Talk:Raw foodism/Archive 1

Eliminate Spinach outbreaks
I'm taking out the spinach E. Coli outbreak under the controversy section. I don't think anyone here is trying to argue that consuming raw vegetables is dangerous- just that the arguments and claims made by raw foodists about a raw diet lack merit and could be contricting. As that tidbit now stands, it makes it seem as though consuming any uncooked food product is somehow harmful. Tymothy 04:08, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

old talk
edited this page a while back to correct a large mistake, which someone has re-included: "The term Raw Food Diet describes a vegan diet..."

This is just not true. The term Raw Food Diet describes a diet where all the food is raw and uncooked. Some people eat raw dairy products. Some people eat raw meat. They are still eating raw food. The term Raw Vegan Diet describes a diet which is also vegan.


 * Totally agree--Pietrosperoni 23:23, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I corrected it back, although maybe it would have been better if I reverted. The changes have been made by user: 131.217.6.7. Please look at his contributions. He seems quite into raw food = raw vegan.--Pietrosperoni 23:45, 23 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, that is an important distinction, although raw food is popular within the Vegan community, as it shares similar ideologies. Some mention of this might be useful - Solar 15:16, 24 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Again pretty much the same change has been made. Raw food = raw vegan. How do people normally act on wikipedia in those cases? Should we just revert and revert? or take a vote or what?--Pietrosperoni 20:23, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

I edited it back. I agree that raw, per se (as in dictionaries), does mean un-cooked. Nevertheless, the term "raw food diet" is a term that means more than just "uncooked foods diet" in the raw food movement. All major sources such as web pages, published books, as well as all scientific papers that published research on raw food diet (see the recent paper "Attitudes, practices, and beliefs of individuals consuming a raw foods diet" by Hobbs SH, EXPLORE-THE JOURNAL OF SCIENCE AND HEALING 1 (4): 272-277 JUL 2005), define raw foodism as a raw vegan diet, consisisting primarily of raw fruit, vegies and nuts/seeds. True, there are those who eat dairy, or even meat, but their diets (including paleolithic) are not reffered to as raw foodism, by these mainstream sources. Hence, the current version is more appropriate. PS I am happhy to accept the most currect version (by Pietrosperoni) which includes the historical interpretation of the term.

Is this different from Living foods diet where we already have an article. Rmhermen 03:30, May 8, 2004 (UTC)


 * Not exactly. "Raw food" and "living foods" are used interchangibly within the diet, and I feel this one is more balanced. 24.229.25.11

"a man big into juices" -- really good style? Mbp 07:07, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Good style? Where do you think you are, the Encyclopedia Britannica?

This article is amusing as it begins with one of the fundamental flawed conceptions of why humans cook food. Eggs are consumed by many living things raw without any adverse effect on their life spans. Salmonella is a common bacteria that anyone can become immune to, but most haven't because they cook their food and thus are never exposed to it. Raw eggs yolks once were a major part of many dishes without ill effects.

I felt that this page had many NPOV statements regarding the benefits, safety, and scientific consensus on raw food diets, so I edited it accordingly. Comments or further edits are welcome, of course. 68.21.180.106 04:52, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Nobel Prize
''Artturi Virtanen (1895 d. 1973), a Nobel Prize-winning biochemist, is often quoted as supporting a Living Foods diet. He showed that enzymes in uncooked foods are released in the mouth when vegetables are chewed. These enzymes interact with other substances, notably the enzymes produced by the body itself, to produce maximum benefit from the digestion process. This research was unrelated to his Nobel Prize.''

I would like to delete the above in bold. The Nobel Prize is awarded for a person's work in total. It is inaccurate to discriminate between work related and unrelated to a Nobel Prize. 72.49.60.100 03:07, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
 * The Nobel Prize is not awarded for work in total - read some of the Nobel citations. Rmhermen 03:23, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
 * But pointing it out seems an underhanded way to undermine his expertise ( which is in chemistry after all). I think it should be refrased into The biochemist Artturi Virtanen, 1945 Chemistry Noble Prize winner [for his research in ...],... PuercoPop 20:56, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Salmonella
Quoth the Salmonella page: "Many different salmonella serovars also cause severe diseases in animals other than human beings."

Shadowlord

removed food safety info
I removed the food safety info about raw meat & dairy, as it implied that people choose vegan raw diets because raw meat is hazardous. This is rarely the justification for veganism, and thus misleading. Furthermore, raw animal products are dangerous only if contaminated. This is largely a problem with commercially available animal products. But certainly humans have eaten raw animal foods for eons before cooking became the norm. Perhaps the safety info regarding meat & dairy should be added to Paleolithic diet. Dforest 02:14, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

NPOV
I have marked this article as NPOV for the following reasons:

1. Several parts of this article are unverifiable, or do not contain links to the mentioned study. For example, a Google search for "Karl Eimer" and "University of Vienna" yields only results for this Wikipedia article, and its mirrors. Also, the statement that "no other species cooks its food" appears highly suspect.

