Nutritional Value of Raw Food Diets – How Good is it?
A raw food diet is a diet that consists mainly of uncooked vegetables, fruit, legumes and seeds. The raw food diet may also contain eggs and other food that can be eaten raw but not everyone does it that way and there are some risks associated with eating raw eggs and raw meat. As a result, most people who do the raw food diet follow a vegan diet.
The raw food diet is argued to be beneficial to the human body in more ways than one. The main concept of the raw food diet lies with the fact that many vegetables and fruits lose a major chunk of their nutrients once the food is cooked or overcooked. To counter this loss, the concept of raw food diets is fast becoming popular.
However, with advantages, the raw food diet has its own disadvantages. Some critics have argued that a raw food diet is not a complete nutritious diet for people. Therefore, people should ensure that they have the require substitutes for the nutrients that they would not be getting once they adhere to a raw food diet. Also, bear in mind that most experts who support the raw food diet say that only eighty per cent of the diet needs to be raw to get all the benefits.
The diet may be lacking in vitamins like the vitamin D and vitamin B12 if you ONLY eat raw food. Also, vitamins that are present in meat, like the B6 vitamin, may not be available for people who are adhering to the raw food diet 100%. Also, a raw food diet does contain very less zinc, protein and iron. Be sensible about it, listen to your body and include pulses and some protein and you should do well on the raw food diet.
A totally raw food diet is not suggested for a pregnant woman or even a growing child. Many medical authorities believe that a raw food diet does not have the necessary calories to feed a pregnant woman or a growing child. Also, recent tests have shown that a completely raw food diet cannot be followed by any person because of the essential nutrients that are not present in a raw food diet. Remember the 80-20 guideline and get a balanced diet.
The most important aspect of any diet is the enzymes. The body needs enzymes to perform a variety of the daily functions. Therefore, enzymes like amylase and protease are quite important for the healthy living of a human. The raw food diet you are following should have the essential nutrients you need for your daily life. Many of these enzymes are destroyed by cooking. The enzymes are also necessary for the body, because they help in increasing the immunity as well as decreasing the fatigue levels of the body.
Therefore, it can be safely said that raw food diets offer advantages over cooked food, but for it to be embraced as a full time diet, you should also include whole grains which have of course been cooked, and a good source of protein. There is several raw food diet recipes available, what with the many cookbooks related to the raw food diets. Also, the Internet is a good place to look for the raw food diets. Just a simple search on any of the major search engines will give you a list of all the websites that cater to raw food recipes and raw food diets.
