RE: Importance of food being raw...

March 21, 2004

@@@@@@@@@

> On the Real Milk site, it explains how absolutely terrible any heat

> is to the components of milk. Pasteurization is relatively low

heat

> and for a very short time compared to the way almost any other

animal

> product is cooked. Yet, we all know that merely pasteurization

turns

> a superb, health-giving food into one which actually destroys

> health.

@@@@@@@@

While it's clear that pasteurization is completely unnecessary,

illogical, and lowers the nutritional value of milk, I'm not aware of

any evidence that pasteurized milk is actually *harmful*. Fortified

milk, homogenized milk, or milk from improperly fed or raised animals

might be harmful, but I don't think the heat treatment itself is so

deleterious. For a suckling infant of course, it would be extremely

deleterious to heat their mother's milk, but I think it's just a

nutritional compromise as an ordinary food.

@@@@@@@@@@@@

> It appears that not only is cooking foods, including any animal

> products, NOT avoided, but extra time and effort is taken into

fully

> cooking all foods. Then, it appears some raw sauerkraut and a

> fermented beverage is taken as magic to make the cooking safe.

@@@@@@@@

Well, the WAPF/NT philosophy is not specifically a raw food

philosophy; raw animal foods are seen to be crucial at some level in

the diet, but not to the exclusion or even dominance of cooked animal

foods. I don't know that there's anything inherently unsafe about

cooking, or that there's anything that needs to be specifically

compensated for by raw or fermented foods, although it is often

argued that the bacteria and enzymes will have a positive effect on

the digestion of the meal as a whole. NT is a broad and inclusive

philosophy that places more emphasis on balance, variety, and the

integration of food with social and environmental conditions, not

optimal nutrition. There difference between " optimal " and " pretty

damn good " is probably meaningless in practice for most people, and

an ostensibly suboptimal practice like eating cooked animal foods on

a regular basis is validated by traditional societies with vibrant

health, which is probably the overriding criterion in the NT/WAPF

approach.

@@@@@@@@@

> According to what I've read in on the site and in Nourishing

> Traditions, unhomogenized, pasteurized milk should be absolutely

> perfect food if eaten with some sauerkraut or a cup of kombucha...

> but I know no one here would advise this, correct? We know that

> eating raw is more than just taking enzymes into consideration.

@@@@@@@@@

I'm not sure if I understand your question. I would certainly advise

eating raw milk, raw sauerkraut and a cup of kombucha together--that

could be a perfectly great small meal by itself! I haven't gotten

into kombucha myself, but I eat kefir and sauerkraut/kimchi together

as part of a meal at least once a day for most of the year! If you

mean having a diet of those three items exclusively, that's probably

sustainable and adequate, but just impractical and unattractive for

any number of obvious reasons.

@@@@@@@@@@@@@

> Why, if cooking foods takes extra time, destroys and alters the

> components of the food, and makes animal products more difficult to

> digest, should one be avoiding them raw? If we accept that foods

> should be consumed to nourish our bodies and not satisfy our

> addictions, should we not simply eat all animal products raw? (I

> emphasized animal products because I know lightly cooking

vegetables

> makes them easier to digest and to assimilate the nutrients.)

@@@@@@@@@@@@

Well, this goes back to the points I made above, but you do have a

compelling line of reasoning, and this is similar to the logic behind

my personal practice of eating almost all my animal foods raw. I

never heat eggs or milk, and almost never heat meat (I never heat any

ruminant meats, just the occasional pork, eel, and some insects so

far, but if I were to incorporate rodents and various wild omnivores

into my diet I'd probably cook most of them unless I could amass

sufficient evidence of its suboptimality). I'm personally attracted

to the ideal of optimal nutrition, but part of it is eccentricity and

I don't think it's necessary for most people to pursue nutritional

optimization to its extreme. Very very few people would want follow

a ruthlessly optimized diet like mine, although I personally enjoy it

immensely. Restating my point above, damn good can be good enough.

