I’m inquisitive by nature. I like to learn things. I like to figure things out. So I ask lots of questions. While writing this book, I’ve become more aware of aspects of eating raw that, despite eight years as a raw foodist, I either knew little about or simply took for granted. So, as usual, I’ve asked questions and am sharing the answers I found here in this book. Before starting any lifestyle change, everyone should ask questions, seek answers from different sources (I’ve found the Internet is a good place to cross-reference), including any doctors you know.
People also come up to me to ask me about the raw-food lifestyle. I like answering their questions the best way I can with the information I’ve gathered from doctors and other raw foodists. If you’re anything like me (or them) you have your own questions about eating raw.
As you read this you may be standing in a bookstore just browsing Eating in the Raw. Or maybe you bought the book, took it home, and had just begun to look at it when you stopped at this chapter because you wanted some quick answers. Or perhaps you’ve read every page of the book up to this point but you still have some doubts or uncertainties or you just need a nudge to get going. It’s a big step that you want to take, but you need more reassurance that it’s the right thing for you to do. (It helps if you check with your doctor first, as always.)
If you’re any one of these people this chapter is for you. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions people have asked me about raw food—and the answers you may need.
“We won’t be fooled again,” is how the old Who song goes. Look for the word raw on the label. In the United States raw foods must say they are raw. They can also say cold-pressed (in the case of oils), unpasteurized (for dairy products), and sprouted (if it’s a product made from grains). Some foods may be labeled with the words cru, crude, or unprocessed. Read the label, and look at every ingredient. Here the manufacturer legally shouldn’t be able to mislead.
And I do mean mislead. Plenty of food companies seem to be jumping on the raw bandwagon and they want to reap the “pro-seeds” without sowing the seeds first. For example, I bought some sprouted bread the other day. The label on the front boasted “sprouted” in large letters, so I didn’t bother reading the ingredients on the back. When I got it home and opened the bread I immediately noticed that it looked like any other bread you’d buy off the shelf. I mean it looked like plain ol’ white bread. So I started to read the ingredients and what did I find? The first ingredient was sprouted but next was white flour, followed by all the regular cooked ingredients. Now I stick with Ezekiel or Genesis bread.
Don’t be fooled by foods like store-bought hummus that are in the refrigerated section and served up cold. Just because it’s cold doesn’t make it raw. All the ingredients are cooked. There’s usually not one drop of raw oil or one uncooked chickpea in the hummus you usually buy.
If you have to ask if something is raw, you can almost be certain it isn’t. Most people who work in a supermarket or restaurant never think about whether something is raw or not. And they’re not likely to know much about ingredients either. It’s not a criticism, just a recognition that they don’t think along such lines.
For me, it was the easiest thing I ever did because I immediately saw the benefits. There’s no doubt that it’s easier for most people to eat anything they feel like, anywhere, anytime. But I don’t recommend it. I told you what the consequences were for me. I experienced headaches, acid indigestion, sinus problems, weight gain, PMS, bloating, and degenerative disease that completely changed for me by cutting out cooked food.
For me it was a lot healthier, and in a way, easier, to eat anything I wanted in moderation, but raw. So that’s what I do. The difference in how your body processes raw food is explained in chapter 3. In what to me is no doubt some God-given, natural plan, if we eat unprocessed, raw foods, and the right supplements (see your doctor for the best supplements and raw foods for you), our bodies seem to regulate themselves. Our bodies seem to know when to stop eating. It doesn’t eat and then hunger for more and more and more. It feels satisfied when it is satisfied.
Also, once you begin to think about food differently and to see raw food as food and cooked food as garbage (often tasty garbage, no doubt), it becomes pretty easy to eat it raw. Practically speaking, it’s all a matter of changing habits. Because we have so little experience of eating really delicious raw food, we tend to think that living on food that hasn’t been cooked should be hard. But raw food is delicious—and especially when you taste recipes that are simply incredible—you’ll find as I did that it’s not hard to “eat this way” at all. Once you get used to raw food’s pleasures and benefits I believe you’ll find it hard not to choose raw over cooked food.
One of my reasons for writing this book is to make eating raw easy, whether you’re shopping for food, preparing it, having guests over, or going out to eat. If you haven’t read the rest of the book, read it. I think you’ll become convinced that it’s not hard at all.
