[ronb]

Actually I was told the opposite - once your digestion is working properly your body breaks down the cellular walls just fine and there are a lot more nutrients to extract. After a few months of the raw diet, i realized i could eat a lot less than i was used to eating probably for that reason - more efficient utilization of energy.

Also...as the raw food thing has been gaining momentum - there are now some great cookbooks out there, not what you would expect (eg take a piece of wood, add water, and eat), but books by people like charley trotter who worked with the famous place in LA, Roxanne's; also a new book by the restaurant in NY called Pure Food & Wine (that's the restaurant, not the book). Pretty great recipes and ideas in there. So it's a lot of really tasty stuff also.