[pct-l] raw food diet, calorie requirements

>
>Date: Tue, 12 Dec 2000 19:37:20 -0600
>From: Mark Dillon <mdillon3@earthlink.net>
>Subject: [pct-l] raw pizza
>
>I don't know if I agree with all of the raw food claims but heck it's not 
>as
>if you're talking about killing someone.   Go for it, tell us  how it 
>works,
>maybe we'll learn something.  I also have to admit that I don't necesarily
>agree with the 5,000 calorie claim either.  While on the AT I suspect that 
>I
>was getting less calories than most people (3,000 -4,000) but I never lost
>weight and actually gained 5 pounds.  The difference......  no junk food.
>I'm pretty convinced that an equal number of calories in a snicker bar and 
>a
>dried fig are entirely different  (this is not to imply that I would not
>have gladly traded my dried fig for a snickers bar!!!)  Anyways,  viva la
>difference and I can gurantee that you will never see me on the trail with
>snickers,  raw sprouts or corn pasta!!!!
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>
>------------------------------

There may be a good reason why a person could thrive on a long-distance hike 
with less than the advertised 5-6K calories per day, and I'm not referring 
to individual differences in body chemistry.  As your physical conditioning 
improves, your metabolic efficiency rises too.  Several weeks into a hike, 
it's possible you can consume fewer calories to work just as hard as on the 
day you left the trailhead.

No matter what your caloric intake, your body never actually uses the full 
energy potential of the food you eat.  This is a basic application of the 
Second Law of Thermodynamics, which has been mentioned in this thread a few 
times and which is something I know a little about.  The 2nd Law holds that 
no process which employs energy to do work can do so at 100% efficiency.

That doesn't mean that there can't be a wide degree of latitude in the 
efficiency of actual processes.  And although I'm not a nutritionist, I 
suspect that a person who eats a healthy diet also has a more efficient 
metabolism than someone who eats a lot of junk.  It just makes sense.  If 
nothing else, you're consuming fewer calories to get the other nutrients you 
need.

My own partly-informed opinion is that the benefits of a eating food raw are 
chiefly second order; that is, I would bet the pluses come primarily from 
the fact that it is plant-based, rich in fiber and vitamins, and low in 
processed foods and animal fats.  Someone should acknowledge that there are 
some advantages to eating cooked food, besides the psychological comforts, 
which admittedly one could be weaned of as a hypertension patient loses the 
taste for salt or a vegetarian convert the taste for meat.  Of all the 
advantages I could name, probably the most important is that it makes it 
possible to eat certain foods which may otherwise be unpalatable, inedible, 
or difficult to digest.  I am not sure there is any evidence that enzymes 
ingested in foodstuffs become part of the body's digestive armamentarium; in 
fact, I'm pretty sure that somewhere I read that enzymes (which are 
basically protein) are broken down for digestion along with everything else 
that lands in the stomach.

Obviously, if there is good scientific evidence in favor of a raw diet we 
can compare the advantages and disadvantages.  I suspect there's no reason 
one couldn't arrive at the conclusion that some foods are better eaten raw, 
others cooked.  The rush to extremes, as Aristotle and Augustine observed, 
occurs only becuase the middle way is so hard to find.

Well, I better try to find a way to relate this topic to the PCT.  How about 
this --  Although there may be many diets which will not sustain a person 
for months of hiking, there probably isn't one single one which will 
guarantee success regardless of all other considerations.  Also, do not try 
to undertake any radical change of lifestyle in addition to going out to 
hike for months in the wilderness.  If people have succeeded on a raw food 
diet, or any other uncommon system, I'll bet it's because these people were 
accustomed to such a regimen before they hit the trail.  Think of all those 
folks, fired by Ray Jardine's infectious zeal, who set out on this or that 
trail with boxes of corn pasta...only to discover that they couldn't stand 
the taste of it.
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