Get Ready To Raw!

Are you feeling a little melon-cauli? The secret to lifting your mood is to add more fruit and vegetables to your diet

The typical Western diet is packed with processed, pre-prepared and takeaway foods with many spending around RM22 billion a year on fast foods.

But we aren’t as quick to spend money on fresh fruit and vegetables. The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation Fruit, Vegetables and Diet Score report found one in two adults don’t eat enough fruit and two out of three adults are not eating enough vegetables. But a growing body of evidence is finding that not only should we be eating more fruits and vegetables, we should eat them in their natural state – raw.

From improving mood and mental health to helping with weight loss and reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes, some studies suggest including more raw foods in our diet brings a wealth of physical and mental health benefits.

Better Mental Health

One of the latest studies to support raw foods is from the University of Otago in New Zealand, where researches found eating raw fruits and vegetables has a better effect on mental health than cooked, canned or processed fruits and vegetables.

“A few years ago, I ran a study where we gave people fresh fruits and vegetables, such as carrots, kiwifruit, apples and oranges. We found people reported increases in positive mood in just under two weeks,” says Dr Tamlin Conner, a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Otago.

“We didn’t find that increase for people who ate cooked fruits and vegetables – people who ate them raw showed the greatest increase in wellbeing.”