# eating raw



## Joca

The number of people eating only raw foods seems to be growing, at least among celebrities. There are groups (like this one: *http://tinyurl.com/m96x9*) that promote even raw meats, fish and eggs. They say that cooking destroys nutrients, and eating raw leads to a better, superior health. Some say further: by cooking, you're killing your food twice. What do you think about this? Do you believe in raw foods and especially in raw animal foods? Would you take the step into this system (eating only raw foods and ruling out whatever can't be eaten raw), even if it means that you'll be eating mostly in isolation?

JC


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## francophone

I only think it's not safe to eat raw food, i mean sometimes we eat raw fish "cooking" it with some lemon drops. For ex. I don't mind eating raw vegetables, but raw meat would be disgusting with all the blood and fat involved.

Also it's a matter of taste and variety. I don't want to limit myself only eating raw food.


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## la reine victoria

No thank you to raw meat. I eat quite a few raw vegetables but enjoy them just as well when they are cooked.

Imagine not being able to enjoy a piping hot dish of meat stew, with loads of vegetables and pulses (all cooked in the same pot).

I recently sampled some raw fish at home. It wasn't too bad and did me no harm, but I prefer it cooked.

And where would we be without home-made soup? Leek and potato with lentils; mixed vegetables; carrot and coriander; chicken and mushroom; cream of watercress, etc. etc.

A nice raw curry, anyone?  

LRV


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## ireney

And then I'll climb in a tree or go and live in a cave. 

Personally I am not partial to sushi and steak tatar deserves its name. Apart from that however 
a) I don't see the reason to do so, I like the way my cooked food tastes
 b) I don't see the reason to add more health risks to my daily life 
c) I don't see the loss of some nutrients here and there as detrimental to my health or to any body's health (we're not talking about cooking vegetables till they lose every ounce of vitamins obviously and I personally like my oranges and apples and other fruits raw -and as marmalade, lets not forget marmalade )
d) I assume that "kill your food twice" has no literal meaning but I can't help it! I keep seeing highlights of the Swedish Chef.

It's obvious I assume that I will consider eating raw meat and abolishing any food that I cannot or will not eat raw only if there's no other alternative and it's a life or death situation. In the meanwhile I'll stick with one of mankind's longest habbits.


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## GEmatt

Joca said:


> There are groups (like this one: *http://tinyurl.com/m96x9*) that promote even raw meats, fish and eggs. They say that cooking destroys nutrients, and eating raw leads to a better, superior health. Some say further: by cooking, you're killing your food twice. What do you think about this?


I suspect it's mostly a fad. Two hundred thousand years of continual culinary development after we discovered fire, and we're back to this? I hope not.

Raw fruit and vegetables, fine; I love sushi, and steak tartare. But I can guarantee you won't experience "superior health" after a dinner of cold, raw chicken. Even slightly undercooked, such things can lead to high fevers and disastrous rumblings down below, since they are laden with harmful bacteria like salmonella (no offense, fenixpollo), and the case can be similar with eggs. Once was enough, thanks.



> Would you take the step into this system (eating only raw foods and ruling out whatever can't be eaten raw), even if it means that you'll be eating mostly in isolation?


I would never change to an exlusively raw food diet. That seems extreme, to me. But I'd be willing to make concessions and eat more raw vegetables and fruits, as the health benefits there are more in evidence.

Why do you say "eating mostly in isolation"? Because everyone else will be too disgusted to sit and eat with you?


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## Joca

GEmatt said:


> ... Why do you say "eating mostly in isolation"? Because everyone else will be too disgusted to sit and eat with you?


 
Yes, many people can faint when they see raw meat on your plate.

JC


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## Kajjo

1) Cooking, roasting, baking, brewing are the main origins of flavour and fragrance in most kinds of food.
2) Digestibility and compatibility to the human organism is are drastically improved by heating.
3) Cooked food is much safer with respect to parasites and microorganisms.

All this modern diets of ever more absurdly kind are just for popularity and nearly all are irrational and unhealthy.

I love to eat steak tartar if prepared by a trusted butcher, but in small quantities and not because it is healthier, but because it tastes well and differently. Of course, almost all fruits and many kinds of vegetables can be eaten raw.

