Facts to combat SAD-defending parents!

[dgmulf]

I've been eating raw lately, but still live with parents. They tell me that raw foods are "harder on the digestive system", and that the increased life expectancy of mankind since the era of hunter-gatherer is largely due to cooked foods.

How can I (or anyone else) effectively argue against this opposition?

[Revvell]

Why argue? Do what you do and let them see the results.

Btw ~ you might think they were hunter/gatherers yet, they were really hunted/gatherers.

[EscapeArtist]

The only proof is in example. You're heading in the right direction, thus you're heading for example. You're already doing your best to persuade them by striving to be living and breathing proof. What are facts in comparison :P

Don't worry, their worry will fade once they see radiance in you

[fastfreedom]

There's lots of people on the internet sharing their story of how they've recovered from illness, including cancer by eating a raw vegan diet.

A good study to compare what happens to the body when fed cooked food verses raw would be Dr. Pottenger's cats. I know that they are cats that eat meat and such. But it still show's what happens when food has been cooked.

The cooked food fed cats begin to get very sick. And something like the third or fourth generation wasn't able to have offspring cus their bodies were so messed up.

[Psychalone]

I've been eating raw lately, but still live with parents. They tell me that raw foods are "harder on the digestive system", and that the increased life expectancy of mankind since the era of hunter-gatherer is largely due to cooked foods.

How can I (or anyone else) effectively argue against this opposition?

<sigh> Ignorance is truly a pandemic in this world, Buddha must be rolling in his grave :p

First of all would you please ask your parents to site the scientific literature which states that the life expectancy of hunter-gatherers was SIGNIFIGANTLY lower than today? And if they can please ask them to show the direct correlation between cooked food and an increase in life span. When you do and they fumble over their words or get defensive please present the following cases

http://www.cathletics.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3779

And in this study...
http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/gurven/papers/pdrdraft04182006.pdf
... table 3 (found at the bottom) shows clearly the model lifespans of a variety of hunter-gatherer populations along with the 2002 US model lifespan. The average lifespan of the studied populations were in the high 60's and low 70's, similar to the US in 2002. They attribute the deaths that DID occur mostly to war, harsh living conditions, lack of medicine and inconsistant food supply. NOTHING about cooked foods, again it has to do with having shelter, consistant food supply, drugs (AKA medicine) and peace amoungst peoples.

But lets look at cooked foods, and see whether they would increase or decrease longevity...
In this study:
http://www.rawfoodinfo.com/articles/art_leukocytosisandcooked.html
It was found that upon ingestion of cooked foods white blood cell count increased signifigantly. Now why would that happen? WHat is the function of white blood cells? To quote the University of Maryland Medical Center...

The primary function of white blood cells, or leukocytes, is to fight infection. There are several types of white blood cells and each has its own role in fighting bacterial, viral, fungal, and parasitic infections. Types of white blood cells that are most important for helping protect the body from infection and foreign cells
So might the body view cooked food or perhaps the byproducts of digestion of cooked foods, as "foreign cells"? The study showed that raw food doesn't cause leukocytes to be released, so why would cooked food?
Lets investigate further
In a study done by Dr Francis M Pottenger Jr. MD he fed cats a raw diet and a cooked diet over a period of 10 years. To quote from the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation...

In his classical experiments in cat feeding, more than 900 cats were studied over 10 years. Dr. Pottenger found that only diets containing raw milk and raw meat produced optimal health: good bone structure and density, wide palates with plenty of space for teeth, shiny fur, no parasites or disease, reproductive ease and gentleness.

Cooking the meat or substituting heat-processed milk for raw resulted in heterogeneous reproduction and physical degeneration, increasing with each generation. Vermin and parasites abounded. Skin diseases and allergies increased from 5% to over 90%. Bones became soft and pliable. Cats suffered from adverse personality changes, hypothyroidism and most of the degenerative diseases encountered in human medicine. They died out completely by the fourth generation.


Hmm, things aren't looking so good for cooked food. But surely you can still get vitamins and nutrition from cooked foods right?
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1253064/pdf/biochemj01106-0217.pdf
From the Division of Nutrition in the Lister Institute in London, it is stated that B2, the MOST HEAT STABLE OF THE B COMPLEX, is destroyed during the heating process. IN temperatures as low as 100-120degree it's shown that more than 50% is lost. Now if that is the most heat stable vitmain and more than half of it is lost in the heating process...what does that say about the other B vitmains, ESPECIALLY B12!!!
Ask any nutritioinalist and they'll tell you all about vitamin C, it's neither heat stable nor light stable. Thats why they add ascorbic acid to pastuerized juices, so they can claim it's a good source of vit C.

