Q&A with BodyMind Visionary and health expert David Wolfe
Question: “I often have people telling me (including nutritionists and naturopaths) that raw foods are too difficult to digest and that we should rather eat cooked food. Also, there was recently here in the UK a talk on the radio and an article in the paper about a book that was written about how humans have developed as much as we have through being the only species that cooks their food, and that cooked nutrients are more bio-available than raw nutrients, etc. I don’t buy it, and I am totally convinced that raw is best, but I never really know how to really answer them when they tell me these arguments in a convincing way. I don’t want to become argumentative about raw foods. I have been doing it for about 1 1/2 years now, and I know it’s a far more superior way of feeding our body, but how do I explain this in a convincing way?”
Answer: Fortunately, the human race is arising out of a long slumber of judgment and denial. The human race will eventually become scientific. What we are told is scientific today is so loaded with denial and judgment that we barely get any objective research. What is amazing and impressive about eating an intelligently and wisely rounded out raw-food diet is that it indicates to us EXPERIENTIALLY that humanity’s fall from grace has a lot to do with cookery. Cooking cannot add nutrients to food. It is not creative. If we continue to cook everything, eventually we will be left with charred remains. We cannot make the statement that cooking occurs in the natural world as there is no evidence to support that position.
One good thing to point out is that those who have never eaten a raw-food diet cannot comment from the perspective of experience. We cannot have an objective opinion on something never experienced.
Once someone has the experience of the “incredible lightness of being” caused by eating raw food, then the thought (and thus the prejudice) changes. “You are what you eat” in my experience precedes “you are what you think about.” Altering our diet to be more natural and adopting clever strategies of processing food that are both scientifically and spiritually valid seems to me to be the way towards the best future ever (instead of just “surviving” or “being healthy”) primarily due to the new quality feelings, thoughts, and ideas that are generated from such lifestyle modifications.
Furthermore, statements like “five times more lycopene content is released when we cook tomatoes” are matched by the fact that “five times more lycopene content is released when we blend tomatoes.” What is a more appropriate technology? Blending or cooking? On top of that, we can get more utilization of the lycopene if we blend a fat/oil (olive oil) in with the tomato. As we go deeper into research on nutrition, blended food becomes a technology appropriate direction as opposed to cooking as liquefying food is in alignment with the natural cascade of digestion (what nature is trying to do with digestion).
We might also want to consider the great teaching from the ancient Vedic Upanishad’s: “The subtle energy of your food becomes your mind.”
Research cited by scientist and raw-food Tony Wright in his book Left In The Dark indicates that eating cooked food causes left-brain dominance. Raw food restores natural right-brain dominance. Extensive studies cited in Left In The Dark concerning the function of the left and right brain indicate that the seat of genius is in the right brain and that left-brain dominance may be the cause of civilizations discontents. Tony Wright gained world-wide acclaim when he broke the world record for staying awake for over 11 days. Tony has proven that only the left- side of the brain needs to sleep.
Additionally, TCM and Traditional Ayurveda assume that raw food equals salad and fruit. As we now know, this is a narrow definition. Within their narrow definition their cautions against excesses of salad and fruit are accurate. Outside that narrow definition, their recommendations do not apply.