Kajjo


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## invictaspirit

I eat raw fish. I love Japanese sashimi dishes, and often buy tuna, salmon and mackerel and eat them raw. I would only buy this fish from an independent, old-fashioned fishmonger or occasionally from the fresh fish counter at a supermarket. I would not recommend eating raw fish that you picked up 'fresh' at the supermarket but that was pre-packed. That tends to be a lot less fresh than the stuff sitting on a mountain of ice at the counter. I have eaten fish this way for around 6 years and have never once been ill. It's delicious and extremely healthy.

Like francophone, I sometimes 'cook' raw fish by marinating it in lime juice overnight. (The Latin American seviche/ceviche/cebiche dish. Superb!)

I rarely eat actually *raw* meat. I will flash-broil steak sometimes, so only the first mm or so is cooked but the rest is a bloody mess. My wife cooks carpaccio, which is also more-or-less raw beef. As far as I know, there is no safe way of eating raw pork or chicken?


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## Cereth

Hola!
Well...I don´t know about meat and I think I´ll never eat it raw....but who knows I used to hate any kind of seafood in Mexico, and once I came to Japan " I HAD TO" try raw fish...I ate it closing my eyes...but happily I found out that it was delicious (I tried Tuna and Salmon) it was not stinky and it was pretty smooth and nice.
Raw Vegetables are better 
but raw pork meat? I am quivering now....

 kimochi warui!


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## Paulfromitaly

I do like sushi, sashimi and almost everything you can have in a Japanese restaurant.
I also like raw or at least rare meat, although I enjoy most of the traditional recipes which provide cooked meat.
For me it's not a matter of fad, I just like the taste of raw meat and fish (raw prawn:such a delicacy..).


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## atito

You said it Joca in the first sentences, at least for celebrities. I think for me that eating raw food is only a fashion to have a "beautiful body". Cause we all know what cooked food contain colesterol and so on.. 

Indeed there are some food that is better to eat raw for me. But eat only raw food I can't. And I don't want to.

Salut


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## GEmatt

Joca said:


> Yes, many people can faint when they see raw meat on your plate.


Alright, so you're talking basically about muscle fibre, "flesh off the bone", rather than simple raw meat like steak tartare, which is specially prepared. I'm not sure that would actually happen.

Well, I think people who are offended at the sight of a little (animal) blood on someone's plate are likely to be offended by meat, in general, and can easily avoid restaurants that serve food in that way. If, like smoking, I was banned from enjoying my chateaubriand steak _cuisson bleu_, because too many people were fainting, or whatever, I'd happily eat in total isolation.


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## jess oh seven

There is a reason why the human body reacts badly to severely undercooked meat!


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## fenixpollo

GEmatt said:


> Even slightly undercooked, such things can lead to high fevers and disastrous rumblings down below, since they are laden with harmful bacteria like salmonella (no offense, fenixpollo), and the case can be similar with eggs.


 No offense, Matt. 

I agree that the main reason to cook food is to kill microorganisms that can make you sick. I'm willing to trade whatever supposed "nutritional value" that might be lost (and this is still wildly suppositional), in exchange for avoiding foodborne illness. If given a choice between getting sick and not getting sick, I'll pick the latter. 

On the other hand, some foods, such as blue corn, have nutritional elements that are only activated by cooking. I don't think that just because everybody cooks their food, that means that uncooked food is wrong or dumb.  It depends on the food -- there are some foods that are good when raw (such as carrots) and others that are better, and healthier, when cooked (such as cow meat).  To have an exclusively "all-raw" diet or an exclusively "all-cooked" diet seems extremist to me.


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## Joca

fenixpollo said:


> No offense, Matt.
> 
> ... To have an exclusively "all-raw" diet or an exclusively "all-cooked" diet seems extremist to me.


 
That's a good point. A middle-of-the-road solution. We need both raw and cooked foods, but not exclusively.


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## danielfranco

atito said:


> [...] Cause we all know what cooked food contain colesterol and so on..
> 
> But eat only raw food I can't. And I don't want to.



