Tag: Pasteurization

Avoiding Dangerous Raw Foods

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Post date April 5, 2011
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Avoiding dangerous raw foods is not difficult if you are careful. A raw foods diet is probably one of the healthiest diets that a person can follow, but like all restrictive diets, it has its dangers. In this article we will consider some of those dangers and how to avoid them.

Avoiding Dangerous Raw Foods

Salmonella And Other Bacterial Diseases

It is unfortunately true that raw food is more likely to carry bacteria such as salmonella, that can cause serious food poisoning. Salmonella is most often found in raw meats, eggs and dairy products. Cooking destroys it, as does pasteurization – a process which involves heating to high temperatures, which is done on most commercially sold dairy products and fruit juices, among other foods.

Avoiding dangerous raw foods and some of these bacteria are more dangerous for unborn infants in the womb than for adults. Therefore, you might want to reconsider following a raw foods diet if you are pregnant or planning a pregnancy.

You can avoid most risk of food poisoning on a raw foods diet by following the raw vegan version which avoids all of these foods. However, that has its own challenges – see the section on vitamin B12 below.

There have been cases of salmonella traced to other raw foods such as lettuce. Thorough washing can help, but in any case, this is a risk that applies to virtually everybody, so don’t let the cooked food fans scare you with this one. There are very few people who eat no raw food at all.

Nutritional Deficiencies and Vitamin B12

It is important to make sure that you are getting the full range of vitamins and minerals on a raw foods diet. You need to consider whether you are getting enough calcium, iron (especially for women of childbearing age), zinc, and omega-3 fatty acids. Although this is not really avoiding dangerous raw foods it is critical that you are not dificient in these essential nutrients as well.

There are raw foods that can supply these nutrients and you will need to ensure that they are included in your diet. Having a wide variety of nuts and seeds will help to ensure that you get enough minerals, for example. Ground flax seeds can provide essential fatty acids.

The need for vitamin B12 is something that anybody following a raw vegan diet needs to be aware of. It is not an issue for those on a diet that includes raw meat or dairy products.

B12 is an important nutrient: without it, we will eventually suffer brain damage as well as other serious health problems. The human body does produce B12 but not in a way that allows us to use our own. For example, it is found in breast milk and other human secretions. But unless we happen to be consuming quantities of these, we need to get B12 from another source, and there is no vegetable source.

This means either consuming animal products or taking a supplement. Animal products are not vegan, and supplements are not raw. So B12 can be an issue for people who want to follow a 100% raw vegan diet.

However, the body does store B12. So some people, who have eaten plenty of animal products up to now and are not considering being vegan for more than a year or two, hope that they may have enough B12 to see them through. If you decide to take this risk, you should at least be tested for B12 levels before you start a vegan raw foods diet, and then annually.

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So when thinking about Avoiding dangerous raw foods there are really tow things to think about Bacteria, or the preseence of bad bacteria and vitamin and mineral deficiencies.

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Raw Food Children: Is It Safe?

Post author By admin
Post date April 2, 2011
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If you are a parent who wants to switch to raw food children are going to be a question for you. Do you want your children to follow a raw food diet? How will you get them to eat it? How will you deal with opposition from others? And most importantly, is a raw food diet safe for kids?

If you believe that raw is the healthiest possible diet out there, then you probably would like your children to join you in it. You want what is best for them and a high raw diet is certainly healthy. But 100% raw can be another matter.

Kids have different dietary needs than adults. They require more calcium, in particular, in order to grow strong bones. It is hard for raw food children to get enough calcium on a raw vegan diet. Therefore, if you want your kids to be 100% raw, you should consider including raw (i.e. unpasteurized) milk, cheese and yogurt in their diet.

Raw milk products have their own risks, including the possibility of carrying salmonella and other food poisons. Remember there is a reason why pasteurization is carried out. You may also find that it is not possible to buy unpasteurized dairy products in your area, because it is illegal to sell them in some jurisdictions. You may still be able to buy direct from the farm.

If you cannot buy raw milk products or if you decide against them for safety, you will need to consider giving your kids some non-raw items whether those are pasteurized milk products or calcium supplements. The result of inadequate calcium in childhood can be very serious, including stunted growth and rickets.

