 It's not what you eat, though, but what you absorb. Check out this study on long-term raw foodists. This study was done in Europe, so the average Western diet here wasn't terrible. Four servings of fruits and vegetables a day versus a batter diet. Seven servings a day of fruits and veggies, both raw and cooked, versus a raw food diet in which they ate, on average, a whopping 17 servings of fruits and veggies a day, treating them to have about three times the beta-carotene intake. But that's intake. How much of it actually got into their bloodstream? Blood beta-carotene is considered a good surrogate marker for a healthy diet. Tell me what your blood beta-carotene level is, and I'll tell you what your health risk is. So who had the most beta-carotene in their bodies? Those eating four servings a day, seven, or 14? It was the middle group, the seven servings a day group, because cooking can boost the absorption of phytonutrients like the cooked carrots, having more antioxidants than raw. The raw foodists here were eating 17 servings a day, and basically had the same amount of this phytonutrient reaching their internal organs as those on the crappy standard diet. So I recommend a combination of raw and cooked foods.