Raw Food Articles in the Online Media

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Raw Food Articles

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'Vice Cream'-
Recipes for
gourmet
dairy-free
"ice cream"!
(Includes raw recipes!)

Direct from the author

To go raw, you can kiss the microwave goodbye and unplug the stove. Adios, cow's milk. Helloooo, nut milk.

While it's still a tiny niche group that eats largely or exclusively raw, curiosity about raw food is on the rise.
…
Once viewed as fringe lunatics going back to the days before fire, raw foodists are ever more mainstream.

The movement is most active in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, but Seattle has a thriving scene, with a community of around 500 people and an increasing number of restaurants, markets and raw products.

The raw food diet isn’t yet very wide spread in Toronto. There are only a handful of restaurants and chefs here catering to this diet/philosophy. But the appeal of this seemingly restrictive way of eating may increase with the infusion of gourmet raw cuisine into the city’s dining scene, particularly at the sweet end of the spectrum.

Raw food culinary artist Jessica Acs is hoping that the appeal of flavour and excitement will lead folks to try a healthy alternative to traditional cooking.

Jessica, born in Toronto, trained at a culinary school in Northern California specializing in raw vegan cuisine. She started off vegetarian and gave veganism a chance while she was there. “It was the right environment. It’s easier when you are surrounded by other people doing it. And it’s pretty mainstream in California.”

The raw food movement immediately appealed to her. “I fell in love with it. I thought it was beautiful. It’s exciting to be a part of something that makes you feel really good and be dedicated to it.

“But I came back to Toronto, because I love this city and I wanted to bring something back that wasn’t so mainstream here.”

Saturday, April 26
BENNINGTON — Tim VanOrden will do whatever it takes today to get his body to the top of a 62-story skyscraper in downtown Los Angeles before hundreds of others.

But unlike his competitors, he is only fueled by fruits and vegetables, some nuts and some seeds, and he eats them only in their natural state: uncooked, unprocessed and unrefined. He is a raw vegan athlete and has been for the past three years.

Long Beach, CA – Prescription drugs have long been the main weapon for children – and increasingly adults – when battling Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Side effects for various medications can range from anxiety or nervousness to insomnia. “Before settling for the quick fix of pills, there are natural approaches that should be considered,” contends nutritional expert David Sandoval, author of “The Green Foods Bible.”

The causes of ADD, which is a recurrent pattern of behavior characterized by short attention spans, impulsivity and may include hyperactivity, are hot topics for debate and speculation as to whether it is environmental or genetic.

Years of research and studying, consulting with the world’s premiere authorities in holistic medicines and promoting raw food nutrition led Sandoval to create the “Plant-Based Nutrition Program,” which he believes can potentially help ADD sufferers (and/or their parents). He says there is most definitely a relationship between diet and disease, “Everything the human body needs to live a long, disease-free life has been provided by the Earth.”

I will be the first to admit it ain't easy going raw. After years of double cheese pizzas, rich Cabernet's, banana puddings and indulgences in other desserts like cannoli, going raw was not my first choice. Eating veggies every single day can cause you to look at your neighbor and wonder how they might taste with a little ketchup and mustard.

Not long ago, having had one too many salads, I pulled out some turkey burgers, added a veggie patty to the mix and made myself a cheese burger. If you had seen me eat that thing you certainly would have thought I had not eaten in decades. It was so tasty, so good and I believe I inhaled it in less than 10 seconds.

Admittedly, though it can be quite boring, I feel so much better with whole and organic foods. The more I eat, the better I feel and to be honest, though that turkey/veggie burger was delicious I paid dearly for the pleasure.

How'd They Do That?
A raw-food chef turns nuts into cheese (and performs other delicious miracles).

The restaurant Grezzo, which, in Italian, means "rough or raw," opened two months ago in the North End. Its owner, Alissa Cohen, a petite brunette who is married and who divides her time among three states, is the author of the cookbook Living on Live Food, which prescribes eating only fruits, vegetables, sprouted grains, and nuts, with nothing cooked to temperatures above 112 degrees - a little warmer than a baby's bath water. Her restaurant does the same.

PALM BEACH — Juliano, a star in the raw food world, came to "cook" dinner recently in Palm Beach. He is a chef of a cuisine that requires no stove or oven - and definitely no microwave.

All five of the courses he prepared were made from "living" or raw foods, using a cutting board, blender, and a dehydrator.

Juliano (last name, Brotman, though he doesn't give it out) and his partner Ariel Michaels, were brought in from their Santa Monica, Calif., restaurant by Kipper Lance to make dinner for 75 friends and fellow raw foodists.

They have always appeared to be normal, although one of them is the rock critic.

Here, I think, is the key thing to understand about a strict raw-food diet. Before you begin, you don't binge, you detox.

The dieters can't eat meat or chicken or fish — even if they kill it with their own bare hands and don't cook it. And while I could be mistaken about this, I believe they are only allowed to drink water directly out of the Connecticut River.

Raw food has long been seen as the preserve of Woody Harrelson and health nuts, but now it seems to be moving into the mainstream due to environmental concerns. Greenies, get ready for the Raw Food Revolution.

Orthodox raw foodists do what they say on the tin -- they only eat raw food. They believe that when food is heated above 40 degrees Celcius the molecular structure changes, which can create unnatural and potentially dangerous chemical compounds. By treating food by means of fermenting, pickling or dehydrating, they preserve the nutrients and enzymes that raw food contains. While most raw foodists joined the 'crusade' for health reasons, new raw revolutionaries have joined the fun for environmental and animal welfare reasons.

Ancient way of eating is made new again
A diet based on raw foods predates the discovery of fire, but thanks to inventive foodies, it's now ranked as both sophisticated and nutritious

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- No, it doesn't just mean eating salads and fruit; and it's far beyond a focus on sushi, raw clams and nuts.

