Sunday Times UK, 3/14/98: Healthy Life in the Raw

[Guest guest]

Healthy life in the raw - Vegetarianism is branching out in another

direction, writes Liz Gill

 

Two-year-old Lucy has never tasted cooked food. Even on Sundays when

millions will be sitting down to a traditional roast lunch, Lucy and

her parents will be tucking into a plate of raw vegetables. Kevin

and Robin Webster are fruitarians, a small but growing band of

people who not only eschew meat and animal products but insist all

food is eaten raw.

 

Australian-born Mr Webster, 33, became a fruitarian eight years ago

after developing joint pains. " The doctors told me arthritis was

inevitable and there was nothing they could do. I was only in my

early twenties and I felt I was going down the tubes. I had to look

for an answer elsewhere. "

 

So he swapped his " traditional Australian diet of meat and starch "

for one that consists mainly of " fruit with some leafy vegetables

and nuts, and now feels fine.

 

" We believe in instinctive nutrition, " he says. " As long as food is

naturally produced, we can trust our senses about what we need. If

food is altered, though, not just by cooking or chemicals but even

by things we take for granted like heavy composting, then we can no

longer trust our senses because things taste good beyond our need

for them. "

 

According to a recent study at Giessen University in Germany, Kevin

is a typical raw fooder, an umbrella term given to people who eat

food raw including, sometimes, raw meat. Of the 865 raw fooders

studied, the most extreme were young, male and followed the regime

for health reasons.

 

" But it's not a diet I'd recommend long-term, " says nutritional

scientist Carola Strassner, who helped conduct the

survey. " According to our research, about a third of the

participants were underweight; women who adhered to the stricter

forms found that their menstruation became infrequent or stopped

altogether. They lacked nutrients including vitamin D and B12.

 

" There are also the practical problems. For example, what raw food

can be found in a northern climate in the winter. You have to import

it, which causes all kinds of ecological problems. "

 

Susie Miller, who runs the Fresh Fruit Network, disagrees. " The

trouble with the survey, " she says, " is that most of the

participants have only been raw fooders for a short time, and many

are unhealthy in the first place. It then takes its benchmarks from

the majority of a healthy population who eat cooked food. We are the

only species who does this. "

 

She then refers to a series of trials done on 900 cats by the

American physician Francis Pottenger, who found that the cats fed on

raw food were not only much healthier than their cooked-food

fellows, but so were their offspring. Indeed, Pottenger's raw food

clinics became well-known, as did his raw vegetable juices. He even

had a raw liver " cocktail " which, though admired for its curative

properties, according to his patients tasted revolting.

 

But then some tastes take a bit of getting used to. On special

occasions like Easter, Mr Webster will splash out on a durian, a

fruit with so spiky an exterior it has to be handled with gloves.

 

" To conventional western tastes it does have an offensive smell, " he

says. " But once you've tried it your concept of smell changes. "

 

Agrowing branch of the raw food movement is sproutarianism - whose

adherents eat mainly sprouted pulses and grains. " In hot places you

can be 100 per cent fruitarian, " says Karen Noble, who recently

launched the Fruit and Raw Food Centre in Spitalfields,

London, " because native foods are available all the year round. But

you have to be sensible and eat the food that's available where you

are. And in a cold climate seeds and grains and pulses are what we

have. Sprouting makes them edible without cooking. You just soak

them for two to three days. "

 

Her menu would be too much of a mixture for John Machin, a comedy

writer for Noel's House Party, whose Sunday fare will consist of

four monomeals: a melon for breakfast, coconut for lunch, a pound of

Brussels sprouts for afternoon tea, and three mangoes for

supper. " The stomach digests better, " he says, " if there's only one

thing to deal with. And your tastes are not interfered with. "

 

Forms of vegetarianism

 

A RECENT survey claims that one in six people are vegetarian or

considering it. But many follow even stricter diets:

 

Lacto-ovo-vegetarian: eats dairy products and eggs. They are the

most common type.

Lacto-vegetarian: eats dairy products but not eggs.

Ovo-vegetarian: eats eggs but not dairy products.

Vegan: no dairy products, eggs, or any other animal products.

Fruitarian: eats mainly raw fruit, grains and nuts.

Macrobiotic: eats a vegan diet but includes seafoods.

Raw foodist: eats a vegan diet but no cooked or processed foods.

Vegetarian and Vegan Society: 0161-928 0793; Fresh Food Network: for

details send a sae to PO Box 7, South Brent, Devon TQ10 9YN.