This post’s title promises that a raw diet makes weight loss easy. The older version of this page mixed a raw cake held together by Medjool dates, a glass of freshly squeezed vegetable juice and, oddly, bacon-wrapped chicken bites. This version follows one thread from that menu. Several of the vegetables it named are mostly water by weight. Does water that sits inside a food act any differently from water drunk from a glass? A Penn State nutrition lab has tested exactly that.
Water inside the food, not beside it
In a 1999 study, Rolls and colleagues fed 24 lean women breakfast, lunch and dinner in their lab one day a week for four weeks. On three of those days, each woman ate a starter 17 minutes before lunch. The three starters had the same energy (1,128 kJ). One was a chicken rice casserole. One was the same casserole served with a glass of water (356 g). The third was a chicken rice soup made from the same ingredients, in the same amounts, as the casserole served with water.
After the soup, the women ate 1,209 kJ at lunch. After the casserole they ate 1,657 kJ with the glass of water and 1,639 kJ without it. Turning the water into part of the dish made them feel fuller and less hungry. The same water drunk alongside the casserole made no difference to how full they felt. They also did not make up for the smaller lunch at dinner.
Chunky or blended made no difference
A later Penn State trial by Flood and Rolls (2007) asked 60 normal-weight men and women to come in for lunch once a week for five weeks. Before lunch they ate one of four vegetable soup starters or no starter. The soups were broth and vegetables served separately, a chunky soup, a part-puréed soup or a fully puréed soup. Having soup first cut the total energy of the meal by 20%, about 134 kcal. The type of soup made no significant difference.
Both trials used cooked soup, and each test lasted a single day. Neither tested a raw diet, and neither followed anyone’s weight over time. They show something narrower: in both, eating soup first was followed by a smaller lunch than the comparison meal.
The old juice recipe, checked against food data
The juice on the older page listed carrot, celery, beet root, parsley and cucumber. Here is what USDA FoodData Central gives for four of them raw, per 100 g, next to Medjool dates:
| Food (per 100 g) | Water (g) | Energy (kcal) |
|---|---|---|
| Celery, raw | 95.4 | 14 |
| Cucumber with peel, raw | 95.2 | 15 |
| Parsley, fresh | 87.7 | 36 |
| Beets, raw | 87.6 | 43 |
| Dates, Medjool | 21.3 | 277 |
The NHS counts vegetable juice with fruit juice and smoothies. Together they count as one of your 5 A Day at most, with a combined limit of 150ml a day. The Rolls study tested plain water served with food, not juice, so it says nothing direct about a glass of vegetable juice.
Where the Medjool dates in the raw cake fit
The older post said its raw cake was held together by whole Medjool dates. By weight, Medjool dates hold far less water than the vegetables above and about 20 times the energy of celery. A 30g portion comes to about 83 kcal. The NHS counts 30g of dried fruit, naming dates among its examples, as one of your 5 A Day, and says to eat it at mealtimes rather than as a snack between meals.
The older post also suggested nuts as a filling snack and sent readers to find more information on another site.
Asking about dates on this site
Rotab Mozafati Bam’s about page mentions prices for retail and wholesale buyers, delivery across Malaysia and customer service through WhatsApp, and asks readers to get in touch for a quote. The contact page carries an enquiry form, and older posts are on the blog.