Don’t confuse being trim with being hungry. When I was eating cooked food and starving myself to stay thin as a model, I was very literally hungry almost all of the time. I am never hungry now. I eat all the time. I feel great. I have lots of energy. I’m thin now, but I’m not hungry at all.
Well, before I started to eat raw, I deprived myself of many of the things I liked to eat: desserts, snacks like cookies, and especially cheeses. Now that I’m eating raw, I’ve added back raw cheeses (just never a mountain of any one type, since the body seems to thrive on variety). And since I’ve found raw-food stores, restaurants, and Internet sites that have raw pies, cookies, snacks, and other specialties that satisfy my cravings for these types of foods, I have even added these back into my diet too!
And raw food is just so satisfying. Now, I find that even if I want to eat two pieces of raw coconut cream pie after a raw dinner, I usually can’t fit it in. I usually can’t finish one piece for that matter! I’m just so satisfied!
Just the other night, I took a new friend of mine, Dan, to Quintessence restaurant to eat. Dan’s remarks seemed to sum up the raw-food experience; “You know,” he said, “I came here so hungry and thought that I would want to eat a ton of food. I wanted to order everything on the menu. But after this normal-sized meal, I don’t feel a heavy, weighed-down full—I feel a satisfied full. And everything tasted so … fresh. I feel life behind my eyes. Strange.”
Why should this be strange? Shouldn’t food revive us and give us vitality and life? As Dan Hoyt explained to us, most raw foods are nutrient-dense foods. So they satisfy your body and you stop eating before your stomach is too full!
It’s not surprising that you should be confused. Most of the people who are best known as raw foodists are also vegetarians or vegans. I’m not. The two people who have most influenced me over the years are Timothy Brantley, ND, an independent researcher in Southern California, and more recently Nicholas Gonzalez, MD, a physician in New York City. When I set out to find the most competent professionals I could to help me, I didn’t go looking for “meat-eating raw foodists.” I just wanted the best help I could find. I don’t think Drs. Brantley and Gonzalez have ever met one another. But both believe that for most of us there are good reasons to eat more than just vegetable matter.
I’m not at odds with those who, for a variety of reasons, are opposed to eating animal products. Most of my raw-foodist friends are either vegetarians or vegans of one sort or another. It’s clear to me that whether you do or do not eat meat, fish, dairy, even honey (which some strict vegans will not), eating fresh raw food is better for you than, for example, eating a cooked vegetarian diet. For more on the distinctions among vegan, vegetarian, and related other terms, take a look at chapter 4. To understand more about meat eating, vegetable eating, why eating raw is better for you than any cooked diet, and why I eat the way I do, read chapter 3, which Dr. Gonzalez contributed to.
I care tremendously about fat in my diet and in fact to me the more I get the better! But for me, it absolutely, positively must be raw or I won’t eat it even if I’m starving. The best oils I’ve found are raw coconut, olive, Udo’s Choice, and Premier Research Labs EFA oils.
According to Dr. Gonzalez, carbohydrates are a minor component of body structure compared to proteins and fats. If a body cannot molecularly read a cooked fat, it is then more easily stored then metabolized. Therefore the body, which needs essential fatty acids (omega 9 and omega 3 and only a moderate amount of omega 6) from fats for things like the immune system, begins to break down. No wonder there is so much disease and sickness: we live in a no-fat/low-fat/cooked-fat society.
More important to me, my skin changed for the better with the increase in raw oils, and believe it or not according to Robert Marshall PhD CCN old fats are chased out of your system through a preferential exchange with the healthy fats found in raw foods.
To be honest, I have not had any problems myself. But eating raw food is not like eating it cooked. As you know, all raw food is more perishable than cooked food, so you really need to get it fresh—that means knowing your food sources, and your sources’ sources. You should always try to get your foods organic too—especially if you are eating them raw.
Most raw foodists I know are vegan, so they eat no animal products. This is, of course, safer in terms of bacteria because they make most of their dishes out of nuts, fruits, and vegetables. And most people know how long fruits and vegetables last. Most of the recipes I have included in this book are based on fresh produce and raw-milk cheese. When you feel comfortable enough to eat fish and meat raw, then go ahead and do so, but be certain of the freshness of your food.
