Raw Food: A Good Way To Boost Your Health?

Tempted to go on a raw food diet? Adding more fresh produce, nuts and seeds to your diet can give your health a real boost. Though some people go 100 percent raw, you don't have to if you want to enjoy some of the benefits of this diet.

What's Raw Food?

A raw food diet is just what the name suggests — a diet made up of raw food. The basic idea is that cooking foods reduces their nutritional value and destroys beneficial enzymes. Some raw food advocates even say that cooking foods makes them toxic, and they believe that a strict raw food diet can cure many ailments, like allergies, headaches, diabetes, and bloating. Eating a raw food diet for a while might help you "detox", and you could lose a good deal of weight. 

What exactly does raw mean, you might ask? Some raw foodists go by the principle that it is perfectly acceptable to gently heat food, as long as it doesn't reach a temperature of 115 degrees Fahrenheit (that's about 46 degrees Celsius) or above. This is the temperature at which vitamins and minerals would start to leave the produce, they say. 

What Can You Eat On A Raw Food Diet?

Many raw foodists are also vegans, in which case they might refer to themselves as "raw food vegans". Vegans don't eat anything that originated from animals — so meat, fish, eggs, dairy products and honey are out completely, whether they are raw or not. Non-vegans following a raw food diet might enjoy sushi and white cheese which were made without cooking. These are often available from farmers' markets, but it is also possible to make them yourself. In that case, you'd want to use raw milk. 

Whether the raw food dieter is a vegan or not, their diet will consist mainly of vegetables, fruits, seeds, nuts and grains. Processed food is almost completely out for those who are 100 percent raw. It's not just that processed foods usually involve some cooking, but also that they have often been preserved in some way and aren't entirely fresh. This, too, is said to reduce the nutrient content of the food. 

The key might be to stop thinking about all the foods you can't eat when you are on a raw food diet, and to start thinking about all the tasty things you could try out. Think things like dates wrapped in green lettuce, home-made fruit juices, large portabella mushrooms stuffed with rocket and sunflower seeds, cold soups, guacamole, zucchini "spaghetti", kale and cabbage salads, fruit pates, walnut spread, and all kinds of crackers made with exclusively raw ingredients. The raw food dieter doesn't have to resign themselves to a boring diet at all. Once you decide to go raw, a whole new world opens up — and you're bound to have a more varied diet than ever before! 

See Also: Monotonous Diets And Our Health

Raw Food: Why Go Raw, And Dangers To Avoid

Raw Food Benefits

Why might you like to go raw? We already mentioned that hardcore raw foodists believe that this way of eating is healthier. If you're not really a health food junkie or into an alternative lifestyle already, you may wonder whether raw food is for you.

You can hardly deny that many people rely heavily on processed foods and large amounts of carbohydrates and fats. You also know that this really isn't all that healthy. Could you improve your diet? Making a radical change may be easier than trying to reduce your intake of "offending foods", and it's clear that a diet that includes much more fresh produce is going to benefit your health. 

Going raw may well be a great way to lose quite a bit of weight, if that's what you would like. Raw food meals are generally lower in calories. You can't really eat too many veggies. Your vitamin and mineral intake will almost certainly go up, though you'll want to make sure that you eat as many different fruits and veggies as possible to ensure you cover the whole spectrum of nutrients. A raw food diet is also rich in fiber, which will help you as well. 

Another great benefit of trying raw food for a while is that you'll be forced to get creative in the kitchen. You will try lots of new meals, but you will probably find preparing food takes an awful lot less time. That's another huge plus for many busy people. 

Finally, know that you don't have to go 100 percent raw or commit to this diet for the rest of your life. With the large amounts of great raw food recipes that are around online these days, you can simply decide to add more raw food to your diet.

What Not To Do

As a lacto-ovo vegetarian who isn't a raw foodist, I have to admit that I didn't work hard enough to include proteins in my diet in the past. Since participating in SteadyHealth's very own nutritional and exercise plan, I have bettered my life in this area. My go-to proteins are now cottage cheese, lentils, and tofu, and I feel a lot better now I get more protein. Raw foodists have to be careful that their diets include protein.

Yes, leafy greens like kale do have protein — but are you really getting enough? Don't assume you are, and do your research. Sprouted beans, lentils and grains are easy to create at home, and they are tasty as well as full of protein. Spirulina, mushrooms, seeds and nuts are other important sources of protein. 

Not only will your electricity bill not go down if you go raw, all that fresh produce and those grains, seeds and nuts are generally more expensive than the average diet. It may be an investment worth making, but unless you live in a place with well-stocked and cheap farmers' markets, your overall food expenses will not go down. If you can make an extreme improvement by going raw (because you're finally staying away from all that high-cholesterol stuff, for instance), your new diet may help you prevent medical bills however. 

See Also: Chicken, Fish, Beef, or Pork: Which Meat Is Best for Paleo, Primal, and Low-Carb Diets?

"Don't give up too early" is another valuable tip. People who are new to raw food report headaches and feeling weird. That's quite normal if you went from an unhealthy diet to a much healthier diet. Your body is detoxing. As long as you make sure you get plenty of the right foods, you will start feeling better — and better than you did before your raw food diet — very soon.