"Several parts of this article are unverifiable, or do not contain links to the mentioned study. For example, a google     search for "Karl Eimer" and "University of Vienna" yields only results for this Wikipedia article, and its mirrors"

---Your documentation approach to this article is no better than that of which you are critical. Sources should always be cited of course, but most studies WILL NOT have internet links. Anyone simply typing "University of Vienna" on a search engine is obviously unfamiliar with the basics of research and is not qualified to write an encyclopedia article.

Research is not freely distributed on the internet, hence you will not find it on a "google" search or any other type of search engine search. Most quality research is from authoritative sources that will be found in research centers and libraries.

---Frederick McCallister

2. The entire article is mainly a promotion for the raw food diet. Very little space is given to responses from critics including the American Dietetic Association and even from followers of the diet.

3. There is no mention of the negative effects of the diet, which do exist, even in severe forms.


 * That child had no thymus gland and was only fed 3 things. If the coconut milk were cooked I doubt the child would have survived.

Because I am not an expert, I am not the best person to edit this article, though I am reading up on the subject so I can help. I believe this article needs a complete re-write, so both sides can be equally presented. Name Not Needed 01:32, 28 October 2005 (UTC)


 * To be honest, both sides do not need to be equally presented. it is not a scientific paper not an article in a magazine. It is a encyclopaediac definition of a specific word. If every topic had to be balanced with opposing opinion, you would have a encyclopaedia two or three times as big. Debate it on a some other website.


 * I'm not saying the opposing side should be debated, but I think it deserves more mention than a simple "Oh, some people disagree with the raw food diet. Oh well." Name Not Needed 22:06, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

With reference to the extreme cases, in all cases I have read, we are made victim to low quality tabloid journalism that want to make an extreme story out of a single case where normally you find that there is a much bigger picture to what was going on, e.g. their diet was not just a raw of vegan diet but a very bad or very narrow one practised by bviously cranky parents.

Cranky extreme parents kill children with many different diets, the mutual contributing factor are the parents not the food.

BY Tedpkp

"Also, the statement that "no other species cooks its food" appears highly suspect."


 * I have never heard of any animals like lions cooking their meat before they eat so how can that be suspect.


 * Can you say FOR SURE that animals do not eat cooked food? Consider the case of a forest fire.  It is certain that animals will feed on the burnt carcasses of other animals. Name Not Needed 22:06, 22 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm sure some animals may eat food which has been inadvertantly cooked, eg it is well know that rats eat waste human cooked food, although no other animal cooks it's own food on a regular basis. Rob


 * No other species has the internet, do they?


 * The fact that no other species cooks its food proves nothing. There are a lot of other things no other species does; should we avoid those too?  Show me another species that has electricity, medicine, telecommunications, space travel, etc. Jrkarp 05:51, 13 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The whole point of this was whether the statement "no other species cooks its food" was true or not, not whether it proved anything. Rob

This article reads like a campaign for raw foodism. 66.65.77.88 21:40, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Questionable claim
"In recent years, a growing movement of raw foodists has emerged who advocate the inclusion of raw animal foods, including raw meat. Principal among these is Aajonus Vonderplanitz, who has cured himself of several diseases, and helped thousands of others to do the same through the use of his Primal Diet."

Prove it, please, especially prove that this diet has "cured thousands". - Just zis Guy, you know? [T]/[C] AfD? 20:00, 28 January 2006 (UTC)


 * The affirmation is claimed in his 2 books. In particular in the recepies for living without disease he claim to have had a 98% of success in healing people with cancer. Maybe it should be changed into "In recent years, a growing movement of raw foodists has emerged who advocate the inclusion of raw animal foods, including raw meat. Principal among these is Aajonus Vonderplanitz, who has cured himself of several diseases, and claim to have helped others to do the same through the use of his Primal Diet."--Pietrosperoni 02:00, 17 February 2006 (UTC) (corrected on--Pietrosperoni 16:26, 9 March 2006 (UTC))

"Several parts of this article are unverifiable, or do not contain links to the mentioned study. For example, a Google search for "Karl Eimer" and "University of Vienna" yields only results for this Wikipedia article, and its mirrors"

---Your documentation approach to this article is no better than that of which you are critical. Sources should always be cited of course, but most studies WILL NOT have internet links. Anyone simply typing "University of Vienna" on a search engine is obviously unfamiliar with the basics of research and is not qualified to write an encyclopedia article.

