Going raw in the kitchen

Like all things eco, there is green, greener and greenest. The absolute greenest palette around is the raw food diet. It's a novel way to prepare food that is delicious but also reduces your energy consumption and ecological footprint.

Freed from cooking

Many practitioners of “uncooking” swear that in addition to it being the greenest way to eat, having only raw food helps people shed pounds, look younger and feel great. So does the raw food diet mean you eat nothing but carrots, celery and salads? Hardly! Through technology such as blenders, food processors and dehydrators, not to mention tried-and-true methods like sprouting and fermenting, this diet has as much (if not more) variety than cooked food. A quick perusal through”uncookbooks” reveals a menu rich in Mexican, Middle Eastern and Italian cuisines. It’s not uncommon to hear about raw pizzas and raw lasagna, as well as delectable raw cakes and pies.

Raw role models

Eating raw is not just ecologically friendly but increasingly popular. From Vancouver’s Gorilla Food restaurant to Toronto’s Live Organic Food Bar, raw bistros have “sprouted” everywhere. There are plenty of role models to follow. Supermodel Carol Alt has written several uncookbooks, movie stars like Woody Harrelson and Alicia Silverstone have been telling people about raw food for years, and rockers Bryan Adams and Bif Naked swear by it.

SAD diet be gone

While many people in the raw food movement tout its health aspects, they also like to poke a little fun at the rest of us, claiming that we're eating SAD (Standard American Diet) food that’s bereft of natural enzymes that help with digestion.

Aid to digestion

The concept of enzyme nutrition was developed by Dr. Edward Howell, who noticed an improvement in his patients with chronic diseases such as tuberculosis after they were put on a diet of raw food. He started researching enzymes and found there was a significant loss in nutrition when food was cooked.

Cooking kills

Cooking food does kill most of its natural enzymes, which act as chemical catalysts to help with digestion. Take a carrot, for example. Eaten raw, that carrot enters the digestive tract with its own enzymes intact, making it easily digestible. Cooked, it lacks enzymes, so the body has to supply the necessary enzymes in order to digest the carrot. While we do have some reserves, our supply is finite, and that means many of the nutrients aren’t absorbed. Raw foodies believe that a diet of only cooked food depletes the body’s natural reserves so that, by the time we reach our mid-30s, it is harder to get the nutrients we need from our food.

Raw is green

Another benefit of the raw diet has to do with our carbon footprint. It’s estimated that over one-third of the carbon dioxide worldwide is from our cooking. The 220-volt Western stove uses more electricity than the washer and dryer combined, while fuel for stoves in developing countries contributes to deforestation and destruction of the environment. Eating raw uses far less energy.

Reduce your garbage

With raw eating, packaging seems to instantly shrink as well. Gone are the plastic wrap, plastic trays, Styrofoam plates, cardboard boxes and various types of bags. Your compost will grow at an equal-but-opposite rate as your garbage bag shrinks.

Start off slow

The raw food diet is a leap for the average person. Don’t try to go completely raw right away. Try a few dishes and see how it goes. Raw Food Cookbook has some excellent information on its website and the following site We Like It Raw and the blog by Ani Phyo has many delicious recipes

Once you’ve discovered the joy of uncooking, you may be happy going raw.

Lee Schnaiberg is a green investigative researcher who is crazy enough to try the raw diet.