What’s up with the Raw Deal?
The Atkins diet? South-Beach Diet? Jenny Craig? Weight Watchers? But a Raw-food only diet? What the…?! Consuming only raw foods? Not cooking anything? Isn’t that unhealthy? Not according to advocates of this diet. The raw foods diet is among some of the latest fad and celebrity-hyped diets out there today, you can even find some restaurants that only serve raw foods. The name of the raw food diet says it all: You only consume raw, unprocessed foods. Diet devotees claim the diet improves nutrition and health, offers spiritual enlightenment and improves digestion among other things. But can a diet consisting only of raw foods truly live up to its promises and can it be healthy?
Followers consume a diet regimen made up of fresh, raw fruits and vegetables, sprouted seeds, nuts, legumes, dried fruits, milk from coconut, fresh fruit and vegetable juices and other organic or natural foods which have not been processed. Sounds healthy. It stems from the thinking that raw and living foods contain the essential enzymes needed for proper digestion, as well as containing higher nutrient values. Raw food dieters believe the enzymes in raw foods are the life force and that every food has its own essential enzymes. These enzymes help the body digest the foods completely, without relying on the body’s own enzymes. This means that cooked foods, foods cooked higher than 116 °F, are “ dead” because all of these enzymes and nutrients are destroyed.
But is their scientific data to back this up? No, not really. It has been widely known and accepted that cooking our food is healthier and safer. Cooking foods kills any harmful bacteria, it lets us eat a wide variety of foods especially those who cannot tolerate raw uncooked vegetables, which can leave individuals with nutrient deficiencies. And well, yes cooking does kill the foods enzymes, our body has its own enzymes for proper digestion and health and doesn’t need other enzymes.
In recent studies, it was discovered that most of the foods that Americans consumed are foods which had gone through so many processes and thereby losing most of its nutritional values. Unhealthy nutrients are also been added to foods as additive during production to either preserve flavor or enhance its taste and appearance. An individual cannot simply trust what he or she is consuming at a fast food restaurant or even a cheap prepared meal at a grocery store. Processed food or western diet needs to be replaced and totally taken out of the American life and diet; this will help the Americans to live a healthier life, and spend less on medical bills.
Americans should eliminate their regular consumption of animal products and processed foods. This type of diet leads to preventable and expensive health issues such as heart disease, diabetes, obesity and even death. Most Americans don’t realize that the majority of the food being advertised to them is literal garbage that’s infusing their bodies with toxins on a daily basis. As Americans, we take pride and joy in our food, given the fact that it’s so darn tasty. We find comfort in eating a cheeseburger with French fries and slurping down a 44-ounce cola. However, what we eat has a far more detrimental effect on our health than most of us are aware of. To some, making the switch to a raw food diet might seem to be taking a drastic measure.
Therefore, our food is not highly processed and we are aware of what we are putting in our body. Pollan urges his audience to be aware of food that contains ingredients that are “unfamiliar, unpronounceable, and more than five in number “ (Pollan). This is most likely because these types of ingredients are harmful when consumed. My mother’s home cooked meals ensure that there is little to no ingredients that we are unfamiliar with. This is especially because my family has a garden in our backyard. I usually do most of the planting and watering and caring of the plants, therefore I am knowledgeable in what’s being put in the
Every popular belief of food and nutrition is carefully analyzed and debunked by Pollan using various examples from cultural habits, basic scientific processes and relevant studies and experiments. The vast amount of information from numerous, and likely fraudulent, sources reflect the message he is trying to convey: that food is naturally too complicated to study and perfect in science. Each chapter flows smoothly into the next topic as explanations become clearer and more in-depth. His knowledge in the topic and history is strongly demonstrated as well, building his credibility with his audience.
Processed foods include those that contain sugar, grains, artificial flavors, artificial sweeteners, or preservatives. The Paleo diet sticks to fresh foods that are processed as little as possible.
When we think of our national health we wonder why Americans end up obese, heart disease filled, and diabetic. Michael Pollan’s “ Escape from the Western Diet” suggest that everything we eat has been processed some food to the point where most of could not tell what went into what we ate. Pollan thinks that if America thought more about our “Western diets” of constantly modified foods and begin to shift away from it to a more home grown of mostly plant based diet it could create a more pleasing eating culture. He calls for us to “Eat food, Not too much, Mostly plants.” However, Mary Maxfield’s “Food as Thought: Resisting the Moralization of Eating”, argues differently she has the point of view that people simply eat in the wrong amounts. She recommends for others to “Trust yourself. Trust your body. Meet your needs.” The skewed perception of eating will cause you all kinds of health issues, while not eating at all and going skinny will mean that you will remain healthy rather than be anorexic. Then, as Maxfield points out, “We hear go out and Cram your face with Twinkies!”(Maxfield 446) when all that was said was eating as much as you need.
