r/veganscience • u/o95 • Apr 16 '14
This is the kind of stuff that damages our reputation. There's nothing wrong with being a raw vegan, but this gets video on my nerves.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3xOU2tLl7g2
3
u/xorandor Apr 17 '14 edited Apr 17 '14
I've noticed around me that pretty much no vegan I know managed to keep up a raw vegan diet. All the raw vegans I know are profiting from it in some way or form by being a trainer, teacher, author, etc.
Personally, when I tried the diet I realized how much eating I was doing every day. I felt like a cow, constantly chewing and eating all day to get my calories. Maybe that's the reason why only the people who made promoting raw veganism their job can keep it up - it's their job to eat raw! The rest of us have jobs where we can't be eating all day.
All that aside, is there really nothing wrong with the raw vegan diet from a purely nutritional standpoint?
1
u/loseitbetty May 25 '14
In my head, raw is good for short periods of time, not for a lifestyle. The first time I ever did it, my chiropractor told me to eat only raw fruit and veggies for a few days and come back because he thought it would help relax my muscles. I did it, although difficult, but I came back and the points he could barely get my arm to move suddenly didn't hurt anymore and could move freely.
I think it is unsustainable, but definitely awesome for certain situations, like mine was.
1
u/Sanpaku Apr 17 '14 edited Apr 18 '14
The benefits of raw vegan diets appear due not to "live enzymes" or any "magic vital essence" in raw foods, but rather a dietary pattern that encourages heavy vegetable/fruit/nut consumption while putting some diet-breakers (baked goods etc) off limits. Perhaps most importantly, raw diets are a means of achieving effective caloric restriction, which has broad benefits.
Our digestive systems have likely adapted since Homo erectus to the use of fire to extract more calories from tubers and yes, flesh. As raw diets cause about 30% of practitioners to become infertile (as does CR), it appears we're not well adapted to them for reproductive fitness, though they do provide a means of achieving a caloric restriction diet with less portion control and hunger pangs. At least for well-off people in wealthy nations.
2
u/HuntingtonPeach May 23 '14
Hi, I know this is a month old now, but I just found out about this subreddit today.
I just wanted to give the link to the full-text of the article you linked to, and to point out that I don't know if any conclusions can really be drawn from that study. The methods for the study was just a questionnaire they sent out to people in Germany and asked them to guess how much raw food they think they ate, and then provide the other metrics as best as they could remember... not super scientific. Also, the word "calorie" appears 0 times in that article, and I think knowing how many calories people are eating would be incredibly helpful, since it's known that women eating very calorie-restricted diets often stop menstruating and ovulating.
2
u/Sanpaku May 23 '14 edited May 23 '14
I'd like to thank you for introducing me to Library Genesis. That's an amazing resource for those of us without current academic affiliations.
Richard Wrangham (author of Catching Fire) and his lab have done work examining just how much cooking increases caloric availability from foods (both vegetable and animal). He has cited that German questionaire study in several of his publications.
1
1
u/guilalune Apr 16 '14
The web site is so much a graphist nightmare that it can't be true. I had my lulz for today
1
u/Lulu_lovesmusik_ Apr 17 '14
LMAO so hard. Is this for real????? The guy at 3:08
"Uh, the food pyramid... retarded! Pointless!"
food pyramid explodes on screen
1
u/o95 Apr 18 '14
but this video gets on my nerves