Here’s an article about raw foods diet that also meantions the cleanse I’m on. The article is fantastically sardonic and irreverent. I love it.
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14 Responses to “Sardonic”
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Hey there. I'm Ariel Meadow Stallings, a native Seattleite who's written my way up and down the Left Coast. Electrolicious is where I post daily randomata, but I also write for a living. My first book, Offbeat Bride, was published last year.
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Jez
February 17th, 2003 at 5:38 pm
better stuff to be found at
http://www.rawfood.com/
Scott
February 17th, 2003 at 7:00 pm
I hope I don’t sound irreverent here, because I honestly think that the cleanse sounds like a fabulous thing to do, and I’ve been pondering similar things myself for a while. But there’s something I’ve never been able to figure out about the raw foods thing, and I was wondering if you knew of an answer of some kind. I was a biology student for quite a while, and I remember pretty clearly that stomach acid breaks proteins down into their component amino acids. And enzymes are proteins. So doesn’t cooking a vegetable just do what stomach acid would do anyway? Or, am I totally missing something? Thanks so much!
Ariel
February 17th, 2003 at 7:02 pm
I have no idea. Maybe one of my readers have a better understanding of raw foods than I do?
justin
February 17th, 2003 at 8:17 pm
This is something that I love to talk about.
Simply speakng, and without getting bogged down in all of the minutia, Raw Food has many vital constituents that are essential for the proper absorption of nutrients. The most important “players” here are the enzymes that are found in the food as well as the minerals and vitamins. Interestingly enough, many of the foods we eat contain the very enzymes that are required for the absorption of the nutrients they provide. From a very basic biological standpoint, when you cook food, you destroy or “denature” the enzymes in the food. This often translates into extremely poor absorption of the nutrients that require those specific enzymes.
There are many things that can influence the extent to which we aquire nutrients fom the food we eat; heat, time..even if you don’t cook your food, how long has it been since it was harvested??
Other interesting info:
justin
February 17th, 2003 at 8:21 pm
check out:
http://www.vegetarian-nutrition.info/positions.htm
Steve Hecht
February 17th, 2003 at 9:12 pm
A large site to explore: http://www.beyondveg.com
The contributors are current/former long-term vegetarians/vegans/rawists/other (often over 10 years experience). It takes a lot of time and fortitude to read so much material, but theirs is the most level-headed appraisal of alternative diets I’ve seen.
jez
February 17th, 2003 at 9:52 pm
To simplify… your body needs the appropirate enzymes to digest any food. Your smart ole body comes pre loaded with a certain amount of these enzymes, with the amout pre determined in threoy, by what we are supposed to be eating in accordance by our genes.
Wait..more simple..
There is a limit supply of enzymes. Your body does not need to use its own enzyme supply to digest raw or unadulterd food. They contain everything needed to digest themselves. You only tap into your supply when you eat cooked food… the enzymes have been killed by heat. Then after awhile, you are fucked my freind as your body takes its toll on other parts of you. Digestion is in fact your body’s number one priority. That’s why fasting is so benificial, because it gives your system a chance to pay attention to other things.
Ariel
February 17th, 2003 at 10:17 pm
Wow! Thanks everyone. I especially appreciated this article from the website Steve referenced.
Scott
February 17th, 2003 at 10:33 pm
Thanks for the links, everyone. Justin, that vegetarian-nutrition info link has a table that addresses the issue of enzymes as I’ve always seen it: “The very acidic environment of the stomach (pH of 2-3) will inactivate enzymes before they get to the small intestines. Hence, the enzymes in raw food never get past the stomach.”
http://www.vegetarian-nutritio.....foods.html
So those good enzymes will be destroyed by your stomach as much as they would by cooking. The vegetable-heavy diet seems like an excellent thing to me, and I love the idea of the purification of it. I guess I’ll just be more likely to go with both cooked and raw foods if I get the time and nerve up to do something like Ariel is doing. Thanks again, all, and pardon me for taking over a comments thread.
k
February 17th, 2003 at 10:41 pm
hey! i wanted to say i’m glad ur comments are back =) i always post anonymously.. and i disagreed with you once before, but not to stir up trouble.
Zosia
February 17th, 2003 at 11:42 pm
I’ll add my thanks to those articles, too. Fascinating stuff.
Ariel
February 18th, 2003 at 1:31 pm
Maybe this is the right time and place for me to clarify how I feel about raw foods. I’ve had friends interested in raw foods for years, and ate at RAW in San Francisco back in 1998. I’d never really considered the diet all that interesting, and witnessed the “orthorexic” affects it had on some folks.
However, while doing this cleanse, I’ve come to feel that, on an intuitive level, fresh raw foods are good for you. I feel good after I eat them, and I think that a raw diet is an excellent tool to use for cleansing. That said, I don’t think a primarily raw diet would be sustainable for me…
The way I see it, raw foods are becoming one of several cuisines I enjoy. I like Thai, Indian, sushi, and raw foods! I guess what I’m saying is that I enjoy raw foods as a component of my diet — but not as a lifestyle.
Thanks to everyone who’s commented — very interesting discussion here!
Brodie
February 19th, 2003 at 9:00 am
Patagonia Arizona is one of the lovliest places on earth. It really is.
dori
February 20th, 2003 at 10:14 am
normally you can’t get me to read the Observer but that article with hysterical! John Bartlett is actually a complete sweetheart who’s seriously into his practice - my yoga instructor is really good friends with him, so he came over with his boyfriend once for rooftop yoga and put the rest of us to shame… the man’s a pretzel.