Raw Food Diet - Day 17 (Blog)

[DRK]

Fats: even the ridiculously high US 30% number is considered a maximum, not a minimum. It's impossible to get less than 5% unless you're eating refined sugars almost exclusively. All the evidence shows the health benefits really start kicking in once you get below 15% fat.

Lycopene: First, the studies were done by Del Monte, I believe. (Or maybe it was another company that makes tons of money off of canned tomato products.) That doesn't mean that the studies are necessarily flawed, of course. BUT, no study has shown that you can't get lycopene without cooking. You can just get more of it from cooked tomatoes compared to raw. I believe the numbers were 80% available raw compared to 100% cooked. I'd rather just eat an extra raw tomato or two, and not have all the other nutrients damaged by the cooking process.