I disagree to the first part of your post. The cholesterol is in the food already. Cooking doesn't help nor does it worsen the situation. However, I like your other sentence a lot: "I don't want to." Me, neither. Well, maybe some food is okay raw, like some vegetables and even some fish.
But as far as losing the nutritional value, many vitamins lose their concentration in foods that have been "dead" for a while, so eating them raw only helps marginally. I mean, really, unless you have your own garden in your backyard, who knows how long ago all those fruits and vegetables were harvested, no?
And the animal's death is a bit of a traumatic experience for it (no, really? you think?  ) so all kinds of toxins get dumped into the tissues at the moment of death. Other substances already present start spoiling very rapidly after death. And I mean minutes, my friends, not days. As a matter of fact, even when you are alive and well, if you don't have blood flow to a section of your body, it will die and necrotize within, erm, something like six hours. So, what I said about gardens applies to animals, too: unless you butcher your own animal outside your kitchen, the chances of avoiding all these toxins created by stress and spoilage are very slim.

Now, is it cool to eat raw food? Well, maybe. But about it being extra-nutritious, I just don't know.


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## Bonjules

danielfranco said:


> ......as far as losing the nutritional value, many vitamins lose their concentration in foods that have been "dead" for a while.....
> And the animal's death is a bit of a traumatic experience for it (no, really? you think?  ) so all kinds of toxins get dumped into the tissues at the moment of death....
> 
> Now, is it cool to eat raw food? Well, maybe. But about it being extra-nutritious, I just don't know.


  Now, Dan, explain that to us just a bit more, like how these vitamins disappear from 'dead' vegetables. I haven't heard much about that.
As far as eating animals goes, there seems little alternative to having them dead first, unless you prefer to eat them alive of course. This could be accomplished with oysters or Cherry Stone clams (they hate being eaten and will 'clam up' very hard when you try to cut them open to put that vinegar and hot sauce on them-
you can seriously cut yourself trying to eat them but it seems a risk worth taking);
with larger animals it would be difficult, for obvious reasons.
 Now who is sneakily dumping all those toxins into them? Or are you talking about the natural break-down processes, making a well aged piece of meat ('the deader, the better') such a delicacy? The French call it
'haut gout', I believe, and for  a reason. The art is to catch the perfect time...
Enjoy!


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## roxcyn

Sorry I wouldn't eat raw meat at all.  Perhaps fish, but I prefer cooked meats.  I don't mind raw vegetables.  When you cook the meats it kills most bacterias such as salmonella and e coli.


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## Bonjules

roxcyn said:


> Sorry I wouldn't eat raw meat at all. Perhaps fish, but I prefer cooked meats. I don't mind raw vegetables. When you cook the meats it kills most bacterias such as salmonella and e coli.


If you are really worried about the safety, you shouldn't eat any meat at all. At least beef; not really sure why pigs couldn't catch BSE.
No beef, cooked or not, until proper procedures are established for checking each animal before it gets packaged and sold. Right now it is a bit like playing Russian Roulette.


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## robjh22

"Two hundred thousand years of continual culinary development after we discovered fire, and we're back to this?"

Say it again. This reminds me of an editorial bemoaning "developments" like blue tortillas and other manifestations of nouvelle cuisine. The reason most tortillas are white and/or yellow is that Mexicans (or Indians?) tried and rejected about, oh, 637 recipes for your basic tortilla before hitting on the delicious ones they prepare today. The reason they aren't blue is that they tried them about 891 giga-years ago, and the verdict was ...

Yecch!


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## Bonjules

robjh22 said:


> "...... The reason most tortillas are white and/or yellow is that Mexicans (or Indians?) tried and rejected about, oh, 637 recipes for your basic tortilla before hitting on the delicious ones they prepare today. The reason they aren't blue is that they tried them about 891 giga-years ago, and the verdict was ...
> 
> Yecch!


Why? Does blue corn taste different?


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## badgrammar

I love raw fish, and flash-fired fish, and also enjoy steak tartar.  Those are the only things I can think of that people eat raw.  

Are there other meats/preparation that people eat raw?


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## GOTO6502

francophone said:


> I only think it's not safe to eat raw food, i mean sometimes we eat raw fish "cooking" it with some lemon drops. For ex. I don't mind eating raw vegetables, but raw meat would be disgusting with all the blood and fat involved.
> 
> Also it's a matter of taste and variety. I don't want to limit myself only eating raw food.



Mostly agree, but everyone should know though Raw vegetable doesn't have those parasite , they have other weapons. Plants are known to have all kinds of magical proteins , some of which are not so friendly to human.For instance some kinds of beans  and taroes(?)
personally think that eating heated food is an advance step to human since we are the only ceature on earth who cook food before eating.
Raw food have some limited extra nutrition comparing to cooked one.but these advantages aren't worth the danger .

