Raw Food is Easily Recognisable By the Body and Cooked Food Isn't
A raw food diet is the natural diet for all animals on
this planet. 99.9 per cent of the world’s population follow a raw food diet,
which they’ve evolved to eat over millions of years. The other percentage,
let’s call them humans and their companion animals, eat cooked food. Cooked
food is flawed in many ways. Consider the following:
Cooked food contains chemicals unknown to the human body,
so the body pounces on them, creating an immune system response called
leukocytosis. Multiply this by three meals a day, three snacks a day and
countless drinks, and you will soon understand that your body is reacting as if
it’s in a perpetual state of attack. Over time this weakens the body and makes
it sick. The sickness is an attempt at detox, which is often suppressed with
drugs or more food. Over the years, a healthy baby develops disease after
disease and as a teenager may develop acne, period pains, growing pains, bad
breath and cellulite. The 99.9 per cent of the world’s population who don’t eat
cooked food, let’s call them wild animals and some primal societies, rarely get
these symptoms. A typical UK teenager becomes an adult who eats lots of cooked
foods and drinks lots of coffee and alcohol. He gets diabetes (about two
million people have it in the UK), candida, arthritis, heart disease, obesity
(60% chance) and cancer (about 35% chance). The 99.9 per cent of the world’s
population who eat raw food rarely get any of these diseases.
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I agree with Brian Seiler in his opinion that the only reason people in highly primitive sociteties don't get arthritis and age related illnesses is because they don't live long enough to develop them, and they don't get diabetes or become obese because they are not given the opportunity to be sedentary. I have to add, however, that they get plenty of their own diseases, like worms, parasites, bacterial infections, and on and on. In the story of human development, fire was a major component in our success as a species because it allowed us to cook our food, killing the aforementioned parasites and bacteria, and making it easier to digest.
Humans developed fire because it denatures proteins and makes something that would've been inedible edible, like raw meat.
Raw foods & vegan foods are great because they're easy to digest and don't rot in your colon like animal products do.
They must be good for us if we developed them!
While Santa Cruz definitely should have presented the argument better instead of appealing to emotion, richard, you are missing her argument.
Just because we developed it, and just because it once had a purpose, does not make eating raw veggies and fruits more or less healthy. Instead of believing they are less healthy because it involves less technology, analyze the health benefits on their own merits.
I realize, Mr. Linchpin, (or is it Ms... alas I have insufficient information. I apologize in advance for any offence) that foods should be evaluated based on their nutritional value, and they have been. The point I was making in bringing up fire was that the nutrition value gained by cooking is so apparent that even primitive man, with no science or statistics confirming it, knew that it was so. Now that we have that science and those statistics, there is no longer need for a debate. Cooking kills harmful organisms in the food, and it helps to break down proteins and other components of food, making it easier to digest. Many foods are impossible to digest without cooking. Cooking also allows humans to consume grains, which have provided the nutritional staple that has allowed our species to grow so rapidly. Eating raw meat and grain is dangerous, but without these two foods human civilization would be insustainable. Are raw fruits and vegetables also part of a good diet? Absolutely. But cooked foods to include meat and especially grains are essential for a global population. While it is technically possible for a small percentage of the population to sneak by on a vegan diet with modern supplements, such a strict and unreasonable diet would put far too great a strain on the Earth's natural resources if adopted by a majority, or even a signifigant number or, the world's population.
First off, you responded to the title, and not the entire comment. Second off, bombs and guns have nothing to do with raw food. Cooking meat makes it easier to digest and kills harmful organisms inside of it. Cooking is required to make grains into breads and pastas, which greatly increases their potential for nourishment. Cooking was one of the prerequisites of a sedentary agricultural society, which was in turn the cause of specialization and dramatic population growth, with the ultimate result of modern civilized society, capable of producing the bombs and guns that have established humans as the dominant species of the planet.
It amazes me that anybody would say, with a straight face, that cooked food "is not recognizable to the body as food." That statement reflects a basic misunderstanding of what food is, how the body works, and the human immunological process in general.
