Raw vs. Cooked: Do You Believe Dr. Fuhrman's Take? What's Your Stance?
This is from Joel Fuhrman M.D., a board–certified family physician who specializes in preventing and reversing disease through nutritional and natural methods:
Raw vs. Cooked?
Certainly, there are benefits to consuming plenty of raw fruits and vegetables. These foods supply us with high nutrient levels and are generally low in calories too. Eating lots of raw foods is a key feature of an anti-cancer diet style and a long life. But are there advantages to eating a diet of all raw foods and excluding all cooked foods? The answer is a resounding “No”. In fact, eating an exclusively raw-food diet is a disadvantage. Excluding all steamed vegetables and vegetable soups from your diet narrows your nutrient diversity and has a tendency to reduce the percentage of calories from vegetables in favor of nuts and fruits which are lower in nutrients per calorie.
Raw vegetables are dramatically low in calories and we probably only absorb about 50 calories a pound from raw vegetables. Our caloric needs cannot be met on a raw food diet without consuming large amounts of fruits, avocado, nuts and seeds. This may be an adequate diet for some people, but in my 15 years of medical practice catering to the community of natural food enthusiasts, raw foodists and natural hygienists, I have seen many people who weakened their health on such raw food, vegan diets. Frequent fungal skin and nail infections, poor dentition, hair loss and muscular wasting are common on such fruit-based diets.
Unfortunately, sloppy science prevails in the raw-food movement. Raw food advocates mistakenly conclude that since many cooked foods are not healthy for us, then all cooked foods are bad. This is not true.
The idea that stirs the most enthusiasm for this diet is the contention that cooking both destroys about fifty percent of the nutrients in food, and destroys all or most of the life promoting enzymes. It is true that when food is baked at high temperatures—and especially when it is fried or barbecued—toxic compounds are formed and most important nutrients are lost. Many vitamins are water-soluble, and a significant percent can be lost with cooking, especially overcooking. Similarly, many plant enzymes function as phytochemical nutrients in our body and are useful to maximize health. They, too, can be destroyed by overcooking. However, we cannot paint with this brush of negativity over every form of cooking.
Only small amounts of nutrients are lost with conservative cooking like making a soup, but many more nutrients are made more absorbable. These nutrients would have been lost if those vegetables had been consumed raw. When we heat, soften and moisturize the vegetables and beans we dramatically increase the potential digestibility and absorption of many beneficial and nutritious compounds. We also increase the plant proteins in the diet, especially important for those eating a plant-based diet with limited or no animal products.
In many cases, cooking actually destroys some of the harmful anti-nutrients that bind minerals in the gut and interfere with the utilization of nutrients. Destruction of these anti-nutrients increases absorption. Steaming vegetables and making vegetable soups breaks down cellulose and alters the plants’ cell structures so that fewer of your own enzymes are needed to digest the food, not more. On the other hand, the roasting of nuts and the baking of cereals does reduce availability and absorbability of protein.
When food is steamed or made into a soup, the temperature is fixed at 100 degrees Celsius or 212 Fahrenheit—the temperature of boiling water. This moisture-based cooking prevents food from browning and forming toxic compounds. Acrylamides, the most generally recognized of the heat-created toxins, are not formed with boiling or steaming. They are formed only with dry cooking. Most essential nutrients in vegetables are made more absorbable after being cooked in a soup and water-soluble nutrients are not lost because we eat the liquid portion of the soup too.
Recent studies confirm that the body absorbs much more of the beneficial anti-cancer compounds (carotenoids and phytochemicals—especially lutein and lycopene) from cooked vegetables compared with raw. Scientists speculate that the increase in absorption of antioxidants after cooking may be attributed to the destruction of the cell matrix (connective bands) to which the valuable compounds are bound.
