Disease Proof

From the March 2004 edition of Dr. Fuhrman’s Healthy Times:

Contrary to the propaganda of raw-food advocates, cooking actually can help you absorb more nutrients.

The raw-food movement continues to make converts, thanks to a devoted group of individuals and celebrities who embrace the belief that an all-raw food diet is the best diet. 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. Raw-food enthusiasts commonly make the claim that “cooked foods are dead foods.”

Are cooked foods really dead foods?
It is true that when food is baked at high temperatures—and especially when it is fried or barbecued—toxic compounds are formed and 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 can be useful to maximize health. They, too, can be destroyed by overcooking.

Enzymes are proteins that work to speed up or “catalyze” chemical reactions. Every living cell makes enzymes for its own activities. Human cells are no exception. Our glands secrete enzymes into the digestive tract to aid in the digestion of food. However, after they are ingested, the enzymes contained in plants do not function as enhancements or replacements for human digestive enzymes. These molecules exist to serve the plant’s purpose, not ours. The plant enzymes get digested by our own digestive juices along with the rest of the food and are absorbed and utilized as nutrients.

Contrary to what many raw-food web sites claim, the enzymes contained in the plants we eat do not catalyze chemical reactions that occur in humans. The plant enzymes merely are broken down into simpler molecules by our own powerful digestive juices. Even when the food is consumed raw, plant enzymes do not aid in their own digestion inside the human body. It is not true that eating raw food demands less enzyme production by your body, and dietary enzymes inactivated by cooking have an insignificant effect on your health and your body’s enzymes.

Cooking can be beneficial.
In many cases, cooking 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. The point is that this “cooked food is dead food” enzyme argument does not hold water. On the other hand, the roasting of nuts and the baking of cereals does reduce availability and absorbability of protein.

Low-temperature cooking.
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 more absorbable after being cooked in a soup, not less absorbable. 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. The Institute of Food Research in Norwich reported their recent findings in New Scientist magazine: about 3 to 4 percent of the carotenoids were absorbed from raw carrots compared with about 15 to 20 percent from cooked and mashed carrots. The team also found that we absorb these critical anti-cancer nutrients more effectively from vegetables than we do from supplements.

Multiple studies have demonstrated that the beneficial antioxidant activity of cooked tomatoes is significantly higher than from uncooked tomatoes. 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.

Loss of nutrients.
It is true that vitamin C, folate, B vitamins, and certain minerals are water-soluble and can be destroyed by cooking; but vitamin C contributes less than one percent to the total antioxidant activity of fruits and vegetables. For example, the main antioxidant activity in apples is provided by classes of chemicals called phenolics and flavonoids, both of which are made more available by cooking.

If you compare raw broccoli to steamed or frozen broccoli, about 25 percent of the vitamin C and about 20 percent of the selenium is lost during cooking, but the other 20 commonly-measured nutrients show only an insignificant change. Raw-food advocates are not accurate when they claim that 50 percent of nutrients are lost with steaming. A closer estimate would be 10 percent.

Cooking corn also has been shown to significantly boost its antioxidant activity, despite reduction in vitamin C.When the ability to quench free radicals was measured, cooked corn outperformed raw corn by between 25 to 50 percent. Cooking corn releases a compound called ferulic acid, which provides anti-cancer health benefits. Ferulic acid, a phytochemical, is unique in that it is found only in very low amounts in fruits and vegetables, but is found in very high amounts in corn. The availability to the body of ferulic acid can be increased 500 to 900 percent by cooking the corn.

Benefits of raw food.
Certainly, there are benefits to consuming plenty of raw fruits and vegetables. These foods supply us with high nutrient levels and the smallest number of calories. But the question we are looking at is this—Are there advantages to eating a diet of all raw foods and excluding
all cooked foods?

