U.S. culture is rife with get-thin-quick schemes and fad diets that wreak havoc on a person’s health and metabolism. Even worse, many U.S. citizens would cringe at the thought of giving up their steak and potatoes for a spinach salad, even for a day. While raw foodism is considered extreme to many and clearly isn’t the answer to every U.S. citizen’s health woes, we can certainly learn a lot from the lifestyle.

There’s something different about this diet choice. For one thing, the diet is sustainable for a lifetime and, when done properly, provides all the nutrients your body needs to survive and thrive, which is more than can be said for crash diets where a person is expected to live off nothing but cabbage or grapefruits. The idea behind a raw food diet is getting back to the basics of eating — humans are the only creatures on earth who cook their food before eating it, and in the past, humans have lived entirely off of raw food. Raw foodists believe food should be unheated, unprocessed and basically unaltered from its natural state.

And raw foodists aren’t just limited to salads, either. There are raw food versions of just about every cherished American dish, from tacos that use spinach leaves as tortillas to zucchini noodle spaghetti, stir-fry, soup, tea, cake and ice cream. Raw foodists don’t heat their food above about 120 degrees Fahrenheit, so all their food is served at room temperature or colder, which assures no food nutrients are lost through cooking.

Raw foodists have claimed making the switch cured their allergies and respiratory problems, gave them more energy with less sleep and even improved their hair and nails. Raw food enthusiasts tout the importance of keeping enzymes in their food that are lost in the heat of cooking. The enzymes help aid digestion of food, which puts less strain on the digestive system and other muscles.

But just how sustainable is the raw foodist’s diet? A study of the diet by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine found people who don’t cook any of their food have lower body mass with less body fat, less inflammation, higher levels of Vitamin D and were at a lower risk for certain types of cancer than people who eat the typical Western diet. However, they did have abnormally low bone mass due to low calcium levels, which is something to keep in mind for anyone considering a raw food diet. The researchers looked at 18 strict raw foodists who had been on the diet for an average of 3.6 years.

Raw foodists and others who dedicate themselves to such strict diets are generally much healthier but do make sacrifices for it. For example, eating only raw food is expensive, and preparing meals can get time consuming.

Many of the raw food recipes use appliances not generally found in the average kitchen, such as dehydrators and juicers. Raw foodists also have a hard time eating at restaurants and participating in other social events — for example, Thanksgiving can be a particularly tempting holiday. There also is some important food knowledge to acquire before trying out raw foodism — for example, both kidney beans and buckwheat are poisonous to humans before they’re cooked.

But perhaps Americans eating a Western diet, with its processed carbohydrates and high fat, could use a little of the raw foodists’ ideas — and subsequent lower body weight. Even if you don’t want to completely stop eating all cooked food, adding more raw food, and more fruits, vegetables and nuts in general, to your diet can do nothing but good.

If the good people in the U.S. want to shrink their bountiful waistlines, boot the rampant heart disease and high cholesterol and start giving their bodies some real nutrition, they need to get out of the McDonald’s drive through and try eating a carrot or two.

Liz Kersjes is the State News opinion writer. Reach her at kersjese@msu.edu.