Research is not freely distributed on the internet, hence you will not find it on a "google" search or any other type of search engine search. Most quality research is from authoritative sources that will be found in research centers and libraries.

Searching for Eimer on the University of Vienna homepage yields no results, and neither does searchng for  Karl Eimer and either Vienna or Wien on scholar.google.com. At this point,even though the article may indeed exist(I did find the "Zeitschrift fur Ernährung"), I feel that the reference is fairly useless, since "Karl Eimer" seems to be a fairly unknown scientist (the study itself was referenced on exactly three webpages, all containing raw food propaganda). In fact, it seems as if the reference is third- or fourth hand, and thus should not be trusted until someone takes the time to read the article themselves. I'm removing it until someone can give an argument for keeping it. /Gustaf Rydevik

raw foods is not the same as living foods.
The article for 'Living Foods Diet' will be restored, because they are not the same thing. Living Foods is a philosophy put forth by Anne Wigmore, and does not include any animal "foods." The terms are not interchangeable.

--- All raw food is living food. But, not all living food is raw. A piece of fruit or vegetable is both raw and living. Sauerkraut, made from raw cabbage is living because bacteria have fermented the cabbage. Cooked soybeans is neither raw nor living. But once fermented with natto or other probiotic bacteria, it becomes a living food. Similarly, fermented meats or dairy products such as yogurt may also be considered to be living foods.

Wine and beer are considered to be living during the fermentation process. But they are not usually accepted into the raw diet because the alcohol byproduct of the living yeasts are poison.

Our bodies have a symbiotic relationship with probiotic life forms that help to keep pathogenic populations under control within our bodies. Every indigenous preindustrial culture on the planet has at least one kind of fermented food in their diet. Because of these two points, fermented living foods are generally accepted into the raw food diet. They also provide many missing nutrients, such as vitamin B12, that are usually found only in cooked or pasteurized meat and dairy foods.

Cold Pressed Raw honey is a special consideration since it is neither raw nor living, or is it? We know it is a plant food, since it is made from pollen. But could it also be considered an animal food, since it contains bee saliva? Whatever the case, it is one of nature's most perfect foods, since it contains virtually every vitamin and mineral, plus a variety of micronutrients that could number in the thousands.


 * Those are some nice opinions. Care to back them up with more than fluffy rhetoric? Mind rattling off some of those "thousands of micronutritents" in honey? Virtually every vitamin and mineral? http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-C00001-01c21Ro.html ...oh of course, that's regular honey, not "COLD PRESSED RAW" honey, which you'll be able to provide a detailed breakdown of. Tymothy 04:28, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Reverted Vandalism
User user:134.197.54.115 deleted this chunk of the page:

''and on the research of Dr. Edward Howell, an Illinois physician born in 1898, who researched how enzymes played a role in a person's diet. He concluded that eating cooked food leads to health problems. In 1985, Howell published a book in which he claimed that laboratory rats fed cooked foods had an overly large pancreas size. In one example he compared rat pancreas weights that had been published in eight unrelated studies from different labs using a variety of diets and rat strains, ranging from 1924 to 1975; only one 1937 study used raw diets. Howell compared the pancreas weights in the seven other studies to the lower pancreas weights reported in the single raw diet study; he did not mention that in the raw diet study the pancreases had been extracted in alcohol before weighing, making direct weight comparisons to other studies questionable. Some raw food diet proponents believe that Howell's book shows that the pancreas is forced to work harder on a diet of cooked foods and that food enzymes are just as essential to digestion as the body's self-generated enzymes.''

Since Howell work is well known in raw food circle, since his page Edward Howell is non existant, and since his findings are not accepted in mainstrem science, I think it fits in this page/section, that is, raw food believes. Maybe we should start his page, and just link to it.--Pietrosperoni 02:00, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

FOR THOSE NEW TO RAW FOODS ---I deleted this entry since it has nothing to do with raw food. It was a sarcastic, opinionated, and hateful commentary about the raw food diet. Plus it illogically equated the diet with Liberalism, car preferences, living locations and other such nonsense.

Problems
One of the biggest counter arguments ot the raw food diet turns one of their own arguments against them. They state that raw food is some how more 'natural' and that our cave man ancestors didn't cook their food ergo cooked food is bnot good for humans. The problem with that is that there is very very strong archaeological evidence that humanoids have been cooking food long before we were actually human. The use of fire in a controlled manner dates back at least 1 million years. The first use of fire in cooking goes back 500,000 to 700,000 years. This is signifcant because it predates the emergence of the homo sapiens species by at least 400,000 years. There are some conservatives who place the earliest date for cooking at 300,000 BCE but again, that still predates modern humans by 200,000 to 250,000 years.