Seek out reputable restaurants that serve tartars, sashimi, ceviches, and other raw animal products. Always make sure of high turnover and get recommendations from friends and family. If you are eating something raw, make sure the proprietor knows this and is comfortable with serving raw food. Sometimes, I opt to be extra-safe by eating only salad for dinner and then fruit for dessert.
Cheese and other dairy products should come from licensed cheese vendors. You should ask the vendor how long the cheese will last and how long it’s been since it was made.
I have had great success with raw foods. They changed my life. But the most important thing to remember is to partner with a doctor or nutritionist who can give you in-depth advice on balancing your raw diet and finding the supplements that are right for you. Always be curious, sensible, and educated.
But let’s face it—there are a lot of people who have a lot invested in cooked food. I mean a lot of people! Some doctors, nutritionists, not to mention those in the restaurant business and the food industry, have a stake in cooked food. It’s cheaper and keeps longer and there is a culture of disbelief about the benefits of eating raw among people whose livelihood is tied to cooked food—either selling it, making it, or supposedly (and indeed sometimes actually) curing people who suffer the consequences of it—and they are not likely to walk away from it. So of course if they can scare you away from eating raw by telling you “it’s dangerous,” it’s to their advantage. Their livelihood is at stake. So be sure to seek out medical advice from people who understand the raw-food point of view.
In the nineteenth century when Louis Pasteur developed the process of pasteurization, his technique amounted to a revolution in preserving foods. It’s very simple. By raising the temperature of milk, for example, to a level where natural bacteria die but the milk does not actually boil (milk boils at 214°F.—pasteurization is at 165°F.), it’s possible to slow down the natural process of spoilage and give the milk a longer shelf life. But are the natural bacteria always unhealthy? Here’s where people get confused.
What I’ve found is bacteria in themselves are not bad. We all have bacteria living in us all the time and we ingest some bacteria that are essentially harmless. What does us harm are certain strains of microorganisms that our bodies are not accustomed to as well as foods that are no longer living but “spoiled.”
One way to minimize and even effectively eliminate the chance of that happening is to eliminate the bacteria entirely. The trade-off is that in doing so, by pasteurizing or cooking, we also eliminate the essential, living substances—the enzymes and proteins—that are essential for us to be healthy over the long term, making us less immune and weaker. At the same time we become less resistant to the effects of bacteria we might inadvertently ingest or inhale.
Ironically, the process developed by Pasteur nearly a century and a half ago is in my opinion no longer necessary. The more recent developments of widespread refrigeration and inexpensive and effective vacuum sealing can hold back spoilage without altering a food’s structure. But pasteurization is quick and effective, and so it continues. Those who manufacture, pack, ship, and sell food can count on it. It’s cheap and that keeps food prices down too. The practices of routine pasteurization along with cooking have done something else to our supply of food. They have allowed food producers to be careless with the food they produce and allow longer shipping time because these cooked foods with preservatives don’t spoil.
Honestly, I really don’t miss it. I like my popcorn. It’s kind of hard to have popcorn that is uncooked. With few exceptions, however, anything you eat cooked has a raw equivalent. I am eating a greater variety of foods now than I was when I was eating cooked foods. And now I even eat food I forbade myself to eat before I ate raw, like my beloved cheeses. Everything I’m eating now tastes so good and is so good for me that it’s hard to miss what I now think once made me sick, always left me hungry for more, and never really satisfied me—cooked food.
Dr. Timothy Brantley once told me, “It is not about the length of life—I mean, I could get hit by a bus stepping off the curb—it is about the quality of life.” Eating raw food helped me to eliminate the everyday illnesses that destroyed my quality of life.
And even though occasionally someone with unhealthy habits lives a very long life, it’s the exception rather than the rule. Today in America, one in three people dies of cancer, and one in two dies of heart disease. What are we doing differently now than we did even 100 years ago? We are infusing our food and our environment with chemicals. Hormones, insecticides, irradiation, preservatives … these are just some of the things that come to mind.
A couple of generations ago, people grew up eating dairy products that were usually unpasteurized. Most animals weren’t injected with hormones and crops were rotated and fed without the use of chemical pesticides. After the 1950s, surplus World War II chemicals were converted into agricultural products and soils became contaminated and depleted. Genetic alteration affected the nature of the crops we eat. I think these more recent events have a great effect on our food supply, and thus our health as a whole.
