Myths of Raw Food

Myths of Raw food - http://www.beyondveg.com/billings-t/selected-myths/selected-myths-1a.shtml
By Tom Billings

M: A raw-foods diet will give you perfect health.
M: A raw-foods diet will give you a perfect body.

M: A raw-foods diet will cure any/all diseases, and/or prevent any/all diseases.
M: Animals in the wild never get sick because they eat a natural, raw diet.

• Some quick examples of animal diseases: hoof and mouth disease killing bison in the U.S., and wildebeest in Africa; bubonic plague in rodents; tick fever and lyme disease in deer/antelope, and so on.
• Reality: Animals living in the wild eat a natural diet, and yet die of disease.

M: You will live longer on a raw-foods diet.

• Reality: The longest lived societies are not vegan

M: A raw-foods diet will improve your mental health.

• Reality: 100% raw diet may correlate with serious mental health problems in long run, or it just may attract those who are given to extremes.

M: Natural hygiene always works!

M: Apes are fruitarians (or peaceful vegans).
M: Fruitarianism (or veganism) is our natural diet.

• Reality: The above myths were debunked by Ward Nicholson
  • See lists on Internet that address this topic--the Paleodiet and Paleofood lists. The reality is that all the large primates are omnivores, as they all eat insects and some eat flesh. The chimpanzee society is marked by violence: war, incest, murder, cannibalism. So much for "peaceful vegan" chimps! (A more accurate description would be "occasionally violent, omnivore chimps.")
• biologically, humans are natural omnivores. See anatomist John McArdle, Ph.D.'s article "Humans are Omnivores," in The Vegan Handbook for more info.

M: But mountain gorillas are vegans!

• Reality Reference: Watts, D.P. (1989) "Ant-eating behavior of mountain gorillas." Primates, vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 121-126.

M: The apes that eat meat are perverted.

M: The apes that eat meat are acting in error; it is a mistake.

M: The only reason that chimps eat flesh is because of habitat loss.

M: Only one "tribe" of chimps in the whole world eats meat.

M: Flesh-eating by our prehistoric ancestors was the exception rather than the rule.

M: Mucus is toxic.
M: All disease is due to accumulation of toxemia/mucus, caused by eating the "wrong" foods.

• Reality: Mucus is an essential body fluid for stomach, eyes, breathing

M: All health problems you experience on a raw foods diet are due to detox of stored poisons.

M: Fasting can cure any/all diseases.

M: Fasting will make you spiritually purer.

M: You should only eat those foods which you can gather with your bare hands, while naked.

• Problem: This myth is a denial of reality, and a denial of our real nature. The very definition of human beings that evolutionary scientists use specifies, among other things, that we are intelligent tool-users. Those who promote this myth are denying the use of tools, and they are denying our intelligence; hence they are literally in denial of their real nature. To deny tool use is to make us lower than the chimpanzees (who have been observed using sticks as tools to collect and eat termites, a common food for them). It lowers modern humans to below the level of Australopithecus, one of our prehistoric ancestors who was very ape-like.

• How could naked people, without tools, successfully harvest a large blackberry patch that is full of thorns, wasps, fire ants, and with a healthy inter-growth of poison oak or poison ivy. Picking fruit is hard work, especially wild fruit, and requires protective clothing and tools if one wants to be efficient at it. Those without tools or clothing will pick very little fruit (and those who limited their diets to fruit picked under such conditions would quickly starve themselves into extinction in evolutionary terms).

• Natural foods that can be obtained on these terms:
  • Birds' eggs and chicks.
  • A wide variety of insects and worms (grubs, leafhoppers, ants and termites, etc.).
  • Honey and bee brood.
  • Small shellfish, e.g. freshwater crayfish (watch out for the claws!).
  • Small clams, e.g. the coquina clam of Florida, whose shell is so thin it can be easily crushed by your teeth.
  • Snails and slugs, including many marine snails (seashells).
  • An occasional frog or reptile (snake/lizard).
  • The young of many animal species (chimps catch them without tools--so can humans!).
  • Fish in small ponds/mud puddles; fish that swim upstream to shallow water to breed (e.g., salmon); fish that breed at the shoreline (e.g., Pacific grunion).
  • Animals killed by other predators (scavenging; leopards leave their kill in trees--easy to climb up and steal it, when the leopard is not around!).