Its also important to note that human dentition, jaw structure, facial muscles, and the digestive system have all seem to be adapted to the eating of cooked foods. These are stable evolved traits which date back, through the archaeological record overs hundreds of thousands of years. The evidence is such that cooked and processed food seem to have been the 'natural' diet of our ancestors for as long as we were recognizably human.

Much of the evidence for this position is outlined here http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/06.13/01-cooking.html This isn't the only source of course - and shouldn't be taken as definitive. Some argue that the dates used are insupportable by the evidence. Of course, these sources place the use of cooking, as stated, at 300,000 BCE. So no matter how you slice it the problem is that cooking predates modern humans and as such a purely raw food diet cannot be considered any more (or less) natural than a cooked food diet.

In the interests of nutrality I believe that information along these lines should be included. Unless someone can come up with a valid counter argument with better evidence.

Rapier1 04:05, 8 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Even if humans originally ate uncooked foods, that doesn't make them "better". Early man, even right up to the dawn of the Roman Empire,only had a life expectancy of 28 years. Now, it's unfair to blame that on raw foods, but a raw diet wasn't some magical life expander then. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Tymothy (talk • contribs) 04:21, 6 May 2007 (UTC).

If there is evidence that some early human beings ate cooked food, it does not necessarily follow that it is a more or equally well adapted form than raw food. Was fire commonly available to early humans? Did they cook every meal? Are other processing and/or preserving techniques such as drying plausible as contributors to the physiological changes? Furthermore, could other factors such as not having to kill using our jaws be at work? Consider the facts that no other animal appears to intentionally cook its food and that, by nearly all indications, the processing of food by human beings has continually increased over time. Is it not rational to think that we are more adapted, historically speaking, to less processed foods, specifically including raw foods. Indeed, it is the consumption of highly processed foods such as refined sugar and flour that has been directly linked to many modern physical ailments. Is it unreasonable to consider heavily cooking 95%+ of our food something we may be poorly adapted to? -- 66.241.74.2 07:26, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

How can you call an hypothesis as evidence. these people who date fire back to whatever year, do you think their great grandfather came back from the dead and told them so. They are people who have keep "churning" out something or else their department/research lab will not get any funding/grant. I have people arguing with me about cave man diet where the cave men only ate meat. But take a look at Indian history. They Indians have documented history which is 10 thousands of years old.(of course many modern "scientists" and "researchers" have tried(successfully) to date all of the Vedas to only 1500 years ago.(which doesn't make any sense as there enough evidence). In the vedas the human race never went through stone age and metal age. Comon even scientifically speaking these theories are called theories. They can never be called evidence. Even in the scientific world it is an hypothesis that has been accepted. Almost all of this Cavemen theories promoting meat eating has only been accepted by the media. It is just good PR that got the article out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.167.18.27 (talk) 18:51, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Aajonus Vonderplanitz and the raw food movement?
I'm curious as to where Vonderplanitz fits in the "world of raw food"? Is he widely known? Well-regarded? And so forth... --Tsavage 16:48, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

COMPREHENSIVE COMPARISON OF RAW VS. COOKED FOODS

There has been a dearth of hard research on cooked vs. raw. One of the most comprehensive studies was published a few years ago in Norway. In the Journal of Applied Molecular Biochemistry (JOURNAL AV ANVENDT MOLEKYLÆR BIOCHEMISTRY. Juli 2002. V. 98 antall 3. sider 343-360), researchers compared hundreds of foods. They analyzed their nutritional content in various states: raw, fermented, partially heated (sometimes now called "flash pasteurized"), heated, microwaved, and sprouted (if applicable).

While most of the foods retained the best nutritional content in their raw state, some were actually less nutritious. For instance, raw almonds, walnuts, pecans, cashews, and brazil nuts were better in their raw states, but brazils, macadamias, fiberts, and some peanuts were actually better in a cooked state.

Greens were generally found to be better raw but not always. Onions were much better slightly browned. Other more nutritious cooked or slightly heated foods were broccoli, cauliflower, eggs, fish, cacao, and pineapple (I don't get that one).

The researchers found that several types of sprouts release toxins, although most did not. The researchers concluded that avocados were one of the most deficient foods because it is not balanced with protein.

Researchers compared a few foods in their seedless and seeded states. Contrary to some research and belief, the seedless varieties outdistanced their seeded counterparts about 50% of the time.

In all, the researchers concluded that foods in their raw state were usually better about 85-90% of the time.

--Guthrie April 10 2006

Toxins
The claim is made that "Foods cooked at high heat and/or for long periods of time contain toxins not found in raw or boiled foods, such as acrylamide, benzopyrene, and methylcholanthrene. Because of powerful lobbyists in the huge processed food industry, governments have not been willing to say whether these toxins introduced by high-heat cooking methods are cause for alarm. " Are there verifiable sources for these claims? The first claim should be easily verifiable. The second seems to be conspiratorial and thus harder to substantiate. Any suggestions?