Clearly, the answer is a resounding “No.” In fact, eating an exclusively raw-food diet is a disadvantage. To exclude all steamed vegetables and vegetable soups from your diet narrows the nutrient diversity of your diet and has a tendency to reduce the percentage of calories from vegetables, in favor of nuts and fruit, which are lower in nutrients per calorie.

Unfortunately, sloppy science prevails in the raw-food movement. Rawfood advocates mistakenly conclude that since eating processed and cooked carbohydrates is harmful for us, all cooked foods are harmful.

To eat the most healthful diet on earth, include a sufficient quantity of raw fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. If you are not very overweight or diabetic, add a glass of freshly squeezed raw vegetables to your diet. Try one of the following combinations beet/carrot/cabbage/apple; kale/parsley/carrot/apple; or beet/carrot/celery/cucumber. Have a blended salad a few times a week.

In addition, try to consume an adequate amount of cooked food, especially vegetable soup.

The one question I still have about a raw food diet, which I used to believe in, is: why are we the only animals that cook our food? Other animals get all the nutrients they need from raw food. I await to be enlightened.

We're probably also the only animal that plants seed to grow food, refrigerates it, or sells it at the market. On the other hand even wild animals will eagerly and happily consume cooked and processed food that is offered to them, so you shouldn't base too much on the fact that they don't know how to cook.

what about the argument about life force and bio photons. they say this life force is lost when cooking. and that this life force/bio photons. can anyone explane.

...what about the argument about life force and bio photons. they say this life force is lost when cooking. and that this life force/bio photons. can anyone explane.

my thought about it is now, if it was the life force of the plants that should give us life. then all people who would eat cooked food would be dead by now.

still the are some rawfoodist who are in good health. but many cooked food eaters too i dont really see the diffrents.

Sorry Doc, but the cell wall argument for cooking is weak when you compare it to other evidence.
When you eat cooked food your body reacts as if poisoned. This triggers an immune response called leukocytosis where the white blood cells increase up to 300%. Leukocytosis was once considered a normal reaction to eating, but it does not happen when we eat raw food.
Cooked food also causes Mucoid Plaque which coats the intetinal track and causes malabsorption. Our bodies create their first mucus as a baby when we eat our first cooked food. This mucus acts as a protective filter; it protects the digestive tract from the toxic cooked food. The digestive tract is meant to absorb the nutrients from food, but the mucus prevents this from happening.
It is a green rubbery hose about 25 yards long. (Do a Google image search to see it for yourself!)
If Raw Food isn't right then why does it offer complete disease reversal in every case? What other treatment/diet/surgery has the same results? None that I have found.
I had 3 diseases and they are all gone. Raw Food gave me my life back.

Lolerskates quote= "I had 3 diseases and they are all gone. Raw Food gave me my life back."

Yeah raw food cures up salmonella and Trichinellosis really well. Get a clue raw food is not any more healthy than cooked food. All a raw food diet promotes is the eating of more fruits and vegetables. Cooked or raw eating more is better for you.

Actually, the doctor is incorrect regarding the body's use of enzymes that are eaten. There have been many studies to confirm this and the fact that hypertrophy of many of a human's glands can be reduced if not aborted when sufficient enzymes exist within the diet and many other studies regarding the experiments to determine the effects of completely denatured food (cooked so enzyme free) on enzyme levels in blood and urine.

What if everyone is right - for themselves. What is every person is unique and requires different things at different times. The real disease is that most of us have lost the ability to not only be extremely tuned in and sensitive to the needs of our bodies, but also to stick with what is true for us and not get swayed by the influence of others.

I can only speak for myself. I followed diets set out by people like Dr. Weil for years. I tried following a mainly cooked Vegan diet for months at a time. Through all of this I still carried crippling neck pain and serious depression/pms that almost killed me. I have been on a 100% RAW food diet for 8 weeks now. I am now for the first time in 15 years off my anti-depressants and for the first time in 15 years and doing awesome. I have not had to take painkillers for 3 days now - THAT has never happened before!!! I believe what I have learned through RAW foodist and those who have been healed by them. I hope those of you who need more info will seek it. Thanks

This article makes a lot of sense to me. I've tried eating about every way there is. I see no apparent benefit in eating a large raw salad every day.

