I am no athlete and I love food. This is one of the main reasons some people see me as chubby not slim and I have been looking for ways to upkeep my love for food without gaining any more extra pounds.
The way I have not been told about is eating raw food. I have heard of raw food and the typical raw food I eat is raw carrots and tomatoes, but that's almost as far as I go as I even eat most my tomatoes as ketchup.
By Josefine Linnea Jonsson (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Raw food energy absorption
I have eaten some raw cakes and though I'm not a big fun of nuts, they have been quite delicious. However as I have assumed both have high energy content, usually changing wheat to nuts, I have assumed they both will make you just as fat but regular cakes are just more delicious.
However according to studies, cooking meat or vegetables will make them easier to use for the body. Nutrients from both vegetables and meat are better absorbed from cooked ones, while nutrients from raw versions will not absorb as well. 1 , 2
Image from Pixabay.
This means a calorie doesn't always equal an calorie, as different sources are absorbing in different amounts. This leads into the fact that amount of calories in food might be similar but they do not absorb as well, so calories from the other food will absorb better.
Sometimes this is seen as a advantage especially in areas which have scarcity of food, but not in typical western countries in which obesity is an real issue.
So my recommendation is to eat raw cakes and stay slim instead of eating normal cooked food and gaining weight.
Issues with bad calorie absorption
The issue with poor calorie absorption is not only limited to countries with issues on finding enough food, but in cases where a person has a medical reason for problems with calorie intake. Short bowel syndrome is one of the cases in which the nutrients will not absorb efficiently to give person enough energy.
However you should not feel jealous of anyone with SBS, as they usually have somewhat strict diet and typical symptoms of SBS include diarrhea and dehydration. It should be easier to add raw cakes in your diet instead of having a complete overhaul of your diet. 3
A warning!
Not all raw is recommended to be eaten. An attempt to eat raw wrestling might cause loss of teeth or death by choking. Please prefer raw cakes (and different raw meats) instead of everything being raw.
By Miguel Discart [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Sources:
Dietary fiber content of commonly fresh and cooked vegetables consumed in India. (Khanum F1, Siddalinga Swamy M, Sudarshana Krishna KR, Santhanam K, Viswanathan KR.), Plant Foods Hum Nutr. 2000;55(3):207-18.
The energetic significance of cooking. (Carmody RN1, Wrangham RW.) J Hum Evol. 2009 Oct;57(4):379-91. doi: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2009.02.011. Epub 2009 Sep 3.
Nutritional absorption in short bowel syndrome. (Graham M. WoolfCindy MillerRegina KurianKhursheed N. Jeejeebhoy) Digestive Diseases and Sciences, January 1987, Volume 32, Issue 1, pp 8–15