Ask HN: What do you think about the raw food diet?

7 points by burnedouthacker 17 years ago | 10 comments

This is aimed towards knowing what do think about this diet. Do you follow it? Has it improved your being in any way? Do you think its just a fad diet? Does it work? Is it unhealthy?...

systemtrigger 17 years ago |

I'm bound to make mistakes when talking about this stuff but my wife got her masters in nutrition, is published in journals and for what it's worth she's a big fan of the raw food diet. We both followed it closely for about 6 months but eventually we decided it just wasn't convenient enough. There were certainly some benefits to it that I miss but I phrase these much more conservatively than what most gurus would have you believe. For example, I never felt any sort of natural high or extreme mental clarity - just comforted knowing that I wasn't poisoning my body with HFC etc. YMMV.

Here is my best argument for why a layperson should go raw: it forbids you anything that even resembles junk food. Raw may be flawed but clearly it's way healthier than how most people eat. You can say it's a crutch or psychosomatic or whatever but for me once I got into the mindset of it I just stopped noticing unhealthy food. Almost everything in the modern dining world is cooked.

The major downside - because it's so damn restrictive (plus we're practically vegan) is that raw gets to be time consuming. It's really impractical for people on-the-go. Sure you can always just eat an apple or some carrots but that gets boring and so you end up dehydrating your own bread etc and turning down practically every social dining opportunity. In a way that is a Good Thing because there is a lot of harmful junk in modern food, right? But it takes real dedication and eventually we decided a totally raw intake just wasn't worth all the effort.

A cooked food diet opens up the floodgates to all sorts of unhealthy temptations. But in the end it came down to priorities like convenience. If you're thinking of going raw your best friend is the blender: there are a million nutritious ways to mix a surprisingly delicious smoothie (secret ingredient: jalepeños).

tokenadult 17 years ago |

It is not evolutionarily warranted. It is very clear that by the time the species Homo sapiens came around, hominids in the human ancestral line had already been eating cooked food for a long time, and many physiological and anatomic differences between humans and chimpanzees are adaptations to eating cooked food.

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/wrangham/wrangham_index.html

http://www.economist.com/science/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1...

mahmud 17 years ago |

What do I think of sun-bathing as an alternative to the wasteful water-based shower?

What do I think of roofless habitat, living in nature as God/FSM intended and having sunflowers for a pillow?

What do I think of human-fur as an alternative to soul constraining fabrics that bind me in slavery to my own comforts.

Also, when dipped in animal fat, your nails can be strengthened to sharp claws for defense and excellent hunting tools.

rafa8a 17 years ago | |

So... what do you think of it?

mahmud 17 years ago | | |

It's just a friken, unsubstantiated and abnormal fad. Just like Polyphasic sleep, the master cleanse all liquid diet, and James Bond life-style advocated in the 4 Hour Work Week.

These are extremist ways to alter one's lifestyle, and it's usually done by people who want MORE than they already have, not people who are forced by circumstances to eat raw foods, or sleep 2 hours a day, or work 4 hours a week or only consume liquid diets.

And from my experience, people susceptible to these fads make for awful companions and hangout buddies. Sure, Voltaire might have advocated for the Noble Savage who lived in harmony with nature, but the SOB was writing praises to nature and animal-like living when he was himself collecting royalties, living in castles and rubbing shoulders with European nobility.

mindviews 17 years ago |

Something to keep an eye on in general - a raw food diet is used and promoted in anorexia circles and can be cover for an underlying eating disorder. It can be hard on this diet to eat enough calories to be healthy. The "legitimacy" of the diet can be a way to hide an eating disorder from family and friends (when it is in fact being used to restrict calorie intake).

bgutierrez 17 years ago |

I did the diet for about a month while I was poor. This was a bad time to try it, since finding raw nuts and other things is difficult on a budget, even in San Francisco.

I lost weight, I was often hungry, and I couldn't stop craving meats and cheeses. When I looked at pictures of people that were also on the raw diet, they looked gaunt and unhealthy. So I decided it was all bullshit and gave it up.

st3fan 17 years ago |

From what I understand it is a dangerous diet. Some foods are not to be eaten raw. Simply because our bodies can not handle that. Some raw foods (specially meat) contain bacteria that you certainly don't want in your system.

Personally, I think there are better diets.

HalcyonMuse 17 years ago | |

Better diets = ?

monkeybusiness 17 years ago |

I think it temporarily changes the way you feel emotionally - because our diet is tied into our mood. Some people who embark on the diet - including some people very close to me - read more into their altered mood than they ought to.