Let's be clear - your body does not "recognize" ANYTHING as food; to put it differently, anything you shove down your throat is going to be treated as food, whether it's digestible and nutritious or not. There is no mystical marker that indicates to your body that a carrot is food while a handful of poison ivy is not. If you ate a spark plug, the same basic processes would occur in your body as if you had eaten a handful of grapes. Granted, you're not going to do much of anything to the spark plug and it'll probably do some damage because of the miscellaneous dangerous substances contained within it, but your stomach will still secrete acid, the lining of your small intestine will still try to absorb anything that comes off of the object, and the muscles of your GI tract will still try to force the object through your intestines to your colon.
Even more amazing is the idea that the fact that most of the world's animal population consumes raw food, that implies that humans SHOULD consume raw food. It hurts my brain to think of what's wrong with this. First off, equating humans with animals for the purpose of dietary and nutritional analysis is a bit like suggesting that bears shouldn't need to eat because plants can photosynthesize all the energy they need. Shazzie suggests here that those living in horrifyingly underdeveloped nations (areas of the world still peopled by hunter-gatherers) "hardly ever" contract diseases like cancer, heart disease, arthritis, obesity, or diabetes, not only without evidence, but with patent disregard for the fact that even if the statement were true on its face, none of those facts suggest the lack of cooked food as the agent of cause (arthritis, heart disease, and cancer are all diseases which present more frequently as age advances - not a significant problem for a society so technologically backward that they are incapable of cooking their own food - while obesity and Type II diabetes both develop as a result of a sedentary existence that no typical hunter-gatherer could hope to have).
I'm very disappointed with this opening argument.
She clearly states that humans ate a raw food diet and evolved on a raw food diet for a much much longer period of time than eating a cooked food diet. Why not try it and see for yourself? You can argue about it all you want, but try 21 days raw and you'll feel and see a difference.
I agree with everything you said until the end.
"Shazzie suggests here that those living in horrifyingly underdeveloped nations "hardly ever" contract diseases like cancer, heart disease, arthritis, obesity, or diabetes, not only without evidence, but with patent disregard for the fact that even if the statement were true on its face, none of those facts suggest the lack of cooked food as the agent of cause"
There is plenty of evidence that the premise is true, check The China Study for decades of peer reviewed science on the matter. Her conclusion is not part of that science though as you point out. The science suggests very strongly that the sources of these chronic western diseases is eating animal protein.
"arthritis, heart disease, and cancer are all diseases which present more frequently as age advances"
The China Study specifically dealt with this issue and that of diabetes. I highly recommend reading the book Dr. Campbell wrote about the study and many others that reaffirm the conclusions. All peer reviewed serious science.
I'm afraid I have to disagree with your citation. There's problems with that book, and I would definitely question your qualification of it as "decades of peer reviewed science." I'll give you a few problems and some links to some of the more prominent criticisms I found with just a quick Google search.
Right in front, though, we need to understand that this book and the studies therein are NOT science in any average understanding of the term. The book proposes some hypothetical mechanisms of action, but all that it really constitutes is a statistical survey of already extant data points. It can serve as a legitimate point for starting experimental inquiry, but for carrying the burden of proof of the ultimate unhealthiness of meat, as you're implying here, it's a terrible entry.
I am not a scientist and I don't claim to be one, but much of Mr. Campbell's tone, and that of his later somewhat hysterical defense of his positions, leaves me skeptical as to the objective nature of the material in question. He, like far too many advocates, seems to have convinced himself that ANY consumption of meat equates to EXCESSIVE consumption of meat - a common error in reasoning you'll find in most pro-vegan "science." Either way, just the following two links seem to present significant concerns, though the tone of the second is a touch hyperbolic, and that's just from a casual Google search.
http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/Campbell-Masterjohn.html
http://anthonycolpo.com/the_china_study.html
"but all that it really constitutes is a statistical survey of already extant data points."
This is patently false. I can see you have never read the book, yet you assume to know why it's flawed. Many of the statistical points made in the book were also tested in the lab and the results were the same.
You are also choosing to attack his character rather than specifics of hte science, which is real science, and is peer reviewed. Since you like to pick apart people rather than data did you bother to do the same on the two links you provided? The first is a person with no science background and the second is someone who owns a site called "theomnivore.com". If you claim that Dr. Campbell is a biased vegan then surely you must also conclude that theomnivore is also a biased view, right?
Again, put aside the ad hominems and stick to the science.