I believe that warm cooked foods are easier to digest and they taste well. Frozen foods causes mucus in me. Raw cold foods seem hard to digest.

Ayurvedic and Chinese healers will tell you to avoid raw foods. I think they have a keener sense of what's good for the body.

It's true that if you feed an animal cooked food, they will eat it, and perhaps like it better than raw foods!

When someone switches from a cooked foods diet to a raw foods diet, they will inevitably stop eating certain foods that they have probably been consuming for a long time. Could this be the reason for the claims of better health when switching to raw foods? Maybe one, or more of the cooked foods they were eating were causing problems because of the food itself, not because of being either raw or cooked.

Is there any-one out there who is doing so well on a raw/living foods diet after six months or more without substantial cheating? if you read gabriel cousens the trend seems to be towards eliminating more and more food stuffs. merely eating raw is no longer enough. fruit msut go. mushrooms must go. raw dairy even from the goat must go. Once the benefits of the freedom from anti-nutirents, coffee sugar refined flour etc are exhausted the diet seems to sensitise the body to a whole new set of irritants. i am suggesting the diet could acually be a very bad thing and not merely for reasons of malnutrition. comments??

To consume more of a nutrient as Dr. F says is available in cooked foods is not always a good thing. Just as supplements contain a single nutrient and the body treats them as an unknown substance and will not be able to use the supplement as designed the consumption of larger amounts of bio-available nutirients in cooked food does not mean that they are healthier. The body needs the mixture of all of the nutrients that come in the raw fruit or vegetable in the ratio they are in the raw state. To mess around with this ratio by cooking is not making the food healthier at all and in fact is making it less healthy. Claiming that a vitamin or nutrient is more absorbable after cooking is not at all a good argument for cooking but is in fact a good argument for not cooking.

There are some good sites that have lots of info on raw versus cooked vegetables and fruit. These sites also have graphics for the raw food movement for myspace users http://www.pimpys.com and http://www.picklemy.com

70 percent raw and 30 percent cooked seems to ok with exercise daily.

I know people who have been cured of many diseases by a macrobiotic diet and some who claim the same healings from eating raw meat. I know someone on a raw diet who looks and feels great and then there is another man who looks like he came out of a concentration camp. I don't think there is one sacred holy cow diet just as there isn't only one way to God...I eat a 100% organic whole foods diet with some raw and some cooked and I eat fermented dairy and grassfed meat and that diet is super for me. I hate the idea of doing restrictive diets ever again.

My experience with raw foods: I was in fairly good health but still suffered for several years from chronic daily hemorrhoids, rectal fissure, insomnia, cracked heels, general chilliness, poor concentration, was 30+ pounds overweight, and my hair was turning grey rapidly. I was eating a mostly organic whole food vegetarian diet for over thirty years (on which I overcame Lymes disease and migraine headaches), and applied ayurvedic and chinese medicine wisdom to my diet and lifestyle. I ate no junk food at all. It wasn't until I adopted a 99% (and later 100%) raw, organic diet that every one of the above-mentioned symptoms completely disappeared never to return (excepting a few grey hairs). It has been about 14 months now since I made the commitment (no cheating, no kidding!), and I feel better and more youthful than ever before in my nearly 49 years. I rarely ever eat anything cold from the fridge or freezer. My skin and hair are beautiful, my energy is great, my sleep is wonderful, I lost 33 pounds of excess fat, I no longer have hemorrhoids or fissures or even dry cracked heels, I am no longer chilly even in winter, and my concentration and focus is excellent. I am far more productive than ever. My two questions for the doctor or anyone else who knows: If a raw diet can cause nutritional deficiencies, how long will it take before the overall excellent benefits of my diet change disappear, and the deficiency symptoms begin to appear? If cooked food is essential to good health, please explain how the human and animal kingdoms managed to survive for countless generations? I believe that people have the right to choose what they wish to eat, and that negative judgement is not conducive to health for anyone. I sincerely wish for each and all of you the wonderful increase in health and happiness that I have achieved eating only raw foods. As my granddaughter said to me..."Grandma, you don't look like a grandma to me, all yucky and old and wrinkled, you look nice and young!"

