Raw Food Diet -- Extremely Healthy or Just Extreme?

The newest trend in eating is a raw food only diet. How healthy is it?

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• Lose the Weight
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• Diet Recipes
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• Nutrition

Severe diets are making headlines, claiming to reverse diabetes and cut heart disease risk.

In the upcoming documentary Raw for 30 Days, six diabetics eat a vegan, organic diet of uncooked nuts, seeds and veggies. By the end, all have gone off insulin and most have lost about 25 pounds.

A raw-food diet consists of mostly plant-based foods that aren't heated above 115 degrees or so. Proponents say it helps ease many conditions, from migraines to arthritis.

But it's hard-core. "And the diet leaves out a lot of foods," says Andrea Giancoli of the American Dietetic Association. "A balanced diet includes raw and cooked foods."

Another trendy plan: no food at all. In a study, people who fasted one day a month had lower rates of heart disease. Fasting may give a rest to cells constantly exposed to glucose.

Both diets look promising but are tough to stay with. Until research confirms the findings, your best bet is a healthy, diverse diet that you can stick to for life.

From Reader's Digest - February 2008

 

• Sneaking Veggies Into Your Daily Diet
• Painless ways to increase veggies in your life
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• Easy Ways to Add Fruit Into Your Day
• Make sure you get enough fruit in your diet.
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• Fiber: The Ingredient of Successful Diets
• 29 ways to plant more "good carbs" into your diet
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• Become a Fruit-and-Veggie Opportunist
• Sneak in your nine servings by the end of the day.
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• Top 10 Antioxidant-Rich Fruits and Veggies
• Move this antioxidant-rich produce to the top of your shopping list.
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• Stopping the Diabetes Epidemic
• Diabetes may soon be an epidemic in the U.S. What can we do to stop it?
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• 10 Foods for Better Diabetes Control
• 10 foods for better diabetes control.
• 

We sell greeting cards at my drugstore. A young woman handed me one to ring up. It read "To the one and only man in my life." Then she handed me a second card -- with the same message.

-- Linda Anderson

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