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The Raw Food Diet
New diet raises opposing voices
By Ryan Callihan
There are a lot of diets that come and go, but there is one diet that has been around for a long time. Long, as in before the discovery of fire— the raw food diet. What exactly is the raw food diet? Its name says it all. It’s a diet that consists of only raw foods— mainly fruits, vegetables, sprouts, nuts, seeds, grains, and sea vegetables that are not cooked.
Raw food proponents claim that the diet gives people more energy, better health, weight loss and is more ethical than animal diets. One well-known raw foodist, Alissa Cohen, who has advertised the raw food diet on shows like Tyra and The Today Show, writes, “When food is cooked at over 112 degrees we destroy all of its enzymes. This is a problem because we need enzymes for every function in our body.” This is hard to prove scientifically because there isn’t a lot of research done on the raw food diet. While a lot of the benefits of a vegetarian diet have been studied, the biggest source of information about raw food diets come from people who are on the diet.
I gained insight into this diet by talking to someone who was on the raw foods diet, my sister. She is infamous for trying every new diet that she finds out about. She has gone through a no-carbohydrate diet, a no-grain diet, a no-soy diet, a vegetarian diet, and now, the raw food diet. The meals one eats on the raw food diet are not the typical American fare. The first time I went over to her house to eat, she served us both an entire salad bowl of greens, nuts, and sprouts— I’m talking a family-sized salad bowl. But she seemed to enjoy the diet.
“I felt awesome,” she said. “I usually felt energetic, and just… healthy.” Despite her initial enthusiasm, she didn’t last long on the diet. Her last words about why she stopped being a raw foodist summed it up: “I got hungry.”
Skeptics think the low level of calorie consumption is why the raw food diet is not really feasible for the normal person. Whether it’s because there isn’t enough time to prepare every balanced meal from scratch, or because the types of food able to be consumed is limited, either way they end up starving.
One Minneapolis restaurant is trying to help the raw foodists. Ecopolitan, a 100% vegan, raw food restaurant, serves meals ranging from raw shepherd’s pie to eco-raw pizza. While the dishes may not look like its traditional counterpart, the restaurant is making it easier to be on the raw food diet.
“It’s a more difficult diet to have in our society,” said Becky Ford, a worker at Ecopolitan. “It’s definitely a more time-consuming diet. All the food has to be prepared from scratch, and you can’t just stop at a fast food place and pick up a hamburger, or go home and microwave a dinner.” She said the diet is doable if you know what your priorities are.
While the raw food diet is nowhere near mainstream, Ford thinks the raw food diet is becoming more popular around the cities. “We saw a lot more business this year during our slow season,” said Ford. “The Twin Cities is a more progressive place, where people are interested in this type of lifestyle,” she said. For now, only time will tell if raw food will grow.