Then there are extra-nutritional aspects to food--aesthetic, social,

cultural, ecological, etc aspects--that may conflict with optimal

nutrition, and so a balance needs to be found at the level of total

lifestyle.

Also keep in mind that rawness (aka heat treament) is only one of

many dimensions that determine the nutritional value of food, and is

probably often much less significant than other processing

dimensions, like soil fertility, storage conditions, microbe

treatment (fermentation), soaking, sprouting, manipulation of

macroscopic part-whole structure (cutting, grinding, milling,

juicing, etc). I bet you could take the diet of any actual 100% raw

foodist and find tons of ways to improve its nutritional value in

ways that have nothing to do with heat treatment, and even improve it

by including cooked foods. Further, like most forms of processing,

heat treatment may have both positive and negative effects whose

relative weight is unclear in specific cases. And of course heat

treatment is an extremely heterogeneous category of processing in the

first place about which few generalizations can be made. So these

observations put it in perspective.

(All that said, my own diet is 80-85% raw...)

@@@@@@@@

> I am not meaning to insult anyone, it just seems that the staff

> contradicts themselves.

@@@@@@@@@@

I don't personally take the WAPF board members as dietary role

models, and offhand I can't even recall the details of their sample

diets from that WAPF article, which didn't seem relevant to me

personally, but there are a few key points here. One is that they

exemplify the inherent flexibility and culturally-modulated nature of

the NT/WAPF philosophy, so there is no contradiction. Further, I

don't think they have any intention of being gurus at the level of

personal diet, but rather exemplifying the ideal of finding a

personal balance that works for the individual. Another point is

that by most standards they are very healthy diets! (At least SF's,

if memory serves me correctly.) They are probably better compared to

an average person from this list! And maybe they are struggling to

bridge the gap between their personal ideals and their daily

realities like most of us. As to their consistently with NT/WAPF

ideals, I believe they include certain key items like real milk and

fermented foods that are cornerstones of NT/WAPF. Also, a major part

of NT/WAPF is the quality of the source, independent of the method of

preparation, and I have reason to believe those folks select rather

high-quality sources for their ingredients.

Mike

SE Pennsylvania

The best way to predict the future is to invent it. --Alan Kay

March 21, 2004

>> If we accept that foods

should be consumed to nourish our bodies and not satisfy our

addictions, should we not simply eat all animal products raw? <<

But those aren't the only two alternatives! There is nothing wrong with eating

food because you enjoy cooking, because you like to have dinner parties, because

of cultural or family traditions around food, because it tastes good. These are

all valid and meaningful attributes of human culture and society. The

traditional diets Dr. Price studied included cooked foods and none of those

societies ate JUST to nourish their bodies, nor were they all in the thrall of

food addictions.

Hmmm, time for my " Food of Love " article to make the rounds again... I need to

put that on my website so I can link to it.....

Done!

http://www.caberfeidh.com/FoodOfLove.htm

Christie

March 22, 2004

(I emphasized animal products because I know lightly cooking vegetables

makes them easier to digest and to assimilate the nutrients.) - Blake

Hi Blake. I disagree with your statement. For some plant foods cooking may

be beneficial and even necessary to make them edible (taro root comes to

mind). But for other foods, eating raw is simply better to preserve

nutrients.

Here is a complete article on the subject of raw vs. cooked foods. Plant

and animal foods are discussed at great length.

http://www.beyondveg.com/tu-j-l/raw-cooked/raw-cooked-1a.shtml

Deanna

March 23, 2004

Hi,

Yes, these are perfectly fair points. I understand most people just

look back to how traditional people lived and see how their (often

cooked) food impacted their health, often not noticeably negatively.

Yet, I forgot to discuss how, when many people switch from a crappy

diet to a pure, healthful one, they experience symptoms of

detoxification. The body cleans itself out, rebuilds itself... and

the symptoms can be very unenjoyable, but undoubtedly well worth it.

