#vegetarian diet #healthy eating #healthy lifestyle+1

Raw Food: Is There Any Benefit?

28 octombrie 2025

3 min de lectură

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Raw food causes a lot of questions and disputes. Let's analyze the main advantages and disadvantages of eating only raw foods.

Concluzii cheie

Raw food causes a lot of questions and disputes.
Overview
Arguments in favor of the raw food diet

Pentru cine este

Persoane care explorează Gastrointestinal tract prin intermediul vegetarian diet, healthy eating.

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Autorul articolului

Dr. Anastasia

Dietician

Overview

Food products can be chopped, blended, dried, sprouted, fermented, or pickled. Drink herbal concoctions instead of coffee and tea, and heat food to no more than 118 °F.

There are several types of raw foodism, of which there are three main ones:

Omnivorous: raw animal and plant products, raw fish and seafood
Vegetarian: plant foods, raw eggs and unpasteurized dairy products
Vegan: vegetables, fruits, dried fruits, legumes, cereals, nuts, honey, seeds and herbs

Arguments in favor of the raw food diet

The principles of the raw food community are simple: achieving harmony with nature, and preserving the natural flavor of foods and their nutrients for health.

Claim #1: Raw foodism is natural to humans. This is debatable. Paleontologists believe that evolution accelerated precisely when people learned to cook food on fire. Their bodies used less energy to digest food and received more nutrients.

Claim #2: Raw foods have more vitamins. This is debatable. Vegetables and fruits are rich in nutrients, some of which are destroyed by cooking, such as vitamins C, B6, B1, and B9. However, vitamins D, E, K and fiber are preserved. And in some cases, cooked food is even more useful: stewing tomatoes, carrots, spinach, mushrooms, asparagus, cabbage, peppers, or onions increases the content of antioxidants such as lycopene, flavonoids, ferulic acid and carotenoids. Protein from boiled eggs is digested by 90 %, and from raw eggs by only 50 %.

Claim #3: Enzymes make food easily digestible. This is incorrect. Raw food advocates believe that enzymes found in fresh fruits and vegetables make it easier for stomach enzymes to work, easier for food to digest, and the body expends less energy. However, studies say that our digestive system has enough enzymes and doesn't need any help.

Claim #4: Raw eating improves health. This is partially true. Avoiding fried and ultra-processed foods, such as convenience foods and baked goods, and including more plant foods in your diet does improve cardiovascular health, reduce cholesterol and blood sugar levels, normalize GI flora and peristalsis, reduce the risk of tumors, and help you lose weight.

However, a complete transition to raw food is not safe and can provoke GI pathology, tooth enamel erosions, decreased bone density, and nutrient deficiencies — especially protein, vitamin B12, iron and calcium. It is extremely difficult for raw food eaters to maintain a balance of vitamins and trace elements. In addition, heat treatment of meat, fish, eggs and pasteurization of milk protects us from harmful bacteria, parasites and severe poisoning.

Up to 30 % of women practising a raw food diet have menstrual irregularities.

Avoid extremes

Because of the described negative effects, doctors do not recommend eating raw food permanently, but if desired, it can be resorted to as a temporary diet for 1-1.5 months maximum to diversify and improve the diet, lose weight, get rid of constipation, and normalize blood sugar and cholesterol levels. Raw food is not suitable for children, pregnant women, people with confirmed deficiencies (for example, iron), or those who have GI diseases such as ulcers, pancreatitis, gastritis, colitis, cholecystitis, or diseases of the pancreas or gallbladder.

It is not necessary to become a raw foodist to maintain good health. It is best to have raw plant foods make up the majority of your daily diet‒but eat them along with other foods, not in place of them.

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