Raw Food Diet – Enjoy Food Uncooked

Pure nature: This motto sums up the principle of raw food nutrition in a nutshell. Food comes to the table in as natural a state as possible. Read what that means exactly.

Eat nutritious

The food on the raw food diet should be alive, not “boiled to death”. This does not mean that everything comes to the table cold, but the food should not be heated above around 40 °C. Boiling, baking, cooking, steaming, steaming, roasting, grilling or deep-frying are therefore no longer used as preparation methods. The raw food diet is based on fresh vegetables, fruits, salads, mushrooms, herbs, seeds and sprouts, which are combined into a raw food salad, for example. Anyone who does not eat a raw vegan diet also integrates fish and meat into their dishes, which are either raw or cold-smoked. Vegetarian raw foodists do without it, but enjoy raw milk, raw milk cheese and eggs.

Benefits of the raw food diet

In order to process food or to preserve it, raw foodists use dehydrators, graters and slicers, sprouting jars and mixers. They use it to prepare dried fruit, nut butter and plant-based milk, and lactic acid-fermented vegetables such as sauerkraut are also popular items on the menu. These gentle processes are intended to preserve heat-sensitive nutrients such as vitamins, enzymes and unsaturated fatty acids, especially in fruit and vegetables, making whole foods even more valuable for the body. At the same time, the intake of undesirable substances that can arise when food is heated is avoided, according to the representatives of the raw food diet.

For whom is this form of natural food suitable?

In principle, there is nothing wrong with eating raw food, but some people get problems with digestion if they only eat raw food overnight for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Because the “primal food” is more difficult for the body to utilize than cooked food. This can not only cause bloating, but also reduce the so-called bioavailability of the nutrients. Critics see the danger of malnutrition here. Harmful substances such as plant poisons (poisonous substances that the plant itself forms to protect itself from predators) and germs are only destroyed during cooking. The German Society for Nutrition (DGE) therefore recommends not switching the menu completely to raw food. However, a certain proportion is healthy and can be easily implemented with simple raw food recipes. A mixed salad, vegetable sticks with dips as simple finger food or a smoothie are popular examples.