I've recently started eating mainly a raw vegan diet and I love it too!! Everyone should eat A LOT more raw fruits & vegetables everyday. Be good to your body! :)

I believe in a balanced approach when it comes to just about everything, including my diet. I love raw and cooked vegetables alike! Summertime is a the perfect season for forays into raw food meals. I make a zucchini "pasta" al pomodoro that's delicious!

http://operagirlcooks.com/2010/06/17/zucchini-pasta-al-pomodoro-recipe/

Yeah I'm sure it's easy to do raw if you have all the meals delivered at home from some expensive gourmet service. These guys are talking about hiring a personal chef? Less posts about overly privileged upper middle class people please.

I draw the line at raw espresso.

I'm with sailingfms. Eating raw is simply not feasible for the average wage earner in this country. the specialty appliances, fancy ingredients like raw macadamias consumed in abundance. And the time - who has time to run a dehydrator just to make a batch of crackers. Sorry, but this is a trend that, when done right, is the realm of the idle rich.

Less woo, more cooking, please.

Cooking frequently increases the nutritional value of food:
http://www.vegsource.com/harris/raw_vs_cooked.htm
http://www.diseaseproof.com/archives/healthy-food-the-cold-truth-about-raw-food-diets.html

I saw a show on PBS about how a raw-food diet greatly improved the health of a type-1 diabetic. This person's diet seemed far from tasty, and seemed to lack a lot of variety. He was a busy person and prepared all his meals himself. I can see the benefits, but I agree that on a normal budget, a raw diet would be hard to make enjoyable.

sallingfms and jazminecat are seriously misinformed. you can successfully eat a raw diet with the things most people already have; a blender, a chef's knife and a bowl. the specialty equipment is nice to have, but not necessary.

i appreciate raw recipes on ktchn. I agree that too many of the raw "uncook books" feature wildly nuanced and overly difficult recipes but raw food recipes don't have to be that way. Also, nuts should be treated more like dessert, so recipes that have you buying, soaking, and grinding nuts & dehydrating stuff should be thought of as more indulgent recipes. I agree that organic fruits are really expensive, and it is sad that families in the US are forced to eat boxed food instead of real food because of our agri-business farming style. Imagine if organic fruit was $1/lb instead of $2.50! I checked out a bunch of raw uncook books at the library until I found recipes that were easy for me. My fav this week is massaged kale salad!

I did a raw food diet for a few years and it was amazing how good I felt during that time. This article brings that all back to me and makes me want to start doing this again.

http://mangemonblog.com/vegetable-juicing/

i feel like people are quick to just on prices when they hear about vegan or raw diets.
you can't say it's too expensive unless you've tried it. there are so many great resources for both (or any diet) that you can live modestly and still eat well.

I don't know, I'm not convinced. No doubt eating produce in abundance makes you feel better, but there was a case where one woman fell seriously ill due to malnutrition from an all-raw diet.

there are pitfalls to every diet lifestyle. you have to make sure you eat a VARIETY of fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds in the raw diet to get all of the nutrients you need, and you also have to use your common sense. for some people an all raw diet makes sense, and for others they might need to incorporate more animal based proteins.

I have to say also that not everyone follows a strict 100% raw vegan diet. A more moderate view I have seen is when people follow a "high raw" diet, which allows for cooked grains, root vegetables, beans etc. but focuses on eating mainly raw fruits and vegetables. I think anything so strict can be very limiting, both taste and nutrition wise.

But I will also point out that vegetables are largely fairly cheap, certainly far cheaper than meat or animal products. I am vegan and I have been known to eat on $20 a week (I am a 6' tall, active woman with quite the appetite) so it is not impossible to eat healthfully and cheaply. The trick is to not eat all the highly processed convince foods.

Given all the recent evidence that our brains were able to get so big because we learned to cook our food (a large portion of the calories in food are inaccessable until it's cooked) I'll pass on the raw thing. That many women who eat exclusively raw also stop menstruating also concerns me.

First section on page 2 of the WebMD article on raw food talks about the health risks. http://www.webmd.com/diet/guide/raw-food-diet?page=2

I'm totally with STH, less woo, more cooking please. At least no one's advocating the Master Cleanse again. Good grief.

The raw diet can be very healthy if done properly. People shouldn't bash it without knowing all the facts and research.

That being said, I do not eat raw but I am vegetarian and I juice and make green smoothies almost daily.

I would like to see raw recipes on here.

I agree with Tiamat_the_Red. What about all the nutrients that are released through cooking? Raw foods are certainly healthy, but I'm not convinced that eating only cooked OR only raw foods is as beneficial as creating a nice balance between the two.