Ireland is a wet cold country so it would be tough to go totally raw. I like a bit of heat from my food.
Welcome Sara. Like Tyler, I'm another case in point. My extremities used to get super-cold when I ate a cooked Standard American Diet or cooked so-called "heart healthy" diet (including so-called "healthy" whole grains, plenty of cooked veggies, fruits, low fat milk or soy or rice milk, soy burgers, skinless chicken, etc. and I tried other diets as well, such as cooked vegetarianism, for example). Raw animal fat gives me more heat in the longer run than heated does. Heated food gives you a bit of heat for a bit after it enters your belly, but the heat quickly dissipates, whereas animal fat continuously provides heat as it's digested.
In the past on cold days my hands would take around 20 minutes or more to warm up after being outside and going back indoors. Now I can walk nearly a mile outdoors with no gloves on in windy 20 degrees Farenheit weather with little problem and my hands get warm again within a few minutes of going indoors.
Check out the "Hunter's response" (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter%27s_Response; aka hunter's reflex, Avon relfex) that occurs when people eat a hunter-gatherer-type diet, particularly one rich in sea- or land- animal fat.
The relatively traditional Chukchi are people who still have the "hunter's response," though it's not discussed in this nonetheless excellent video:
Chukchi: Where the world endsIn a
Medicine Men Gone Wild episode no longer available for free online, one of the two twin British physicians who were featured in the show shook the hand of a Chukchi hunter who had dipped it into the ice-cold sub-Arctic ocean and reported that it was warm--the hunter's response in action.
