Need some scientific evidence concerning safety of eating raw meat.

[Fermenter Zym]

I told my girlfriend last night that I've been eating RPD again lately and she got really upset. She thinks I'm going to die from Salmonella or e Coli. I think it's great that she cares so much, but I eat meat from ethically raised, pastured fed animals (U.S. Wellness and some local farms here in Pennsylvania) and I feel noticeably better health-wise when eating raw.

We were talking and she wants to know: 1.) What are the reasons why raw is so unrecommended? Is it all about factory farmed meats getting people sick? Does partially cooking meat make it more unsafe than fully cooked? Are there any studies about this?

2.) What are some studies concerning the health benefits of raw foods? I gave her the Pottenger's cat studies and a lot of anecdotal evidence. (She doesn't value anthropological evidence as much as I do. I'm a history teacher with a distaste for civilization so RPD makes more sense to me.)

I'm not trying to convince her raw is good, but instead look at evidence of both sides.

Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

Zym.

[TylerDurden]

I agree with her. All those anecdotal reports re hunter-gatherers are not terribly convincing. Much of the reports are based on hopeful beliefs in the Noble-Savage theory, nothing more.  It is true, however, that HGs are physically fitter than Westerners - even I have seen that myself on a trip to Kenya.

That said, there is a huge amount of mainstream scientific evidence available online about the negative effects of cooked diets. So I can explain what benefits she can get from NOT eating cooked foods. There's nowhere near as much scientific info on the benefits of raw diets per se, just  a dozen studies or so on the few benefits of a raw vegan diet(so far, most studies on raw food diets seem to be under the delusion that raw food diets are always at least 75 percent vegan with 0 to 25 percent consisting of cooked foods, including cooked animals foods). Read everything you can find online about the "Hygiene Hypothesis" theory which is now generally accepted in mainstream scientific circles , and goes on about the benefits of bacteria and parasites.

For info on the negative effects of cooked foods/cooking read the following:-

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raw_foodism#Potential_harmful_effects_of_cooked_foods_and_cooking

There are already many 1,000s of studies done on the negative effects on human health of heat-created toxins like advanced glycation end products, findable on pubmed or elsewhere. There are also some studies focus on the negative effects of nitrosamines, polyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, acrylamide and heterocyclic amines. AGEs/advanced glycation end products are particularly linked to age-related decline, so you'll age slower on a RVAF diet.

Aajonus Vonderplanitz has pointed out how food-poisoning statistics are  notoriously flawed:-

http://www.karlloren.com/Diabetes/p78.htm

The real problem with food-poisoning scares is that a) many examples of "food-poisoning" concern cooked foods that have been left out too long(the combination of bacteria plus an unhealthy environment such as grainfed meats/cooked foods is really unhealthy), plus some of those foods are canned foods, being heavily preheated and b) those tiny few who do die from such foods tend overwhelmingly to be those who would have died from virtually anything else, such as very old or diseased people with bodies already destroyed by decades of cooked foods consumption and the like.

[macgeek2005]

Ask her for scientific evidence on the safety of cooked meat.

Ask her for scientific evidence on the risks of raw meat from clean, pasture fed sources.

All the other mammals are eating everything raw.

The burden of proof is on her.

Though, on a more sociable note, I do sympathize with your predicament. I have been in a few relationships myself and know what it's like to be with someone whose view is biased by the mainstream and majority vote. It's tough. But I would seriously recommend not just pandering to her demands from within the paradigm she's in, but also to try and change her paradigm by showing her that her paradigm is illogical, and just based in majority vote and mainstream ideology.

[balancing-act]

I like the point that all other mammals are eating everything raw. I think I'll use that.

I get, "But what about *parasites* Meat has parasites; you need to cook them away." What I find funny is that certain meats that are commonly eaten raw, such as oysters and other fish as sashimi- somehow these things don't seem to have parasites in peoples' minds. So they keep eating these raw meats that are condoned by society, and then heavily cook their non-organic factory-farmed hamburger meat to kill those pesky parasites.

[cherimoya_kid]

I like the point that all other mammals are eating everything raw. I think I'll use that.

I get, "But what about *parasites* Meat has parasites; you need to cook them away." What I find funny is that certain meats that are commonly eaten raw, such as oysters and other fish as sashimi- somehow these things don't seem to have parasites in peoples' minds. So they keep eating these raw meats that are condoned by society, and then heavily cook their non-organic factory-farmed hamburger meat to kill those pesky parasites.

Cattle are very regularly dewormed.  That's just how it is.  Parasites in beef are so rare as to be nonexistent.

[Isthmus]

I like the point that all other mammals are eating everything raw. I think I'll use that.

I get, "But what about *parasites* Meat has parasites; you need to cook them away." What I find funny is that certain meats that are commonly eaten raw, such as oysters and other fish as sashimi- somehow these things don't seem to have parasites in peoples' minds. So they keep eating these raw meats that are condoned by society, and then heavily cook their non-organic factory-farmed hamburger meat to kill those pesky parasites.

Most sushi is frozen to kill parasites.