Human Studies

In 1950, Dr. Masavore Kuratsuna, head of the Medical Department of the University of Kyushu in Japan, used himself and his wife to validate previous studies comparing the effects of raw and cooked foods on humans. Both of them followed a raw version of the World War II prisoners of war diet that the Japanese had given to their prisoners. It consisted of only 728-826 calories per day: brown rice, vegetables and a little fruit, 22-30 grams of protein, 7.5-8 grams of fat, and 164-207 grams of carbohydrates. They followed a raw version of it for three different periods: 120 days in winter, 81 days in spring and 32 days in summer. During this time, Mrs. Kuratsuna was breast-feeding a baby and found that nursing was less of a strain than before the experiment. Both continued to do their usual work and found themselves in good health. They then switched to eating a cooked version of the same diet. The symptoms of the hunger diseases that devastated the inmates of the Japanese camps, edema, vitamin deficiencies and collapse manifested. They proved that even this inadequate diet could maintain health and even the health of a nursing mother, if eaten raw.