Within recent years, a new vegetarian dietary trend has burst upon the culinary scene in the United States. The raw foods movement eschews enzyme-depleted cooked foods in favor of high-enzyme raw vegetables and fruits. It would be more accurate to say that the trend started back in the 1830s with Sylvester Graham, who recommended eating unfired vegetables and fruits as the optimum diet.
The raw food movement was given its greatest public exposure in the modern era by Bernarr Macfadden, who during the early decades of the twentieth century ran a successful publishing empire while living ostentatiously on a raw vegetarian diet. Herbert Shelton, a Macfadden employee and protégé, was responsible for systematizing “rawfoodism” into a health regimen that he referred to as “Natural Hygiene.” The central tenet of Natural Hygiene was that the human body is a self-healing mechanism that thrives best on a diet of uncooked foods. In the event that one contracted a cold or some other malady, Shelton taught that the best way to treat it was through abstaining from food altogether (fasting).