There’s no need to go totally raw right away. Here are just a few helpful hints to get you started:
* When cooking, add cold-pressed olive oil afterward. If you’re making a pasta sauce, for example, don’t use oil at all with your tomatoes to get the sauce started. Stew them in water and then, just before you’re ready to serve, add the cold-pressed (raw) olive oil. You’ll get the benefits of the raw oil and spare yourself the detriments of cooked oils.
* “Sauté” in water instead of oil—you’ll just need to stir more.
* On salads, don’t give in to the temptation to use bottled dressings. Mix cold-pressed ones such as olive oil, Udo’s Choice oil, or flaxseed oil with raw apple cider vinegar. Add spices if you wish.
* Eat foods you are already familiar with, but make them raw. Guacamole and salsa are easy and the recipes are right here in this book. When you shop for cheeses, look (and ask) for the raw-milk varieties from licensed cheese vendors. If you eat whole-grain breads, you’ll love sprouted breads. Get used to finding them in the frozen food section and keeping them in your freezer at home until you’re ready to make a sandwich.
* Stay away from highly processed foods like canned gravies and soups and begin reading lists of ingredients on packaged foods. You’ll be amazed what sorts of strange additives with unpronounceable names are in what we eat every day. (I get sick just reading them!)
There is what people think is “healthy” and then there is healthy. Within the realm of cooked foods, there are some things that are in my opinion truly deadly. I mean “call 911” deadly. They are the edible version of running out blindly into traffic in the dark of night begging to be mowed down. Guess what? If you invite imminent disaster, you’re likely to meet it. High-cholesterol, high-fat, low-fiber diets fall into this category. There are other cooked foods that are usually considered healthy, but in this instance “healthy” is a relative term.
You may be one of those people who is eating what is considered a balanced, low-fat, low-cholesterol diet of cooked food. There is no question that what you’re doing is better than stuffing yourself with what’s usually referred to as “junk food.” But that’s still not a truly healthy diet. Yes, you’re eating a diet of food that is less likely to bring on a heart attack or stroke or liver failure. But that is still merely a lesser of evils. What I’m encouraging is something entirely different. To understand the distinction between cooked food that will keep you alive and raw food that will make you thrive—and it’s an essential distinction—read chapter 3. I bet you it will be an eye-opener (and a life saver too).
You may feel good and look good now—or maybe not—but since what you do to your body is cumulative it is sure to catch up with you over time. What you eat can and almost certainly will have an effect in the future. I believe it’s better to tip the odds in your favor than play Russian roulette when it comes to things like your health. Start now by adding raw foods to your diet.
When I started eating raw, I began to feel better almost immediately. My chronic sinus problems were the first to stop bothering me, so the Afrin went. Then I noticed no more stomach problems; indigestion was gone so no more Tums, PeptoBismol, or Mylanta. Then I realized I had not gotten sick that winter—not a cold or a sniffle. So good-bye, NyQuil.
Eating raw changes your body chemistry. Depending on your overall health when you start you may feel and notice a change right away or it may take a month or more to really notice the difference. In any case, you’ll be pleased with the changes in how you feel, how you look, and your outlook on life itself.
Grrrrrrr! This is perhaps the biggest misconception that people have about eating raw. I’ll say it again: I don’t eat just cold salads. In fact, I don’t even eat mostly salads.
People think that eating raw is all about plates of boring lettuce and celery and carrots. It’s not. I would die if I had to eat that way! I eat a wide variety of foods and some of them, though not cooked to the point where the enzymes and proteins are destroyed, are nice and warm. Even if my food is not piping hot, I do drink hot teas or eat soup when I feel the need for heat.
By the way, when you use warming spices like cumin and cayenne, and raw oils, you’re sure to feel nice and warm inside even when you’re eating raw food.
Since I began eating raw food, I have never been bored with what I eat. Let me tell you why.
Imagine eating a mushroom quiche, spaghetti al pesto, tuna seviche or tartare, portobello stroganoff, apple tarte, lemon custard, fruit parfait topped with whipped cream. Now imagine yourself eating them as often as you need to, without worrying about your weight, and without guilt. That’s what I do—I just eat them raw.
No, I don’t just eat the uncooked ingredients for these dishes. They are combined into recipes that are beautiful and delicious. Now tell me, does it sound like I’m eating boring food and not getting enough to eat? (The recipes for these and many other raw dishes can be found in chapter 10.)
