fullness cues, and acting upon them, will
help you arrive at your most healthy weight.
2
Your eating behaviours are flexible.
You are able to travel the world, try new
foods and cuisines and eat out with friends
and family. Your diet or food rules do not
dictate your social life and social health.
Your food intake provides your
body with all of its essential nutrients.
3
You eat from all five food groups (fruit,
vegetables, grains/pseudo grains and
cereals, lean meat/alternatives and dairy/
alternatives). Gender, body size, age and
activity levels are all factors that affect the
amount of energy and certain nutrients we
need. The Australian Guide to Healthy Eating
and the Recommended Food Groups is a
great ‘guide’ to help tick these boxes.
We don’t need to look far to find a diet
promising weight loss and a better life. Before
jumping on the next diet, however, it is wise
to consider my definition of a healthy diet
and ask yourself whether it will support your
health and your core values – and whether it’s
sustainable. If not, you’re most likely setting
yourself up for feelings of failure, regret,
frustration and poor health outcomes.
In the raw
The raw food diet is on trend, likely recently
assisted by celebrities such as Demi
Moore and Venus Williams claiming to have
followed the ‘raw movement’ at some point.
Weight loss, improved health, enhanced
energy and sporting performance have all
been claimed effects of adhering to this
approach to nutrition.
What we know about dieting and
weight loss
At this juncture it is prescient to consider a few
certain truths about dieting and weight loss,
and how these might relate to a raw food diet.
• An energy deficit is an absolute
requirement for weight loss.
• An energy deficit can be created in many
ways.
• A healthy weight loss occurs when the
dieter is still able to meet their nutrition
requirements of over 35 essential
nutrients (the body’s key tools).
• When someone loses weight they need
to consume fewer calories to maintain
their weight loss.
• A healthy and sustainable weight loss is
when someone loses weight gradually
over a period of time (e.g. 0.5-1.0kg per
week), is still able to meet their nutrition
requirements (not malnourished) and
changes their lifestyle habits to maintain
weight loss.
TABLE 1: Raw food diet rules
Allowed
Banned
All raw fruit, vegetables, nuts
All cooked foods
and seeds
Fermented foods (e.g. kimchi)
Wine (fermented)
Grains, legumes, potatoes
and most starchy root
vegetables, as these require
cooking to be palatable. (e.g.
brown rice, quinoa, lentils,
sweet potato)
Spirits and beer (technically
cooked because they are
distilled)
Raw milk products and raw
Meat and dairy products
meats are also acceptable, if
(if practicing a raw vegan
you’re not practicing a vegan
diet)
raw food diet
Where did the raw food diet come from?
The raw food movement probably began way back in 1850 with
Sylvester Graham, a Presbyterian minister who started the American
Vegetarian Society. A later significant player in the raw food movement
was Chicago medical doctor, Edward Howell, who wrote a book called
The Status of Food Enzymes in Digestion and Metabolism. Howell
claimed that the food we eat contains natural enzymes to digest our
food and that the heat of cooking destroyed these enzymes, therefore
making the food harder for the body to digest.
Raw food enthusiasts also claim that cooking strips fruit and
vegetables of their vital nutrients, and makes them harder for our
bodies to metabolise, so that cooked foods are supposedly less
healthy than raw foods.
Recent food and nutrition science tells a different story. We now
know that the body contains these enzymes, although digestive
ability varies between individuals.
Will eating raw make you feel better?
Simple question, not quite so simple answer. Eating raw might make
you feel better, but not necessarily because you’re eating raw –
rather because the restrictive nature of the raw food diet may have
reduced or eliminated a food that your body was struggling to digest
– regardless of whether or not it’s cooked.
Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), with symptoms including bloating,
pain, gas, diarrhoea and constipation, is common in Australia, with
1 in 5 suffering. These symptoms are commonly blamed on gluten
or lactose, but many people who think they are intolerant actually
aren’t. The culprit in many cases might actually be FODMAPs
(Fermentable Oligo-, Di- and Mono-saccharides and Polyols), a
group of carbohydrates. They are food for the bacteria in our gut, so
when they are fermented in the intestines they increase the volume
of liquids and gas in the intestines causing cramping, gas, bloating,
diarrhoea or constipation.
Most people don’t have any trouble digesting the level of FODMAPs
NETWORK SUMMER 2017 | 25