Dr. McDougall made several videos about the raw food diet, where he claimed that this way of eating is not for humans and is not sustainable and satiating.
In case if you don’t know who Dr. John McDougall, M.D., is, he’s a well-known and well-respected nutrition expert who advocates a whole foods, low fat, plant diet based on starches, like potatoes and grains.
We ourselves very much respect his work and his tremendous contribution towards helping people eat the plant-based way, however his statements about the raw food diet are not fully accurate.
Why Dr. McDougall Is Mistaken About The Raw Food Diet
So what points are we talking about in our video today?
- According to Dr. McDougall, the human diet has been and always will be a cooked food diet.
Well, it’s true that modern human beings have been eating cooked starches for a long time (exactly how long nobody knows).
However, for the largest part of our evolution our diet would had been based upon fruits and green leafy vegetables.
The extension of this argument is that cooked foods (starches) helped us become human or more accurately intelligent, modern humans (Homo sapiens) , but this theory even if it is correct does not mean that it is our true natural diet and so optimal for us to eat.
- Eating out at raw food restaurants is expensive.
Yes, we can agree that eating out at raw restaurants can be an expensive thing to do, but there are ways that you can get around this which we discuss in our video.
- Nuts and seeds are high in fat and cause skin issues like oily, greasy skin.
This is certainly true if you eat a high fat diet, but not an issue with the kind of raw food diet we advocate (a low-fat raw food plan) and which we expand upon in the video.
- Not many people follow a raw food diet.
When you compare people who eat many other, more mainstream diets, then yes we are not as numerous. But even a vegan diet appears to be not that popular when it accounts for only around 2% of the American population. So should this stop you from eating a raw or high raw diet?
- The raw food diet is not a practical diet.
For sure eating a raw food diet does take a certain amount of planning, but to simply say it is impractical is not true. We expand on this in the video.
- Fruits don’t give you sustained appetite suppression which complex carbs do and fruits also raise your blood sugar level.
If you know how to eat a high fruit, low fat diet you will know that you can sustain yourself for many hours on fruit meals and which is exactly what we do ourselves on a daily basis.
The fiber in whole fruits also allows for the regulated uptake of sugar into the bloodstream so no blood sugar spikes.
Something that we definitely need to point out here is that we know people who were NOT able to heal their health issues on Dr. McDougall’s starch-based diet and only after they switched to a fruit-based raw food plan were they able to restore their health.
Remember to watch the video for much more information!
What are your thoughts on this subject? Please post them below!
Dr. McDougall’s website is: https://www.drmcdougall.com/
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I do know that raw food is the only way of eating that has helped me with my illnesses and weight loss…
Fantastic, keep it up!
This is true. From experience, eating fully raw is definitely the healthiest lifestyle. I’ve gotten all my blood levels back to normal, including anemia. When I decided to go cooked based vegan, my anemia came back.
Thank you for sharing, this is VERY interesting!
I am transitioning from vegetarian to raw vegan. Your video is very true and timely (although I don’t believe in evolution).
No disrespect to the doctor, but, if one would just take a look at long term vegans like Lou Corona, Annette Larkins and others who are well into their 60s and over, you should get a clue as to how great this lifestyle is. Obviously neither the doctor nor his researchers ever interviewed these people (who should be considered the experts on the lifestyle they have practiced for years).
So glad to see this because there is so much misinformation out there. Like you say, you have to read and study it to be successful at it. Great information!
Three years ago, my husband was so sick. Every part of his body was in pain, only skin left on his skeleton frame, he was at the point of death. So, I put him on a 100% raw food diet and only a few days after, his health began to improve rapidly. Eventually, some cooked food was added about 10-20% only, and no medication at all. He is now 73, fit and well, active and gardening, etc ….