You’re talking like someone who is going on a diet. If you’re like nearly two-thirds of American adults, you’re overweight and you have good reason to want to lose weight. So I commend you on wanting to make a change. You should know, however, that yo-yo dieting is a losing battle. The only proven way to overcome obesity and to effectively lose weight and keep it off over the long haul is by making lifestyle changes.
While losing weight is a good motivator for eating raw, I want to encourage you to take a different view. Think of eating raw as having the secondary benefit of helping you to lose weight—it is certainly as effective as the best weight-loss plan. Its first benefit, however, is even more important, even if you are overweight. And that is this: health. You will no longer be putting garbage in your body that tears you down and makes you sick or more prone to being sick. Of course, part of what it does is to make you overweight and being overweight is not healthy. So if you make a lifestyle change that can make you healthier and can cause you to drop the pounds, why would you be asking about changing back to an unhealthy lifestyle?
Though I haven’t seen any studies on it, my suspicion is that if you went back to a cooked-food way of life after a period of eating raw I would think you would gain back the weight you’ve lost. But that still leaves me wondering: if you have every possible satisfying food option open to you as a raw foodist, why would you turn back?
There’s no question that tall people have an advantage in this world and I’m blessed with “tall genes.” But my appearance is directly tied to my eating raw, not to my height. We Alts are not naturally thin. I starved myself for years when I was eating cooked food to help me be thin enough to succeed as a model and actress.
I am now more aware of my body than ever and I feel I can eat what I want when I want to. I am slimmer and more toned as a result of eating raw food than I ever was when I dieted constantly and ate cooked food. If I have any “genetic advantages,” I feel they’re enhanced by my eating raw food. I look and feel and I truly am healthier now than I ever have been. That’s not a matter of genes. It’s a matter of lifestyle. The lifestyle change that has made me this way is eating raw food.
Lead the way. If you’re eating raw food, others will see the changes in you and your life. They will notice that you’re not “on a diet” but that you have made a life change, one that’s having a positive effect on you. Besides, you’ll be eating all sorts of incredibly delicious foods. They’ll be curious and after they get over thinking you must be doing something strange they’ll want to have a taste of this or a piece of that. Before too long they’re probably going to want you to make certain raw dishes or meals. From there the ball will be rolling.
When I met my boyfriend he had never heard of someone eating raw. He is a professional hockey player. Most athletes I know eat and eat and eat. He ate every kind of cooked food imaginable at all times of day and night. Before too long after we met, he began to ask me about my eating raw food. I told him how raw food had changed my life, dramatically improved my health, and made me feel and look better. I guess he was convinced because despite his playing well he wanted to try raw food. He watched me eat. He and I went out and ate in restaurants together. And very soon he started eating raw too. As an athlete, being sensitive to his body, he sees and feels the difference. He has lost fat and increased muscle definition. In the middle of the season each January he used to get sick, usually with strep. That hasn’t happened since eating raw. That’s one of the reasons that four years later he’s still eating this way.
Don’t talk yourself out of eating raw because you don’t think your family or friends will understand. Don’t fear “sticking out.” If you’re concerned about not being able to go out with your friends, read what I have to say in chapter 8.
You can do this!
Garbage is cheap. Junk food is cheap. So of course you can put cheap, worthless garbage into your body and call it “food.” What’s the result? To me the additional hidden costs of obesity, heart disease, and all sorts of illnesses, not to mention lost productivity, physical discomfort, and the resulting unhappiness. In the end the cost of eating cooked food far outweighs the price you’ll pay when you buy healthy food that you can eat raw.
You know what they say: you get what you pay for. When you look at it this way, then you get more for the dollar when you eat raw food than when you eat cooked junk masquerading as food. And by the way, the raw-food restaurants I go to in New York are actually no more expensive, and in some cases less expensive than most of the cooked-food restaurants in town. I also find that now that I eat raw, it takes less food to satisfy me!