Simply google any of those chemicals and you will find results. Acrylamide has been well documented to be a carcinogen in humans since it was originally known to be a byproduct of the plastics industry and as a result has been found in water supplies and has been a concern as it relates to water treatment workers. In 2002, it was discovered to be in cooked starches at high temperature. The FDA in fact has a publication which you can easily find online testing a variety of processed food products (organized by brand, even) which list their acrylamide contents.

As far as conspiracy goes, one must be truly naive if one doesn't think that there is a conspiracy involving the food industry, agriculture industry, and pharmaceutical industry.

--THX-1138 September 15 2006

New bone density study
"A recent study has shown that a raw food vegetarian diet is associated with a lower bone density."

To round out the information on this study, it should be noted that the study also found that "although bones were lighter on this diet, turnover rates were normal with no osteoporosis. The lower bone mass is down to raw food eaters being slim, believe the authors. . . .obesity protects against osteoporosis." -- [a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4389837.stm"]BBC article

I am new to editing so I will leave this for someone else to include. :o)
 * Actually, lower bone density is associated with a DECREASED risk of osteoporosis. The article got it wrong.  It is excessive consumption of calcium that leads to increased osteoporosis.  People in norther Europe rightly have the most incidents of osteoporosis, given they consume more dairy than anyone.  People in China (excluding Hong Kong) have the lowest risk, as they consume the lease dairy (for population groups for whom statistics are available.  A raw diet, AND a caloric restricted diet will protect against osteoporosis.  Typically, obese people consume tons of dairy products.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15949902&query_hl=1 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Benzapp (talk • contribs) 18:44, 17 January 2007 (UTC).

Article is generally flawed
As a raw foodist myself, this is the article that I would expect from a mainstream source... lots of talk about enzymes, degenerative diseases caused by cooked food, it being natural etcetera. The problem with this article that I have is that not all raw foodists buy into the whole enzyme theory (as far as I'm concerned its without any scientific merit). If one were to be objective, one could find other ways that are more legitimate and more of a concern for why one should be raw. Reasons such as the presence of chemicals like acrylamide, heterocyclic amines, and polycylic aromatic hydrocarbons. As well as starches becoming more highly glycemic as a result of the fibers separating from the sugars, cross linkages of proteins, damaged glycoproteins, etc., etc. I myself don't have the time to make all these additions to the article, but I hope someone will because as it stands right, IMO, the article is flawed.

--THX-1138


 * I've heard about HCAs from overcooked meats potentially increasing one's risk of stomach cancer, but that's about it. I think the major benefit of a raw diet is not so much that the food is uncooked, but rather, food which can be consumed uncooked has a tendency to be healthier than many processed, cooked foods. By limiting yourself to raw foods, you can't consume oreos, cookies, chips, hardly any meats (perhaps sashimi), french fries and processed products and must consume lower-saturated fat foods such as fruits, vegetables, nuts and whole grains. If you took everything in a raw food diet, and cooked it in a way that didn't add additional fat, sugars or salt (boiling, baking or steaming), I would surmise no difference in health would be found. Of course, that doesn't really support the theory of raw foodism- just something to keep in mind. Tymothy 04:17, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

What happened to the Aajouns Vonderplanitz page
Has anyone been following what has happened to the Aajonus Vonderplanitz page? It was voted to keep in April, and yet the history shows no page prior 2 of october. And all together only 2 edits. Many thanks to all tha can help.
 * See Articles for deletion/Aajonus Vonderplanitz (second nomination). Rmhermen 03:25, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

External links - raw foodists' web pages
Twice Mwanner has removed the addition of links to the personal sites of well-known people in the raw food movement, citing that these were "commercial sites". I argue that these sites do not exist "primarily to sell products or services". The majority of these sites offer a wealth of free information on what it is like to live in the raw food lifestyle, from a personal perspective. Included are recipes, personal writings on incorporating raw foods, family photos, bulletin board forums, contact information for local raw food social groups, and more. Some of these people have written books about the raw food lifestyle, and have made them available on their sites. However, selling books is not the primary purpose for their existence. These sites could hardly be considered as primarily "commercial sites". I argue that these and other sites of raw food proponents be reinstated under External Links. Joie de Vivre 18:44, 26 December 2006 (UTC)


