Raw Enough

I just finished a really excellent book called Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, by Richard Wrangham.

In it, he makes an extremely convincing case for the idea that learning to control fire and using it to cook meat and plant foods, was the defining event that turned us into humans. By humans, he doesn't mean our current species, Homo Sapiens. He is instead referring to the change that birthed our genus, Homo. We don't think of it very often, but there have actually been three species of so-called humans. The first was Homo Erectus, which evolved from our ape-like ancestors, the habilines, almost 2 million years ago. (The second was Homo Heidelbergensis and its no wonder most of us are not familiar with this name. I can hardly figure out how to pronounce it, much less remember it.)

I'm not going to report all his theories here. But, if you are interested, I strongly suggest this book. It's extremely well organized and his points are well-argued.

Reading it has me thinking a lot about raw food, and it's proper place in a healthy modern diet. According to Wrangham and his excellent sources, the main advantage of eating cooked food is faster, easier access to a significantly greater amount of energy. For our initially foraging, and later hunting and gathering predecessors, this was an obvious advantage. More fuel to grow and move with meant greater odds of survival for oneself and one's offspring.

But in the context of our safe sedentary lifestyles, most of us are facing an upside-down challenge, evolutionarily speaking. Now we do better when we manage to expend more effort, not less. And if we suffer from any scarcity, it is of vitamins and micro-nutrients, not calories. No wonder raw foodists claim to feel healthier when they give up cooked meals. Their method might be all wrong according to our biology, but it is the perfect antidote to the poisonous effects of our current food culture.

I'm not considering switching to an all raw diet. It's too much work, for one. I would miss cooked food too much, for another. But mostly, I just don't feel like I need such a dramatic shift in my habits. But I am going to make some small changes.

For this phase of my experiment I'm eating four meals a day. (Or three meals and a fourth meal's worth of snacks spaced throughout.) Each of these meals has four components: one serving of healthy fat-based food, one of lean protein, one of whole grain or other plant based starch, and one of fruit or vegetables. That's sixteen servings in all, each providing roughly 100 calories.

Other than an occasional splurge at my favorite sushi restaurant, I can't imagine eating my protein portions raw. Raw meat disgusts me. Fresh beans are impossible to get, and indegestible when they're dried. I can barely watch that scene in Rocky where he drinks the raw eggs. Yuck.

Starches don't seem any more promising. One time, when I was traveling and hungry and without access to a stove or a store, I tried to eat a raw sweet potato by slicing it very thin. It crunched nicely, but tasted awful. I was nauseated for hours afterward. It's true, I do sometimes eat my oats raw. They are surprisingly good just sprinkled on top of yogurt with some fresh ground flax seed and mixed berries. But of all the others I know: rice, wheat, quinoa, teff, amaranth, I can't think of any that I would be able to chew without cooking. Of course the raw foodists remember that these things are actually seeds, and they sprout them. But again that's too much work.

The fat category offers a few more options. Cold-pressed olive oil probably counts as raw. And I already buy raw nuts and nut-butters when I can find them. Oh, and avacado is a delicious raw fat, of course. But I'm not giving up butter, or mayonnaise, or the oils I use to cook with. Anyway, fatty foods are so calorically dense, it probably doesn't matter much which way I eat them. And the kind of micro-nutrients that raw-only enthusiasts rave about are probably only present in minutes amounts anyway.

The real area to focus on, it seems, if I want to eat more raw stuff, is fruits and vegetables. Fruits are easy. I can't really think of any that I don't like raw just as well, or better, than I like cooked. The only time I ever eat them cooked is when I run out of fresh ones at home have to turn to the freezer or the canned goods shelf if I want any fruit at all. And vegetables offer a lot of options: carrots, cauliflower, sugar-snap and snow peas, peppers, jicama, cucumber, celery, radishes, tomatoes. Even summer squash, beet roots and onions are good in small amounts when added to other dishes.

But I'm can't give up all my cooked veggies. What would I do without creamy cauliflower soup, home-made babaganoush, chick-pea saag and grilled asparagus? I would be sad. And, the whole point of this project is to be happy!

I'll make a compromise. From now on, when I'm planning my meals for the day, I will commit to including at least two raw servings of fruit or vegetables. That's half my allotment. I know it doesn't sound like much. It's only 12.5% of my daily calorie intake. But it's probably a lot more than most people eat. Especially when you consider that I am not measuring servings by size, but by calories.

According to the Food Pyramid guide, a serving size of most vegetables is one-half cup. For leafy greens, it's a whole cup. But even a whole cup of fresh salad leaves is less than 10 calories! I don't even count mixed raw greens on my food plan because they are negligible, calorie-wise. I use them as a bed under my meal. It adds color, crunch, volume, interest and of-course, nutrients. When it comes to other vegetables, I probably eat between three and seven of the standard "servings" at every meal.

For instance, 100 calories of carrots is 240 g. That's about 3 carrots. Chopped up, I bet they'd fill a cup and a half. Compared to other fresh vegetables, carrots are relatively calorie dense. Cucumber is on the other end of the scale. It takes 880 g to make up 100 calories. I don't know how many half-cups that it, but peeled and sliced with a little lemon on top make a huge, and delicious, bowl full.

So I'm going ahead with my two-raw-a-day plan, and feeling confident that my diet is healthy enough. I'll continue to relish dribbling my steamed chard with bsalmic vinegar and sprinkling it with dried cranberries or baking bits of tofu and turkey bacon inside fat rolls of green cabbage. And the next time I'm saying grace at the table, there will be a nod for those blessed habilines who captured the flames and passed them down to me.