Okay, once again, eating raw is not about eating salads, I promise. Don’t think “salads” and being hungry. Think satisfaction and being “full” while not feeling guilty for eating. If you try to eat the way I do, you probably won’t feel hungry (and you also won’t feel fat). So forget the stereotype. Forget salad. But since we’re on the subject, let me share with you something Dr. Brantley told me the first time I said to him that I felt hungry when I ate salad: “That’s because you eat iceberg lettuce. There are hundreds of veggies that are great tasting and will fill you up because they are nutrient-dense and feed your body.” It’s true. Iceberg lettuce is really just water in the shape of a leaf. There’s not much more to it. Go for the other lettuces, the darker the better. Mix them up with other vegetables and you’ll find a salad can be not only more filling but also more tasty and nutritious.
It’s true that my hometown has a higher concentration of raw-food restaurants than any other. In Southern California there are more raw restaurants than in New York but they, like the people, are spread out.
But eating raw is not all about having a place to eat on every corner. It’s also not about having to stay home and make dinner every night. Even in Indy you can go out to eat and have a raw dinner (see chapter 8). And when you are eating at home, whether you have a Whole Foods Market on the corner down the block or order on the Internet, you can make and eat countless entirely raw meals that you will love. (Check out chapters 6 and 7 to learn how and chapter 10 for recipes.)
People sometimes think that I’m entirely surrounded by raw foodists who think the way I do or that I’m part of an exclusive club of celebrities who eat raw together all the time. Believe me, neither is the case! But if you eat raw, wherever you are, you’ll soon find that others want to try what you’re doing, especially as you start to look better. Before you know it you’ll have friends who eat raw as well. You’ll get together and “un-cook” for one another.
No matter where you live, I believe you can do this. If I could eat raw in Chilliwack, British Columbia, all by myself while working on a movie project, you can eat raw wherever you are, even if you have to ship it in.
No. I eat almost entirely raw, except for my favorite “cheat,” which is the popcorn that I have at hockey games. But eating raw is not an all-or-nothing proposition. Let’s face it, there are going to be things you want to eat cooked, even if it may be better for you not to eat them. Well, life shouldn’t be so strict that a few guilty pleasures have to be sacrificed.
I remember one day, sitting in a cab in Manhattan, with my friend and writing partner, David Roth. We were at a stop and out the window there was a Vietnamese restaurant. David, who has been to Southeast Asia on several occasions, told me, “Carol, I couldn’t eat raw because I couldn’t give up Vietnamese and Thai food.” I said to him, “Let that be your ‘cheat,’ your guilty pleasure.” He smiled. He had been afraid to get started eating raw because he wasn’t ready to go cold turkey. I’ll bet he has had pad thai or spring rolls with nuoc mam since that day but he’s also eating raw.
Speaking of turkey, if you’re an American chances are you celebrate Thanksgiving with the traditional bird in the center of the table and, just like the rest of the family, a handsome portion on your plate. I like Thanksgiving and so it’s my one-time-a-year celebration where I don’t concern myself with what I eat. Of course it would be healthier if I skipped the festivities. That’s just not practical. And I’ve tried bringing my own food to the Alt family get-together. It was a disaster. But I don’t let Thanksgiving keep me from eating right the rest of the year. I do think taking a few enzyme supplements is a good idea, though—see the Resources for more information.
Don’t give up on eating raw because you know you’ll be tempted to indulge at holiday times. Just limit what you eat that’s not raw and how often you eat it. Give yourself that once-a-week cheat and take enzymes to help you digest. Don’t turn the period from Thanksgiving to New Year’s into six weeks of recklessly throwing care to the wind. Make some decisions about what you will allow, but remember that there is such a thing as delicious raw pumpkin pie! Do the best you can.
Eating raw is not an all-or-nothing proposition. As Dr. Brantley taught me from the start, if you’re eating around 70 percent of your food uncooked you’ll see a significant change in your health, beauty, mood, and overall well-being. And as you eat more, you’ll notice more and more of the positive changes you want. That sort of reinforcement is what I needed to make a permanent, healthy lifestyle change. As best you can, eat it raw. And if you do it, others will follow.
