Are there benefits to following a raw food diet?

Eating predominantly uncooked food is a fad that goes back hundreds of years, but not one we need to follow, writes James Wong

By James Wong

DIETARY fads come and go, but perhaps the most enduring of them all is the raw-food movement. It dates back to at least the mid-1800s when US Presbyterian minister Sylvester Graham claimed that people would never become ill if they only ate uncooked foods. The idea that cooking degrades the natural nutrition inherent in foods can seem intuitively plausible. But is it true?

Perhaps the first curious thing you notice when delving through academic journals that have covered this topic is that, although there has been plenty of research on raw-food diets, especially in recent years, …