Can You Cook Food on a Raw Food Diet? 0
Since moving to a raw food diet I have been asked by friends and family whether you can cook food on a raw food diet. What they mean of course is do you allow yourself any cooked food or is everything you eat completely raw. Going round for dinner could be a nightmare explaining what I can and cannot eat. It wouldn’t take long to become “Mr Weird Foodie” with no friends. While some people do eat completely raw food as raw foodists I will eat cooked food. In fact I still enjoy cooked food although I do limit this type of food for the reasons I explain below.
Behind this question is a serious point about cooking temperatures and enzymes which I will try to explain. Raw foods, when cooked, start to change and breakdown. When they break down the enzymes change their structure and make it much harder for you to digest the food. Your digestive organs will have to work harder to overcome the lack of enzymes in the cooked food. Eventually your organs will wear themselves out with all the work of trying to compensate for the change in the foods structure.
The cooking temperature that all this change happens to food is 118 degrees Fahrenheit. The only way to get around this change in the foods structure is to quickly blanch food or steam it. It requires a good thermometer and some skill to cook the food and keep it below this temperature. Read the rest of this entry →