Another fallacy promoted in the raw food movement and on the web is that the fragile heat-sensitive enzymes contained in the plants we eat catalyze chemical reactions that occur in humans and aid in digestion of the food. This is not true. Plant foods do not supply enzymes that aid in their digestion when consumed by animals. Our body supplies exactly the precise amount of enzymes needed for digestion; we are not ill equipped to digest normal food. The plant enzymes are broken down into simpler molecules by our own powerful digestive juices and even those that are absorbed as peptide size pieces (or with some biologic function) do not function to catalyze human functions. So it is not true that eating raw food demands less enzyme production by your body. A healthy body produces the precise amount of enzymes needed to digest the ingested food appropriately and the enzymes our body uses for other processes are unique to our human needs and are not present in plants. We make what we need from the proper materials.
In conclusion, eating lots of raw foods is a feature of a healthy diet. I always encourage people to eat more raw food. One of my common statements is—the salad is the main dish. Raw food is necessary for digestive efficiency, proper peristalsis and normal bowel function. Certain foods, especially fruit, avocado and nuts undergo significant change with cooking and are best eaten raw. Baking, frying, barbecuing and other high heat cooking methods that brown and damage food form acrylamides, which are carcinogenic. Browning and other high heat cooking methods should be avoided. Cooking techniques like steaming vegetables, stewing foods in a pressure cooker and soup making, do not have these drawbacks. They do not brown foods or form acrylamides.
Eating raw food is necessary for good health and is an important feature of a healthy diet. But that does not mean that one’s entire diet has to be raw to be in excellent health. It also does not mean eating an all raw diet is the healthiest way to eat. It is healthier to expand your nutrient density, your absorption of plant protein and your nutrient diversity with the inclusion of some conservatively cooked food in your diet.
Link LB ; Potter JD. Raw versus cooked vegetables and cancer risk.
Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2004; 13(9):1422-35.
Ismail A ; Lee WY. Influence of cooking practice on antioxidant properties and phenolic content of selected vegetables. Asia Pac J Clin Nutr. 2004; 13(Suppl):S162.
Tags: cooked, eating, health, high, percentage, raw, soups, steamed, wellness
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Travis on -
juliano talks about using earthanware if you must cook. that way you don't get all the plastic and metals expanding into your food.
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Permalink Reply by Rawgreengoddess on -
Sabrina,i have healed my body from many ailments,chronic fatigue,hormonal imbalances,ovarian cysts,cancer cells in cervix,ulcerative colitis(still healing this)acne,anxiety,depression,suicidal thoughts,drug taking and the awful things that did to my body,bbleeding gums and,patches and red circles on my tongue( a direct reflection of how bad my health was),bad body odor, mouth and stomach ulcers,sallow skin,constant red eyes,hayfever,and bad sinus congestion,i use to suffer uncontrollable rages..i use to have awful dry skin,now my skin is hydrated and baby skin soft..
I have been eating raw,coming into my 6th year now,going raw and vegan was the best thing i ever did for my body,i eat high fruit low fat,mostly i dont eat any added fats,and about once a week i have an avocado.i keep very well hydrated,i drink green juices and wheatgrass juice,(swear by this)...
i am now an athlete,i train hard,i train every day,plus walk my doggies..:)
i just wanted to share a snippet of my story,to perhaps give you some hope,that you will heal,when you give your body the best environment possible X
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Permalink Reply by ben "the beekeeper" stiller on -
Remember, this isn't about all or nothing. Dr F isn't against raw -- just he doesn't recommend 100% raw. This is from a discussion on his site:
I promise you that I can get rid of your migraines now, because you have improved your health so much already and have been following the plan and are off meds. The last piece of the puzzle for you is to increase the detoxification potential by using cruciferous juices and blended salads to increase the intake of raw cruciferous compounds from watercress, brocolli, arugula, parsley, bok choy, and others. Have the green stuff in a base of carrots sometimes and tomatoes at other times. Have the raw baby bok choy, the raw broccoli, and shredded cabbage every day and then have fresh squeezed juice twice a day. Call me for a phone consult if you need me to review the whole menu with you.
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Permalink Reply by John Coleman on -
Have you ever tried dehydrated purple broccoli or kale chips? They rock!
I had a 2 year cooked food relapse recently, and basically ate a lot more cooked veggies. The smell of them cooking alone was enough to put me off initially and later on as I cut the level of consumption down. They certainly did not make me feel better.
