The Raw Food Diet: Healthy, or are Benefits Cooked-up? | your best ...

Since when was getting a raw deal a good thing? When you decide to try the Raw Food Diet, apparently. Proponents of this natural food diet stick to unprocessed uncooked plant foods, such as fresh fruit and vegetables, sprouts, seeds, nuts, grains, beans, dried fruit, and seaweed. Most adherents are vegetarian, while some eat raw fish and even fewer eat (gulp!) raw meat. That's because raw food proponents believe that heating any food above 116 degrees Fahrenheit destroys important enzymes that help in digestion and absorption of the essential nourishment you get from your meals. Critics claim that even if enzymes are inactivated when food is heated, the body uses its own enzymes for digestion.