You Can’t Be Healthy if You Still Eat Cooked Food
At least, that’s what some raw foodists believe. They honestly think that all cooked foods are “dead” and lead to serious harm in the body if ingested.
I’ve even heard one raw foodist say that fire was man’s most destructive discovery specifically because it led to the cooking of our foods.
Utter silliness! But before I show you why, let’s get one thing straight…
100% Raw is Best
If you’re at all familiar with Fit On Raw, then you know that I enjoy and advocate a 100% raw vegan diet.
All cooked food, even lightly steamed veggies, is damaged to some degree and is always less nutritious than food in its raw, unprocessed state.
But…
A Fast Food French Fry is Not the Same as a Steamed Potato
Just like sugar, all cooked food is not created equal in terms of nutritional loss and detriment to the body. A spectrum definitely exists.
For instance, let’s look at the french fry. It’s simply a bit of potato fried in oil and sprinkled with salt, yet it’s one of the unhealthiest foods you can eat.
First, french fries are full of fat. McDonald’s fries contain about 45% of total calories from fat!
Second, french fries are fried (duh!) at around 335 degrees fahrenheit. Besides destroying a great deal of nutrients, cooking at high temperatures produces acrylamides (a toxin known to cause cancer), especially in complex carbohydrates (e.g. potatoes).
And some fast food fries are actually cooked twice, such as McDonald’s which are fried once at the factory, frozen, and then fried again in the restaurant.
Ooh yes, I’d love a second helping of cancer! 
Third, french fries are covered in salt. A medium fry from McDonald’s (four ounces) contains 270 mg of sodium.
Fourth, french fries are high in calories. McD’s medium fry contains 380 calories in a teeny tiny four ounce package.
Now let’s look at the steamed potato.
First, potatoes (without any extra oil) are very low in fat with about 2% of total calories.
Second, because the potato is cooked at a lower temperature (212 degrees F), more nutrients are retained and less acrylamides are produced.
Third, potatoes are low in sodium, at around 16 mg per four ounces (the same size as a McD’s medium fry).
Finally, potatoes are relatively low in calories. Four ounces of potato contains about 88 calories, less than one-fourth of the amount in a medium fry.
Steamed potatoes are inarguably better for you than french fries. They are more nutritious and lower in fat, salt, and calories than their fried and salted cousins.
This is just one comparison, but I think the point is pretty clear. All cooked foods are not the same.
Once a Day is Not the Same as Once a Month
In addition to what cooked foods you eat, the state of your health also depends upon how often you eat them. Eating a medium french fry from McDonald’s every night is NOT the same as having one once per month.
Put another way…
1460 ounces of fried salty potato per year (one medium fry per day) cannot compare to 48 ounces per year (one medium fry per month). The former would result in several health complications while the latter would have a very limited overall effect on your health.
Pretty obvious, right?
How to Eat Cooked Foods and Still Experience Vibrant Health
While a 100% raw food diet is the bee’s knees, you can lead a very healthy lifestyle eating cooked foods. You simply need to make sure that the majority of your intake comes from raw foods and that you eat the right kinds of cooked foods.
Which cooked foods are the “right” ones, you ask? Check out this article:
How to Eat a (Mostly) Raw Food Diet
Go raw and be fit,
Swayze
P.S. Looking to get off cooked foods for good? I hear ya. Not only is a 100% raw food diet the healthiest, but it’s also a lot easier in many ways.
I mean, what’s easier than peeling a few bananas, slicing up some mangoes, or prepping a few veggies for a big salad?
But saying bye-bye to cooked foods can be impossible to accomplish when you have crazy cravings.
You can stay raw for a short period of time, but then cravings start to crop up, they get worse, and then you’re bingeing on all your unhealthy cooked food favorites again.
I used to struggle this way too, but not anymore. And to help other cooked food fanatics, I decided to create my cravings-crushing program…
“How to Conquer Your Cooked Food Cravings Once and for All”
A Guide for Destroying Cravings on a Raw Food Diet
To learn more and purchase your copy today, visit the link below:
4 comments
Scientific researchers have found that the protection-giving substance in tomatoes , the anti-oxidant “lycopene” is better assimilated when tomatoes are :
1 : cooked
2 : eaten together with some fat
my compromise-solution is that :
1 : morning-time i enjoy eating the tasteful cherry-tomatoes
( sometimes called grape-tomatoes) , together with acid fruits , but wit no fat or no nuts at all , sometimes with ripe black olives
( high in lipids )
2 : sometimes evening-time i enjoy a feast of the bigger-sized cooked tomatoes with some fat , and with no starchy food at all ( because of the acid of the tomatoes ) , usually together with some ( deep-frozen stored ) brocolli ( the protective substance from these 2 are supposed to ” work together” = synergetic effect ) , and other vegetables ( deep-frozen stored )
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i have read somewhere in some book : ” local people , where the bananas grow , eat their bananas not raw but cooked ”
i have tried to eat bananas cooked or over-ripe , but failed to enjoy them , or maybe did not find their ideal combination with other food
since i practically never eat cereals , except exceptionally the so-called pseudo-cereals ( like quinoa, amaranth, buckwheat, ..) my only starch food source is cooked potatoes , and since many months the so-called “sweet potatoes ” , although they are not botanically related to the usual potatoes
these sweet potatoes have some extra benefits : they look much better with their orange flesh , have more taste , they contain a lot of the betacarotene ( a precursor of the vitamine A ), their skin can be eaten ( which is not-toxic , whereas with ordinary potatoes it is better not to eat their skin, because of the solanine in it ) , they require a much shorter cooking-time…their biggest disadvantage is their more expensive price
so , eating (sweet ) potatoes is again a compromise-solution for me ( since i personally dont like very much bananas )
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PS : i never eat anything extremely fried !! which means : never !
in particular , if one uses cold-pressed poly-unsatured oils it is not very wise to buy them “cold-pressed” and later on heat these oils up in extremely high temperatures ( with lots of toxic substances being created)
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PS :
the question of salt ( sodium ) , is more complex than
at first sight
even in the book edited by the vegan society of the UK , you will not find any calculation or estimation of how many sodium-rich vegetables one should ideally eat daily
you will find only the general recommendations to eat ” a wide variety of fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds..”
your body is constantly maintaining a balance in your blood , between sodium and potassium levels, necessary for the right healthy functioning of all your cells
so , it would be interesting to know some estimation of daily amounts of fruits ( high in potassium) and vegetables ( some rich in sodium) would be necessary to achieve a long-term healthy balance between sodium and potassium blood-levels
[Reply]
Leave a comment, beautiful.