I think that eating cooked foods, whether they are from perfect

sources or not, is only going to slow your body down because the

foods are not as health-giving as when raw. The reason I am so firm

in my belief that raw is best is because when I switched diets, I got

itchy rashes all over my body, which would come on and off for

literally months.

It was not until I ate everything raw did they deminish. Rashes are

universal symptoms of the body expelling toxins out through the skin.

No longer eating any plain cooked meats, vegetables, or potatoes

allowed my body to finish whatever it was dealing with. It wasn't

candy or soda that was interfering, it was natural, cooked foods...

So, I just think it is important to try to avoid cooking as much as

possible, I guess mostly if you are new to a healthy diet. It takes

some fun out of meals, but not much, plus what is more convenient

than not having to heat up any foods a bit?! It'd be a different

story if we were all raised on natural foods, but obviously we were

not. Soda, candy, and cereal can take a toll on the body over the

years.

Blake

> @@@@@@@@@

> > On the Real Milk site, it explains how absolutely terrible any

heat

> > is to the components of milk. Pasteurization is relatively low

> heat

> > and for a very short time compared to the way almost any other

> animal

> > product is cooked. Yet, we all know that merely pasteurization

> turns

> > a superb, health-giving food into one which actually destroys

> > health.

> @@@@@@@@

>

> While it's clear that pasteurization is completely unnecessary,

> illogical, and lowers the nutritional value of milk, I'm not aware

of

> any evidence that pasteurized milk is actually *harmful*.

Fortified

> milk, homogenized milk, or milk from improperly fed or raised

animals

> might be harmful, but I don't think the heat treatment itself is so

> deleterious. For a suckling infant of course, it would be

extremely

> deleterious to heat their mother's milk, but I think it's just a

> nutritional compromise as an ordinary food.

>

> @@@@@@@@@@@@

> > It appears that not only is cooking foods, including any animal

> > products, NOT avoided, but extra time and effort is taken into

> fully

> > cooking all foods. Then, it appears some raw sauerkraut and a

> > fermented beverage is taken as magic to make the cooking safe.

> @@@@@@@@

>

> Well, the WAPF/NT philosophy is not specifically a raw food

> philosophy; raw animal foods are seen to be crucial at some level

in

> the diet, but not to the exclusion or even dominance of cooked

animal

> foods. I don't know that there's anything inherently unsafe about

> cooking, or that there's anything that needs to be specifically

> compensated for by raw or fermented foods, although it is often

> argued that the bacteria and enzymes will have a positive effect on

> the digestion of the meal as a whole. NT is a broad and inclusive

> philosophy that places more emphasis on balance, variety, and the

> integration of food with social and environmental conditions, not

> optimal nutrition. There difference between " optimal " and " pretty

> damn good " is probably meaningless in practice for most people, and

> an ostensibly suboptimal practice like eating cooked animal foods

on

> a regular basis is validated by traditional societies with vibrant

> health, which is probably the overriding criterion in the NT/WAPF

> approach.

>

> @@@@@@@@@

> > According to what I've read in on the site and in Nourishing

> > Traditions, unhomogenized, pasteurized milk should be absolutely

> > perfect food if eaten with some sauerkraut or a cup of

kombucha...

> > but I know no one here would advise this, correct? We know that

> > eating raw is more than just taking enzymes into consideration.

> @@@@@@@@@

>

> I'm not sure if I understand your question. I would certainly

advise

> eating raw milk, raw sauerkraut and a cup of kombucha together--

that

> could be a perfectly great small meal by itself! I haven't gotten

> into kombucha myself, but I eat kefir and sauerkraut/kimchi

together

> as part of a meal at least once a day for most of the year! If you

> mean having a diet of those three items exclusively, that's

probably

> sustainable and adequate, but just impractical and unattractive for

> any number of obvious reasons.

