The "Raw Food Diet” - where you can only eat whole foods that have not been cooked above 118 degrees - is still considered an unusual and challenging lifestyle to many. However, trends like the Paleo diet, veganism, buying organic, and steering clear of industrialized foods are all very familiar to most Americans, regardless of whether they abide by the lifestyles themselves.

Thousands of vegan-friendly restaurants and Primal gyms, gluten-free blogs and books about raw food have sprung into existence in the course of a few decades. Proponents of specific dietary patterns often meet up and build communities of like-minded individuals, both on the web and near home. Online, you can find an infinite array of websites about set eating plans, some bearing dubious infomercial-like promises that their dietary lifestyle alone can cure a person of cancer, arthritis, osteoporosis and obesity in a blink of an eye.

According to Alan Levinovitz in his recent book "The Gluten Lie: And Other Myths About What You Eat”, the trendy diets seen today are nothing new. Superstitions and taboos regarding one’s diet are ancient human traditions that can be observed in most world religions today. Of course, we cannot discredit or generalize the reasons behind choosing to follow any form of dietary restriction; yet, we should take the rising food fads with a grain of salt.

Levinovitz analyzed several ancient societies, and he observed a few patterns. Many of them classify certain foods as sacred, such as red wine, which represents the blood of Christ and salvation in Christianity. Others deem some foods as profane, such as pork meat in both Islam and Jewish cultures. In order to achieve salvation, one must steer clear of ungodly foods. It is not a long-shot to compare these ancient traditions to the food trends today. Take the paleo and primal movement for example, where legumes and grains are considered unhealthy, bearing on poisonous, and are shunned by most paleo supporters. At the same time, they argue that a significant proportion of their diets should be composed of animal meat, something many vegans would argue to be unhealthy, bearing on poisonous, to both the body and the environment.

Levinovitz also observed that many primeval cultures believed that, in order to be saved, one must give up the foods consumed by the majority of society. Taoist monks of the first century CE believed that people could achieve transcendence and avoid all diseases if they were to stop eating grains, the main food source at the time. Similarly, the health gurus today seem to want to steer clear of all cheap, readily available, processed foods, which make up at least a portion of the diet of the majority of Americans. Both the modern health fad supporters and the Taoist monks appear to reject mainstream culture. Instead they promise a return to a pre-industrial, pre-agricultural, whole food era.

Modern diets can help many individuals become healthy and find fulfillment, something advocates of these lifestyles will most certainly proudly showcase on their webpages and vlogs. Nevertheless, believing that they can bring miraculous transformations to our lives can drill a hole in our wallets and be downright dangerous to our health if not well backed with a physician’s approval and research. Bear that in mind if you ever feel reluctant to boil your carrots to above 118 degrees.