M: Herbs are toxic and don't cure anything.

• Reality: If herbs are toxic, why then do many animals use them when they are sick? A large variety of animals have been observed using herbs as medicines, including: chimpanzees, elephants, many types of carnivores, omnivores, and others. It is interesting to note that some raw-fooders promote wheatgrass juice while condemning the use of herbs. That is quite surprising, for wheatgrass juice is a potent medicinal herb.

M: The ONLY healing is self-healing.

• Supplement manufacturers have reams of testimonials from customers

M: Healing is a biological process.

• true healing means that the whole person-the body, mind, and spirit-have healed.

M: Cooked food is poison.

• Reality: Some cooked foods not very good in excess: fried foods, heavily salted food, etc.
• Raw rhubarb and raw kidney beans are poisonous by any definition, and are more poisonous than any cooked food.
• Some starch foods are easier to digest when cooked (discussed later).

M: Raw is law.

R: A cute, but false and meaningless slogan. The idea that animals never eat cooked food is false:

• Animals are killed and cooked by forest fires (also volcanoes, geysers, lightning strikes), and their cooked remains are quickly eaten by other animals--both carnivores and omnivores.
• Natural, wild animals will go to human-created landfills, and eat their fill of cooked/processed/decaying food.
• Of course, landfills are not natural, but the animals that feed there are natural. This shows that animals are opportunists, not dogmatists.

M: A 100% raw vegan diet is the most natural, the best, diet for everyone.

• Reality: Diet should be individualized.

M: Cooking makes organic minerals inorganic.

R: This is, in general, false, and simply nonsense. It was promoted by Herbert Shelton and T.C. Fry.

M: You should be a mono-eater (of fruit) because two different types of fruit never grow next to each other in nature.

• Reality: Mono-eating may be easier on digestion. It is easy to disprove this in nature, many plants grow together.

M: Fruit has a nutritional profile similar to mother's milk.

R: False. The protein content for both is low, but they do not match in other important areas:

• Fats: Milk is high in fat; fruit, except for avocados, is very low in fat.
• Sugar: Milk contains small amounts of lactose, a slowly assimilated sugar; fruit contains large amounts of glucose, fructose, sucrose, and can cause an insulin spike (and hypoglycemic symptoms).
• Vitamins B-12, D, biotin: Present in milk, largely absent in fruit.
• Calcium: Plentiful in milk, low/scarce in fruit.

M: All protein foods, including raw protein foods, are toxic.

• Excessive fruit consumption may weaken digestive system, or result in upset stomach when other items are eaten.
• Body can become habituated to mono-diet

M: All raw foods are easier to digest than cooked foods, as the raw foods contain enzymes which are destroyed by cooking.
M: Starch is toxic.

• Cooked starchy foods are easier to digest than raw: potatoes, rice. Heat degrades the crystalline structure of starch, making it more accessible to the enzyme action
• 70% of the world population has a diet based on starch--cooked starch, no less
• Some foods contain antinutrient properties, toxins, and/or taste awful when raw, but are digestible/edible when cooked: large beans, especially kidney beans.
• Other raw foods have negative side-effects, such as severe flatulence (e.g., raw cabbage, lentil sprouts). Cooking such foods is one way to reduce/avoid side effects. (Other ways to avoid side effects include using spices, and fermentation.)

M: Spices are toxic.

• Reality: Spices can assist/strengthen digestion, have real medicinal properties. They can cause problems when used improperly: over-stimulating digestion, overheating body

M: Don't drink juices--they are not a whole food.

• Reality: Easy overconsume juices: Example: 1 kg. of carrots will give you a liter or so of carrot juice. It is easy to drink a liter of juice, very hard to eat a full kg. of raw carrots.
• Reality: Juices, in moderation, can be a beneficial part of a good raw diet. One should not be afraid of juices.

M: Don't drink water. Your food should contain all the water you need.

• Reality: Not drinking enough water causes serious problems related to blood thickening

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Likely criticisms, addressed by the author Tom Billings:

Danger of "proof"--detailed nutritional theories that are impressive to the layperson, but utterly bogus and logically invalid when examined closely.