Making the choice of diet is critical because healthy food has low calories, which can help most people lose weight; nevertheless, processed food may let people have an unbalanced nutrition of intake. In Wikipedia, health food means it’s benefited for people to get nutrition and has strong bodies through a healthy diet, and processed food is produced in factories. In the Omnivore’s
Today in the Western Hemisphere, many chronic health problems result from bad eating habits. There are a mix of people who are over-nourished, malnourished, or both. We eat chemically altered, high-fat toxic foods that do not provide a sufficient amount of essential vitamins and minerals to our bodies. Clogging of the eliminative systems with excess mucous is thought to sustain congestive diseases. Ineffective digestion and poor nourishment result in vitamin and mineral deficiencies. A well-balanced diet can overcome this health crisis. A diet of raw foods and fluids helps cleanse the body, and fasting takes the cleansing a step further.
However, some people might argue by saying that this diet wouldn’t work because living the lives of cavemen in present times is just impossible. If you look at the concept literally, you would surely find it difficult to adhere to. This is why those who have an open mind and those who are not afraid to try out new things for their own benefit are those that will really benefit from this kind of diet.
The vegetarian diet has become very popular in the United States. How does not eating meat affect a person's health? It is important for people to eat a nutritious diet that will fuel their body. Some people think the vegetarian diet is bad for a person because there are so many nutrients that we can only get from meat.The vegetarian diet has a stigma that it is not very healthy, however the vegetarian diet can be very beneficial to a person's health.
Food science has also done some damage to people’s diets by replacing fresh food in our supermarkets to aisles of boxed and frozen food that lack nutrients in them This problem was noticed in 1977 when a document called Dietary Goals for the United States was created after rates of coronary heart disease had soared in America since World War II. In 1977, the lipid hypothesis, it proposes that dietary or saturated fat causes heart disease by raising the concentration of cholesterol in the blood. Government has been changing the Dietary Guidelines for the United States quite often which proves not even scientists know everything about nutrition. Nutritionism has led to the creation of processed foods which has been
There is no surprise that food is important in all aspects of our lives—it is shared amongst families, celebrated as a major part of our culture, and crucial to our daily routine that keeps us fit, healthy, and active. Today’s western culture glorifies a skewed perspective on how food is supposed to fit into our lives. Somehow this perception has led us to believe we no longer have the time or money it takes to prepare a wholesome, healthy meal that is shared at the dinner table with family. Instead, we are trained to want a meal that is fast, cheap, and easy. This meal is usually highly processed and filled with sugars and fats. This has led us to a problem of epidemic proportions characterized by the rapid increase in obesity and diabetes.
The American population is fat. What’s worse, we are getting fatter. For many years, a body mass index (BMI) of 27 or more (weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared) was the standard criteria for being overweight, and a BMI of 30 or more was the criteria for obesity. This meant that more than one third of U.S. adults were overweight. In recent years the criteria has been reduced to a BMI of 25 or more to be considered overweight, with the obesity criteria remaining the same. Now, more than 50% of U.S. adults are classified as being overweight. Interestingly, as the number of overweight individuals skyrockets, so too does the number of various diets that Americans are willing to try in their search for the thin standard that our culture idolizes. One of the most popular, and many claim successful, of the conglomerate of diets is the Atkins protein diet, named after its founder and guru Dr. Robert C. Atkins. With more than six million copies in print, Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution proclaims to be "the amazing no-hunger weight-loss plan that has helped millions lose weight and keep it off" (Atkins). Sounds great, but what is this diet, and is it too good to be true?
Most people today recognize that fast food meals are generally not very beneficial to one’s health, regardless of their decision to consume them. What many people do not understand is how much better a home cooked meal can be when compared to these cheap and tasty options. When examining the American fast food diet, home cooked meals provide healthier cooking methods, lower risk for health disorders, and lower obesity rates.
When we prepare our own food, we know exactly which ingredients and how much is going into our food. Instead you don’t have to think about the unhealthy cooking methods and ingredients going into your food. For instance, most restaurants have meals that are high in fat, salt, sugar, and would use butter or oils with trans fats. While at