We're talking about a diet based strictly on raw foods, but it's an eating scheme that's far more creative than the average person realizes.

Thanks to clever restaurant chefs as well as vegetarians and vegans with innovative ideas, there's a certain percentage of New Yorkers who have switched to an eating plan that on the surface seems to be very 21st century.

The raw foods diet, however, is a sophisticated version of the way humans ate millenia ago -- a pattern of eating that predates the discovery of fire.

For the last four years, Everson has been keeping his food from the flame and eating a raw food diet.

Everson is the director of Raw Denver, a group of similar taste-budded metro residents that have been gathering for a while to trade recipes and keep each other from the cooktops.

Pasteurization Nation
How fresh foods are freaking out the feds, and why you should care

If you’re not nuts about nuts (sorry, we just couldn’t resist), the USDA’s recent ruling requiring all store-sold raw almonds to be pasteurized probably passed under your radar. And it’s true, for the average occasional nut-eater, the raw almond ban was unlikely to raise an eyebrow. After all, a nut’s a nut right? How much difference could there be between pasteurized and unpasteurized?

Quite a lot, as it turns out. In the case of almonds, the difference is essentially one of life and death: a raw (living) almond can be sprouted and planted whereas a pasteurized almond cannot. And when you consider that almonds are just the latest target in the USDA’s campaign to pasteurize-whenever-possible, you might find it worth paying closer attention.

“Outlawing food products in their natural state is a slippery slope,” says Janabai Amsden, co-owner of Euphoria Loves Rawvolution Café in Santa Monica, California. “We are cheapening our food from both a price and nutritional standpoint.”

When we try to eat local meat, fruit and vegetables produced within a 100-mile radius of our homes, we clear the air by taking a few dozen transport trucks off the road. Some of us buy organic food because it doesn't pollute the Earth or our bodies. Eating more vegetables and less meat reduces your carbon footprint.

Now, the focus is shifting to cooking, where environmental bogeymen lurk: Torontonians are advised not to use propane barbecues on smog days; gas stoves burn through a non-renewable energy resource; and freezers, refrigerators and microwaves are energy vampires, sucking up electricity produced partly by coal-fired generating stations.

But there is one way of eating that can minimize your carbon footprint and that is a raw-food diet. And even though raw foodists often rely on electrical appliances to grind, mix or chop their food, it is possible to peel and whisk by hand.

The raw food diet is becoming increasingly popular, not just with celebrities but also "regular people". They are beginning to see how a raw food diet can dramatically improve the way you look and feel as well as extending your life expectancy.

By reading on you'll discover some of the benefits of a raw food eating plan but you'll also get some useful meal plan ideas and recipes which might just encourage you to give this diet a go for the good of your health. At least this way you'll know what to expect if you decide to give the raw food diet a go. That way, you can decide if it is something you'd like to look into a little further.

30 Days of Raw
Three Hartford Courant staffers blog their 30-day challenge to get healthy by eating only raw foods.

Going on a vegan raw-food diet for 30 days strikes me alternately as a great opportunity to revise my eating habits into something healthier, and a living hell.

First the hell part: I like cooked foods. A lot. Giving them up is going to be a challenge, for sure. No steak? No eggs? No cheese? Ouch.

On the other hand, raw foodists rave about how energetic they feel all the time, and tout the various benefits of a chillier diet. Sure, I’m a little skeptical, and I wonder if I’ll spend the next 30 days with hunger pangs. But I’m also willing to give it a shot: Getting in the habit of gravitating toward healthy food can only be a good thing, especially given an irregular work schedule that makes it all too tempting to eat junk on the run.

In a couple of weeks London's East End will be the home of the first official vegan gourmet restaurant in the country, Saf. The man behind the venture, Chad Sarno, has been hailed as "the Gordon Ramsay of raw food" -- he helped start the organic revolution in Turkey and has opened other vegan restaurants in Istanbul and Munich.

With the flagship Saf restaurant in London, Sarno hopes it will help position vegan and raw food firmly in the mainstream. We've had a look at the opening menu and it's impressive and exciting, featuring grub like macadamia cheese, greens, flowers, lavender panna cotta and hemp praline. We can't wait to check out the cocktails in the 100 per cent organic restaurant bar, too.

Grezzo, which means “raw” in Italian, is an upscale vegan restaurant specializing in “raw and living food.” No heat above 112 degrees is permitted, so the only cooking appliance is a dehydrator. Cold is allowed, so there’s gelato. But since there’s no dairy, the ice cream and cold sauces are made from nut milk. The menu is also pretty much devoid of gluten. The compensation for all of these limitations is the ingenuity of chef Alissa Cohen, who’s been eating this way for more than 20 years, plus an enormous variety of top-of-the-line vegetable ingredients.

Most are aware of the benefits of including vegetables in their diets, but the advantages of choosing them raw is not as widely acknowledged, says Diana Stoevelaar, co-founder with her partner Manu Davé of the Calgary Raw Vegan Network.

"You don't need to be vegetarian -- you need to be curious and willing to learn new ways to incorporate more raw fruits and vegetables into your diet," says Stoevelaar, a raw food educator and coach who has lived on a high raw food diet for 17 years.

Just when you're patting yourself on the back for improving your eating habits, along comes an approach to food that reminds you what a wretched, greedy glutton you are.

Forget vegetarianism, macrobiotics, even veganism. Now you're supposed to eat raw.

Raw foodists eat fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds - sprouted, dehydrated or fermented, but not anything pasteurized, processed, distilled or heated much above 105 degrees.

You've probably heard it before, and you'll likely hear it again: raw food is all the craze. But what's the idea behind skipping the 'cooking' bit of cooking? Is a raw, crunchy carrot really going to do more for you than a cooked one?

"People do it to lose weight and then realize how amazing they feel," Cohen said.

Many are interested in the lifestyle and diet because of weight loss claims and other health benefits.