I dont agree with efforts against the evolution.As you can see in history that the more ancient civilization usually have a longer history of cooking.Only Barbarians or Savages  completely feed on raw things.(Hope i didnt say sth offensive)


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## Etcetera

Joca said:


> Would you take the step into this system (eating only raw foods and ruling out whatever can't be eaten raw), even if it means that you'll be eating mostly in isolation?


No thanks.
I enjoy good food, and good _cooked _food. There's nothing like roast chicken!
And I agree that we need both raw and cooked food. Fruits and vegetables are better when raw, but meat just has to be cooked.


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## danielfranco

Bonjules said:


> Now, Dan, explain that to us just a bit more, like how these vitamins disappear from 'dead' vegetables. I haven't heard much about that.
> As far as eating animals goes, there seems little alternative to having them dead first, unless you prefer to eat them alive of course. This could be accomplished with oysters or Cherry Stone clams (they hate being eaten and will 'clam up' very hard when you try to cut them open to put that vinegar and hot sauce on them-
> you can seriously cut yourself trying to eat them but it seems a risk worth taking);
> with larger animals it would be difficult, for obvious reasons.
> Now who is sneakily dumping all those toxins into them? Or are you talking about the natural break-down processes, making a well aged piece of meat ('the deader, the better') such a delicacy? The French call it
> 'haut gout', I believe, and for  a reason. The art is to catch the perfect time...
> Enjoy!




Well, I'm not a nutriologist or a medical person (but I stayed at a Holiday Inn  )(if you haven't seen the commercial don't worry: you haven't missed much... it was a crappy joke, anyway...), but I think that vitamins oxidize quickly and are no good to nobody no more p), and some of the more complex proteins and aminoacids do not survive long without the attending process of the live plant. However, I have been SO wrong SO many times, this could be one of those times.
Also, some of the hormones are toxic in great concentrations (fatal to the host, and pretty stomach-turning to the eater of the flesh), and there are other substances, acidic in nature, that accumulate in the muscle tissue without proper oxygenation and blood flow.
So, although your suggestion seems awfully sensitive to me, I don't think I'm gonna be taking a bite out of a live cow anytime soon. Instead, I'll have a medium-well rib-eye steak with some mushroom sauce on it, and take my multivitamin pills daily instead.

And lots of fiber. Mustn't forget the fiber if you gonna eat meat.
Fiber.
Eat it.
Gotta keep the post moving along, dontcha know?


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## roxcyn

Bonjules said:


> If you are really worried about the safety, you shouldn't eat any meat at all. At least beef; not really sure why pigs couldn't catch BSE.
> No beef, cooked or not, until proper procedures are established for checking each animal before it gets packaged and sold. Right now it is a bit like playing Russian Roulette.



I *don't* eat any beef .  I eat chicken, fish and sometimes pork.


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## robjh22

I eat anything that doesn't move faster than my fork. Usually my food is not alive, so I'm usually okay.


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## roxcyn

Bonjules said:


> Why? Does blue corn taste different?



They sell it in the stores, it taste a little bit sweeter.


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## maxiogee

robjh22 said:


> I eat anything that doesn't move faster than my fork. Usually my food is not alive, so I'm usually okay.



And is the food alive when these speed trials are being conducted?


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## Chaska Ñawi

We interrupt this broadcast to remind all participants of the original topic:



Joca said:


> The number of people eating only raw foods seems to be growing, at least among celebrities. There are groups (like this one: *http://tinyurl.com/m96x9*) that promote even raw meats, fish and eggs. They say that cooking destroys nutrients, and eating raw leads to a better, superior health. Some say further: by cooking, you're killing your food twice. What do you think about this? Do you believe in raw foods and especially in raw animal foods? Would you take the step into this system (eating only raw foods and ruling out whatever can't be eaten raw), even if it means that you'll be eating mostly in isolation?
> 
> JC


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## fenixpollo

robjh22 said:


> The reason most tortillas are white and/or yellow is that Mexicans (or Indians?) tried and rejected about, oh, 637 recipes for your basic tortilla before hitting on the delicious ones they prepare today. The reason they aren't blue is that they tried them about 891 giga-years ago, and the verdict was ...  Yecch!


