Video Transcript

Hi, I'm Charlotte Lawson, a registered and licensed dietitian, with a little bit of information on the raw food diet guidelines. The raw food diet really means that you're eating foods that are pretty much unprocessed or found in their natural and raw form. This is like raw fruits and vegetables, maybe even sometimes some raw meats but really it revolves around the processing mechanism. Now the raw food diet does have some benefits in that typically these foods that are less processed, don't have added sugars or added salts and are typically higher in fiber. So since they're higher in fiber, this helps moderate our calories and since they don't hardly have that added sugar and often no added fat as well, we're also having a lower calorie food all in general. So again, like I said, there's benefits but also keep in mind processing itself isn't necessarily bad. For instance, consider nuts, a raw almond versus a smoked almond or a roasted almond really doesn't have that much nutritional difference. However, the smoked or roasted is considered processed versus its raw form in the nuts and legume section. So again, pluses and minuses. Now a little bit diverting off the raw food diet would really just kind of be the slower cooking methods as well, trying to maybe just steam your vegetables versus boil them. Again in choosing those whole grains even though a bread technically is processed, but avoiding the white in overly processed breads. So again, looking to the more natural form of the food really is the diet guideline for that raw food with pluses and minuses, just make sure that you're still getting all of your food groups, the fruits, vegetables, your whole grains, your lean meats and proteins as well as your low fat dairy. I'm Charlotte Lawson and eat happy.