MARIN, Calif. -- Riding another trend in healthy eating, Whole Food Markets in Northern California are offering "raw food" grab-n-go items.

The grocer, in collaboration with Chef Roxanne Klein, is stocking items such as Tibetan Trail Mix and pinwheel sandwiches made from nuts and soy, according to a report in Contra Costa Times.

"What I find is that when people try raw foods, they are first bowled over by how they taste, then they realize how much better raw foods make them feel," the celebrated chef told the newspaper. Klein invested two years designing a line of grab-and-go raw foods that just rolled out at the Whole Foods Markets.

You might not think your diet is depressed, but raw foodies like Miko Fossum call what many of us eat — things like meat, milk and cheese — SAD, or the “Standard American Diet.”

Fossum, who owns Magdalena’s Tea House, offers diners an alternative: vegan and raw cuisine.

Fossum started experimenting with raw food preparation at home and for the Thursday night five-course raw dinners Magdalena’s started in May. Realizing the teahouse’s small kitchen was unused during the day, Fossum decided to start offering the menu on a daily basis. “Raw food is so tasty and so good for you,” she says.

Turn off the stove, unplug the microwave and don't even think about using that toaster oven. Your tummy will thank you. "What I find is that when people try raw foods, they are first bowled over by how they taste, then they realize how much better raw foods make them feel," says celebrated Marin chef Roxanne Klein, the woman who put raw food on the restaurant map. Months after Klein's wildly popular restaurant Roxanne's closed in 2004, she started brainstorming about how she could continue to spread the word about the benefits of raw food. "The restaurant was an incredible forum, and it was great because you could make food and serve it immediately, but the restaurant setting is somewhat limiting," she says. "I wanted to reach more people."

With that goal in mind, Klein invested two years designing a line of grab-and-go raw foods that just rolled out at Northern California Whole Foods markets. Klein's new line, called Roxanne's Fine Cuisine, basically kicks healthy food up a notch.

Author and nutrition expert David Wolfe comes to town Saturday and Sunday to extol the raw-food lifestyle.

Wolfe, author of "Naked Chocolate" and "Eating for Beauty," will be the keynote speaker at the Raw Network of Washington's annual fundraising gala and dinner at the Columbia Tower Saturday.

Tickets cost $100. He'll also speak Sunday at a three-hour session at Bastyr University in Kenmore.

Tickets for the general public are $35. For more information or to buy tickets, go to rawwashington.org or brownpapertickets.com.

BOSTON -- Diets can be vegetarian, organic or even vegan. Now, a restaurant opening this week in Boston's North End is offering all raw foods, but there's certainly more on the menu than just carrots and celery sticks.

Gnocci with fresh peas, mushroom lasagna and even decadent chocolate cake: these are just some of the items being offered at Grezzo, a new restaurant opening in Boston's famous North End. But this restaurant does not cook a thing.

"The concept of Grezzo is fresh whole live foods," said Alissa Cohen, the restaurant's owner and author of the cookbook, "Living On Live Food." "Everything is made from fruits, vegetables, nuts and sprouted grains," she said.

CHECKING IN WITH ... Jenny Ross: Getting raw
Jenny Ross, the executive chef of the 118 Degrees raw food restaurant at the Camp, has catered to a small but choice crowd in her years as a restaurateur.

Jenny Ross, the executive chef of the 118 Degrees raw food restaurant at the Camp, has catered to a small but choice crowd in her years as a restaurateur. The Orange County native founded the Taste of the Goddess Cafe in Los Angeles before launching her new enterprise in Costa Mesa last year — and she’s served a few famous people along the way. Ross spoke to the Daily Pilot before another arduous day of not cooking for her customers.

This South Florida woman says she has found the fountain of youth. Annette Larkins attributes it to all of the raw food she eats. She says diabetes, high blood pressure and cancer were prevalent in her family.

Is there not a fresher way to start your morning of then with raw food? Eating uncooked (nothing above 110 degrees F) and unprocessed organic vegan food might be just the wake-me-up energizer some need and with two locations in the Los Angeles area, Leaf Cuisine might fit that bill.

Briefly hospitalized early last week, Gwyneth Paltrow really got the gossips going over her diet: Reports had her shunning hospital fare in favor of the L.O.V.E. fast - a week of raw, vegan, organic food from the lower East Side food and fashion shop called Organic Avenue. Reports were that Paltrow had the meals delivered to her hospital room.

We know what you're thinking: No wonder the starlet's in the hospital if all she's eating is sunflower seed paste.

Royersford, Pa.: January 14, 2008 -- It seems everyday there's a new diet or suggested way to eat that promises you will lose weight, have more energy and improve your health overall. We've come across one program that sounds pretty extreme and its followers are making some pretty remarkable claims, although dietitians are skeptical.

Recently we went to a gathering in Royersford, Montgomery County that started out like any other big social dinner.

That's it! It's called "Raw Food" eating, there's no meat, no fish, no dairy, no processed food and nothing is cooked.

Doctors diagnosed my aunt with terminal pancreatic cancer in 2003, a disease that kills most within three to six months. She lived for nearly three years, in part because of her excellent doctors and supportive family, but also because of her regimented lifestyle change when it came to food.

A good portion of her new diet consisted of raw and live foods: fresh-juiced fruits and vegetables; dehydrated foods; uncooked, unprocessed, local products; nuts, grains, etc. Nutritionists emphasize a predominately raw diet for myriad reasons—enzymes in uncooked foods aid digestion, freeing up enzymes in your body for other metabolic uses (disease fighting, etc.); live foods have bacteria that aid the colon; raw foods have greater bioavailability and nutritional value (heat kills!). Raw-food enthusiasts claim that diets can lead to improved strength, clearer skin, stable weight, and elimination of the common cold and other nagging illnesses.

That said, is it reasonable to eat only raw, live, fresh, local, organic vegetarian food? Could you do it for a week?

