Ready? Open wide and say "Ahhh!"

• A couple of definitions
  
  
• Background context: What exactly is claimed / What do people want to believe?
  
  
• Scope and disclaimers
  
  
• Overview: Summary of major reasons why seduction by simplistic dogmas occurs
  
  
• Excessive idealism: the partner of gullibility
  
  
• Gullibility and dietary snake oil: the claims regarding raw diets that sound too good to be true
  
  
• False sense of security: claims that the diet is perfect, ideal, and/or most natural
  
  
• Social aspects: uniqueness and attention
  
  
• Self-righteousness and really big egos: the perils of assigning moral values to diet
  
  
• Self-identification with diet and movement: something larger than yourself to believe in
  
  
• Raw dogma and cults: the cult of 100% raw
  
  
• Other reasons for the seductiveness of raw diets
  
  
• Epilogue

Note: the next few paragraphs provide background information for readers who might not be familiar with the raw vegan movement or its dogma. If you are knowledgeable about the movement, feel free to skip the background information and proceed to the section that follows it.

• Claims that the raw vegan diet is any of the following: "most natural," "ideal," "perfect," etc.

• Claims (secular, non-religious claims) that humans evolved or were created to have a raw vegan diet.

• Claims (often promoted via crank science) that cooked foods are poisonous and/or protein foods are toxic, in the sense that the metabolic by-products of protein are allegedly harmful.

• Claims that the raw vegan diet will cure any/all diseases--or that it has the potential to do so, limited only by the believer's discipline and application of the tenets.

• Claims that the raw vegan diet will guarantee perfect health or make you "perfect" in any way, or "superior" to others who have a different diet. (Often the latter claim/expectation of superiority is rather more implicit than explicit, of course.)

• Claims that eating raw will make the world a better place; and that if only everyone followed the raw vegan diet, it would solve all the social ills of the world, leading ultimately to world peace and a new paradise of nature. Here, the expectation is twofold: (1) that as a component of the mind/body connection, diet is a powerful and critical determinant of mental peace and health; and (2) that the lifestyle accompanying a raw vegan diet will automatically preclude the kind of economically oriented personal behaviors and actions in which social problems have their ultimate root.

Because many of the above claims are clearly anti-common sense and the promoters of such claims often provide no credible evidence for them, it is reasonable to characterize them, in general, as "simplistic." (The claims promoted via crank science include scientific "proof," but said proof is bogus/false.)

The seductiveness of raw vegan dogma is illustrated by the situation that many people self-identify so strongly with the diet and its principles (dogma), that they react harshly (and defensively) when someone questions or challenges their diet/dogma (i.e., their lunch). To observe this firsthand, one can join certain raw vegan-oriented (Internet) email lists, and/or visit certain raw vegan web sites, where one may encounter extremists promoting the "glories" of raw veganism in negative, hostile, aggressive, and intellectually dishonest ways.

As regards intellectual dishonesty, one can find examples of blatant, massive plagiarism, as well as examples of crank science (e.g., such false claims as "fruit is just like mother's milk," "humans are natural frugivores," and so on). Fear--specifically, pathological fear--is also often used as a tool to promote such diets: e.g., fear of "mucus," fear of protein, and the fear of cooked food. (The latter is sometimes paired with bigotry--the hatred of cooked-food consumers.)

All one need do is to challenge or question any of the above claims, or other parts of the raw "party line" in the "wrong" location (one dominated by extremists and/or their followers) and you will probably be the target of harsh, immature, personal attacks. Consider that you question or challenge dietary dogma, and you then become the target of hostility, perhaps even threats. Is this, then, the kind of dietary philosophy that leads to a paradisical state of peaceful lovingkindness predicted by its followers? Judging by results as exemplifed in some of the very people claiming these things, it appears that an occupational hazard of such dogma is instead intolerance, closed-mindedness, and hatred of others for not believing as one does oneself--not exactly what you would expect on the way to world peace and enlightenment.

Other examples of rawists who are clearly attached to simplistic dietary dogma include those who ignore symptoms of illness as "detox" (sometimes with tragic results); those emaciated rawists who are convinced that a long fast will detox and "cure" them (fasting in such a situation can be harmful); and those deluded rawists who attack others for the terrible "crime" of violating the sanctity of the "holy sacrament of food combining." :-) [Note: smiley applies only to last part of preceding sentence.]