 I don't know where you formed this opinion, but it's wholly false. Please research blue corn to find the truth -- that it is more nutritious than yellow corn, and that it has traditionally been used by Native American tribes in the regions where it is found, especially by the Pueblo and the Hopi. Here are two articles to get you started:
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/proceedings1993/v2-228.html
http://cahe.nmsu.edu/pubs/_h/h-226.html

In my opinion, blue corn tortillas and chips taste slightly different than those made with yellow corn, but not drastically different, and definitely not _worse_.


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## Bonjules

Bonjules said:


> If you are really worried about the safety, you shouldn't eat any meat at all. At least beef; not really sure why pigs couldn't catch BSE.
> No beef, cooked or not, until proper procedures are established for checking each animal before it gets packaged and sold. Right now it is a bit like playing Russian Roulette.


 
I forgot to add: You have to be patient. The results of this 'jeu du hasard' will not be known until about 10 to 15 years from now...


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## maxiogee

Bonjules said:


> Originally Posted by *Bonjules*
> 
> 
> If you are really worried about the safety, you shouldn't eat any meat at all. At least beef; not really sure why pigs couldn't catch BSE.


 

Perhaps because _pigs_ aren't covered by the word "bovine" in Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy.


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## TRG

I have come to appreciate that most vegetables taste better raw than cooked, if they can be eaten raw at all. There are some that cannot be eaten raw or that I have never tried raw such as beets. I have also found that these very same vegetables also taste best when eaten directly from the garden. I don't know why this should be, but that's the way it seems. If you have never snapped off a piece of asparagus growing out of the ground and eaten it, then you don't really know what asparagus tastes like. Things which have to be cooked should be cooked the least as possible, but this is all a matter of taste. I know that some people like broccoli cooked until it's nothing but soggy mush. I can't even eat it like that, so it's all a matter of what you're used to. As for raw meat, I don't care for it much, but I can eat a steak cooked rare.

As for whether raw food is healthier than cooked food, I think this is a bit of a myth except for raw meat which we know can be very unhealthy.


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## Joca

TRG said:


> As for whether raw food is healthier than cooked food, I think this is a bit of a myth except for raw meat which we know can be very unhealthy.


 
Some rawfoodists (is there such a word?) mention the example of Eskimoes. They say that traditional Eskimoes eat most of their meat raw (true?) and are one of the healthiest people in the world (true again?). Anyway, the meat Eskimoes eat is not coming from factory-farm animals; it's precisely what they are able to fish and hunt locally. This certainly makes a difference. 

JC


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## Bonjules

maxiogee said:


> Perhaps because _pigs_ aren't covered by the word "bovine" in Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy.


Well, Maxi, I think I realize that much...There are several variants -sheep got 'scrapies' long before the term BSE was coined. Deer now get essentailly the same thing(BSE-like). In humans we don't call it 'BSE' although we clearly catch it from them, whatever it is (I don't know what's in your link, I couln't call it up).
The point is, and if someone has more info on this, I'd appreciate if they shared it; I have so far never seen any clear reason why pigs could not get the same or a very similar condition. Especially, if as most seem to think,
the feed is principally implicated (I am waiting for the other shoe to drop, like someone coming up with evidence that spontaneous mutations or other processes can do it). Unfortunately, there is a lot we do not know yet.


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## maxiogee

Bonjules said:


> Well, Maxi, I think I realize that much...There are several variants -sheep got 'scrapies' long before the term BSE was coined. Deer now get essentailly the same thing(BSE-like). In humans we don't call it 'BSE' although we clearly catch it from them, whatever it is (I don't know what's in your link, I couln't call it up).
> The point is, and if someone has more info on this, I'd appreciate if they shared it; I have so far never seen any clear reason why pigs could not get the same or a very similar condition. Especially, if as most seem to think,
> the feed is principally implicated (I am waiting for the other shoe to drop, like someone coming up with evidence that spontaneous mutations or other processes can do it). Unfortunately, there is a lot we do not know yet.


 
My link was a botched link to your quote of your earlier post.

Deer and bovines are very closely related (I think the major difference is doen to solid - v - hollow horns).