But really lets just cut to the chase. ENZYMES. Enzymes are how digestion works so we'll be able to cover the concept of digestion and cooking all in one foul swoop. Enzymes are found in uncooked foods and are also made in the pancreas. When we ingest food and begin to chew, the enzyme amylase which is responsible for breaking down starches and sugar into glucose, is released in the saliva. Then your pancreas releases more enzymes (protease for proteins, lipase for fats) to further break down foods into assimilatible forms. If a substance is not broken down then it can accumulate in the body and cause problems.
Quoted from the Journal of Nutrition: http://jn.nutrition.org/content/128/10/1716.full

This finding demonstrates that even cooked egg protein, which has generally been considered to be easily digestible, is malabsorbed to some extent after ingestion of a physiologic load. Incomplete assimilation of dietary protein may have important consequences not only from a nutritional point of view, but also from a gastrointestinal point of view. Indeed, some metabolites resulting from bacterial fermentation of malabsorbed proteins in the colon have been implicated in the ethiopathogenesis of diseases such as colonic cancer and ulcerative colitis (Macfarlane and Cummings 1991, Pitcher and Cummings 1994, Visek 1978).

As we can see if food isn't properly digested, problems can arise. Now since enzymes are responsible for the breakdown of nutrients and cooking destroys the digestive enzymes in food which forces our pancreas to make more enzymes (or convert metabolic enzymes into digestive enzymes)...cooked food really isn't looking so hot anymore, is it? Eventually pancreatic function may weaken and undigested wastes accumulate and degenerative disease manifests.

Now thats not to say you can eat anything raw and you won't suffer digestive distress. Read my response in this thread:
http://rawfoodtalk.com/showthread.php?t=64423

I explain how cooking has it's use to those who didn't know how to make raw work and also the main causes of digestive distress while eating raw foods.

Thats all I've got off hand. If your need more let me know and I'll look through more of my literature and find more info. That should sufice for the time being though. BUt again, if you need more just ask ;)

[dgmulf]

Lots of good info!

Thanks guys.

I'll also mention that I'm the only member of the family that hasn't gotten a single cold this winter.

[green goddess]

There's lots of people on the internet sharing their story of how they've recovered from illness, including cancer by eating a raw vegan diet.

A good study to compare what happens to the body when fed cooked food verses raw would be Dr. Pottenger's cats. I know that they are cats that eat meat and such. But it still show's what happens when food has been cooked.

The cooked food fed cats begin to get very sick. And something like the third or fourth generation wasn't able to have offspring cus their bodies were so messed up.

This is one of my favourite examples of cooked vs. uncooked! And why I make my kitty her own raw meat. Though I do wish I could feed her fruits and veggies instead of meat...!

Another example, if it helps, is a study briefly outlined in a 1980s raw food book I was reading recently:

A doctor was becoming interested in health through raw foods, and at the time he was aware of Japanese POW diets, which provided about 800 calories a day, consisting of cooked rice, veggies, and some fruits, I believe. It was a starvation diet, but the doctor decided that if it was augemented to raw foods instead of cooked, it could be life-sustaining. So he and his wife copied this prisoner diet, keeping all the ingredients the same, except raw, and they benefited from it. The doctor's wife was breastfeeding at the time, and said how the raw diet made the breastfeeding easier. In the spirit of experimentation, they then replaced the raw foods with cooked, and suffered nutrition deficiencies, and had to abandon the experiment.

800 calories is not a lot at all, but really goes to show what a difference it makes when the foods are raw! The book is 'Raw Energy' by Leslie and Susannah Kenton, if anyone's interested

[Bananna]

;) ...well I would start with that then...lol.

Know that this is a normal first reaction. It was probably your own similar first reaction. It was mine...not that I used that info as an argument, but I probably used something that sounded just as 'reasonable'.

Think of it more like you're planting a seed in their head. Over time they will simply get used to it.
...and tell them it's simply an experiment to see what happens and if horrible things start happening then you'll look at it. Or show them Carol Alt's book cover...I forget the title, something about eating raw for graceful aging. Or Lilian Mueller. Or Mimi Kirk.
...all BEAUTIFUL seniors who eat raw.

In essence: gradually desensitize them.