Raw Food is Often Good Food

When I wrote my somewhat cranky and very fiery post last week about all that is wrong with the “raw food fad,” Alanna of A Veggie Venture and Kitchen Parade asked me if there was nothing redeeming about raw foods. She wanted to see me take on the other side of the issue and talk in favor of eating raw.

And I answered her comment in short form with my own commentary, but I thought that what I said could use with a bit of lengthening and explanation.

As I hoped to make clear in my original post, I don’t really care what people eat or don’t eat, as I generally believe that what we choose to put into our bodies is a very personal decision. It is a decision that can be based upon ethical considerations, religious beliefs, political activism, economics, health and nutritional awareness, convenience or just plain old hedonism. In fact, I am of the opinion that the decisions that people make about what to eat, how to eat it, when to eat it and why to eat it are very complex and are seldom made just on the basis of one of the factors I mentioned above, but instead come about as a result of a synthesis of any number of issues, all in a tangled web that boils down to what a person believes.

What people believe about themselves, food, their relationship with food, society, God, the environment, the economy, medicine, their bodies and thier health all factor into what a person chooses to ingest each moment of each day.

And the fact of the matter is–not everyone builds their belief upon rational thought. In fact, belief is often irrational in nature, and is based less on fact and more on emotion.

It has taken me most of my forty years of life to figure this out–most people are not rational in their formulation of self, the world and thier interactions in it.

Taking so long to figure this out has led to any number of difficulties, many of which are reflected in the original post, “Barbara vs. The Raw Food Fad.”

In short, when I run up against rampant illogic, irrationality and a tendency towards fundamentalist behavior, I get twitchy, then irritable, and finally, angry. I get angry, because I am of the belief that humanity is endowed with these big lumpy brains to do more than keep our ears widely set–we are meant to think. Else, why endanger our mothers’ pelvic arches all through the ages? In essence–to my eyes, it is an insult to every one of our foremothers who labored for hours to push our big heads out, and often died in the process, to not use the brains that are encased in our skulls.

And so, I go off now and again, on behalf of the foremothers, and you get rants like my outpouring of invective aimed at the raw foodist’s fantasy that cooked food is poisonous.

However, just because I get all het up over raw foodist’s baseless philosophy, doesn’t mean I think that raw food is without worth, that it is inherently bad or that people should not eat it.

On the contrary, I think that a lot of people could do with eating more raw fruits and vegetables, though I think that extending that opinion to raw grains and nuts ground to glop is not quite as imperative.

There is much to be gained by partaking of raw fruits and vegetables on a regular basis. While some phytochemicals such as lycopene and caratenoids as found in tomatoes and carrots are more effectively absorbed by the human digestive system after they are cooked, in large part, many vitamins are depleted by cooking.

For example, vitamin B folate and vitamin C are both water-soluable and easily destroyed by heat, so in order to get the maximum amount from foods that contain them (green leafy vegetables and citrus fruits, for example) it helps to eat some of these foods raw. A salad of kohlrabi, endive, cabbage and broccoli, served raw with a lemon or lime juice based dressing, however, would provide the diner with a substantial amount of these two important nutrients. Add some red bell peppers to the mix, and the vitamin C count goes way up. (Both chile and bell peppers have high amounts of vitamin C in them–often more than even citrus fruits.)

In addition to providing ample vitamins and other micronutrients, raw vegetables and fruits also provide a great amount of fiber to the diet. Fiber is another necessary nutrient, though it doesn’t act by being absorbed into the body–in fact–its main function is served by it not being absorbable. There are two kinds of fiber present in foods–water soluable fiber, such as pectin, and water insoluable fiber, such wheat bran. Both kinds of fiber work to cleanse the human digestive system and keep the colon functioning properly; the consumption of high-fiber foods has been shown to help prevent colon cancer, diverticulitis and other diseases of the small and large intestines.

Raw apples, for example, contain within them both sorts of fiber–pectin, a water-soluable fiber-is present in the flesh of the fruit while the skin functions as water-insoluable fiber. Neither of these are affected by cooking, however, there are very few people who eat apples cooked in thier skins. (Here is also a good place to remind the reader that most of the vitamin content in an apple is present just under the skin of the fruit.)

I could go on about the virtues of eating raw fruits and vegetables for hours, but in truth, what it comes down to for me is this–they taste good. They provide a contrast in texture and flavor to cooked foods. They can refresh the palate between cooked courses, and they can be composed into visually stunning as well as intensely flavorful salads.

