Flirting with Raw Foods

Okay, I admit it: I am raw-curious. I do wonder what it'd be like to live on uncooked foods -- at least for a week. Or maybe I'm just intrigued by the culinary challenge of trying not to cook vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds.

In all honesty, I don't see myself experimenting with an all-raw diet anytime soon. It is soup and hot cocoa season, after all. But once the weather warms up, I'd be willing to spend a week figuring out how to turn hamster food into, well, gourmet hamster food, like lasagna and pizza.

I realized this earlier this week, as I was checking out Time.com. I found one man's first-hand account about his adventures in the raw. He intended to try it for one week. He lasted three days. Nonetheless, he learned some interesting things along the way (not the least of which was the importance of Beano). What did him in wasn't a lack of tasty, creatively-fashioned food. It was the toll that the strict diet took on his social life.

On the other hand, it might be fun to invite friends to a raw dinner party. At least, I'd solve some mysteries. How do they make dumplings out of nuts and berries? How can raw foodists claim to eat burritos and nachos? Armed with some good raw un-cookbooks, these culinary puzzles would be fun to solve.

Of course, people in the Raw Food Movement — aka raw foodists — are in it for the health benefits. They don't see their diet as a brief kitchen experiment. They're converts because they believe that eating uncooked foods prevents and heals the body and chronic diseases. Heat, they believe, degrades essential nutrients and enzymes that aid digestion, among other things. If any raw foodists swear by this diet, please share your thoughts.

Meanwhile, I'm pretty sure that any health boost would be fleeting for me, because at the end of the day (or the experiment, anyway) I can't imagine life without gooey slice of hot, cheese pizza.