Cut out cooked calories

Whilst ‘those in the know’ have been touting the benefits of eating raw foods for the last few years, a new paper from researchers at Harvard University has helped shed some light on why cooking foods can be detrimental to our waist lines.

The scientists found that when fatty foods are cooked they release more calories in to the body than when they are eaten raw. This is because the body can more readily break down cooked foods and therefore gain extra calories from them. So two products containing identical amounts of calories may not necessarily release the same number of calories in your body; it will depend on the amount of cooking and processing they have had done to them.

The researchers point out that historically this will have been a good thing and probably helped drive our reliance on fire and cooking. Our ancient ancestors would have found it hard to find food and that they did find they would want to extract the maximum amount of energy from.

Today however, with food so readily available, gaining extra calories from the food we eat isn’t high on the priority list for most of us.

Raw revolution

A raw food diet doesn’t mean you have to stick to eating carrot sticks and Carpaccio and you can now indulge in some delicious desserts without a piece of celery in sight. 

The Living Food Kitchen have recently launched a range of raw desserts, which use natural, high quality uncooked ingredients to create some of our favourite puddings, including cheesecakes, Banoffee pie and chocolate mousse. They taste as good as the ‘real’ thing, but without the preservatives, additives or cooking.

For more details, visit thelivingfoodkitchen.com.