Chilled raw soups–essentially purees of raw fruits or vegetables–can make very cooling first courses in the oppressive heat of summer. Salsa cruda, raw salsa, made from vine ripened tomatoes redolent with fresh garlic, chiles and cilantro is an intense pleasure that no one should miss. Cucumbers lightly cured in a vinegar and water soak, chilled with ice cubes and seasoned with sweet Vidalia onions are a classic side dish on Southern tables. Salad dressings made from pureed fruits such as kiwi or mango spiked with citrus juices and chiles can take the place of oil-laden vinaigrettes.

The possibilities for serving raw foods go beyond the usual salad plate, and the one thing that I do appreciate about having been involved with my raw foodist clients is that I learned to shake my preconceptions of what raw foods could be and how they should be presented.

I learned to think outside the box.

Finally–I would be utterly remiss if I did not point out how much I adore sushi, which is in essence, raw fish served with cooked rice seasoned with sweetened vinegar. I find great beauty in the simplicity of nigiri–slices of raw or lightly cooked seafood presented atop hand-shaped balls of rice. The beauty is born not only of the myriad of subtle flavors presented in the food, but also in the knowledge that I am eating food that is low in fat, low in calories and has no added fat present in it from cooking it.

So, you see–there is good in raw foods. I am not a fundamentalist in the way I accused raw foodists of being. I see the value in the consumption of a variety of foods in various uncooked states, and I eat them and serve them quite often. I think that if the raw food diet fad accomplishes one good thing it will be this–it will get Americans, who eat way too much meat, fat, white flour and empty calories to eat more vegetables and fruits, and hopefully, enjoy them.

And, really, if that one good thing happens, who am I to argue with that?

[food] [raw foods] [society] [nutrition]

4 Comments

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1. Barbara, you are on fire. Love the paragraph about pelvis and using brains.
   I totally feel like you do about extremes. Because of that reason, I refuse to labelled with vegan/ vegetarian etc.,. Sounds very silly to me. I am not a meat eater, that’s all I tell people who are curious about my food preferences.

   Comment by Indira — December 5, 2005 #

2. I don’t really like labels at all. Political, dietary, even religious labels–anything that is exclusionary makes me twitch. I do not like embracing that which excludes anyone else–that whole “us against them” thing bugs me to death–and I think it comes from people labelling themselves and others in exclusionary fashions.

   Humans sing one song in many voices. That is out strength and our beauty. We are diversity personified, and instead of embracing that and finding joy in it, we use it to cause strife and fear.

   That is a bit deeper than vegan or vegetarian, I suppose, but it is part of the same process.

   As for the pelvic arch and the brain–well–yeah. I guess that isn’t the way most people see the issue of using our minds to think. But really–if we are going to have these big, difficult heads to carry our big brains, then please, let us use them.

   Waste not, want not.

   Comment by Barbara Fisher — December 5, 2005 #

3. I love it when someone knows her stuff so well that she can ably articulate both sides of a question in order to help others understand with some breadth and depth, some complexity and some nuance. So, many, many thanks for taking the time/energy to write this second post, it’s exactly what I’d hoped you do and I for one, just read the second food blog post ever word for word. (The first was YOUR first raw food-post.)

   Besides, it’s an extraordinary post that creates outright laughter combining the rigors of childbirth and the righteousness of raw foodists! Brava!

   Alanna

   Comment by AK — December 5, 2005 #

4. Thank you Alanna–I am glad you are gratified by my articulation of “the other side.”

   Of course, if I had not articulated that side, I could be behaving in just as fundamentalist and exclusionary fashion as the raw food faddist folks–and I wouldn’t want to do that, would I? (Of course not, as I am much too fond of taking the moral and ethical “high road” to descend to fundamentalist behavior.) (That was said in an ironic fashion, I hope everyone knows.)

   On top of everything–I am ever so happy to have made you laugh. I do try to give folks a laugh or two along the way here on my blog–and folks who know me “in person” will tell you that when I am writing, I do restrain myself. In person, I am much more cutting, ascerbic and apt to say the most outrageous things just to elicit belly laughs from unsuspecting people.

   So, I am glad that the pelvic arch comment got you. Little things like that are thrown in just to keep everyone on their toes. Make sure y’all are listening. 😉

   Comment by Barbara Fisher — December 5, 2005 #

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