Raw vegetable 'hamburgers', uncooked curry and green algae chocolate bars. Forget all those other New Year diets...Lowri Turner goes cold turkey with the toughest detox of them all...

The first day of my seven day raw lifestyle challenge begins with a home visit from raw lifestyle coach, Jess Michael. She doesn't have the consumptive pallor you expect from a vegan, and is actually quite perky. Still, we'll see how perky I am in a week.

Since adopting the raw food lifestyle - consuming only uncooked and unprocessed foods - Clark has jettisoned a chronic illness and says she feels better at age 52 than she did a decade ago.

Clark's move from vegetarian to raw vegan was so positive that she enrolled in the Living Light Culinary Arts Institute in California to become a certified vegan raw chef and instructor.

SOUTH GATE -- Nestled in a shopping center where the aromas drift in from an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet and a Mexican restaurant on one side and a burger joint on the other is an increasingly popular new restaurant where the smell of cooking food never wafts out the door.

Get closer to the kitchen, though, and catch whiffs of fresh vegetables or cut fruit, the more subtle background notes for a profoundly different way of eating.

The Bay area is far from a hotbed of vegetarian or vegan activity, with few restaurants dedicated to serving meatless diners. It's even worse down in Sarasota, except they have one thing going for them: the Gulf Coast's first raw restaurant — Veggie Magic (4428 Bee Ridge Road, Sarasota, 941-377-6209 or veggiemagic.com) — newly opened last month.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Just three servings a month of raw broccoli or cabbage can reduce the risk of bladder cancer by as much as 40 percent, researchers reported this week.

Other studies show that dark-colored berries can reduce the risk of cancer too -- adding more evidence to a growing body of research that shows fruits and vegetables, especially richly colored varieties, can reduce the risk of cancer.

The sexy star - who recently stripped off to front a racy PETA campaign - says she owes her shapely figure to munching raw fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds.

BEVERLY - Imagine life without potato chips and candy bars. Imagine eating all your vegetables. Imagine never using your stove again.

That's the basis of a raw food diet, which seems to be gaining popularity around the world and on Cabot Street, home to one of New England's only restaurant that serves predominately raw food.

Organic Garden is a destination for raw foodies, as they're called, who drive hours to eat out in the only place where they can order something they can't make themselves, and go home inspired. It's appealing to locals, as well.

Swampscott resident Deb Fox has been on the diet for about six years. It's more of a lifestyle, she said, one that grows on you by the meal. In the last year, she made the jump from eating about 50 percent raw to 90 percent.

In the ancient Indian Vedic Literature, there is a simple but powerful saying: “avert the danger which has not yet come.” Recently my wife and I went through our own averting process at the Optimum Health Institute (OHI) in San Diego. The OHI program consists of three week-long sessions teaching ancient spiritual disciplines that promote healing. Participants learn to purify and detoxify the body with diet, fasting, cleansing and exercise, how to quiet the mind with journaling and meditation, and how to strengthen the spirit with study, prayer and celebration. In a safe and sacred environment promoting faith, love and hope, people experience God’s presence in the healing of themselves and others.

Raw food provided nutrition for plants and animals millenia before humankind discovered fire. Many believe that early man was vegetarian while others contend that our primitive ancestors were hunters who ate raw meat. Most historians, however, will agree on the fact that the raw food diet is hardly a new trend. Some people even believe that it holds the answer to disease and addiction.

The raw food diet is primarily based on unprocessed, uncooked plants (preferably organic whole foods) like fruits and vegetables, sprouts, seeds, nuts, grains, beans and seaweed. The occasional unpasteurized goat cheese, uncooked egg or raw fish are generally deemed acceptable although most raw-foodists abstain from eating meat and dairy products. Eating raw doesn’t necessarily mean the food must be cold. In fact, anything you eat can be warmed up so long as it doesn’t exceed 104 degrees. Microwaves are off-limits, but you can heat food by using a dehydrator or even the warming plate of a coffee maker. There are many ways of making food palatable without heating. Soaking nuts can soften or extract the shells without steam. Sprouting seeds, beans and grains substitutes the need for cooking.

A "switch went off" for Philip McCluskey when he started eating a raw vegan diet a year and a half ago. Ultimately he lost 130 pounds, down from his "max weight" of 400, and now feels "happier and lighter" inside and out.

At 5-foot-10 he wants to slim down to 200, but conquering obesity is only part of the story, says McCluskey.

The Danbury native changed his diet overnight, leaving behind a regimen of "highly processed food" that often consisted of "dollar meals" from a fast-food restaurant. A typical order was "a couple of chicken sandwiches, large fries and a milk shake," items he now considers "fake foods." These days he prefers to savor only raw fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts and seaweed for every meal.

For those of us who have become so accustomed to buying chocolate bars off supermarket racks it might be a shocking reminder to hear that chocolate grows on trees - real chocolate at least. The source of all chocolate is the cocao beans (a nut by definition), the seed of the cocao fruit tree.

Julie Lambert, a raw food chef from Hermanus, gave a seminar on Friday, 19 October at the Food and Wine Village conference centre, unfolding the secrets of real chocolate. Those who attended were treated to mouth watering, non-fat-tening chocolate delights while listening to a fascinating talk on the origin of chocolate and the health benefits of cacao and goji berries as superfoods - the term superfood refers to a type of food that has more significant health benefits than any other type of food due to its specific phyto-nutrient content - coconut oil and chorella.

COOL COOK: Chef Rose Vasile is proving that people eating food that has not been heavily cooked are not getting a raw deal.

Many people have probably heard about the health benefits of eating more raw vegan foods and wondered how many carrot sticks and salads a person can eat?

Raw food preparation is a refinement of flavour, colour and texture combinations to create a cuisine that is healthy, beautiful, delicious and easy to prepare. Raw foods refers to fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds which haven't been heated above 40°C.

