Do you recommend food combining or a “raw food” diet?

by Joel Fuhrman, M.D.

I do not recommend food combining, since it is not important for obtaining optimal health. I do emphasize the consumption of raw plant foods. However, unlike many rawfood enthusiasts, I do not paint all cooked foods with the same “unhealthful” brush. I am concerned with the dangers of certain types of cooked foods,especially heated oils, fried foods, high temperature baked goods, and processed foods. However, I strongly recommend eating large amounts of steamed green vegetables and vegetable/bean soups. Neither steaming nor water cooking causes the dangerous compounds (such as acrylamides) found in foods subjected to higher heat (dry) cooking. Unfortunately, while advocates of raw-food and other fad diets sometimes present valuable advice for optimal health, too many incorrect and unscientific claims are mixed in for my taste.

Prominent nutritional scientists such as Walter Willet, M.D., of the Harvard School of Public Health recommend consuming oil, such as olive oil. Why don’t you include oil in your dietary program? Willet is knowledgeable and honest. He does not appear to be politically influenced. For example, he is not hesitant to talk about the risks of milk consumption. He is aware that milk does not protect against osteoporosis and openly reveals the relationship between dairy consumption and prostate cancer. He observes that saturated fat—not monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fat—is well correlated with higher rates of heart disease. My recommendations differ from those of Willet because I take into consideration more than merely heart attack risk. The diets I recommend are designed to be anti-aging and anti-cancer as well.

I am not against eating calories in the form of fat; I am against eating calories that come from oil and also against eating excess calories. There are important distinctions between these considerations.

When you extract flax oil from flax seed, olive oil from olives, or almond oil from almonds, you extract the concentrated calories and leave behind almost all of the anti-cancer nutrients and beneficial fibers such as lignans. Losing these important food factors decreases the nutrient density of your diet because oil merely adds empty calories. I recognize the value in consuming the full complement of nutrients in whole foods. For example, my salad dressings typically blend the entire nut with juice or vinegar, rather than merely mixing in a few tablespoons of low-nutrient, high-calorie oil.

Researchers such as Willet have observed that oil consumption does not seem to increase cancer rates. I disagree.We do not yet have adequate studies that compare populations consuming natural plant fats to those utilizing extracted oils. The inclusion of even a little oil makes it very easy to turn a lowcalorie meal into a high-calorie one, with the added drawback that such a meal also is considerably less nutrient-dense. Eating fewer calories has been shown to significantly extend life span and slow the aging process in all species of animals, including primates.

We are primates. When looking for ways to reduce calories, the smartest approach is to throw away the calories lowest in nutrients.Extracted oil should be among the first to go. If Willet gave more thought to preventing the free radical damage from consuming excess calories (as noted researcher Roy Walford has), perhaps he would understand why oil promotes aging. Likewise, since the consumption of extracted oil is known to promote cancerous tumors in animal studies, it is not unreasonable to think that it likely does so in humans as well.The problem for researchers is that it is very difficult to collect data and compare the effects of various practices (over a lifetime—from childhood through adulthood) on individuals living in distinct populations. For these reasons, making extracted oil the centerpiece of a diet, as do advocates of the so-called “Mediterranean diet,” may be very dangerous advice.

The bottom line is that a little oil in the diet is not so terrible if one is highly physically active and thin, but for most of us trying to keep our total calories lower, the “empty” calories of oil are among the best “foods” to eliminate from your diet.