Excerpt from Dr Wrzwk's "New Fundamental Universal Revolutionary Diet
Breakthrough", by W. K. Wrzwk, Ph.D., M.D., D.D.S., D.P.M.

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With the advent of industrialization some two centuries ago, food has become
more and more abundant. In western countries, with the tremendous advances in
medicine and the improvement of hygiene most infectious diseases have been
eradicated. But are we now healthier? NO! Americans are plagued by obesity,
heart disease, cancer, diabetes, auto-immune diseases, allergies, AIDS. Why?
Until now, nobody had been able to give a satisfactory answer, but it will soon
become clear for you, after reading Dr Wrzwk's "New Fundamental Universal
Revolutionary Diet Breakthrough".

X. Y. Z, director of Alaska Nutrition Institute says: "It is not quite
implausible that Dr. Wrzwk's findings could soon open new possible perspectives
of research in the domain of diet and nutrition, in my relatively humble
opinion" (Anchorage University Health Newsletter, Feb. 29, 1998).

John D., 31, came to see Dr. Wrzwk just one year ago. He was 421 lbs, diabetic,
paraplegic and life was a constant butden for this man plagued by rheumatoid
arthritis since 1990. All these problems cleared up, and John D. is now a new
man, happily married with two children and three grand-children.

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Sounds familiar?
My impression is that there are so many different books, all of which claim to
hold the truth about diet and have some success stories and also some
theoretical basis. Many different diets work, even some diets which are almost
100% cooked. Admittedly, it shouldn't be very difficult to improve the SAD
(note: that funny acronym means "standard American diet".

Diets usually insist on a few aspects (is it toxemia? Insulin? Omega 3s? Grain
and milk proteins? etc), and, as different people have different genetic
predispositions and previous dietary imbalances, diets work at least for _some_.

Concerning the issue of raw food, the purpose of my post was double:
 -show that, at least on some aspects, cooking is bad
 -show that cooking is perhaps not as bad as some people claim, and that the
benefits that you experience when on raw food are not necessarily due to eating
raw, but to _what_ you eat raw.

It seems to me there is so far little evidence that cooked food is toxic. The
problems of heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons arise only
in meat or fish cooked at high temperature.

Concerning the partial destruction of vitamins and minerals, it probably has
some influence on health, but not a tremendous one (who will claim that a little
more vitamin C will completely clear up your arteries?). And if eating raw
results in a severely restricted diet, deficiencies can indeed occur. At least,
we shouldn't cook what we can eat raw.

The issue of enzymes is probably even less important, since there is no
illnesses associated to dietary enzyme deficiencies (contrary to vitamin
deficiencies). You can perfectly live on a 100% cooked diet.

Now, the question would be: would your health be worse if you ate exactly the
same diet, but cooked parts of it instead of eating it raw? I think that there
is no unique answer, and we should consider cases one by one.

 -vegetables: so far, I have never heard of people experiencing problems when
eating steamed vegetables. In fact, cooking usually destroys some natural
toxins, so it might sometimes be advantageous to cook rather than eat raw.

 -nuts: from several people's experience, overheated nuts can be a problem
(allergic reactions or intolerances).

 -meat: complex question. When cooked at high temperature, meat is probably
carcinogenic, but otherwise we don't know any adverse effects. Aajonus
Vonderplanitz claims that meat should be eaten raw (why? Has he tried the same
diet, but with cooked instead of raw meat?). G.C. Burger says in his book that,
contrary to cooked meat, raw meat doesn't produce an unnatural stimulation (but
I am not sure that any of these assertions is true).

Note that it is extremely difficult to determine the effects of cooking, since
when you cook, you will eat more. Typically, raw food eaters will eat less meat
(or none at all).

Conclusion:
----------

1) By eating raw, you eat a different repartion of macro-nutrients, fats, etc...
Compared to the average American diet, that's usually an improvement, but not
always optimum. Even when you follow the concepts of instinctive nutrition,
there are many reasons why instinct is not efficient enough, and should be
considered as a tool among others.

2) Cooking has some inconvenients, but is not as bad as some people would like
to claim. Other diets can work very well, even when cooked, precisely because
they are "balanced", perhaps more balanced than the average raw diet. However, I
think that eating more raw food should be a component of a healthy diet (and
only a _component_). No diet is perfect, and eating more raw can be an
improvement.

Question to the list:
--------------------

Have you experienced any problems when eating exactly the same diet (same
proportions, etc.), but some raw foods being replaced by the same cooked foods?
And conversely, have you experienced improvements in your health when replacing
some cooked foods by the same foods, raw (without modifying quantities)?

Best wishes,

Jean-Louis
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