Blessings of health and happiness to all!

No one mentioned Pottenger's cats.

Also, no one mentioned a device called a blender for breaking down fiber in veggies, versus exploding it with heat.

Also I had asthema for years, and whenever I eat grains with gluten raw or cooked the asthema comes back. (or animal products)

Thanks much.

I have Systemic Lupus and was given plaquenil to help me. It did, but for many years it was not 100% better until I went on a raw food diet for one year. My lupus symptoms eventually dissapeared entirely, and my blood tests showed as if I didn't have lupus at all. My doc wanted me to start phasing off my meds but I was too chicken to go off them completely. It is not easy being raw especially when I cook for my 2 kids and husband. But people, it works, just be reasonable with it and trust your body. I ate raw sushi for protein, which I felt I needed. Go organic when you do it; it makes all the difference.

This is an interesting article, but what I find interesting is that, to my knowledge, zoos do not feed their animals cooked food. If or when they do, they get sick.

Second, it is possible that scientists cannot currently measure the value of raw foods. Results are much more valuable when determining the efficacy of raw foods.

Third, it sounds like there's other studies above of which I'm not aware that show the value of raw foods and the enzymes they contain.

There are many good arguments for diets other than raw foods. A partial raw diet is great, because a lot of our vegetables do lose enzymes, nutrients, and vitamins when being cooked. However, others vegetables (when being boiled), actually show an increase in vitamins and minerals. In addition, while some vegetables showed a significant decrease of minerals and vitamins when being cooked, others were negligible. Some nutrients in raw foods are absorbed just fine. Others aren't absorbed very well into the body when raw. As far as health, look at Dr. Jordan Reuben, author of the Maker's Diet. Look at the Mediterranean diet. Look at people in other cultures who are extremely healthy and yet cook their food. Raw foodists claim that steaming destroys enzymes, but another study showed that the temperature of water when you correctly steam food only reaches 100 degrees. Enzymes are not destroyed at that temperature. Raw foodists also claim that 50% of nutrients and minerals are destroyed when we cook food. In all actuality it is about 10%.

The best way to be healthy is to completely cut out processed and chemically treated foods. Even eating organic, there are many processed foods, so while I do believe that eating a predominantly raw foods diet is great, I also believe that people should include natural, organic cooked foods (cooked correctly) into their diets.

I tried several raw recipes from about 3 books that I have. They all taste funny. I should still be able to enjoy food, shouldn't I? I think I'll be sticking to smoothies for breakfast, veggie sandwiches on sprouted bread (perhaps even dehydrated bread at times) or a salad for lunch and fish or chicken and veggies for dinner. I'll be eating my carrots steamed or boiled, because they were one of the vegetables that showed the increase in vitamins and minerals through coooking.

Amy, one point you make is "when you correctly steam food only reaches 100 degrees" - but not sure how that's possible when the gaseous form of water is reached when it's over 212 degrees. Steam is tremendously hot - just put your face over it and you'll experience extreme heat. I don't think that study's accurate.

Additionaly, it's tough to eat raw, but you just can't argue with the *results*. I don't eat a even close to 100% raw, but I do at least try to stay over 50% raw, because it's really hard to do when you work a lot. That or taste doesn't justify the facts and results seen from what it can do for you. Just because we can't accurately measure it's worth today, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Amy's point about the 100 degrees is her misunderstanding... that is 100 degrees CELSIUS! Which is the boiling point of water, which as Steve pointed out, is 212 Fahrenheit. Way higher than the 115 Fahrenheit that is often used as the top temp for raw food.