You mean like so many diets? Hardly. I’ve said it before, but it’s worth saying again. Eating raw isn’t a diet. It’s a way of life, a lifestyle. It’s not a weight-loss plan, even though if you have some extra pounds to lose chances are you’ll drop them quite easily. People are surprised to learn that what was probably the first all-raw restaurant in America dates back to 1917 when a husband and wife, Vera and John Richter, opened the first of three raw cafeterias called the Eutropheon in Los Angeles. These restaurants lasted for twenty-five years until World War II. And Eating in the Raw is hardly the first book on the subject of raw foodism. I encourage you to read other books before making a decision. Vera Richter published one of America’s first uncook books, Cookless Book, in 1925. At the same time and living just ten miles away in nearby Van Nuys, Dr. St. Louis A. Estes proclaimed himself the father and founder of the international back-to-nature raw-foods movement. His 1927 book Raw Food and Health promotes the merits of raw foods—including dairy products. Nine years later in 1936, John Richter published Nature the Healer about the benefits of eating raw, based on a series of his lectures. That’s too long ago for this to be a fad.
In my forties, I’m old enough to remember a time when “going jogging” was still considered by some to be a fad, even though there were always people who went running. Well, today tens of millions of people run for fitness, health, and fun. We take running for granted as something that is good for you. And marathon running is booming! Some so-called health fads are not only here to stay, they’re becoming mainstream because they deserve to. To me, eating raw is one of them.
If the idea of eating raw is new to you you can probably thank the news media for bringing it to your attention. Recently there has been considerable attention brought to raw foodism, attention that was either impossible or unlikely in the past because people just didn’t have access to information. Those who were raw foodists were spread out far and wide without real ways to support one another and share their knowledge and experience. But now, with hundreds of channels of TV and radio and especially the Internet, it seems everyone everywhere is connected. Where before you might have to be somewhere like LA to meet raw foodists and to learn about raw food—as I was when I met Dr. Timothy Brantley—now you can find others across town or across the ocean. With the Internet and Web sites like David Wolfe’s (a prominent raw-food expert), for example, anyone can learn about how to safely eat raw. You can buy almost any raw food you want online. It’s also possible to link up with other people who are eating raw and preparing raw food. There are even Web sites that feature personal ads for raw foodists looking to meet other raw foodists. Like the world itself, the raw-food world has become a smaller place. It’s becoming a global community, and it’s growing very quickly. Check out my Web site (www.carol-alt.com) and it will lead you into a whole new raw-food world.
We’re creatures of habit and we “follow the leader.” In this case, following the leader is doing what the vast majority of humanity does—cook food before eating it. We’re at a critical juncture in the history of human eating and, along with it, the way we prepare our foods. You see, we’re actually doing something very out of date, very old-fashioned—and I don’t mean that in a quaint, nostalgic way—when we eat cooked food. Cooking is a means of preparing foods we use so that we can mix, tenderize, blend, and keep foods from spoiling before eating them. But with the development of refrigeration (which, barely a century old, is new in terms of human history) and vacuum sealing (which is even newer), we no longer need to worry so much about spoiling. Still, we do what we have done for ages, what our parents did and what they taught us.
It’s going to take some time to undo deep-rooted human habits. But remember that some of us—the Eskimos, for example, and some peoples in the tropics—don’t traditionally eat cooked food much, if at all. Humans are the only species that habitually eats cooked food. And I believe it’s only a matter of time until our behavior catches up with the possibilities that advances in technology offer us on one hand and with the rest of the animal kingdom’s good sense on the other. There has been a boom in interest in health and fitness in recent years. And as more people who are interested in their health begin to learn more about raw food they may start eating raw. It’s catching on everywhere now. So why do so few people eat raw? The answer is that I believe more and more are doing it all the time! Ask me this question again ten years from now.
There’s a lot we don’t know about human origins and even about the customs and behaviors of societies in the days before people started writing things down. Anthropologists and archaeologists don’t know for certain how humans started eating cooked food or when. We don’t know exactly where cooking started or how it spread. What we do know, however, includes certain interesting facts. Not everyone eats the same things and cooks the same foods. And not everyone everywhere eats the same amount of cooked food. Traditionally, some peoples eat much more raw food and others eat much less. But until recently, it seemed that the question of whether cooking might not be good for food wasn’t often asked. Of course, only recently have we had the scientific means and the interest to investigate and compare what food does in our bodies when it is cooked and when it is raw.
If you have always done something a certain way and you have no reason to question it, you may just keep on doing what you are doing. That’s pretty much what we have done with cooking. We just didn’t question it. Now that the question is being raised and investigated—and so many people are professing the benefits of raw food—we may become the first generation to make a break with the cooked-food past. With concerns about disease at the forefront of our society today, we may be the first historical (but not prehistorical) society to choose to eat raw.