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Raw for Thirty, LLC announced today that 'Raw For Life,' a two-disc DVD compendium of information on adopting a raw vegan diet, is now available for direct online purchase at www.Rawfor30days.com.

'Raw For Life' covers the benefits of following a raw vegan diet. It provides a lifestyle-appropriate 'how-to' for making such a change and delivers extremely actionable information for those interested in the link between nutrition and health. It includes more than 30 interviews with health and medical experts, celebrities, prominent leaders in the raw foods movement, plus demos by top raw chefs preparing their signature dishes. The DVD contains appearances by actor/activist Woody Harrelson, 'The Secret' star Reverend Dr. Michael Beckwith, motivational guru Tony Robbins, leading alternative medicine expert Gary Null, director Morgan Spurlock ('Super Size Me'), raw food advocate David Wolfe, medical doctors Joel Fuhrman, Julian Whitaker and Gabriel Cousens, pro athletes, authors, and dozens more.

"There is a significant movement to incorporate more raw, vegan foods in an everyday diet, but there can be confusion about how to transition to healthier food," said Joel Fuhrman, M.D., one of the country's leading experts on nutrition and natural healing and the author of Eat To Live: The Revolutionary Plan for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss, Fasting and Eating for Health: A Medical Doctor's Program for Conquering Disease, and Disease-Proof Your Child. "I was glad to lend my expertise to 'Raw For Life' and to shed more light on the links between disease and diet."

I'm bringing you this report live from the Raw Spirit Festival taking place this weekend in Sedona, Arizona (www.RawSpirit.com). The festival brings together thousands of participants, over a hundred raw foods vendors and dozens of top-notch speakers, authors and artists who have so far delivered an unforgettable experience in raw living foods and high-vibration living. Organized by the delightful visionary Happy Oasis (yes, that's her real name), the festival has grown ten times in size over last year's festival, bringing the attendee count to well over 2,500 (and probably closer to 3,000). For a festival focused on raw living foods nutrition -- which was barely a blip on the radar of mainstream America just two years ago -- this is phenomenal growth. Raw foods is going mainstream!

The brain of an adult human uses 25% of the total energy expended by the entire organism, much higher than our closest primate relatives, whose brains use about 8% of their energy. The high energy cost of building, using, and maintaining our brains has long presented a riddle to evolutionary theorists. Where did this extra energy come from?

One idea is that as our ancestors switched to a meat-heavy diet, our large guts—which were capable of digesting large amounts of vegetative material—shrunk. Since meat generally contains a greater density of protein and calories than vegetables, this digestive shift allowed our ancestors to target a more efficient form of energy, while helping them develop the brainpower to hunt it. Evidence from many corners of the animal kingdom suggests that the meat eaters are smarter.

But many scientists believe that the speed with which the human brain evolved suggests that a gradual shift to a meat based diet was too gradual to fully explain this development.

“Cooking produces soft, energy-rich foods,” says Richard Wrangham, a primatologist at Harvard. This, he explains, increases the efficiency with which the food’s energy is extracted. Fewer calories are spent in digestive efforts, which leaves a higher margin of caloric recovery.
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Even if it’s true that cooked meat may have helped us evolve to where we are, I think it’s worth considering that the next dietary breakthrough might come from the opposite culinary corner: raw vegetables!

At Busy Bee Hardware, the venerable shop that has been keeping Santa Monicans in nuts and bolts for as long as anyone can remember, next to a display case filled with pocket knives, just above cans of WD-40, he discovers a comprehensive library on raw food veganism.

Raw food veganism is the hardcore version of vegetarianism. Nothing cooked. Zero animal products. All fruits and vegetables are eaten for the most part the way they are found in nature. And forget about caffeine, alcohol, sugar, salt and a few other things the Lens considers the foundation of a civilized life.

Finding books titled "Raw Food Life Force Energy" and "Eating Without Heating" at a place that sells spackle and nails, is as incongruous as finding lingerie for sale at Pep Boys.

Yes, that's right, the gourd with flesh so thick and dense that it's difficult to cut can be eaten raw. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't tried it myself.

A few days ago, a group of my friends and I went on a culinary adventure to the local raw foods restaurant. The restaurant serves a variety of dishes made from organic fruits, nuts, seeds and vegetables that aren't cooked at all during preparation. As the only vegetarian in the group and the only person to have sampled raw food before, I was a little nervous about how my foodie friends would digest the menu.

A few months after Ken Moorefield went on a strict raw food diet, he could barely believe the differences in his health.

"I had lost probably 25 pounds and was already off of cholesterol and blood pressure medicine and already on my way to being pretty healthy again," said Moorefield of Rocky Mount.

Now, seven months after he started eating only fruits and vegetables, Moorefield has lost more than 50 pounds, cut his diabetes medicine dosage in half and had about 90 percent of his arthritis pain disappear.

Sixty three year old Linda Ramirez offers a new, ground breaking cooking technique before an Earth Fare demo on Raw Foods Wednesday, September 12 – “Stick your finger in it,” she says. “If its too hot to put your finger in, its probably been cooked too much.”

Like Ramirez, Foodies across the nation are seizing their thermometers as a relatively new eating and lifestyle trend, the raw food diet, gains popularity. The emerging trend seeks to fill the diet with enzyme-rich, organic foods, with the new magical number at 116 degrees.

Followers of the raw food movement believe that heating food above the coveted 116 degree mark kills enzymes that assist in the absorption and digestion of food. Without these enzymes the body relies on its own metabolic enzymes for digestion, consuming energy and often leaving diners to feel sluggish. Seventy five percent or more of the diet must be made of raw or living food in order to experience the health benefits that leave diners feeling lighter and more energized.

Raw food diet is one of the easiest way to remove fat from diet. Easiest way to lose weight. Probably the best way to approach eating disorders, says Gary Novak.

