Hi all
I was just wondering what some of the healthiest cooked foods are for someone who is not yet 100% raw? ( but trying to overcome acne) Are there any really apart from steamed veggies and soups? What about lentils? Thanks!

IMO opinion cooked foods are not healthy foods. Fresh raw foods have more natural nutrients, fiber, and water content. Try to transition away from cooked foods as soon as possible.

In order of ease on the system from last time I did transitioning cooked: Steamed veggies and greens are easiest, then veggie starches like sweet potato and winter squash, then some gentle alkaline grains like quinoa or millet, then other grains like rice. Cooked fat is nasty for you, stick to raw fats like avocados and if you use any oil don't heat it but no oil is gentlest. Minimize or eliminate condiments like salt or spices.

When I healed my acne, avoiding heated oils, salt, spices, and refined flour and sugar, and following food combining principles, was more important than 100% raw. For a while i ate high fat, high salt, oil, spices, badly combined raw and my acne did NOT go away!!!

What worked for me was having a fruit meal for brekky and lunch then a simple cooked dinner with lots of greens to move it through. Acne tends to correlate with constipation for me, and cooked foods did this more to me, especially grains. I ate maybe a head of lettuce each night with dinner, or a big salad, and this really helped minimize the effects of the cooked meal on my elimination.

Also mental and emotional stress play a big part in acne, anger in particular. Sometimes if you're not ready you can be more stressed out on 100% raw and this can affect the skin more than if you were not eating "perfect" but more relaxed.

Love,
Uma

Those foods that have SOME fiber....water...and nutrients. Look for products derived directly from fresh fruits and vegetables (although cooked). Juices, steamed veggies, frozen fruit....these would be 'transitionally processed' foods. Not as vital as fresh, unprocessed plant foods (in my opinion)....but helpful to the newcomer - you know?

-David Z. Mason

WWW.RawFoodFarm.com

lightly steamed:
leaves
solid green vegetables
soild non-green vegetables including sweet and regular potato, sweet is better
nonsweet fruit including tomatoes and winter squash

all beans, cooked to deactivate the toxins, lightly steamed sprouted beans are probably better than cooked nonsprouted.

after that, the grains and grain-like things:
whole wheat, bronw rice, quinoa, oat groats, millet, corn, teff, etc., many of these you can lighlty sprout and steam.

I don't think any cooked concentrated fats are good. Generally cooked starches are least bad, cooked proteins intermediate, and cooked fats most bad regarding glycotoxins. And usually the more color, the more phytochemical protection.

There is an awesome website for people trying to combat acne. www.youngerthanyourage.com It stresses a diet high in raw fruit. They do want you to eat small amounts of raw egg and raw fish (yuck) but they have other raw options for vegans like eating an extra avocado etc,,, I have looked at this diet and to me it seems really healthy and really good and they swear you will have much less acne in two weeks.

if you cook
cook on low ~ sloooooow

then next time lower

every time a little lower

til eventually they are not cooked at all

The foods that helped me and still help me are the following:
1. Curried vegetables - I am Indian and still love coked Indian food, so this was vry helful
2. Lentil soup - I love this, all I did was reduce lentils and add more vegetables (steamed vegetables) and make this soup
3. Chutneys - This has dry roasted lentils and some spices mixed with raw cilantro or raw tomato. This is excellent with raw salads - so this is how I enjoy teh best of both

of course, these are just Indian recipe ideas - in case you like Indian food

just some ideas.

Take care
A Iyer

Wouldnt the healthiest cooked foods be steamed veggies?
I might have to re-think that,as I just had some steamed green beans,and they are sitting like a brick in my stomach.
Should have had my lettuce leaves.
Brian

I still like brown rice. It isn't too bad.

I would say anything that is a whole food... IE does not contain parts of foods which are combined. Aswell it should be something that is easily digested... so out of your system within 24 hours. Aswell... It should be not cooked in oil, or anything but water or steam.

So I would suggest things along the lines of vegetables, fruit, nuts. I do not really think rice is a great item... because it is a grain.

When I look at cooked foods and see what has happened to the fiber, not to mention the stuff I can't see like the nutrients, I just can't help but wonder how that is going to work. For example take a carrot. An uncooked carrot is a tough fibrous root vegetable that is very crunchy and chewy but when you cook it the fiber turns to mush. The fiber has undergone such a dramatic change that when cooked it will mush up through the tongs in the fork. Try that with a raw carrot and you'll more likely bend your fork as have it mush through the tongs. Now I ask you, how can that work for peristalsis in the digestive tract ? Then of course theres the nutrient loss cooking causes. I don't see how anyone could consider cooking healthy ?

Hi everyone
thanks for your suggestions. EZrider- I didnt mean to imply that cooked foods are healthy-especially on a raw food forum. I was just wondering what the least harmful foods are when one is trying to change eating habits. I dont think I can change my habits overnight-I mean I can but I dont think that`s good for me personally.. That`s the only reason that I asked this question. Just trying to do this slowly...

Ez Rider, intuitively yes it does look pretty obvious. But it hasn't been proven yet. All they've really shown is that in short term human trials some problems are lessened, and in longer term trials with animals that overcooked is worse than moderately cooked.

Okinawans who made it to age 100 or greater cooked nearly everything they ate, so it can't be THAT bad. But they weren't doing this deep fried nonsense with oil that has been through over 100 cooking cycles. Mostly their food is boiled and doesn't spend much time at over 100 degrees C. Light steaming doesn't appear to be that bad for us, either.

I think we did adapt to some cooking. We have delicate jaws and teeth now. Or short intestine and long intestine lengths differ from gorillas and chimpanzees, we adapted to softer, less fibrous foods and more starch. But we can still do all raw.

I agree that all raw is probably better, based on what I've read, felt, experienced. But we don't really know how much better.

arugula Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Ez Rider, intuitively yes it does look pretty
> obvious. But it hasn't been proven yet.


In my opinion and based on my belief system, most of it not all things don't need to be proven. It's where we get tripped up the most trying to "prove it" rather than just trusting our innate intelligence and Higher Spirit given intuition. It's probably best to always listen to yourself considering other's experiences also, but to ultimately make your own decisions regarding your health. I personally think it's an oxymoron to say "healthy cooked". Just my experience with my body and if I touch cooked food which I have a couple of times in the past year, I get violently ill. I don't need to prove that, my body was simply not a happy camper and reacted by violently purging what it perceived as poison. And this was cooked spinach and lentil soup generally perceived to be "healthy".

My advice is contradictory and while I understand transitioning, I think if you want to do this jump in 100% with fresh raw foods. Over time, your transition period will be 100% more easier and you will gradually move away from cooked foods. It takes discipline and the ultimate respect for your amazing body. Do it for your body and your health and it's easy.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/07/2008 03:10PM by rawangel.

I hope I'm not repeating what someone else already said - but if it were me, I'd go for steamed or baked sweet potatoes, and other lightly steamed veggies. I'd also focus my efforts on making it as low fat as possible. Hope this helps!

Sarah
[goingbananasblog.com]

Dehydrated squashes are pretty close to raw and seem juicy still, or eggplant, or garlikcky kale dehydrated I cant say cooked is good either

There's a list here that might help...
[whfoods.org]