Raw food diets are currently being used with good results by many celebrities, particularly for weight loss. However, will the results be long lasting in holding their weight down or for maintaining long term good health? Christian Bates Osteopath and Naturopath says that certainly for some this diet will be beneficial but for others in will not maintain their long term health. One of the core aspects of the raw food diet is no dairy and red meat and it also emphasis lean meats and protein from nuts, seeds and pulses. Unfortunately I have just seen too many unhealthy vegetarians to know that this diet is good for everyone in the long term . As it says, raw food certainly is beneficial as the enzymes in it are still active and I am a proponent of eating raw food but some people will just have to have red meat in their diet for their cell metabolism to function correctly. So how do you know if you should be eating red meat, lean meat, fish or raw food? Christian uses two techniques to assess the “individual” food requirements of his patients. Firstly he observes the Body Biotype of the patient, this is done by paying attention to their body shape but also by questioning them on their emotional characteristics and also by their diet habits, such as the type of foods they crave and where they gain weight when they over indulge. This separates us into 5 distinct Body Types that all have subtle differences in the way they eat, for example high protein eaters (who would do well on the Atkins diet), low protein eaters (who wouldn’t do well on the Atkins diet), down to those that could be vegetarian and remain healthy long term. 

Christian also uses an online questionnaire called Metabolic Typing® developed over 30 years which gives fantastic results. This again finds the individual patterns amongst us all to find out which foods will fuel our cells correctly and provides a comprehensive list of foods that are to be eaten or avoided. To look at a concrete example of this we can look at the research of Dr Western A Price, a dentist who travelled the world looking at indigenous cultures who were privileged to have almost perfect health, devoid of any of the modern diseases we suffer from, such as diabetes, cancer, heart disease or obesity. He found that each culture ate the foods local to them so they varied greatly depending on where they were. So for example the Eskimo’s ate literally just animal flesh and animal fat (which is saturated fat) and yet had fantastic health! The Aborigines ate a diet much more dominated by vegetation, although they did eat meat whenever it was available. They too had amazing, vibrant health. The Swiss had a diet dominated by raw milk and raw cheese and bread. So would you consider saying to an Eskimo “No you mustn't eat saturated fat it will raise your cholesterol and give you heart disease, you must be vegetarian!”, he would probably turn around to you and say “What’s heart disease?” or maybe “Oh yes I heard about an Eskimo that preferred eating vegetables, he didn’t last very long”. And neither would you say to an Aborigine, “you must eat much more saturated fat, just look at the Eskimo’s they hardly have any heart disease”. The point Christian is making here with these extreme examples is that we are all different and to some varied degree will do better on different food combinations. He also agrees that if someone has a really appalling diet, like most modern diets, full of carbs from cereals and pasta, then some broad sweeping dietary changes will improve health, like cut down on carbs, or reduce you milk intake. But these won’t be long lasting if the advice is off base according to the person Body Biotype or Metabolic Type.

When I have patients in that are obviously quite toxic from poor lifestyle and eating then I will often start them on a short cleanse that would consist of raw foods, however in the long term I will always cater the food plan for them on an individual basis, I do not just give out the same healthy eating plan to al patients as I believe that there is not one diet that is good for every one.

If we are getting really picky then those with digestive disorders will also not do well on raw food as they will not be able to digest it as easily as cooked foods. An easy example would be that of a raw carrot compared to a lightly steamed carrot that will also hold most of its beneficial nutrients even after the steaming but be digested in the stomach much easier.

For more information on anything mentioned in this blog please email christian@theperrymount.com

Tags: weight loss, metabolic typing, body biotyping, Cheryl Cole, Girls Aloud

Tags: weight loss, body biotyping, metabolic typing, tom cruise, mission impossible 4