A raw food diet creates major improvements in health. The reasons are not known, but the experience is unmistakable. Weight normalizes, which generally means a reduction in fat. At the same time, a person feels extremely energized. It's as if energy would rather be burned up than converted to fat.

There seems to be a major shift in physiology which makes one feel highly energized from raw food. I can only theorize why this occurs. It is quite likely that a large part of cooked food can only go into fat production, because heat and acid alter it making it unmetabolizable in other complex processes. By contrast, raw food should break down into components which can be directly metabolized in a variety of cells.

Health gets so refined and perfected with a raw food diet that a person notices effects of all types. The result is an important source of information about nutrition and quality of food.

Many dietitians advocate for raw food diet, which arguably provides good weight loss results and is health, but many people say they don't [wash] vegetables and fruits before eating them.

Raw Food Diet plans are so popular that a simple search brings numerous results. In fact some books on raw food diet even come up with second editions. For example the book by Jordan Maerin titled "Raw Foods for Busy People," published by Lulu press.

(09-16) 04:00 PDT Fort Bragg -- Perennially in the shadow of its glamorous neighbor to the north, Fort Bragg has built its own following among visitors who forgo Mendocino's postcard perfection and precious inns for lower prices and uncrowded streets. Fort Bragg shares the rugged shoreline that is, after all, the Mendocino coast's primary lure. And its expanding retinue of galleries and gourmet restaurants among the hardware stores and bike shops creates an appealing blend of cosmopolitan attractions and working-class attitude.

Most guests discover the inn through the Living Light Culinary Institute, which draws students from all over the world to its courses on raw food. The cooking school was new to me, but the inn is in the same dignified Craftsman home, in a residential neighborhood settled by wealthy lumber families in the 1920s. Rooms are spacious and homey, and the parlor and sun room with their warm redwood paneling have enough antiques to make the place look like a period piece.

A new food regulation that mandates the pasteurization of California almonds leaves a bad taste in the mouth of Jesse Schwartz, a purveyor of raw organic almond butter and other natural foods in Berkeley.

For 25 years, as president of Living Tree Community Foods, he has done business with small Central Valley farmers, and now, effective Sept. 1, he'll have to buy raw nuts for processing from Italy, Spain and Turkey - almonds of lesser quality, he will tell you.

"Almonds are a part of the heritage of the American people, and it makes me very sad that they're about to dump a fumigant on our American heritage," Schwartz said, referring to a method of pasteurization that involves chemicals.

Brenda Davis, registered dietitian and nutritionist from British Columbia, supports the Eat Local concept.

She spoke to the the Northern Vegetarian Society Monday night at the Marguerite Lougheed Community Centre Monday night.

“It can be tough in Canada due to the shorter growing season, but it is all about balance. I buy local fruits where I live and freeze them.

"I try as much as I can to eat locally, but if you want to have a lot of plant-based food in your diet, you have to import a fair amount in the winter or else you are forced to eat more meat,” said Davis.

Board proposes that USDA bump the Sept. 1 start date for mandatory pasteurization to March 1.

A proposed delay in the launch of a mandatory pasteurization program for California almonds is not sitting well with nut processors gearing up for the expected Sept. 1 start.

The largest organization of almond growers is asking the government for a six-month delay before enforcing a new rule requiring all California almonds to be pasteurized, saying farmers can't adjust in time to meet the original deadline.

FRESNO – The largest organization of almond growers is asking the government for a six-month delay before enforcing a new rule requiring all California almonds to be pasteurized, saying farmers can't adjust in time to meet the original deadline.

In January, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it would require virtually all almonds to be pasteurized by Sept. 1, following Salmonella outbreaks in 2001 and 2004 that were traced to raw almonds.

Now the California Almond Board wants to push back the implementation date to March 1, 2008, to give pasteurization facilities time to validate their processes and machinery and avoid interrupting the flow of nuts to the market.

Mandate Would Require Use of Chemical Fumigant or Heat Treatment on "Raw" Almonds

CORNUCOPIA, WI., August 6, 2007 /Natural Newswire/ -- Small-scale farmers, retailers, and consumers are renewing their call to the USDA to reassess the plan to “pasteurize” all California almonds with a toxic fumigant or high-temperature sterilization process. All domestic almonds will be mandated to have the treatments by early next year. The plan was quietly developed by the USDA in response to outbreaks of Salmonella in 2001 and 2004 that were traced to raw almonds.

“The almond ‘pasteurization’ plan will have many harmful impacts on consumers and the agricultural community,” said Will Fantle, research director for The Cornucopia Institute, a Wisconsin-based farm policy research group. “Only 18 public comments from the entire U.S.—and all from almond industry insiders—were received on the proposal. The logic behind both the necessity and safety of the treatments processes has not been fully or adequately analyzed—as well as the economic costs to small-scale growers and the loss of consumer choices.”

Last Wednesday, the California Almond Board suddenly requested that USDA delay the treatment mandate until March, 2008—it had been scheduled to take effect on September 1. “We support this request for a delay,” said Fantle, “but a delay, due to the industry being unprepared, isn’t enough. The USDA must also re-open the rule for public review and comment so that those who have been shut out of the decision-making process can have input into any almond treatment plan.”

Mandatory almond pasteurization restricts consumer rights and religious freedom.

Seattle, WA (PRWEB) August 2, 2007 -- As of September 1, 2007, all almonds produced in California, which are destined for the U.S., Canada, and Mexico will be required to undergo pasteurization, or at least that is the ruling passed by the Almond Board of California with the backing of the USDA. Raw foodists around the world depend on a reversal of this ruling and followers of the Essene teachings may face giving up one of their staples.

The basic reason for this exercise in control over citizen's food is two separate incidents of salmonella poisoning found in raw almonds over the last six years. These incidents involved conventional almonds, not organic almonds. Even though no incidents of salmonella poisoning have been reported from organic raw almonds, the Almond Board has decided that they, too, should be pasteurized. So, while there has been no evidence that raw organic almonds are susceptible to salmonella poisoning, the Almond Board is taking away the major source of one of raw foodists' staples.