I have changed my diet to about 80% to 90% raw foods. I have been on it for only about a month, if that. I had bad psoriasis before this. after changing my diet it went away almost completely. Sometimes i eat a hot vegetable soup or some steemed veggies. I think you just have to go with what your body tells you. I have noticed that if I eat wheat products like bread it starts to come back. same thing with meat

Does cooking may cause any change in the nutritive value of the food items
prescribed for a particular meal.

please note that the nutritive value of the raw food is being calculated as per the guidelines(nutritive value of Indian Foods,NIN,Hyderabad)for that particular meal.

as an actual dr (don't bother drumming me out as a poser) i would like to point out that many of these miracle cures attributed to raw food could also be explained by the sudden change in diet. If you went from a vegan diet that consisted largely of pirates booty and sugar laden snacks, then switched to a raw diet, it stands to reason that overall health would increase. I think that all of these testimonies are given without a fair admission of past habits. Also, i would like to briefly (and at my own peril)address the mucus issue. we all have mucus lining our GI tract. it protects us. we don't have rumens, so an over abundance of mucus isn't going to be fatal. we do, however, have sensitive stomach and intestinal linings, which need mucus. all of this talk of "too much mucus" inhibiting nutrient absorption is not true. Finally, meat is basically essential for a healthy human (especially a human male) to survive. thousands of years of selective breeding (evolution people) have given an edge to humans able to take the most nutrients out of cooked meat. Charring is bad, yes, but that doesn't mean you should exclude all meats from your diet. we need animal protein. so, if you want my opinion, raw vegetable and fruits are wonderful things. we all should increase our consumption of raw plants, but to leave out cooked meat is simply unhealthy. even if you add one piece of broiled fish every few days, or a chicken breast on top of a raw organic salad once in while, it will help you maintain a healthy body a healthy waist line and allow you to ingest all of the nutrients your body actually requires.

you must be a medical doctor because you stupid!!! Your just corrupted by the government because they want you to eat electricuted food so you die a slow and painfull death and they can reap all your hard earned money. Read a book or two....you might learn something!!

Andrew, assuming you're an MD with a traditional pharma-backed and drug-based education, please enlighten us how animal products are "basically essential", how we "need animal protein" and how leaving "out cooked meat is simply unhealthy". Also, please include to what extent you were educated in nutrition in medical school (it's typically 1 - 3 semester hours, if that). Also, in your analysis, please explain how sickness and disease develop in those on a flesh-based diet, while those on a plant-based diet thrive. Oh yeah, and please explain how those who've been on a SAD (Standard American Diet) diet - yeah, I know that's rhetorical - and have switched to a plant-based diet get better, but when they go back to eating meat they get sick again. We see that time and time again, so what you're saying just does not make sense based on the RESULTS we've seen.

The fact is, sufficient and extensive studies and data exist that shows that a plant-based diet is much healthier, and even eating meat once a week increases cancer risk by as much as (I believe the stat is) 40%. And if you took the time to self-educate yourself, you'd find from studies such as The China Study and the Seventh Day Adventist study that flesh-based diets do in fact contribute to disease. There's just no doubting it. I just met an MD the other day that dumped his traditional practice of over 20 years to open up a practice that teaches/educates/practices "integrative medicine", the new buzz word for alternative in the medical field. And, guess what, with diet and herbs alone he's having excellent results with cancer, hormones, and disease in general WITHOUT DRUGS. But, he said he had to learn it on his own, and once he "learned the truth", in his words, he said he "couldn't go back". I only wish more medical doctors were this honest and properly trained in the real cause and prevention of sickness and disease.

