The Effects of Cooked Food

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Permalink Reply by Raw by Default on January 9, 2008 at 2:53pm

I get a pretty quick reaction to cooked food. For me, it makes me sleepy. I get very drowsy and feel like I want to go to bed... but it's also like something has clouded my brain, making it hard to even think and interact with the world.

The last time I had something really cooked, I had potato chips. I had a lingering headache for a day or so after that.

So it's not just you guys! I think our bodies get used to nice, live food, and when we feed it something cooked, it takes so much energy to digest it that we feel... well, not necessarily ill, but not 100% either!

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Permalink Reply by Shell on January 9, 2008 at 4:39pm

Hi Althea! I think it sometimes has something to do with what kind of cooked food one eats. I know that for myself, if I eat junk SAD food, I feel like reveling in couch potato nothingness! But if I happen to have, say, a sweet potato, or some cooked lentils or something, I feel fine. I would say that you and your mom are completely normal though! I know of a lot of people who have the same experience that you do.....it also depends on the person, too, I think. At any rate, you're not the only ones!

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Permalink Reply by Rawvelous on January 9, 2008 at 4:47pm

On Christmas eve, all I ate was a little sweet potato cass and ham that hubby had cooked (before his amazing raw journey began!) and I felt it immediately! I had been raw for about 3 weeks at that time, and I didn't want to eat anymore cooked food cause it made me sooooooooo tired!

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Permalink Reply by Justin on January 9, 2008 at 7:58pm

Hey Althea. I think we might all be in the same boat so you should feel good about that! I totally agree with you and know EXACTLY what you're talking about. The more I eat raw and the longer I go ONLY eating raw the more I feel the affects of cooked food. My brother would make fun of me saying I had such a sensitive stomach. But I believe food SHOULD affect us that much. The fact that it doesn't is kind of scary. So yea I'll be jacked if I eat heavy w/o enzymes or a salad with my meal. I wrote about this a little bit here:

http://rawfoodtoday.blogspot.com/search/label/Raw%20Food%20Tips

So yea I agree with you. Food does jack me up sometimes but I guess all in all, it's a good thing. :) I like your blog by the way!

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Permalink Reply by Saz on January 9, 2008 at 8:51pm

I think it's important to distinguish "cooked food" from "processed food". Cake, veggie burgers, waffles, ect. are loaded with sugar, preservatives, white flour, cooked fats... all sorts of bad things!! If you ate a simple baked sweet potato, homemade salt-free or low-salt veggie soup, slow-cooked legumes or lentils, or even simple lightly steamed veggies you likely wouldn't get such a terrible reaction.

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Permalink Reply by Ian on January 9, 2008 at 11:31pm

Very good point, Saz. The comforts and access of processed foods tends to make them seem on par with the cooked options you mentioned, but this may not be so. Cooking has been shown to improve starch digestion (I think this may have to do more with lack of chewing raw starchy food, though) and certain foods consumed raw are actually dangerous, kidney and soy beans being two that come to mind.

Of course, the baked sweet potato and lentil soup sound really delicious right now. And yet, when people have to put that much time into preparing meals that will only last 14 seconds once one is done scarfing them down, it would be simpler to make a similar meal that is raw (for obvious reasons) or grab some potato chips and start munching.

Hence, the poor reactions.

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Permalink Reply by Gabby on December 30, 2008 at 2:08am

thank you =) I know this is true from my experiences.

