Annabel Langbein
Raw food is a healthy option in moderation — especially in a hot climate
British primatologist Richard Wrangham, author of Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, proposed the hypothesis that cooking food is an essential element in the physiological development of human beings. Wrangham points out that our digestive apparatus is poorly suited to raw meat and even more poorly suited to a diet of raw vegetables. If you are going to eat a lot of raw food of any kind you need big, strong teeth and a big gut system, both of which it seems our ancestors had lost at around the time they acquired bigger brains.
The body has to work really hard to process raw food; all those tough muscle fibres and sinews and cellulose have to get broken down before the small intestine can absorb the nutrients that are locked up in raw meats and plants. Cooking takes much of the work of digestion out of the equation, with the energy of fire or heat replacing the energy of our bodies. Also, Wrangham reckons, cooked food allowed us an extra four hours a day to pursue ennobling things like art and philosophy, time that otherwise we would have spent chewing to ingest enough calories and nutrients.
Raw foodism, which goes against Wrangham’s premise, is one of the extreme diets that seems to be gaining traction right now. The idea of a diet that involves only raw foods has hit a chord with alternativehealth types, a number of celebrities, spiritual seekers, the super trendy and the weightloss brigade, all of whom have signed up to the idea that eating uncooked “living foods’’ extends youth and staves off disease.
One of the key hypotheses of raw foodism is the idea that heat destroys a food’s natural enzymes, which, supporters claim, facilitate digestion and that to absorb cooked food, the body has to use up its own limited supply of enzymes. Their assumption is that by helping the body retain its own enzymes, a “living foods’’ diet will delay ageing, boost energy and prevent or cure virtually all life-threatening diseases.
Many studies have shown that we humans don’t do well on a diet of solely raw food. Yes, everyone loses weight but usually to the point where they can’t actually maintain their body weight and most people get chronic energy deficiency. Among women eating totally raw diets, 50 per cent stop menstruating. As Wrangham says: “Humans are adapted to eating cooked food in the same essential way that cows are adapted to eating grass, or fleas to sucking blood.” Having, so many millennia ago, traded in a big gut for a big brain, we now can’t go back.
You don’t have to embrace raw foodism to enjoy some fabulous raw or almost raw meals, and as long as they aren’t the whole focus of your diet you aren’t likely to cause your body any health problems.
At this time of year, when nature offers so many sweet, sun-kissed flavours and it’s just too hot to cook, a raw meal feels like just the right choice — fresh, light and cooling. No pots or pans needed.
Ready in 20 mins Serves 6
4–5 fresh young corn cobs
½ just-ripe avocado
3 Tbsp almond butter
½ tsp fresh thyme
Zest of ½ lemon, finely grated
A pinch of chilli flakes
2 cups chilled almond milk or dairy milk 1 cup ice-cold water
¾ tsp salt
Ground black pepper, to taste
½ cup basil leaves
TO GARNISH
¼ cup tamari-roasted almonds, chopped (or raw almonds if preferred)
Use a sharp, heavy knife to cut the kernels from the corn cobs. You should have about 4 cups. Reserve ½ cup for garnish and place the rest in a liquidiser or high-speed blender with the avocado, almond butter, thyme, lemon zest, chilli flakes, milk, water, salt, pepper and most of the basil leaves, reserving some small leaves for garnish. Blitz mixture until very smooth. If not serving at once, chill for up to 24 hours until needed. To serve, divide between 6 small bowls and garnish each with a scattering of chopped almonds, reserved corn kernels and basil leaves.
ANNABEL SAYS: Corn cobs are so sweet these days there’s no need to cook them. To work out whether a cob is ripe, pierce it and check that the juice is milky. If it’s clear, the corn is not quite ripe enough and if there’s no juice then it’s too ripe and will be tough and dry.
Yvonne’s pick
You know the saying “happy wife, happy life, no more strife, where’s my cheese knife?” Okay, so I exercised some creative licence with that last bit — but when Jane Cooper makes her Alexia Happy Wife Hawke’s Bay Chardonnay 2018 ($30), I’m instantly in the mood for food. She’s like New Zealand’s own Mrs Char d’onnay, delivering gifts of tropical, citrus-driven deliciousness in a bottle, whether you’ve been a saint or a sinner. So if you’re feeling rawny and corny, then serve this wine and prepare to be popular. alexia.co.nz