What's the Deal with Raw?

[QuilterMom]

http://www.publix.com/wellness/green...1&childId=1340

The uncooked food trend is gaining momentum for its ability to get more fruits, vegetables, and nuts into American's diet. But when it comes to promoting overall health and well- being, is it healthy or just a raw deal?
If you have dinner at Au Lac, a raw-food restaurant in Orange County, California, you can start with a glass of coconut juice and omega chips (golden flax seeds with cilantro, kelp, and spices), then settle into an entrée of "risotto" made with cultured aquatic grass seeds.

At the award-winning Sublime restaurant in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, patrons can dine on a raw veggie sprout pizza or raw beet and cashew cheese "ravioli."

These restaurants are capitalizing on the raw-food diet's appeal to people like Matthew Kenney, an acclaimed chef in New York City, who abandoned his Mediterranean cuisine for the trendy diet. He's opened Pure Food and Wine, a restaurant devoted to creative raw food, and published Raw Food/Real World: 100 Recipes to Get the Glow (Harper Collins, 2005).

Raw-food restaurants and raw menus at vegetarian restaurants are popping up across the country. A typical raw-food diet is vegan, meaning it contains no meat, fish, eggs, or dairy. Instead, it consists of fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, nuts, and seeds. And it also uses no heat. The underlying premise: Raw foods contain living enzymes that the body needs to digest foods properly. And, because these enzymes are destroyed at temperatures above 118° F, no foods can be heated above 118° F. (That's why raw-food diets are vegan - there are safety concerns about eating beef, fish, shellfish, or eggs raw.)

While it's hardly mainstream, the raw-food diet, like any alternative eating regimen, has its enthusiasts. And with the interest in natural and organic foods on the rise, it may be gaining popularity.
It Makes Sense. Or Does It?
The government and news media harp on us to get our five-a-day. Many nutritionists tell us that uncooked is best because raw foods typically have more intact fiber and nutrients than their cooked counterparts. Studies have shown that a vegetarian diet is associated with a decreased incidence of a host of diseases, including heart disease, arthritis, obesity, and some cancers. So it makes sense that the raw-food diet must be healthy. Right? Not so fast. Consider these nutritional and physiological realities:

Claim: Unlike cooked foods (which are "dead"), raw foods contain living enzymes that aid in digestion.
Truth: Digestion is a scientifically proven process that depends on the body's enzymes. Enzymes from raw foods simply aren't needed.

Claim: Cooked foods are undigested and turned into fat.
Truth: Enzymes provided by the body digest cooked foods. An excess of calories, not undigested food, causes weight gain.

Claim: Heating depletes foods of vitamins and minerals.
Truth: Heating does indeed decrease the nutrients in many foods, but it increases or makes available the nutrients in many other foods - notably, lycopene in tomatoes, carotenoids in carrots, and iron in vegetables.

Claim: Cooked food contains toxins.
Truth: Cooking not only eliminates dangerous bacteria but it also preserves food. It enables us to eat many foods that are simply inedible without heat, such as pasta, rice, and beans.

Claim: Raw foods purify, detoxify, and cleanse the body, and can help cure chronic fatigue syndrome, ulcerative colitis, and cancer, in addition to promoting weight loss.
Truth: There is no scientific evidence that the body requires purifying or cleansing (processes subject to individual interpretation), or that either leads to a decreased incidence of disease.

Everything in Moderation
No doubt eating more raw fruits and vegetables is something everyone should do. It's when we assign Superman-like qualities to raw foods that things run amok. However, sprinkling raw-food dishes into your overall eating routine is a great way to help achieve the government's 2005 dietary guidelines' recommendation of eating 5¿7 servings of fruits and vegetables per day, with an emphasis on dark green and orange varieties (the equivalent of 4½ cups of fruits and vegetables). If you're thinking of going raw, following these tips will help ensure that you're getting what you need nutritionally:

Calories still count. Juicing condenses mass amounts of fruits and vegetables into a concentrated space. Drinking copious amounts of concentrate can amount to calorie overload.

Watch the fat. Raw-food diets may use high-fat coconut, coconut milk, and nuts in lieu of meats and dairy.

Take a multivitamin. Due to the bulk of uncooked fruits, veggies, and nuts, it can be hard to get all your nutrients - in particular, vitamins B12 and D, calcium, and iron.



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Benefits of Eating Raw
Many of the main ingredients in the raw-food diet are well-known for being power-packed with nutrition. The reason: Raw foods are how nature delivered them: fresh, vibrant, and uncooked. Everyone should eat raw foods in their diets because fruits and vegetables are naturally low in fat, cholesterol, and trans fats. Other benefits of raw:
Heat-sensitive vitamins such as folate, B vitamins, and vitamin C are better preserved when uncooked.
Raw foods deliver more fiber than their cooked counterparts.
Eating nuts and seeds provide heart- healthy monounsaturated fats.
Eating a diet rich in plant foods - raw or cooked - has been shown to lower the risk of several chronic diseases.


Which is Best? Juiced or in the flesh? Juicing is advocated on the raw-foods diet and is an easy way to meet your fruit and veggie requirements. But how does one serving of fruit juice compare nutritionally with the fruit itself?

Serving Size Calories Fiber (g) Vitamin C (mg)
1 medium tomato 30 1.5 25
6-oz tomato juice 31 0.7 33
1 orange 60 3 59
6-oz orange juice 80 0.4 75
1 cup fresh pineapple 74 2.2 56
6-oz pineapple juice 105 0.4 20
1 apple 110 5 10
6-oz apple juice 87 0.2 1.6
1 cup grapes 110 1.4 17
6-oz grape juice 103 0.2 0.2

[baxjul]

Thank you so much!