Raw foodists show B12 deficiencies in studies. Supposed benefits are still unproven.

Sylvester Graham, the health food advocate whose name we associate with the snack cracker, suggested in 1839 that humans might never become ill if we consumed only raw foods. Many people today would agree with him.

The growing interest in vegetarianism -- driven by health and environmental concerns -- has spawned an offshoot known as the raw foods movement.

No exact definition exists, but raw food diets are often described as "uncooked vegan diets" -- which exclude all animal products and byproducts -- or more loosely as "uncooked vegetable diets" or "living foods" diets. Adherents consume from half to virtually all of their foods raw. Aside from fruits and vegetables, the diets include raw nuts and seeds and are rounded out with sprouted grains and beans.

Nature's call
New downtown eatery serves up nutrient-rich raw foods, bought locally

At first glance, the House of Nature's Own is reminiscent of a small, vibrant coffee shop, where black-framed oil paintings of fruit and vegetables hang from elegant walls of burnt orange and pale yellow while soft jazz music plays in the background.

The restaurant's eclectic atmosphere may beckon patrons, but it's what comes out of an ovenless kitchen that makes this eatery distinctive from others in Chico.

Each dish is a compilation of raw fruits, vegetables, herbs, nuts, seeds and spices—all prepared under 118 degrees to preserve nutritious enzymes often lost during cooking and baking. This unusual method sometimes employs the use of a dehydrator to whip up dishes ranging from entrees of "live" nachos and lasagna to rich desserts, such as dark-chocolate ganache, which is prepared without using white flour, white sugar or processed salt.

But it never really caught on in the Boise area, unless you consider sushi and fruit smoothies.

I'm talking about entire menus of inventive raw appetizers, entrees and desserts — meatless organic food that never goes above 115 degrees so it's booming with fresh enzymes and other nutrients.

PROVO — Raw-food chefs will be put to the test Friday at a fund-raiser for "Summer Bear," a nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating obesity and its related illnesses.

The event starts at 6:30 p.m. at the Food Garden, 698 E. 300 South. Cost is $5 at the door.

The chefs will be led to tables of fresh foods. There they will compete to see who can make the most savory dish in the allotted time. The prepared food will then be auctioned as part of the fund-raiser. Call 356-9711 or 360-0731 for information.

Twenty years ago, if anyone had told you that you could drop milk from your diet and remain absolutely healthy, you would have thought that person was crazy. Ten years ago, it would never have occurred to you to separate the yolk and the white of your breakfast egg.

What a silly thing to do, you would have thought: it's the egg that's healthy, not just part of it. You only separated the yolk and white when you needed to, say, bake a cake. Today however, life is somewhat different. To drink no milk, to eat only the whites of eggs and #8230; these are normal things, given the emphasis we put on our health. Which is why when brand manager Madhulika Dhall came across something called 'the raw-vegan diet', she didn't dismiss it as yet another new age fad. She gave it a try.

Gregory and Kaitlyn Lang are trading their childhoods for a chance at adulthood.

They will say farewell to typical teenage fare. Goodbye burgers, tacos and pizza. No more ice cream, cake or cookies.

The pair plans to forgo all temptation — meat, dairy, bread — for the rest of their lives.

Greg, 18, will make the trip to Hippocrates Health Institute in West Palm Beach out of necessity, to prolong his life with cancer past doctors’ grim prognosis.

His sister, 16-year-old Kaitlyn, who battled leukemia as a child, will adopt Hippocrates’ raw vegan eating program in hopes of never needing to fight again.

They share a common goal: to make their lives of strenuous sacrifice as long as possible. And for the next three weeks, they’ll share a room, a schedule and, maybe, some inspiration.

I mainly became interested in organic and vegetarian food when I was 19 -- I'm 30 now. At that point I started to think about animal rights and about the benefits of vegetarian food. I started cooking vegetarian for myself.

My jobs in a record store and health food store in Regina connected me to Mike D, the drummer with Beastie Boys [a seminal hip-hop group]. His wife, a film director, was shooting there.

…I taught myself. When I was in Regina, a guy opened the first vegetarian restaurant and I worked there. He had travelled the world and studied all kinds of vegetarian cuisines. Then I met this raw food lady in L.A.; she was the first strictly raw foodist I'd met. She'd written a couple of cookbooks.

Plant-based cooking approach means not heating food above 115 degrees to keep the nutrients intact

The pair recently launched Naked Food Live Cuisine in San Luis Obispo, a lunch delivery service featuring dishes made according to the “raw food” philosophy.

As Bennett explained, this culinary approach “is all plantbased, traditionally a vegan way of eating,” with nothing brought to a temperature above 105 to 115 degrees F because “if you cook it you’ll kill the nutrients.”

Glenn Anderson is having a tough time swallowing the almond industry's new rules that require heat treatment or chemical fumigation of the nuts he grows on 12 organic acres in the Central Valley of California.

"Most of our customers have called me and said, 'We don't want pasteurized almonds, we want them raw, directly from the field,' " says Anderson, 72, an organic pioneer whose farm in Hilmar, near Turlock, Calif., has been in his family since 1912. "I think it's being shoved down all of our throats."

...Consumers will be none the wiser, since no labels are required to say whether, or how, the nuts have been treated _ even those labeled raw. Already, many almonds are pasteurized voluntarily, especially by large producers.

When Joe Bernstein meets friends for a dinner out, he knows ahead of time that there will be nothing on the menu for him to eat.

"They do accommodate me, though," he says. "I just ask for a dish of sliced avocado."

