Raw and living food diets include fruits, vegetables, sprouts, nuts, seeds, grains, and sea vegetables. Food is eaten whole or processed by juicing or dehydrating, but never at temperatures over 116 degrees F. This preserves their enzymes and nutrient values. Most raw foodists soak/sprout nuts, seeds and grains before consuming them.

Raw resources

Living and Raw Foods

Information about the power of the living and raw vegetarian food diet.  Many recipes, articles, resources, links, testimonials, information and support.
www.living-foods.com

Organic Garden Cafe

Restaurant (north of Boston) and Online shopping site.
www.organicgardencafe.com

Rhio's Raw Energy

Restaurants & Juice Bars, Caterers, Dining Events & Meal Service Delivery, Lifestyle Centers, Potlucks & Support Groups. Listings are mostly for the United States. Some listings for Canada and a few other countries.
www.rawfoodinfo.com/directories/b.html

Raw Food Society of British Columbia

Lots of information about the raw lifestyle including: recipes, restaurants in Vancouver, Comox, Victoria, and BC. Raw food potlucks and online discussion forum.
www.rawbc.org

SimplyRaw (Ottawa)

This group promotes better health through eating nutritious, raw vegan plant foods. They offer monthly raw vegan potlucks, support, a book lending library, workshops, and consultations.
www.SimplyRaw.ca

Vegetarian USA

For most states and major cities in the United States, this site has a "Living Food Lifestyle" section when you scroll down. There is also vacation spots sorted by state, a very useful listing by type (such as B&B's, spas, yoga, raw foods, etc), and many around the world. There are symbols for vegetarian, vegan and raw.
http://www.vegetarianusa.com

The raw and the cooked

The following is reprinted by permission from Spectrum, a holistic news magazine that appears to be no longer in print.

Some people believe that all food should be eaten raw, while others see no particular benefit to eating solely uncooked foods. How does science weigh in on this issue?

Raw food enthusiasts claim that raw foods contain necessary enzymes and by cooking them, these enzymes are destroyed. As a result, the body expends more energy to digest foods and less on maintaining health. Organs become weakened, leaving the body open to a variety of diseases.

Most scientists, on the other hand, find it hard to believe that food enzymes can make it past the highly acidic environment in the stomach. According to researchers at Rutgers University, even if enzymes passed through the intestines and into the blood stream, there is no evidence that there would be any benefit.

Everyone agrees that cooking destroys some vital nutrients in food, but it also makes others more available. Heat-sensitive vitamins such as the B family and vitamin C can be eliminated by up to 50% during cooking. But others, such as beta-carotene, are more available after cooking because heat breaks down the plants’ fibrous cell walls allowing the nutrients to escape. Phytochemicals – substances such as indoles, though to protect against cancer – are also more easily absorbed from cooked food.

Minerals and some other food elements are not injured by heat, but they may leach out into the cooking water. Many nutritionists recommend cooking with little water, or recycling the cooking water into sauces, gravies and soups.

From the nutrient side, as far as science knows now, it seems to be a toss up between the raw and the cooked. Raw foods, however, can have a definite disadvantage. Unlike cooked foods’ fibres, which are broken down by heat, the intact fibres in some raw foods may cause gastrointestinal upset and gas.

[Spectrum editor: Raw food proponents often support their cause by pointing out that primitive humans ate only raw food, and that the invention of cooking was all a big mistake – one that we continue to suffer from. Those in favour of cooking say that for tens of thousands of years, humans have cooked their food, and the need to eat it primarily in this form is now embedded in our genetic make-up. Raw foodists, they suggest, are returning to the diet of proto-humans and monkeys. One thing for sure is that more research is needed in this area].

Reprinted from Spectrum, No. 35, Mar/Apr 1994 (Based on facts presented in: Nutrition Action Healthletter 4-94; The New York Times, 3-23-94)