Day 30 October 30th 5:53 PM

Food Eaten: Coconut, breakfast shake, dates, dulse
Quality of life: Feelin' groovy.
Physical activity: research isn't particularly taxing...
Raw Food Percentage: 100

So, quickie research day has been fairly fruitful. To begin, let's address the major claims of raw food. Or rather, the major claim.

Raw Food is Healthier than Cooked Food. Which would account for the claims of more energy, weight loss without entering starvation mode and putting it all back on as soon as a return to a normal diet occurs, the extension of youth and the slowing of degenerative disease.

Now lets talk about claims as to why raw food is better than cooked food. Once again, this basically just boils down to one claim.

Cooking destroys the nutrients in food and makes it harder to digest, making raw food a more efficient source of nutrients.

a-protein

Okay, so cooking does denature proteins. Fry an egg to see evidence of that. Now is that denaturing a bad thing? Laurie Forti, a fitness and nutrition coach who's website is here argues that as the proteins are broken down from higher stages of complexity, (quaternary, tertiary and primary structures) by cooking they become shaped in such a way that the enzymes specific to their breakdown are unable to work on them properly. As a result the digestive process is less efficient and in general less effective.

Now, as a quick refresher which I had to do because biology class was a whole long time ago, proteins are long chains of amino acids which fold themselves into a variety of shapes and consequent functions. This folding is a result of attraction between the various amino acids on the chain. This process is really neat, and is one of the reasons why cellular biology is so interesting. Its also what is meant by primary(long chain), tertiary, (final form after its folded itself completely), and quaternary (bonding with another protein) structure. Now, what you're body needs is amino acids. That way it can make its own proteins.

So, as I can see, protein denaturization is actually a good thing in general, hence why your stomach is acidic. It breaks down and denatures the protein structure. So cooking would seem to have little negative effect, and possibly a positive affect.

However, cooked proteins don't simply break down when heated, they just get... weird, for lack of a better word. And in some cases, according to this exhaustively researched article, this can reduce the efficiency of their digestion. While there is mention of cross linkage between proteins in a few places I couldn't find an explanation for what that was I could easily understand. It essentially appears to be proteins bonding together in some cases and forming a structure that is resistant to digestion. As a result, they're harder to digest and less efficient. This is only some proteins in some foods, ranging from a negligible to moderate difference.

b-enzymes

I'm going to make this quick, the living enzyme theory that you see now and then on raw food sites, that raw plants contain enzymes that assist in their own digestion, is bullshit. The enzymes in plants do not make a meaningful contribution to the digestion of food in your body. Their contribution is, quite, quite small. And specifically must be made before they're deactivated by the acids in your stomach, and as they are proteins themselves, digested.

Aswell, you cannot exhaust your supply of enzymes, as is occasionally claimed in some quarters, they're proteins like everything else and created by your body as needed for specific jobs. In point of fact, they're recyclable, being used many times for the same reaction.

If you'd like to see a much longer argument against enzyme health look here.

The source of this idea is a book called "Enzyme Nutrition" Written by Edward Howell, a Doctor who experimented with various fruit juices to treat Tuberculosis during the 30s and 40s. It's vitalism people. Vitalism and nothing more. Once again I refer to Forti. There is no life force in organic compounds that makes them special. They're synthesizable chemicals and nothing more. Organic vs. inorganic compounds refers to whether or not they contain carbon and can therefore be used by a carbon-based life form.

c-Vitamins

This one actually does seem to go to raw food. Particularly in the case of boiling, many vitamins are leached from food by cooking. Not all mind you, but it does reduce the amount of vitamins in food. I refer to this set of imposing tables.

The idea seems to be that the process of cooking, usually boiling, leeches vitamins off and into the water. However, its pointed out that steaming retains most of the vitamins lost by other forms of cooking.

So, raw food does contain moderately more vitamins, but not specifically due to being raw per se, rather just for the manner in which they're prepared.

d- Toxicity of Cooked Foods

Alright, I admit I had a lot of trouble with this. But near as I can tell, there are certain reactions that occur between proteins and carbohydrates that generate carcinogenic chemicals.

This, has a lot of information on it, however the final conclusion is that the toxicity of cooked foods is mild at worst.


Conclusion

So, for the most part, raw foods are more nutrient rich than cooked foods. Though, it does not appear that this reduction in nutrients is particularly great. In some cases they are more easily digestible than cooked foods. However, this ease of digestion is arguably outweighed by the fact that your diet is limited too foods that can be digested at all when served raw.

In the end, a raw food diet is probably healthiest for you simply because anything you can eat raw is very good for you. And if you can assemble a completely balanced diet that provides you everything from these foods you will be eating a whole bunch of nutrients without any unnecessary by products that will be found in processed and cooked foods.

However it appears that a raw food vegan diet isn't vastly superior to a vegan diet. To put it simply, if you can keep yourself fed with nothing but vegetables you will be extremely healthy.

But, people with anecdotal evidence about the benefits of raw food abound. So, the best I can say, since I lack training in nutrition, biochemistry or much of anything else is if you feel like eating nothing but vegetables will make you feel better, go for it. If it works, good for you.
If you want to give raw food a shot, go ahead. There doesn't seem to be any reason why it's remarkably better than cooked food, but it seems to make a difference for some people. I would suggest easing into it. In the end, eating more fresh fruits and vegetables is basically always going to do you some good. Eating nothing but fresh fruits and vegetables if you can manage to do it and get everything you need, certainly won't do you any harm, but it doesn't apppear that there's a significant difference between an 80% raw foodist and a 100% raw foodist. Or, a difference between a vegan and a raw food vegan. If you find you're happier and healthier as a raw foodist than as a vegan, go for it. Though it appears that chemically the difference is negligible.

Note: I have omitted some of the more ridiculous raw food claims(cures cancer, reverse aging etc.) because I honestly don't think they're worth looking at and finding trustworthy information on them is a somewhat daunting task. To see an argument for them, check out this pile of douche. I got two minutes in before I shut it off.