 * OK. Wikipedia's External links guidelines lists "Links to sites that primarily exist to sell products or services" under "Links normally to be avoided."
 * http://www.thegardendiet.com/ has a front page link to "The Garden Diet Store! - all our publications and productions in one place!" In fact, you can buy them all for only $139.99 with just one click!
 * http://www.rawfamily.com Boutenko Has a front page link to PRODUCTS, where you can buy everything from a $375 VITA-MIX Turbo Blend 4500 (Special price!) to a download of a "24-minute film in only seconds for the special price of $2.99!"
 * http://www.sunfood.com Sunfood Nutrition seems to be almost nothing but retail, from Appliances to Videos. Today's front page featured product is a $139.95 poncho. "Purchase this item!"
 * http://www.shazzie.com Shazzie has a front page link to its GLOBAL ONLINE SHOP, Detox Delights and Shazzie's raw food delights DVD series by Shazzie (only £39.99! yes, that's pounds)
 * http://www.alissacohen.com/ Alissa Cohen has a front page link to Alissa's Store which sells Books, DVDs, Supplements, Food, Self Care and Appliances, each on their own page. (from the Greenstar Juicer Model#1000, $350.00 to the "Really Raw Coconut Flakes 12 oz bag", $6.99)


 * To me, these are "commercial links". After all, there are very few commercial sites on the web that don't offer some useful information (though Sunfood comes pretty close), which means that our External links guidelines on commercial sites would be fairly meaningless if these sites are acceptable. -- Mwanner | Talk 19:31, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Cleaned up in Jan 2007
I cleaned up this article a great deal, reorganizing, removing duplicated content, separating Beliefs from Research, fixing mis-formatted references.

--User:Keithkml | Talk 01:06, January 22 2007 (UTC)

Accuracy
I am very interested in the Raw Food lifestyle and this article in turn. However I notice that a lot of people constantly add uncited information randomly to parts of the article that are cited already making it seem that the information is citied. In order for this "lifestyle" to be taken more seriously, accurate information should be offered to the general public instead of "snake-oil" science. The citations on prehistoric information are very shotty and inaccurate. Most of these claims are in-fact not made by "scientists" but authors of raw food books who state the information as scientific fact. There are very concrete reasons that parts of this diet are valid and I hope that people eventually stop putting in these useless pieces of information that confuse people. --Christopher Tanner, CCC 16:20, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

useful links
Hi,

I would like to add http://www.rawguru.com as a useful resource to the raw food diet. Can you verify it? Anyone here?

Thank you.

Dated 5/1/07 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.92.194.46 (talk) 16:08, 1 May 2007 (UTC).

Removed Cannibalism Reference
I removed a reference to cannibalism being supposedly common in prehistoric humans as it was irrelevant to raw foodism per se and appeared to have been weaseled in to argue against human historical conditioning as a basic for raw foodism. Besides the apparent ill intent of the removed sentence, it is extremely questionable to call cannibalism common among prehistoric humans. -- 66.241.74.2 06:55, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I am familiar with the cited study and the research is sound — cannibalism was prevalent during the Neolithic. However, 66.241.74.2 is right, the reference was out of context. --71.181.46.151 03:48, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

More links
Hello,

I want to add a link to the Website of the organisation of raw vegans in Europe. They do not sell anything, just offer a platform and lots of information about the living food diet.

Thanks

193.135.255.162 11:37, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

The External Links are outdated and of poor quality. How can we collectively update them?
The external links on this article are not good resources about Raw Foods. There are many better resources. How can we change them to be better?

I would suggest...

http://www.goneraw.com http://www.welikeitraw.com http://www.living-foods.com http://www.purelyraw.com http://www.rawfoodinfo.com

Also about the existing links...

Healthy choices on raw vegan diets - by Stephen Walsh, PhD (Autumn 2002) It is misleading to list him as having PhD in reference to a health topic, because his PhD is in Engineering. Also this article is 5 years old. In the new field of Raw and Living foods, 5 years is ancient history.

Disagree about Stephen. He is smart and can understand the literature -- something that is rare in raw food circles. Stephen is a vegan, and not raw.

BeyondVeg - criticism of vegetarian and raw-food diets I know it is important to have another side presented to this issue, but this is terrible resource full of dead end articles and claims that have no backing. Do we have to list this link, just because we feel the need to be impartial?

Disagree about BeyondVeg. Look at the major science-based articles there. Long lists of research articles are cited. It is the only real science site one will find in the otherwise lunatic world of the raw foods religion.

The other links seem to be just the first few that got posted and are not typical of some of the helpful and informative sites available online today.

Thanks! Personalgrowthnow 13:45, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I think you are very right!!! Some other sites we should include are http://www.thebestdayever.com, http://www.rawfoodteens.com Greensmoothies 01:52, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

misleading milk paragraph removed
I've removed this paragraph:
 * A study of 14,000 children in Europe by the University of Basel in Switzerland showed that drinking milk which was obtained directly from a farm (either raw or pasteurized) was correlated with reduced asthma and allergy risks.

