IS CASTRO DONE YET? :

Totally Uncooked (PEGGY ORENSTEIN, September 1, 2002, NY Times Magazine)

Cooked food has not passed Klein's lips in five years -- that means not only meat but also vegetarian staples like pasta, rice and beans, which are not tasty in their natural state. Since, like most raw-foodists, he is also vegan, he abstains from dairy and eggs. Even tofu is taboo, because the soybeans it is made from are cooked. ''I've never felt better,'' Klein says. He sleeps less, has more energy. He even eats less. Although he does a two-hour ashtanga yoga workout each morning, he subsists on about 800 calories a day, which most nutritionists would consider starvation level. (The recommended daily allowance for an active adult male is 2,900 calories.) Raw-foodists claim, however, that uncooked calories metabolize more efficiently -- although there is no evidence for this. When I suggest that vegans I've met often look sickly, he shrugs. ''What we perceive as healthy may to a certain extent be socially determined,'' he says. ''They may have been very healthy and just looked weird to you.'' Klein himself is gaunt, though his arms are enviably muscular.

Klein is among a growing number of people who believe that eating uncooked ''living foods'' extends youth and staves off disease -- who, in some cases, consider cooked food tantamount to poison. Heat, they maintain, depletes food's protein and vitamin content and concentrates any pesticides. More important, it destroys a food's natural enzymes, which, enthusiasts claim, facilitate digestion; to absorb cooked food, they say, the body must use up its own limited supply of enzymes. By helping the body retain enzymes, a ''living foods'' diet supposedly delays aging, boosts energy and prevents or cures virtually all life-threatening diseases. ''In nature, all animals eat living foods,'' wrote the raw-foods pioneer T.C. Fry, who died six years ago at a relatively youthful 70. ''Only humans cook their foods, and only humans suffer widespread sicknesses and ailments.'' He also wrote, ''All the diseases of civilization -- cancer, heart disease, diabetes -- are all directly attributable to the consumption of cooked food.''

The raw-foodist subculture is a mix of alternative-health types, spiritual seekers and the aggressively trendy. (Celebrity devotees include Demi Moore and Angela Bassett.) Many people turn to the movement after struggling with chronic illness or obesity. Numerous Web sites peddle juicers, suggest recipes and offer testimonials that read like conversion experiences. ''It was about two years ago, at the height of my suffering from deadly cancer, that I was introduced to the raw-food diet, which completely changed my life,'' proclaims one of the faithful on rawfood.com. There are potlucks in Little Rock, festivals in Portland, conferences in Boston, tropical retreats in Bali. A small library's worth of ''uncookbooks'' have been published, and there is a movement afoot to pressure the Food Network into producing a raw-foods show.

It would be easy to dismiss raw cookery as kookery, and many do. But the rise of raw also reflects something about America's current mood. Extreme dietary regimens tend to crop up during times of crisis as a simple fix for society's ills. Amid the wave of social reforms in the 19th century, Sylvester Graham (of cracker fame) linked vegetarianism -- and home-baked bread in particular -- to spiritual salvation. A short time later, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, inventor of cornflakes, promoted a regimen of ''biologic living,'' which, in addition to some visionary ideas about diet and exercise, included five daily enemas and radium therapy.

Living-food gurus similarly promise not only better health but also increased wealth, spiritual enlightenment and inner contentment -- something that, these days, many of us find in short supply. In fact, by serving up equal parts fashion and phobia, raw-foodists may have hit on the ideal cuisine for an anxious time. ''In American life today, there's a lot we can't control,'' says Barbara Haber, author of ''From Hardtack to Home Fries: An Uncommon History of American Cooks and Meals.'' ''But everyone has control over their own intake. We can't control terrorism, but we can make sure we don't eat anything cooked.''

While mildly sympathetic to folks who feel the world today is beyond their control, might I suggest an alternative way of asserting control that involves food but that's much more fun? Try doing what the wife and I do: when you go to the store today to pick out a steak, give it a name, the name of someone you hate, maybe Osama bin Laden. Then, rather than eating it raw, barbecue it. Barbecue it with flames leaping up. Barbecue it until the outside is black and crusty. Than hack it up with a sharp knife and woof it down. This sort of symbolic anthropophagy may not reflect any better mental health but it sure as heck tastes better than raw macaroni. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 31, 2002 10:02 AM