how much better I feel, how much more energy I have, etc.
it’s not a new concept for sure!
Thanks for the spotlight on this topic
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Eating raw food is obviously not a fad; it’s the media focus and the plethora of books coming out on the subject that make it faddish. When they move on to the next “new discovery”, folks will continue eating raw food. Sheesh, even at my heaviest, my diet was about 30-40% raw. It was that other 60-70% that was the problem.
Have a lovely weekend, Hanlie!
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I ate 100% raw for 2 months last year and I felt absolutely amazing. My digestive system got a fresh start and I had noticeably more energy. So did my husband (he lasted two weeks, but felt great, just didn’t have willpower to continue) I recommend it highly, especially as part of a healthy diet or as a short-term experiment.
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Lots of good information!
I like eating raw, whole foods. It just seems natural to me. I don’t think cooking foods is a problem as long as one has raw also, like Crabby, but processed stuff is different and need to be avoided. It’s kind of interesting that some people feel humans were meant to be carnivores yet we do not do well with raw meat.
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I don’t feel that the raw food diet is a fad, at least not for most folks who choose to eat this way. I see it as a lifestyle and once you change to having a lot of raw foods, it seems that you want more.
It is not at all the same as other “diets” that you cannot maintain because you either or so hungry or so nutrient deprived. Raw foods give you an abundance of nutrients and you feel satisfied by eating them.
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I have started reading some of the books (that you mention from time to time).
And we (all) have started eating one raw fruits meal per day.
Fruit is something that I have to be careful about – it CAN go on and on all day. A bite here, a bit there, and that gets me into trouble. (for the kids it is a really good way of getting a wide variety of fruit in every day).
I try hard to eat MEALS.
So the one, all raw, fruit MEAL thing is really working for me.
I have what I want – at that meal – and then when it is done – I wait until the next day and decide what fruit I am hungry for that day.
I eat 2-3 whole pieces of fruit at each of these fruit meals.
today it was a peach, a banana, and 6 large strawberries.
Each days it is a different combination. this is a really good answer for me.
I am doing the same thing with veggies – for my late in the day meal – large selection of veggies. Sometimes raw, sometimes lightly steamed (just to take the edge off the rawness of things like asparagus that I don’t eat raw – does anyone eat asparagus raw???).
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Not a fad or a diet, a way of life. I try to go raw every once in awhile — and I always feel fabulous but not to diet or lose weight, but to gain energy and cleanse.
Jamie Walker´s last blog ..I Love Lettuce Wraps
Not a fad or a diet, a way of life. I try to go raw every once in awhile — and I always feel fabulous but not to diet or lose weight, but to gain energy and cleanse.
Jamie Walker´s last blog ..I Love Lettuce Wraps
BTW I love your blog!
If it is a fad, it is an ancient one! I am loving my daily green smoothies and I will usually also have at least one salad and often some fruit for a snack. I don’t see myself going completely raw, but think I can do high raw most days of the week. Jon Gabriel talks about obese people being malnourished and I can not thank you enough for turning me on to green smoothies. I love how they taste and how they make me feel. I feel like my body is getting the nutrients it needs. I love that green smoothies are reducing my cravings for processed and unhealthy foods. You are truly an inspiration to me Hanlie and I am so grateful to you. You are doing great work sharing this info with the world. xoxo
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Yesterday I realized that Kay Sheppard (works with food addicts, whole foods, portions, eating only at meal time, etc) always has said that at least 1/2 of our veggie intake needed to be RAW veggies.
So, if you had veggies for lunch that were the kind of veggies that needed to be cooked, then you were to plan the kind of veggies that could be eaten raw for dinner. So that you stayed at least 1/2 and 1/2.
And that never seemed odd to me.
I always thought it was to increase roughage/fiber, spread the different types of vitamins around, and make it so that you didn’t get yourself ‘hung up’ on one type of food group/cooking. Because we all DO TEND to get ‘hung up’.
Another thing that I have been really careful about is not OVER cooking the kinds of veggies that I eat that have to be cooked. I have things down to a science to ‘just take the edge off’ and then get them off the stove and under cold water so that the cooking process stops immediately. Al Dente.
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Moving my kids over to green smoothies – what would you do to suggest a ‘moderate taste’ start for them???? Many, many things – I have taken something and then added a bit of something else – to introduce a ‘concept’. Then I just keep upping/switching the percentages – so that they adjust painlessly. Ideas?
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AND – in my experience – you have to write FOR YOURSELF. It allows you to work through your own process. It allows you to listen to yourself.
But you can’t expect to change everyone else in the process – or you will drive yourself bonkers – because change is a slow and subtle thing.
Like me – do I think that everyone has to be IN maintenance- for me to write about maintenance??? Or down to the last 10 pounds – for me to write about losing it – ???
I do NOT. I would totally drive myself crazy if that is what I thought.
I write about my experiences because I recognize that I am unique (we all are). And I also recognize that my viewpoint is unusual.
And so is yours.
When you write – you educate. And that means that bits and pieces start to fall into place. And often people do not even realize that their mind is growing and that they are becoming better able to deal.
Am I quite sure that YOU are part of the reason that I jumped on that flier at the gym offering the organic veggie share program- ??? Absolutely. Because you had put the thought in my head. Is it possible that I have walked by this same flier in the past and didn’t even realize the significance??? – absolutely.
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thank you for being you and for sharing with all of us. As you continue to move forward – we will all grow and benefit from your experiences.
vickie´s last blog ..Saints preserve us
I love this post. Especially the last paragraph in bold!
This is really an interesting question. I try to be as fair as possible, and I’m wondering how the raw food thing is different from fad diets. I’m sure plenty of people on the low-carb diets said “is this just another fad?” and somehow found resources and historical examples to back up their claim that it was different, and not a fad.
Somehow the raw thing feels different, but I’m not sure why. Somehow it feels tied in to a much larger movement, the real, local, sustainable movement. And that seems like so much more than a fad to me.
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As a big believer in God, I think he gave us everything we need to keep healthy. I think food in its most natural state is no doubt the easiest for us to digest, it’s nutrients the most accessable. I don’t care what the media calls anything. Weren’t these the people, who in the fifties, were touting the health benefits of smoking. I wouldn’t worry about media experts. I go by how I feel, and you seem to be feeling great. I like reading your blog as it makes me think about what I eat in a more conscious way.
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Great post! Lots of great research and information to think about!
Karla
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I also totally stopped heating olive oil and I switched to cold pressed. I think that is from you too – isn’t it???
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That is so interesting, because my only exposure to raw food diets isn’t from people trying to lose weight, but vegans trying to take things a step further. I’ve not even considered it as a losing weight kind of diet, but I suppose people doing it for that purpose are twisting it into a fad diet because they will never keep it up. If done for the right reasons it’s a great thing. It’s a shame that it’s being twisted into a fad diet.
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I always feel best when I eat raw plant foods. They just heal me from the inside out!
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Great info.
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