There does appear to be some efforts to investigate BSE and pigs.....
*Porcine Spongiform Encephalopathy (PSE) *

No naturally occurring cases of this have been identified in the pig. It has been produced experimentally by direct inoculation of infected bovine brain tissue into the brain. Feeding infected brain tissue however has not resulted in disease. The feeding of meat and bone meal to pigs is now banned in the UK but during its use no cases have been identified.​From ThePigSite


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## Bonjules

maxiogee said:


> *Porcine Spongiform Encephalopathy (PSE) *[/INDENT]
> 
> 
> No naturally occurring cases of this have been identified in the pig. It has been produced experimentally by direct inoculation of infected bovine brain tissue into the brain. Feeding infected brain tissue however has not resulted in disease. The feeding of meat and bone meal to pigs is now banned in the UK but during its use no cases have been identified.​From ThePigSite


 
Exactly. That is what we know; so far so good, but I am afraid it is not the whole story.
But I gamble like everybody else: I do eat pork.
It is important, in the terms of this thread, for people to realize that cooking makes no difference for this condition (BSE and similar diseases).


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## roxcyn

My mom had the TV on and it was on Trading spouses or something like that, and the one wife and family had her family eating raw meat and said it was "all" natural and healthy.  Well maybe I could eat raw eggs and some raw fish, but raw chicken, pork and beef?  I just want to throw up.  Getting back to the original post I think I would not eat ONLY raw foods because I like to interact with people.  We use cooking and I am not sure there is any research that says that eating raw foods is good for the body?  I am not saying it is a bad thing to do because obviously there are people that DO eat it.  I know of people who loved to eat raw hamburger and things like that.  Take care.


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## Bonjules

roxcyn;2315560...... and the one wife and family had her family eating raw meat and said it was "all" natural and healthy. Well maybe I could eat raw eggs and some raw fish said:
			
		

> Most do know that undercooked or raw pork can infect you with very dangerous parasites (less so now that pigs eat less garbage and when they do it is supposed to be steam-sterilized).
> Raw beef used to be pretty safe and can of course be delicious(beefsteak tartar, well prepared...).Aside from the Mad Cow problem the recent scares invloved very nasty strains of E. Coli which I believe killed people. This would be remedied by cooking it well. Other microorgansmes are found in beef also.


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## CrazyArcher

Cavemen ate everything raw. You make conclusions 
I don't eat any raw stuff, except vegetables. The closest things to raw that I eat are salted fish (well, it didn't undergo any thermic processing...), but salt kills everything harmful there, and medium-rare steaks, which, in turn, rest in marinade, and the acids kill most bacteria there too...


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## maxiogee

CrazyArcher said:


> Cavemen ate everything raw. You make conclusions


 
.... and they lived long enough to produce a lineage which led to us! How long a lineage will we leave?


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## badgrammar

I was just reading some interesting stuff about raw vs. cooked foods, and it is interesting to note that in the case of tomatoes, which are full of all kinds of good-for-you stuff, cooking transforms some of these things into other, different, yet very-good-for-you-in-another-way stuff.  So it is very beneficial to eat both raw and cooked tomatoes, but in different ways.  So raw isn't better or worse than cooked, but offers different nutritional benefits...

Also, and perhaps slightly off-topic, I recently bought a new oven.  This oven automatically sets the temperature fairly low, on all of the cooking cycles (from 160-190°).  In the instruction booklet, there is a chapter on how new research has shown that the cooking of foods at higher temperatures is responsible for transforming otherwise healthy foodstuffs into carcinogenic matter.  By cooking at a ower temperature, this can be avoided.


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## TRG

At least some of the people who advocate eating stuff raw do so because of purported health benefits. I would just like to say that there is no subject matter more filled with myths and misinformation that that of what constitues a healthy diet and secondly that I am amazed that at our seemingly advanced state of technology and science that we still really do not have a clue about the general effects of diet on health.


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## Joca

TRG said:


> At least some of the people who advocate eating stuff raw do so because of purported health benefits. I would just like to say that there is no subject matter more filled with myths and misinformation that that of what constitues a healthy diet and secondly that I am amazed that at our seemingly advanced state of technology and science that we still really do not have a clue about the general effects of diet on health.


 
But we know at least that junk food is no good.