The reference was broken, but the article also appears here, in which the researcher states:
 * However, consumption of raw or unboiled milk is not recommended, Dr. Waser emphasized. "Raw milk may contain (disease-causing microbes) such as salmonella or...Escherichia coli and its consumption may have serious health risks."

If one reads the abstract of the paper, here, one can see that there is no mention of raw vs. pasteurized milk, but rather farm-purchased vs. shop-purchased milk. Including this paragraph in the article was misleading, as it had virtually nothing to do with raw foodism. KellenT 12:48, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Advanced Glycation Endproducts (AGE)
It's interesting that AGE or glycotoxins are not at all mentioned anywhere. There is a lot of research supporting the claim that cooked foods are deleterious to your health (especially cooked in high heat without humidity) because the process forms AGEs in great amounts (by the non-enzymatic cross-linking of sugar and proteins), i.e. the so called maillard reaction or "browning" of foods. The research is mainly focused on diabetics who are more acutely affected, but glycotoxins are also linked to most age related diseases, such as artheosclerosis, alzheimers, cancer etc. Mainstream non ecological meat can also be a risk factor, depending on how much exogenous glycotoxins are added to their diet. However, it's also worth noticing when it comes to raw foods, that fructose is a highly reactive substance when it comes to endegonous glycation, so eating exessive amounts of sweet fruit might not be the best substitute. However, no real studies have been done on the subject (although there are some anecdotal evidence for vegetarians that eat a lot of fruit having above average glycotoxin levels). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycation

213.100.61.182 02:25, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Mahatma Gandhi
I read a book seveal years ago which was essentially a raw diet book by Gandhi. I think it would be a great addition to this topic. I think there is a spiritual element and a anti-colonial element to it.

Gebrelu 7 Ocotber 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.19.182.3 (talk) 02:51, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Small Suggestion Re: HCAs in Cooked Meats
I'll edit the page now to remove the apostrophes HCA's. But I found this line confusing:

the National Cancer Institute states that cooking meat below 212ºF (100ºC) creates "negligible amounts" of HCA's. Also, microwaving meat before cooking may reduce HCA's by 90%

Surely if they are created by cooking the microwave doesn't reduce them by 90% but only incurs 10% that would be incurred through a conventional oven.

--89.241.11.205 20:30, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Paleolithic style diet
A "Paleolithic style diet" is not a raw food diet. Such a diet must not be confused with the actual diet of wild plants and game of our Paleolithic ancestors, whether such foods were generally cooked or not. Phenylalanine 03:31, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * This is incorrect - I think the above user is making the incorrect assumption that a raw foods diet is always a primarily vegan one. While the term "raw foodist" is usually used, in the media, to imply a "Raw Vegan", this is solely beause they form a majority of those people who eat raw food. There are plenty of people who follow a raw version of the Paleolithic diet(ie a "raw, paleolithic diet")- they just don't bother to cook their meats.


 * Actually, within the raw-foodist community, the term "raw, paleolithic diet" is usually also used to refer to those who eat a significant amount of raw-animal-food in their diet so as to distinguish these adherents from Raw Vegans, precisely because the media all too often make the mistake of assuming that a "raw-foodist" is a Raw Vegan.Loki0115(My profile doesn't seem to be added properly, here.


 * To my knowledge, a "Paleolithic (style) diet" is a diet that excludes cereals, legumes, salt, processed foods, most oils, etc., but not cooked food. Please provide sources for your claim in the article. Thank you. Phenylalanine (talk) 13:57, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I think you miss the point. Every diet has different combinations. For example, Vegans eat only plant-foods, whether cooked or raw, while "Raw" Vegans, recognised as an entirely separate community, describes those who eat, either mostly or only, raw plant-food, but little or no cooked-plant-food. In the same way, those who follow a paleolithic diet eat mostly cooked but sometimes some raw meats, while "Raw Paleolithic Dieters" eat, mostly, a raw version of the Paleolithic diet. The term "raw paleolithic diet" was originally coined by Vinny Pinto, who is a raw, paleolithic diet guru, and, as a result, the term has become frequently used by raw-meat-eaters so as to distinguish themselves from Raw Vegans and (Raw) Fruitarians. A simple search under "raw paleolithic diet"?"raw paleo diet" should reveal a few sites devoted to such diets. Here, also is a short paragraph where the RPD diet guru, Vinny Pinto explains the various terms:-