I used to find if I ate a large enough bowl of cooked veg I'd feel sleepy afterwards. Something I never observe with raw food, save for maybe fatty raw foods.
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Permalink Reply by ben "the beekeeper" stiller on
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Whatever works for you. You know... you know yourself best.
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Permalink Reply by Debbie Took on
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I think most people realise what Dr F is saying. Sure, he's not 'against raw'. But, as you say, it appears that 'he doesn't recommend 100% raw' and actually recommends cooking in certain circumstances. Those who disagree with his basic logic for this have explained in some detail why at various points in the thread to date. He describes arguments for raw as 'sloppy science' - a phrase that always gets attention, as it is insulting, but John and others have showed that Dr F is guilty of 'sloppy science' himself.
If people do not wish to go 100% raw (quite understandable, in the modern world!), then I'd back any health spokesman who wished to remind them what the less harmful methods of cooking are, and why. That's a different thing from recommending cooking.
If Dr F can persuade people on SAD diets to go even high-raw, all power to him.
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Permalink Reply by Rawstrength on -
I have have eaten 100% raw, but found that I feel much better if I include steamed vegetables, some gently cooked homemade vegetable soups and herbal teas/infusions/decoctions. Granted, I lived in an area where it gets really, really cold in the winter and never truly gets very warm in the summer. I also swim in the ocean year round, sometimes the water is only 40 degrees. Having warm foods in my diet really helps me, for whatever reason. Depending on your constitution and the climate that you live in, you may do better on 100% raw, I don't know. I only know what works for me. I'm not sure about my % but I eat way more raw than cooked. I also am not a vegan, but am mostly vegan. All of the animal foods I eat are raw.
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Permalink Reply by Travis on
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steaming isn't much better than other methods of cooking. all the minerals are leached out and you still destroy many of the components of food by heating it regardless of using water or dry heat. we are the only species that cooks its food. raw plant food provides every other animal with the nutrients it needs yet according to dr fhurman we need to cook our food get more nutrition? there is never more nutrition when you destroy foods with heat in my opinion. it is never the same.
i don't eat 100 percent raw but i prefer raw and my body knows its superior. when i eat raw food and go back to even steamed vegetables i notice how much better raw food is. i even started to hate simple steamed brocolli and pumpkin.
if i had to choose between eating 100 perecent raw vs a joel fhurman steamed bean and tofu diet i'd choose raw simply for taste. raw food tastes so much better. eating vegetables that we aren't meant to eat large amounts raw and cooking them to make them more edible isn't natural in my opinion. i don't know if joel fhurman's approach is necessarily right. so what if the food is supposedly higher in all these phytonutrients ect too. it doesn't mean you don't get enough with raw fruit, vegetables nuts and seeds.
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Permalink Reply by Eric S on -
This is pretty similar to an argument I have been making for a very long time. I do not eat 100% raw. The exceptions I usually make are for grains - specifically quinoa and wild rice. I try soaking them and I just can't take the texture so I cook them and eat them with raw vegetables. I lightly steam vegetables in the winter. I also eat seitan to try to get protein to get my muscle mass up as I am extremely concerned about my low weight. I don't know if seitan is raw, I doubt it is, but I really don't care.
I feel absolutely fantastic on a 100% raw diet, but I know I don't eat enough or get enough calories. The only way I can get my caloric intake to a point where it is theoretically sufficient to support my body mass is by eating a lot of nuts and avocados, just like Dr. F says.
I think that asking anyone commit to 100% anything is asking for people to fail. People need to have the freedom to slip every now and then, everyone does it, no one is perfect. Someone made a point that for some people if they give themselves wiggle room to eat a steamed vegetable they will be on a slippery slope leading to fast food meals. People like this probably do need to commit to a 100% raw diet, but I doubt that anyone like that could maintain a 100% raw diet. For me I like to give myself freedom and wiggle room and not beat myself up for my mistakes.
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Permalink Reply by ben "the beekeeper" stiller on
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lol
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