Comment Re:CDC guilty of correlation == causation (Score 1) 291
I'm going to have to pass on any diet that includes raw chicken.
Sorry, I guess I described it wrong. Foods were added back to the diet slowly, from only raw fruits and vegetables and nuts to cooked foods like some brown rice, squash, to eventually adding cooked meats, starting with chicken and eventually beef. This was always organically-raised, pasture-fed chicken and grass-fed and finished beef. Cooking was done very carefully, ensuring meats are cooked to a safe temperature. Of course, eating raw chicken is VERY dangerous for ANYONE!!!
I'm also very skeptical of the claim that drinking juice has any benefits that aren't present in just eating whatever the juice came from. Bottled juices are convenient because of the shelf life. If you're sticking a fresh item into a juicer you could have gotten all the same benefits by just sticking it directly in your mouth. Your stomach liquifies everything anyway.
If you're getting juice from a bottle, it's been pasteurized (cooked), which means it doesn't have the same nutrients. The fresher the food is, the more nutrients it contains. Cooking to the high temperatures required for canning (bottle) destroys a lot of essential nutrients. And I'm afraid you're wrong that just eating it outright results in the same ability to absorb nutrients from food. Birds feed their babies pre-digested food because it is easier to digest. Juicing breaks down the cells and makes the food easier to absorb, and it provides a denser amount of nutrients meaning you can take in more raw juiced food than you can eat whole.
If you've got a GI disorder that prevents you from digesting or eliminating then you'll need to be on clear fluids and IV but for non-GI disorders the rest of your body doesn't care whether the food was solid or liquid when it entered your mouth. Either way it was broken down into its fundamental constituents before it passed into your bloodstream.
The human body doesn't have a "on/off" switch in the GI tract that allows it to work perfectly or not at all. It's a very complicated ecosystem requiring symbiotic relationships with various types of bacteria and phages. It's a delicate balance. malabsorption syndrome runs the gambit from a single nutrient can't be absorbed to what you've described where almost all nutrients pass through without the body being able to process them. For instance, pernicious anemia is often caused lack of the ability to absorb vitamin B12. You may be able to absorb everything else, but this single malabsorption issue can cause lots of problems, and is often misdiagnosed. There are many others commonly recognized.
The assertion that everything you eat is "Either way it was broken down into its fundamental constituents" simply shows a fundamental misunderstanding of nutrition. Sure, that happens before it enters your bloodstream, but the process getting to that point is very complex, and if nutrients you need are simply passing through, or are being used up by the wrong mix of bacteria and phages in your gut, it can cause all kinds of health issues.
Juicing raw foods can help, as can the process of the raw food cleanse that can help purge overgrowth of bacteria that can cause issues. Here is some information on the benefits of juicing your food vs. simply eating it raw. And if you're really interested in finding out why a bottled juice is not going to provide the same benefits as fresh foods juiced and consumed immediately, this article lays it out pretty well.