1. To help rawists examine their own attitudes towards the raw "party line" (raw dogma), and

2. To help non-rawists understand the raw movement (and its unusual psychology) better.

Readers are also advised that this article is based on the author's long personal experience as a rawist, and interaction with many rawists over the years. I have been fortunate to meet a number of mentally balanced rawists, and also fortunate (?)--it has been an educational, but very unpleasant experience--to meet quite a few raw dietary extremists (many of whom in my opinion are severely mentally unbalanced). Because there is little or no peer-reviewed, published research on the psychology of extreme diets (especially raw vegan) other than the research on eating disorders (anorexia, bulimia, binge-eating disorder, etc.), this article should be seen as a first draft of a work in progress. Accordingly, I welcome constructive comments and pointers to relevant published research on the topic (or closely related topics--please note that I am aware of the eating disorder literature).

• Excessive idealism causes us to want to believe in simplistic raw dietary dogma, because we want to believe the world is easy to understand.

• The extremist claims about the diet sound too good to be true, but we want to believe them anyway (gullibility and dietary "snake oil").

• Provides a false sense of security, if you believe the dogma that the diet is "best," "perfect," or "most natural."

• Social aspect: the diet makes you unique, can focus considerable attention on you (very appealing to egocentric types.)

• By assigning a false morality to diet, you believe you are morally superior to those who eat differently (self-righteousness and ego).

• For those with low self-confidence, the diet may provide a movement to identify with; it can even impart a warped kind of self-identity.

• Finally, some aspects of raw veganism can be compared to the experience of being part of a cult; it can be a cult-like experience, if you make the mistake of believing--and following--the wrong diet "gurus."

An example of this can be seen in intellectually dishonest attempts by some fruitarian extremists to ignore the fossil record--which provides convincing evidence that humans are natural omnivores/faunivores--at the same time they promote their own pseudoscientific version of human prehistory, or even resort to creationism to deny well-established science on human diet in prehistory. (This is a topic in itself. That fruitarian extremists dishonestly try to promote simplistic versions of nature's laws, however, while claiming the converse, i.e., that nature is a mystery, shows how they are relying, even if not fully aware of it themselves, on the idealism and gullibility of their converts/potential followers.)

Returning to the topic of idealism, then, we note that excessive idealism may blind one to the obvious reality that nature is not constrained or limited by our ideas; nature simply IS. Further, nature is not concerned with our dogma, theories, or egos.

Another example may help clarify and illustrate the above points. Dietary extremists are fond of telling us that we humans are the only animal that cooks food, and hence, cooking is UNnatural and harmful. In some cases the claim is backed up with a bit of real science, but much of the evidence presented often falls into the realm of crank science. We can summarize this view via the mindless slogan, "raw is law." (See the article Is Cooked Food Poison? Looking at the Science on Raw vs. Cooked Foods on this site for details on raw vs. cooked foods).

The idea that animals don't do it, hence it is UNnatural, can, however, be applied to many other peculiarly human habits as well: using computers and reading websites (like this one! :-) ), reading books, magazines, and newsletters, living in heated/air-conditioned houses, often with indoor plumbing, driving cars, and so on. If the animal-based naturalism model described above is valid, then the activities listed in the preceding sentence are dubious, and are just as UNnatural as cooking is supposed to be. [Sarcastic side note: will some immature fanatic send hate email on this point? Beware: email is UNnatural too! :-) ] Additional real-world evidence against "raw is law" is discussed in the article Selected Myths of Raw Foods on this site.

The point of the above example is that the naturalism or model of nature promoted by dietary extremists is clearly false, but the dietary extremists are able to sell such nonsense because of our idealism (and gullibility). In some cases, if one does question such dogma, the extremists will often respond with rationalizations and excuses. In such cases, if we are idealistic enough, we might believe the rationalizations and excuses offered--even if they are very weak (and they usually are).

Thus simplistic dietary dogma offers pat, easy explanations of nature, easy solutions to life's problems, and a false naturalism/model of nature. Such dogma is appealing because of the following claims:

• Nature is simplistic (except, of course, when you point to the fossil record evidence that humans are natural omnivores/faunivores; then it is all a "mystery").

• The raw diet is the answer to all your problems, and the raw diet is simple (life would be easier if this were true).

The extremists who promote the above are doing a terrible disservice to their followers. The false naturalism and narrow views promoted discourage followers from thinking clearly about their health problems, and from seeking solutions outside the narrow confines of simplistic dietary dogma when it is failing them. As such, the extremist apparently considers simplistic dietary dogma to be more important (by default, if we look at what they do rather than what they say) than the health and well-being of their followers. In a perverse way, this represents a triumph by excessive idealism, in the form of simplistic dietary dogma, over reason and sanity. It is, of course, a sad and bitter victory, as the price may be the health of the followers of extremist dogma. (One wonders if the extremists actually care about the long-term health of their followers.)

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