Writing my recent post about green smoothies, which is a popular snack in raw food movement, made me think about all the food that we cook and process. So while fruits and vegetables are preferred to be consumed raw in order to preserve their nutrients, meat is one type of food that can not be eaten without the necessary thermal treatment. I hear all the time human carnivores argue with vegetarians about the importance of meat. The most common argument in favor of meat is that it is natural food for us as it was a part of the human diet since the birth of our species. But if you want to play that card, you must go all the way, meaning if you consider meat to be natural diet for humans, you should eat it as nature intended it to be consumed, raw and bloody. That’s how animals eat it, that’s how first humans ate it before we discovered fire.
Discovering fire and cooking food was a part of our evolutionary path, which today allows us to choose a much healthier plant based diet.
And the truth is that humans today can’t eat raw meat because of the health concerns linked to bacteria like Salmonella, Trichinellosis and E.coli which are often present in meat prior to cooking. I also believe that if men were to start eating raw meat again, in a few centuries we would physically and intellectually regress to cawmen. That is if we wouldn’t destroy ourselves in violence first as raw meat increases significantly the level of aggression.
Oh, and don’t be fooled by the so called raw meat movement. There is no such thing because even the meat that hasn’t been cooked like Sushi for example, must be frozen prior to consumption in order to kill bacteria, and therefore is thermally treated. For example, the EU regulations forbids the use of fresh raw fish that has not been frozen at temperatures below −20 °C (−4 °F) for at least 24 hours.
As an alternative, you can try a vegan raw diet, it is so simple and easy to make. And aggression free guaranteed.
Photo via vegetarianfighter.com