Are Raw and Cooked Calories Equal?
Earlier this week I posted an article about a study conducted by Princeton University researchers regarding rats, high-fructose corn syrup, and weight loss.
You can read my post here.
In essence, the study showed that rats fed a diet of rat chow and high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) gained much more weight than those fed rat chow and sugar water, even though both groups were fed the same amount of calories.
Why is this important, you say? You are a raw foodist and wouldn’t ever dream of eating HFCS!
All Calories Are Not Created Equal
As I alluded to on Monday, this little study pokes a tiny, but noticeable hole in the “a calorie is a calorie” theory. It suggests that not all calories are equal, even when they are comprised of the same macronutrient (carbohydrates, in this case).
While you may not consume HFCS or refined sugar (or rat chow, I hope), you may still be buying into the “eat less, exercise more” mantra and believing that you need to severely limit your fruit consumption in order to lose weight.
My Experience
When I began watching my calories on a cooked food diet, I usually averaged about 1500 calories consumed each day. Even with this low number, I was never able to lose more than a few pounds or get my body fat percentage down below 25% or so.
Now, I eat 2800 calories or more of raw foods each day and yet I still weigh significantly less and have a much healthier body fat % than I ever did on a cooked food diet! I am a little bit more active now, but not nearly enough to account for the 1300 caloric difference.
Now, I’m not saying that calories are not important. They are EXTREMELY important, especially if you want to be successful on a low fat raw vegan diet.
But that’s for a later article. 
What’s Your Take?
Have you experienced a difference in calories going from a cooked food diet to a raw food one? Are you able to consume more calories eating lots of fruit without any weight gain, and even with weight loss? Maybe you’ve even seen a difference between eating high-fat raw and low fat raw?
Whatever your experience, be sure to leave me a comment!
Go raw and be fit,
Swayze
11 comments
Swayze,
You email could not have come at a better time! Yesterday was my first official day 80/10/10 as the previous weeks I have been eating a dinner of steamed veggies and I kept eating and eating and eating so much fruit!! (mostly bananas and dates) I am highly active and the part of my mind that was fearful of ‘this is to many calories’ had to be quieted quite a few times because I am determined not to give up! What is hard for me is that I have always been very lean and I absolutely love how I look. My desire to change was to feel healthier and improve my digestion. I have gained a few lbs, but i can tell that my energy levels are going up and my digestion is soo much better. Please encourage me not to give up as I am still struggling!
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Swayze Reply:
July 31st, 2010 at 10:24 am
Don’t give up, Kelly! Just keep gettin’ in those calories and enjoy your fruit!
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I feel better eating mostly raw but it seems if I eat with friends and eat some cooked, I gain weight even easier than before – what is up with that?
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Swayze Reply:
July 31st, 2010 at 10:26 am
It could just be that you are eating more calories from cooked food than you used to before you went raw. This is common because once we start eating enough fruit, we can handle a lot more volume than we could before. So when you go back to eating cooked, it takes more than it did before to physically fill up your stomach.
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Hi Swayze
I have been going raw for about a year, and am finally completely raw. I have always understood that the more good fat that you eat, the more bad fat your body sheds. When the body has the signal that it is no longer starving and no longer needs to hold onto the fat you loose weight. I do not even count calories anymore and have dropped ten pounds!
Angie
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Swayze Reply:
July 31st, 2010 at 10:28 am
I don’t know about eating more good fat to shed bad fat. There’s just no scientific data to back that up. Now, if you are eating less calories from the “good” fats (I’m assuming you mean raw overt fats like avocado, nuts and seeds), then yes, you will shed some pounds. But otherwise, too much fat is too much fat, regardless of the source.
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I learned from Doug Lisle that counting calories is futile – instead, go by your appetite because your stomach, when fed whole natural foods, is the most accurate calorie counter there is.
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Swayze Reply:
July 31st, 2010 at 10:31 am
Yes, it is easy to go by your stomach once you’ve been eating simply for a little while, but it’s much more difficult first starting out. People just aren’t used to eating that much volume so relying on the stomach to tell you when you’ve had enough (in terms of calories) isn’t really accurate.
Plus, it also depends upon what food you are eating. I feel full after a large cantaloupe, but this is only about 600 calories. If I ate this for, say, my lunch meal, I would feel full for about an hour but then would find myself hungry again.
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Supposedly the “perfect” female body fat percentage is 22 %, so 25 % wasn’t too far off. Top female gymnasts might get as low as 14%; much lower than that is Anorexic.
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Hello there, have you heard anything on the topic of raw plant based protein being more available or utilized than cooked animal protein or protein powders, etc?
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Swayze Reply:
August 4th, 2010 at 8:00 am
Yes, I certainly have. When you cook proteins, they go through a process called denaturing in which the amino acids are fused together. The body has a hard time breaking this denatured protein down into the usable amino acid chains.
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