Is a Raw Food Diet really healthy?

I will tell you the conclusion first. If you carefully follow the points described below, the diet will be perfectly healthy one. But if you are not careful, you will fall into serious malnutrition.

The diet consists of seaweed, sprouts, sprouted seeds, whole grains, beans, dried fruits, and nuts. They never have alcohol, refined sugar, and caffeine. They are most likely vegans who don't eat animal products. Some eat raw eggs and daily products from raw milk. They don't cook using a stove or oven. But they use food dehydrators that the temperature doesn't go up higher than 118. They think high temperature destroys vitamins and enzymes for digestion. But the fact is human body produces the enzymes. The low temperature can't kill the dangerous bacteria in the raw food.

You bet they can reduce blood cholesterol and sugar levels. One research also showed the diet helps reduce the risk of oral, throat, esophageal, and gastric cancers. It makes sense because heat damages cells and the burning part of foods might be carcinogen. However they frequently have a vitamin B12 deficiency because it is found naturally only in animal products. The deficiency causes anemia and neurological problem. They also have a tendency of low calcium, iron, and omega-3 because they are abundant in animal products. So they need to eat: tofu, legumes, almonds, and figs which are good sources of iron; bok choy, cabbage, soybeans, tempeh, and figs for calcium; fortified cereals, nutritional yeast, fortified soy milk, and vitamin B12 supplements for vitamin B12; flaxseed, walnuts for omega-3. They also need to use canola, flaxseed, walnut, and soybean oil for omega-3. Since plant protein is not easy to digest, they need to eat more soy bean products. It is necessary to eat more calcium because the diet has high sulfur-containing amino acids (nuts and grains etc.) and decreases bone calcium. It is recommended to eat soaking and sprouting beans, grains, and seeds because they have Zinc and usually it is abundant in meat. They need to eat vitamin-D fortified foods (some soy milk, rice milk, cereals, and margarine) and vitamin D supplements because vitamin D is mainly included in meat and daily products and important to make bones strong.

A raw food diet is not recommended for infants, children, and pregnant women due to the reasons described above.