This was actually on CNN last week, but I can make it my story of the day if I want.  A woman lost a couple of school children in weight by switching to a raw foods vegan diet.  Maybe it's not the diet she chose so much as the amount of weight she lost and kept off that's so impressive, but I think there's something to this raw foods thing.  Not enough that I'd go whole hog, or whole zucchini as the case may be, but enough to seriously consider going half zucchini. 

The raw foods diet is based on the idea that cooking kills food enzymes, which the CNN article disputes with the point that stomach acids also kill food enzymes.  They aren't getting very far through the system anyway.  Fair enough.  That doesn't mean there aren't real benefits to eating raw fruits and veggies.  In the first place, if you concentrate on grapes and cucumbers as a big part of your diet, you aren't adding a lot of junk, assuming you leave off the ranch dressing of course.  You can easily avoid the bad stuff--sugar, chemical additives, fat, and so on.  Meanwhile, you are getting plenty of nutrients.  It's a win-win.

That said, can you imagine being a raw foods vegan in Hattiesburg, MS?  Give me a break.  Life is hard enough.  Besides, I can't imagine there's a thing in the world wrong with grilled eggplant or stir fry broccoli.  I'm inspired by the idea of a raw foods diet, but I'm not going to do it.  I do like the idea, however, of trying a half-raw diet as was suggested in the article.  I might try it.  At least I might try sort of aiming at it.  I'm not making any charts or graphs to prove I'm sticking to a strict ratio.  I just want to make a point of eating more raw fruits and vegetables under the assumption that this means I'm eating less of something else, like sugar, chemical additives, or fat.