Do you really believe humans are meant to be vegetarian? Which does our GI tract more closely resemble, that of a cow or that of a cat? Why is it that a human body can not digest cellulose? Everything the doctor said is true. Animal protein is essential for human health. Every animal protein is a complete protein containing the full spectrum of amino acids, vegetable proteins do not. Meat products contain healthy cholesterol and saturated fats, which are also essential for health (which is why breast milk contains 25% sat fat and 11% cholesterol). The problem with a vegan diet is it is typically way too high in carbohydrates, and too low in protein and fat. The body becomes deficient in fat soluble vitamins, and the high carb diet promotes insulin resistance, which causes a whole host of other problems. I've switched to a diet primarily of red meat and cooked non-starchy vegetables and i've never felt better in my life. I will never go back to being a raw vegan.

What makes enzymes? They are mostly proteins, meaning they are transcribed by mRNA from DNA (nucleic acid helices) into amino acid chains of different shapes. So let's look at the generator of enzymes, not just the body's store of them. The question is then, does raw food or cooked food turn on and off the genes (DNA sequences) that create the body's most effective synergetic symphony of proteins in the body? And how would we determine how food effects the cell-nuclear transcription? It would have to do with the nutrients in the plasma and extracellular fluid that signal from the cell membrane (surface) deep into the nucleus of the cell, effecting the genetic (DNA) and epigenetic (molecules all around the DNA) expression. A lot of molecular biochemistry has shown that the extracellular environment - from stress hormones to drugs - signal into the cell interior and effect the nucleus. The study of how raw food vs. cooked food does that is rather undeveloped. But to go back to what works in the wild, I for one am led to the idea that the dissolved nutrients in an raw leaf or fruit is better able to create a healthy, well-understood signal from the cell membrane molecules that turn on and off the genes at optimal expression. And then the right enzymes are made. And since minerals and enzymes work together, the dissolved minerals in raw vegetable food have a scientific likelihood of being ready to combine with the enzymes that are now created, as well. Thus the complexes of minerals with carbon molecules to create the crucial inorganic complexes are ready to go, and the body is mineralized, alkalized, electrified, and highly energized by the inorganic mineral-carbon complexes to create movement and transfer through the tissues which keeps us alive and flowing.

Not sure what source that information came from Michael, but one thing we need to understand is that there's a reason we can't digest certain foods - we don't produce the enzymes necessary to do so. Our GI tract is much more like a cow/horse than a cat/dog. Our saliva and stomach acid is much more mild because we're not set up to eat raw meat like a cat. Additionally, our intestinal tract is long and twisted, where a true carnivore like a cat/dog has a short and somewhat straight intestine. It's surprising that needs clarification from a physiological perspective. Any basic Anatomy and Physiology book covers this.

Additionally, not sure I'm an advocate of a pure vegan diet *LONG TERM*. There appears to be advantages from an ideal perspective to at least get a small amount of good fat and essential fatty acids from other sources such as butter, milk, eggs. However, note this is a very small amount. Based on the evidence, pure vegans don't do as well long term as ovo-lacto vegans from what I've seen - maybe someone has seen something different.

Seems that misinformation, conflict of interest, monetary or otherwise, or maybe people's desire for animal flesh, that keeps us from coming to a collective agreement on the subject of diet and raw foods. Seems that we need to look at the evidence and results to properly determine the best course of dietary action. Dr. Furhman is definitely on the right track, and we see positive, healing results from diets that he and people like Dr. Dean Ornish and Dr. John McDougal suggest. When people go the plant-based route, we see people getting well. Sorry folks, without a shadow of a doubt, based on the evidence, we can ascertain meat is disease-causing, not life-sustaining...

My grandmother is 96 years old, in perfect health, and her favorite foods are McDonalds, Pizza Hut and hot dogs!! If I could live to be 100 on a raw food diet, or 95 and enjoy a well-rounded diet eating everything I enjoy in moderation, I would choose to live to 95!

I agree, I enjoy my African and Carri bean food. It's healthy and fulfilling, so why would I want to torture myself with this diet. Life on earth is meant to be enjoyed, we will all die one day anyway so stop coming up with gimmicks that claim to let you live forever. People stop fooling yourself and enjoy a healthy lifestyle, by not becoming too extreme.