So God created eggs for us to be eaten raw? And lentils, beans, meat? Let's eat them raw!
Not all foods can be eaten raw, but many can be. Before learning to use fire for food preparation, human's ate only raw food. Fruits, some vegetables and nuts are good examples. Note what Chimpanzee, Gorilla and other great apes are eating whole day, raw food, for Chimpanzees, sometimes even raw meat. Because of the enzyme in raw food, they work as medicine and some say raw food diet can cure or prevent many chronic disease like high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer etc.
I personally eat raw fruits and vegetables that can be eaten raw and steamed food that cannot be eaten raw. For meat I like Kabobs (Iranian or Lebanese) or greek souvlaki that is not well cooked and half raw. I avoid Desi food with curry spices, unless I go to relatives house or Indian restaurant for their ayce buffet.
I found that heating oil for any food, like in Desi and Chinese food is one of the biggest cause for disease and ill health. Steamed or soup like food without any oil is much better, Korean food is one example. Koreans also use a lot of garlic in their Kim Chee, which is good for health. It has probiotic good bacteria, but it has too much salt. So salt free Kim Chee which you can find in Whole Foods market in USA is a better option.
And any food that is made in factory is not food, they are poison, example, factory salt, factory made sugar, soda etc. Sugar or high fructose corn syrup are chemical and addictive drug that cause obesity, diabetes etc. Salt also became popular as a food preservative, but its heavy use has become addictive. Sun dried sea salt in very small quantity is ok, as it has many trace minerals.
It's true that some foods are better eaten raw, but it's not always the case. Cooking actually predigests the food, making it more efficient to ingest calories without spending hours chewing raw food. There was a documentary on evolution where the presenter compared eating a batch of raw carrots v/s cooked/steamed carrots and the amount of time/effort needed to ingest the same amount of nutrients. Also, nutrients from stewed tomatoes are better absorbed by the body than from raw tomatoes.
That's not even counting the health hazards like salmonella, e-coli, etc. in undercooked animal foods.
Cooking has its good sides, but foods that can be eaten raw should be taken raw. Sometimes it helps to make juice to avoid the chewing part for raw food, example green vegetable juice and some fruit juice.
Cooking destroys enzymes. For cooking simple boiling or steaming is better than frying in oil or heating oil. Heated oil causes plaque in arteries and is carcinogenic. Deep fried food are worst for health.
Cooking Tomato actually helps digestion of some nutrient, it is a well know fact. But carrots should be juiced, if chewing is a concern. I like eating carrots raw, because the fiber fills up the stomach and keeps the internals clean with regular bowel movement.
cooking is needed for better absorption..or else most of teh nutrients will go wasted if eaten raw....although the points in the article are also correct that coking destroys many nutrients, changes many of them into toxic substances and free radicals...so the best would be to make good selection of your food an dthen cook it accordingly...in the oractical world, its not really possible. So th ebest that we can do to get the most of the nutrients of the vegatable snd fruits without destroying its nutrients and aalso at the same time easily ingest it is to...make a juice of raw vegetables, fruits and drink it daily..atleast a glass...you will get the nutrients and also the anti oxidants privided by the fruits and vegetables will destroy the harmful free radicls in your body that you take in for of guletins and other toxic materials. my two cents
Good points, the idea is to reduce cooked food as much as possible and increase the percentage of raw food as much possible in diet. This helps people look and feel younger, because the internal organs remain younger and also prevent many degenerative disease.
We do eat raw meat in Turkey, this snack is called Çiğ köfte (Raw kofta)
A mix of bulgur, raw minced meat and spices etc.
If you eat the meat raw, you must add spices which kill the bacteria and eat it quickly.
Need to try this, looks great. Only semi raw meat I tried is rare steaks. But problem with meat in the US is that beef, lamb, goat etc. unless they are organic, they are using animal protein in their feed, causing disease like BSE or Mad Cow disease. Also they use hormones and antibiotic in their factory farms. So I mainly eat natural chicken kabobs (Iranian) or lamb (new zealand) souvlaki, as these have no BSE problem and little or no chemicals. Raw fish like Sushi or Sashimi is great, but too much is not good because of Mercury, the world really has become too polluted, there is no escape from toxic chemicals, it seems.