>

> @@@@@@@@@@@@@

> > Why, if cooking foods takes extra time, destroys and alters the

> > components of the food, and makes animal products more difficult

to

> > digest, should one be avoiding them raw? If we accept that foods

> > should be consumed to nourish our bodies and not satisfy our

> > addictions, should we not simply eat all animal products raw? (I

> > emphasized animal products because I know lightly cooking

> vegetables

> > makes them easier to digest and to assimilate the nutrients.)

> @@@@@@@@@@@@

>

> Well, this goes back to the points I made above, but you do have a

> compelling line of reasoning, and this is similar to the logic

behind

> my personal practice of eating almost all my animal foods raw. I

> never heat eggs or milk, and almost never heat meat (I never heat

any

> ruminant meats, just the occasional pork, eel, and some insects so

> far, but if I were to incorporate rodents and various wild

omnivores

> into my diet I'd probably cook most of them unless I could amass

> sufficient evidence of its suboptimality). I'm personally

attracted

> to the ideal of optimal nutrition, but part of it is eccentricity

and

> I don't think it's necessary for most people to pursue nutritional

> optimization to its extreme. Very very few people would want

follow

> a ruthlessly optimized diet like mine, although I personally enjoy

it

> immensely. Restating my point above, damn good can be good

enough.

> Then there are extra-nutritional aspects to food--aesthetic,

social,

> cultural, ecological, etc aspects--that may conflict with optimal

> nutrition, and so a balance needs to be found at the level of total

> lifestyle.

>

> Also keep in mind that rawness (aka heat treament) is only one of

> many dimensions that determine the nutritional value of food, and

is

> probably often much less significant than other processing

> dimensions, like soil fertility, storage conditions, microbe

> treatment (fermentation), soaking, sprouting, manipulation of

> macroscopic part-whole structure (cutting, grinding, milling,

> juicing, etc). I bet you could take the diet of any actual 100%

raw

> foodist and find tons of ways to improve its nutritional value in

> ways that have nothing to do with heat treatment, and even improve

it

> by including cooked foods. Further, like most forms of processing,

> heat treatment may have both positive and negative effects whose

> relative weight is unclear in specific cases. And of course heat

> treatment is an extremely heterogeneous category of processing in

the

> first place about which few generalizations can be made. So these

> observations put it in perspective.

>

> (All that said, my own diet is 80-85% raw...)

>

> @@@@@@@@

> > I am not meaning to insult anyone, it just seems that the staff

> > contradicts themselves.

> @@@@@@@@@@

>

> I don't personally take the WAPF board members as dietary role

> models, and offhand I can't even recall the details of their sample

> diets from that WAPF article, which didn't seem relevant to me

> personally, but there are a few key points here. One is that they

> exemplify the inherent flexibility and culturally-modulated nature

of

> the NT/WAPF philosophy, so there is no contradiction. Further, I

> don't think they have any intention of being gurus at the level of

> personal diet, but rather exemplifying the ideal of finding a

> personal balance that works for the individual. Another point is

> that by most standards they are very healthy diets! (At least

SF's,

> if memory serves me correctly.) They are probably better compared

to

> an average person from this list! And maybe they are struggling to

> bridge the gap between their personal ideals and their daily

> realities like most of us. As to their consistently with NT/WAPF

> ideals, I believe they include certain key items like real milk and

> fermented foods that are cornerstones of NT/WAPF. Also, a major

part

> of NT/WAPF is the quality of the source, independent of the method

of

> preparation, and I have reason to believe those folks select rather

> high-quality sources for their ingredients.

>

> Mike

> SE Pennsylvania

>

> The best way to predict the future is to invent it. --Alan Kay

March 23, 2004

if you have a look at people on these all raw food diets

over time many become emaciated, loose enamel on teeth

sure they initially feel good. But not down track

Re: Importance of food being raw...