Furman on Raw Foods

I was looking at Dr. Furman's website/blog, Disease Proof Your Child and noticed a post on raw foods. Here is what he writes:

Are cooked foods really dead foods?It is true that when food is baked at high temperatures—and especially when it is fried or barbecued—toxic compounds are formed and important nutrients are lost. Many vitamins are water-soluble, and a significant percent can be lost with cooking, especially overcooking. Similarly, many plant enzymes function as phytochemical nutrients in our body and can be useful to maximize health. They, too, can be destroyed by overcooking.

Enzymes are proteins that work to speed up or “catalyze” chemical reactions. Every living cell makes enzymes for its own activities. Human cells are no exception. Our glands secrete enzymes into the digestive tract to aid in the digestion of food. However, after they are ingested, the enzymes contained in plants do not function as enhancements or replacements for human digestive enzymes. These molecules exist to serve the plant’s purpose, not ours. The plant enzymes get digested by our own digestive juices along with the rest of the food and are absorbed and utilized as nutrients.

Contrary to what many raw-food web sites claim, the enzymes contained in the plants we eat do not catalyze chemical reactions that occur in humans. The plant enzymes merely are broken down into simpler molecules by our own powerful digestive juices. Even when the food is consumed raw, plant enzymes do not aid in their own digestion inside the human body. It is not true that eating raw food demands less enzyme production by your body, and dietary enzymes inactivated by cooking have an insignificant effect on your health and your body’s enzymes.

The first issue I have with this is the statement that the enzymes in raw foods do not help the human body to digest these foods and that they are essentially useless to the human body. In Conscious Eating by Gabriel Cousens, which is considered the vegetarian and live-food bible to many people, the author points out a study done with dogs. Basically, the dogs were given cooked foods and after a week, the enzyme content of their saliva was measured. It turns out these enzyme levels were "greatly increased" in order to digest the cooked foods. In comparison, the dogs were also given a raw foods diet and within a week, the salivary enzymes were reduced. This clearly shows that our bodies (we can generalize the findings in the dogs to humans because very similar results are found in humans) will reserve its enzymes if our food contains enzymes.

In addition, Cousens points out that "Since 1949, enough research has thoroughly documented that [exogeneous] enzymes are not only active in the digestive system but will increase in concentration in the blood after being taken orally" (pg. 533). This directly contradicts Furman's statement that plant enzymes are inactive ans useless to our bodies.

The significance of preserving our enzymes is important when we realize the fact that "our enzyme reserve is exhaustible" (Cousens, pg. 520). A low enzyme content is found in people with chronic disease such as diabetes, cancer, heart disease and obesity.

Our bodies are also physically structured for a live-foods diet. Our stomach is not simply one big sac that churns food with digestive enzymes and acid. In fact, we have two separate parts of the stomach, the first part being the "enzyme stomach" which holds food for 30-60 minutes to continue salivary digestion and also for the enzymes released in the food to do their work. According to Cousens, "During the first 30-60 minutes in the upper stomach [enzyme stomach] digestion takes place primarily by the food enzymes released from the raw foods" (pg. 523). Then the food moves down into the "pyloric stomach" where stomach acid is released.

Also, I find it very interesting that human are the only species on this whole grand Earth that do not consume primarily raw foods! Every other animal eats food in its fresh, whole, uncooked state. Even carnivores. Cousens also makes the point that animals in the wild do not suffer from chronic diseases like diabetes and obesity--only modern humans and domestic animals do--both of which consume a mostly cooked-food diet. Also, humans have a pancreas (the pancreas is involved in producing enzymes) that "is three times larger, as compared to total body weight, than that of any other animal" (pg.525). The explanation for this is that the pancreas becomes enlarged as a result of excreting so many enzymes due to an enzyme-deficient diet.

Furman goes on to write:
Benefits of raw food.Certainly, there are benefits to consuming plenty of raw fruits and vegetables. These foods supply us with high nutrient levels and the smallest number of calories. But the question we are looking at is this—Are there advantages to eating a diet of all raw foods and excluding all cooked foods?
Clearly, the answer is a resounding “No.” In fact, eating an exclusively raw-food diet is a disadvantage. To exclude all steamed vegetables and vegetable soups from your diet narrows the nutrient diversity of your diet and has a tendency to reduce the percentage of calories from vegetables, in favor of nuts and fruit, which are lower in nutrients per calorie.

Unfortunately, sloppy science prevails in the raw-food movement. Rawfood advocates mistakenly conclude that since eating processed and cooked carbohydrates is harmful for us, all cooked foods are harmful.

I don't see how "To exclude all steamed vegetables and vegetable soups from your diet narrows the nutrient diversity of your diet..." Any food you eat cooked can be eaten raw. Instead of steamed broccoli, eat raw broccoli, instead of cooked tomato soup, eat a couple whole raw tomatoes. This seems very simple to me, and I really fail to see how a lack of "steamed vegetables" and "vegetable soups" in favor for the exact same foods in a raw state contribute to malnourishment. Furman even says himself that raw foods have more nutrients than cooked foods.

In addition, while there probably is a lot of "sloppy science" out there on raw foods, there is a whole lot of good science too. I challenge Dr. Furman to pick up Conscious Eating and then say that there is no hard evidence to support the raw foods movement.

My point in writing all this is to bring to light the credibility of the raw foods movement. Foods in their natural uncooked state are what nature intends for all animals, and human are no exception. Anyone interested in learning more on raw foods and healthy lifestyle should read Conscious Eating. It is filled with compelling, credible scientific evidence and is very inspiring.