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Permalink Reply by Justin Hebert on January 9, 2008 at 9:30pm

Hey Althea,
My theory on this is that when we live on cooked foods, all these negative emotions are placed inside us though the process of toxification. When we eat raw foods for a period of time and start to detox, only then to we become aware of those dormant emotions within us. We start to feel great and happy because those negative emotions are leaving us. Even if the emotions never surfaced or you never became aware of them, doesn't mean they weren't there. When one goes back to eating raw or processed foods, toxins begin to build back up in the body. This can cause a sort of remission, and the effects can be powerful. I've had times where I ate cooked foods and it made me angry, some made me sad, but most caused depression. Now the real question is how much of these emotions are caused by the consumption of food, and how much emotion is caused by you feeling as if you failed or done something wrong by eating something you knew you should not have eaten? We all feel strongly about our raw food lifestyle. Does these emotions come from the bad food themselves, or are they a secondary emotion caused by you feeling failure, frustration, or regret from not following what you feel is the right thing to do? That's one question I haven't yet come to answer. I think it lies somewhere in the middle of both.

Love and Light
Justin

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Permalink Reply by Justin Hebert on January 9, 2008 at 9:40pm

Hey Althea,
My theory on this is that when we live on cooked foods, all these negative emotions are placed inside us though the process of toxification. When we eat raw foods for a period of time and start to detox, only then to we become aware of those dormant emotions within us. We start to feel great and happy because those negative emotions are leaving us. Even if the emotions never surfaced or you never became aware of them, doesn't mean they weren't there. When one goes back to eating cooked or processed foods, toxins begin to build back up in the body. This can cause a sort of remission, and the effects can be powerful. I've had times where I ate cooked foods and it made me angry, some made me sad, but most caused depression. Now the real question is how much of these emotions are caused by the consumption of food, and how much emotion is caused by you feeling as if you failed or done something wrong by eating something you knew you should not have eaten? We all feel strongly about our raw food lifestyle. Does these emotions come from the bad food themselves, or are they a secondary emotion caused by you feeling failure, frustration, or regret from not following what you feel is the right thing to do? That's one question I haven't yet come to answer. I think it lies somewhere in the middle of both.

Love and Light
Justin

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Permalink Reply by Allis☀n on January 9, 2008 at 10:55pm

When I eat cooked/processed foods I get sleepy after lunch! When I eat a raw lunch, I am more alert. I am transitioning back to raw and I was surprised to notice today that I was alert throughout a 4-hour meeting at work, (although a couple of small yawns escaped me towards the end.) :-) I was amazed, but didn't even attribute it to raw food until I read your question. Now I remember experiencing this when I've eaten raw before. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.

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Permalink Reply by Allis☀n on January 10, 2008 at 12:33am

oops I mean TWO hour meeting (this was one of our shorter meetings). :-D

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Permalink Reply by Pontus Kristensson on January 10, 2008 at 5:10am

Hi Alhtea

I can totally relate to your experience. For two years I was of and on with cooked foods, dairy and sugars. My experience is that whenever I would eat any of those foods (exept steamed veggies) I'd get tired afterwards and sometimes depressed for a day or two. Espessially if I had sweets or baked goods. I think that is due to the electrical charge and acidic potential of those foods. To make it short; when they enter the body and gets digested they cause the body to release sodium bicarbonate to raise alkalinity to 8,2 for the entrance of the small intestine. The rest product is hydrocloric acid (HCl). Any acid is rich in protons (thats what makes it acid) and therefor steals energi from the body. Every thougth process in the body is electrically infused and all electricity is really elecrons. If you look at the elecrical charge of a food that has been cooked it's almost infinite. Live foods are electrically charged and therefor more alkaline. This causes the body to release less sodium bicarbonate and sometimes even leave that as a residue in the stomach. A point thou is that all sugars are acidic, even fruits. But due to the living electrical potential in fruits they are not as harmful as prossed sugars (yet the body does not distinguish between different sugars, they are treated the same way, it's the charge that makes the differens). The electrical potential (or pH) affects our whole body and our mindset I belive.

Good to note as well is that our mindset also effects the pH balance. Positive thoughts are creating more electrons to flow through the body. It's really logical. Positive thoughts attract negative charge and vice versa, negative thought attract positive charge and vice versa. So eating foods that creates positive charges in the body attract negative thoughts. Thats what makes you depressed, and me, and everyone else.

Love and light
:P

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