"Raw Animal Foods Diet, also known as RAF or RAFD. This term was apparently coined by followers of Aajonus Vonderplanitz' Primal Diet, although the term may really refer to any RAF diet Raw Vegetation and Animal Foods diet, also known as RVAF Raw Plant and Animal Foods diet, also known as RPAF Raw Paleolithic diet, or Raw Paleo Diet, also known as RPD, a broad term primarily used by the current author, and coined by a few other authors as well" taken from the primary resource website of Raw, Paleolithic Diets:-

http://www.rawpaleodiet.org/rvaf-overview.html

Further down that page, it mentions that, overall, the term "raw paleolithic diet" is also soemtimes used to describe raw-animal-food diets that include a non-Palaeo food such as raw dairy(though some gurus of those diets don't like this general term used for their particular diet, precisely because their diet includes raw dairy). Anyway, the clincher is the following paragraph which states that many people who follow a Palaeolithic diet deliberately eat most or all of their meat raw, therefore being "raw, paleolithic dieters":-

"Several of the primary advocates of the partially-cooked Paleolithic, Caveman, Neanderthin, and Paleothin diets, as well as the Atkins diet, have stated that one improvement which could be made to their systems would be to find high-quality meats and eat them raw rather than lightly cooked. It is becoming known in the raw-foods world that some followers of the Paleolithic, Atkins and Zone diets eat all-raw versions of those diets; such diets include raw animal products, but the "purist" Paleo diets exclude raw dairy, while the Zone diet and the Atkins diet include it."

In case you want more evidence, here is a yahoo group devoted specifically to those who wish to follow a raw, paleolithic diet(ie " a raw version of the Paleolithic diet") http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/rawpaleodiet/

Loki0115 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Loki0115 (talk • contribs) 23:00, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Please provide these sources in the article. Thank you. --Phenylalanine (talk) 00:53, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid I don't know what you mean. Do you mean that I should provide links to the phrase "Raw Paleolithic Diet", or just a note, with a reference at the bottom? Loki0115 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Loki0115 (talk • contribs) 14:46, 3 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Like this: Raw Paleolithic Diet Cheers! --Phenylalanine (talk) 12:16, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I removed this diet from the table, as the sources indicated here are not notable by Wikipedia standards.--Phenylalanine (talk) 19:59, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Solanine in potatoes "killed" by deep frying?
The article states:


 * "Solanine can be removed by peeling the potatoes, or neutralized by cooking in a deep fryer."

I believe that nearly all of the sources actually state that if a potato is green and loaded with solanine, that the solanine in the potato before cooking will also be in the potato after cooking. Badagnani (talk) 02:31, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Acidic fruits?
I am removing the following sentence:

"Also, enzymes found in acidic plant foods, including many fruits, are active at low pH similar to that of the human stomach."

This is absurd. The pH of stomach acid is ~2. It may be inconvenient to raw foodists, but the pH scale is logarithic, so from 3 to 2 there is a 10 fold increase in acid concentration. From 7 to 2 there is a 100000 fold increase in the concentration of acid. One cannot be imprecise about pH. So lemons (the most acidic fruit I can think of) have a pH around 4. Stomach acid is 100 times as strong. Pure bleach for comparison has a pH around 12. That is the equivalent of stomach acid on the base side of pH. Were there a fruit with a pH equivalent to that of stomach acid, it would do significant damage. It is highly unlikely that a fruit would randomly produce some health-benefiting enzyme with enzyme activity at such an unnatural pH. If there is. Show me the research. Otherwise, do not put it on Wikipedia. 171.65.83.71 (talk) 05:41, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Autism Info
The info about raw foods and autism links to a packet without any citations itself. Sadly, this view on raw foods is not supported by any peer research. Moreover the publishers involved are often considered "alternative" rather than mainstream science, debunked on countless websites for their other "alternative" views. Without supporting sources, this info needs removal. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.91.115.43 (talk) 02:54, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Amenorrhea?
"Some advocates of raw foodism claim that amenorrhea may be a normal condition of fertile women, and that indeed menstruation as most women experience is neither natural nor healthy, but a consequence of intoxication due to unnatural cooked diets."

I looked at the amenorrhea page and it does not support or even mention this theory. In addition, this claim is not cited. Since this theory seems to have no basis in reality as we know it, I think it should be deleted. 24.211.185.175 (talk) 19:38, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Links to Abstracts and Full Text
Raw Vegan/Raw Food Diet Research: Links to Abstracts and Full Text --Phenylalanine (talk) 14:59, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Article ?
Why isn't there an article talking about raw (uncooked) food? I expected to find an article talking about raw food, and rare meat, sushi, and laws about it (such as the one that seems to make every restaurant say on the menu if they have raw or undercooked food, it may be a health risk for example). Instead I find this article about a lifestyle?? Is there a raw food article talking about the food itself? ~ GoldenGoose100 (talk) 18:45, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
 * You might find what you're looking for here and here. --Phenylalanine (talk) 19:51, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Ah... I see. I'll add a See also section. thanks for that ~ GoldenGoose100 (talk) 23:49, 15 February 2008 (UTC)