With children under 5, you will also need to consider the size of their stomachs. Small kids cannot eat as much fiber as adults, which is probably one of the reasons that kids often refuse a lot of vegetables. They need higher calorie foods including a certain amount of fat. Fruit alone would likely not contain enough minerals and other nutrients. Again dairy products can help out, as can nut milks and nut butters.

Kids don’t like sudden changes and your best option will be to have them transition slowly from a cooked diet. You can begin with offering more of the raw foods that they like, such as bananas, and adding slices of finger foods like cucumber, celery and peppers to their plates. They may enjoy helping you prepare the food, creating interesting shapes when cutting.

Smoothies are popular with kids and can be the basis of many meals and snacks. You can add green vegetables to a fruit smoothie and they will probably still like the taste but you may have to serve in a cup with a lid so they don’t see the color.

You will almost certainly find that most people will think you are crazy or cruel for trying to raise raw food children, unless your kids are seriously overweight, when people may be more sympathetic because they will assume you are doing it for the weight loss aspect. But most people think of raw food as a stupid fad. This will probably include the children’s grandparents, other family members and possibly their other parent. So be prepared for some opposition, and be sure to have plenty of facts and figures to use in your defense.

We are not medically qualified and every individual has different nutritional needs. Before encouraging your kids to go raw, you should speak with their doctor and check that it is safe for them to become raw food children.

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Is A Raw Food Bar Really Raw?

Post author By admin
Post date April 1, 2011
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There are plenty of companies offering some type of raw food bar that you can buy. You can either order on the internet or find them at your local health food store.

However, you might wonder whether they are really raw. How could raw foods last so long and be a commercial proposition?

How Raw is Your Raw Food Bar?

In many cases, if you look at the fine print on a raw food bar or on the company websites, you will see that in fact very few, if any, of these vegan snack bars are truly raw. Most of them use some of the following ingredients:

Californian almonds which are pasteurized by law

Cocoa (chocolate powder) from roasted cacao beans, not raw

Pasteurized lemon juice or other pasteurized fruit juices

Cashew nuts which are heated to high temperatures to extract from the shell

It is possible to find cashew nuts that have been shelled in other ways, without using heat, but it is a more expensive process. Many manufacturers therefore choose regular cashews even when they are making what they consider to be a raw food bar.

Pasteurized is not Raw Food

Pasteurization is a process that heats food to high temperatures, close to boiling point, to kill bacteria and preserve the food. Food that has been pasteurized is not raw.

Some even contain roasted peanuts or regular peanut butter made from roasted ingredients. In fact, if you read the label, you will often find that a raw food bar only contains 50% to 60% raw ingredients. That is not what most people following a raw food diet would want to eat.

However, you can quite easily make a nut-based raw food bar yourself. Take 4 cups of raw nuts* and 8 fresh medjool dates, plus one teaspoon of fresh squeezed lemon juice. Chop or grind 1 cup of the nuts in a food processor, add half the pitted dates and process again, then another 1 cup nuts, then the rest of the dates. Keep processing after every time you add something. Add another 1 cup of nuts, then lemon juice, and finally the last cup of nuts.

When the mixture is done, you can add dehydrated fruits whole if you want. To have a chocolate flavor, mix in raw cacao powder plus a little agave nectar or other raw sweetener. Then form into bar shapes and refrigerate.

Raw nuts include: most filberts/hazelnuts, cashews from specialist raw food suppliers, most walnuts, brazil nuts in shells, most almonds from outside the USA

Raw is In The Eye Of The Consumer

In most countries, there is no law that says that a product marked ‘raw’ must be 100% raw, live food, never treated at temperatures above 118 degrees F. The word ‘raw’ is often used to mean something that still needs some cooking, like a bread mix, or nuts that have not been roasted for taste, etc. The ingredients of a bread mix would not really be raw.

Therefore, unfortunately virtually anything could be labeled a ‘raw food bar’. It probably has some raw ingredients and does not contain raw sugar, so it may be healthier than a sugary snack. There may also be some that are truly 100% raw – check labels. In most cases, if you want a truly raw food bar you will need to make your own.