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## Bonjules

badgrammar said:


> I was just reading some interesting stuff about raw vs. cooked foods, and it is interesting to note that in the case of tomatoes, which are full of all kinds of good-for-you stuff, cooking transforms some of these things into other, different, yet very-good-for-you-in-another-way stuff. So it is very beneficial to eat both raw and cooked tomatoes, but in different ways. So raw isn't better or worse than cooked, but offers different nutritional benefits...
> 
> Also, and perhaps slightly off-topic, I recently bought a new oven. This oven automatically sets the temperature fairly low, on all of the cooking cycles (from 160-190°). In the instruction booklet, there is a chapter on how new research has shown that the cooking of foods at higher temperatures is responsible for transforming otherwise healthy foodstuffs into carcinogenic matter. By cooking at a ower temperature, this can be avoided.


These are very good points. 
On the first one, however, I heard this specifically only about tomatoes. Do you know of other veggies where this is the case?
On the second point, most of the problem seems to be where extremely high temp's can be created, like at the interface of a cooking implement (esp. a frying pan) with the food. With boiling, temp's never exceed the boiling point, obviously. Similarly, in baking (unless the base is directly over the heat source, such as gas, or the goods are close to a source of radiated heat -such as in electric ovens- the temp. tends more or less not to exceed the 'set' one.


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## TRG

Joca said:


> But we know at least that junk food is no good.


 
I have eaten lots of what qualifies as "junk food" with no apparent ill effects. I suspect what you mean is that it's no good when consumed in excess, but that can be said about just about any kind of food, including raw food.


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## Joca

TRG said:


> I have eaten lots of what qualifies as "junk food" with no apparent ill effects. I suspect what you mean is that it's no good when consumed in excess, but that can be said about just about any kind of food, including raw food.


 
Yes, TRG, eating too much junk food or eating only junk food is definitively harmful, but it may take a few years or even decades before you are able to see the results. If you eat "junk food" occasionally or once or twice a week, depending on the amount and your physical constitution, you can "get away with it". But the older you are, the safer it is to avoid such. Let's think about long-term effects, shall we? Now, even if this is off-topic and maybe too personal, can you tell us briefly what kind of junk food you have eaten? I don't think hamburgers are necessarily junk food, but commercial cookies and anything made out of lots of processed flour, sugar and hydrogenated oils are. 

And yes, too much raw food can also be harmful.


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## maxiogee

TRG said:


> At least some of the people who advocate eating stuff raw do so because of purported health benefits. I would just like to say that there is no subject matter more filled with myths and misinformation that that of what constitues a healthy diet and secondly that I am amazed that at our seemingly advanced state of technology and science that we still really do not have a clue about the general effects of diet on health.



I don't see why you should be amazed. What we eat and how our innards interacts with what we eat is a highly complex system. It's not as if it can be boiled down to 'if you eat A, B and C you will be healthy, provided you do M, N and O, and don't do X, Y and Z." We eat much more than three ingredients - and we do much more than three things.
Who could study the whole range of human diet and then ally the knowledge they glean from that study to the range of human activity (and inactivity) and then say for certain that even one foodstuff is 'good for you' in such a way as it would be valid for all body types and lifestyles?


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## Macunaíma

I wouldn't eat raw meat for anything, not even raw fish in Japanese dishes _then again I don't like Japanese food. But I wouldn't eat a cooked lobster which had been boiled to death (is this expression valid?) only a few minutes before being served. I once saw this gruesome scene on TV and it made me sick to my stomach. Ever since, I never ask the waiter how my lobster was cooked


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## Qcumber

Joca said:


> Do you believe in raw foods and especially in raw animal foods? Would you take the step into this system (eating only raw foods and ruling out whatever can't be eaten raw), even if it means that you'll be eating mostly in isolation?


If you mean:
Raw oysters
Raw fish: sushi and sashimi
Raw beef: carpaccio
Raw pork (cured): Spanish and Italian hams
Yes, these are delicious and very healthy.


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## TRG

maxiogee said:


> I don't see why you should be amazed. What we eat and how our innards interacts with what we eat is a highly complex system. It's not as if it can be boiled down to 'if you eat A, B and C you will be healthy, provided you do M, N and O, and don't do X, Y and Z." We eat much more than three ingredients - and we do much more than three things.
> Who could study the whole range of human diet and then ally the knowledge they glean from that study to the range of human activity (and inactivity) and then say for certain that even one foodstuff is 'good for you' in such a way as it would be valid for all body types and lifestyles?


 
You're right, it is a complex system. I guess what really amazes me is the way in which food fads come and go and the extent to which people believe things about diet which aren't really based on sound science.


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