You could say Bernstein is mad about fruit. He is a fruitarian, or frugivore, and he adheres to a lifestyle that is a niche within a subset of vegetarianism. Bernstein, who lives in New York City, eats only raw fruit, a diet that includes some nuts and non-sweet fruit like avocado and tomato. A typical day's meals may include sunflower seeds with a few servings of fruit, such as pears or plums, for breakfast; a coconut shake with bananas for lunch; and Brazil nuts with tomatoes and avocado for dinner.

Eating lower on the food chain is a great way to curb global warming and reduce your footprint on the earth. Even reducing your intake of meat by a little bit is a big step for the environment.

...My green living journey began with going vegetarian and later vegan, and now my partner and I have been exploring going even further with a vegan diet by experimenting with raw and living vegan foods. Raw foods are in a more natural state and contain beneficial enzymes that are normally killed by high temperatures. The main benefits of a raw diet are health ones, but there are environmental benefits as well. Since there is no cooking involved, less energy is used

He might not convert you, but after hearing him speak you’ll definitely have a fresh perspective on raw food — and quite possibly crave a cashew cacao smoothie. Known as David “Avocado” Wolfe by fans, this 13-year raw foodist drinks only water for breakfast and “has been around the sun 36 times” — his response to the question of how old he is. The author of a handful of nutrition books, including his latest, Naked Chocolate, Wolfe — who maintains his raw food diet keeps him depression-free — has made his life’s work spreading the raw word. A superstar on the raw lecture circuit, he is the cofounder of Sunfood Nutrition (sunfood.com), an online distributor of exotic raw foods, books and products all geared toward helping health seekers live a more “plant-food-based lifestyle.” Wolfe, who studied at Oxford University and holds a law degree from University of San Diego, will be the first to tell you that humanity’s “fall from grace is the cooking of food” and that keepin’ it raw could change the world and save the planet. True to his global and green vision, he is the President of the nonprofit Fruit Tree Planting Foundation (ftpf.org) — its stated goal is to plant an ambitious 18 billion fruit trees.

We Like it Raw
The ultimate fringe food culture sexes it up for the mainstream

Even within the natural food movement’s inner core, Raw foodists can’t get no love. Tell most folks you limit your diet to just fresh, uncooked fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds, and responses range from bewildered admiration (“Wow. You do that?!? I could never deal”) to bemused skepticism (“uh, whatever floats your boat, I guess”) to snark bordering on hostility (“what are you, a f’ing rabbit?”). Even the possibility of “increased energy and vitality” — the raw foodie’s beckoning promise — couldn’t persuade most of us to consign to a lifetime of carrots and celery. And so the “Raw Way” has largely remained a path for only the most disciplined zealot and/or narcissistic celebrity with the disposable funds to bankroll a personal chef.

But like any great idea whose time is nigh, raw food is maturing beyond its uncooked beginnings to a lifestyle choice that allows for flexibility, creativity, and above all — (dare we say?) great taste. Glossy cookbooks, fresh new restaurants, raw chocolate smoothies and healthy, happy raw enthusiasts — who are anything but cultish or militant — are moving Raw out of the fringe and into the mainstream.

“I have the longest standing raw food restaurant in the country,” states Karyn Calabrese, owner of Karyn’s Inner Beauty Center, Raw Vegan Gourmet and Fresh Corner Café. “I’m so proud of that because I’m in Chicago, a meat-packing town.”

Through private diet counseling sessions and raw food prep classes out of her home, Calabrese supported her restaurant until it could stand on its own. 20 years later, Karyn’s, a gorgeous 7500 square foot raw mecca in Lincoln Park, provides nutritional counseling, food preparation classes, detoxifying services and mouthwatering living food everyday. “It was just a dream and I stuck to it.”

A year and a half ago, Angelena Bosco of Rainbow went on a raw food diet to try to lose weight. Eight months and 45 pounds later, she decided she had found a better way to live. “The human body is meant to process plant foods [not meat or refined, processed foods],” she said.

Unable to bring myself to say those three little words to the waitress, I jabbed at the menu. A few minutes later, she presented me with a smoothie made with hazelnut milk, figs, dates, vanilla and raw cacao, making eye contact as she said: “You are luscious!”

And so it goes at Cafe Gratitude, a raw-food restaurant in San Francisco, where every order is a self-affirmation — I Am Open, I Am Beautiful, I Am Powerful — mirrored back to you by your server.

If it sounds like “The Secret: The Restaurant,” you might not be far off: the positivity-preaching millionaire owners (“although there is no solid evidence that his wealth is a result of his practice,” their Web site says) have opened four Bay Area locations in three years, and plan to expand.

“All of our food is local, sustainable, organic, vegan and raw,” begin the well-programmed servers, “except for our rice and quinoa, which are steamed. Quinoa is an ancient....” But that’s the tip of the menu.

Victoria Boutenko's family was a mess. Victoria had arrhythmia and edema and was obese and depressed. Her husband Igor had rheumatoid arthritis and hyperthyroid problems. Her son Sergei was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes and was supposed to go on insulin and her daughter Valya had asthma.

"We were eating a standard diet, according to the (nutritional) pyramid that existed at the time," she said. "We actually considered we were eating better than most others."

Victoria's arrhythmia was the fulcrum for the change. Her doctor told her there was nothing more that could be done for her condition, a condition that had claimed her father.

"I believe in my heart it's not right to die at 38," she said. "First I cried all night and it didn't help. I prayed but didn't hear anything. So, I went out on the street and asked people who looked healthy what they did."

After two months of such on-the-ground research Victoria met a woman in her sixties who told her about raw food, though it was another four months before she made transition to raw foods.

Kimberly Garrison
Thu, Mar. 08, 2007

I HAVE ALWAYS been an adventurous eater, freely experimenting with my diet, enjoying the culinary favorites of various cultures and eating styles.

So when raw-foods lifestyle coach Cherron Perry-Thomas introduced me to a collard-greens smoothie in January when we were both speakers at a spa retreat at the Hershey Hotel, I was gung-ho to try it.

I've been hooked on green shakes ever since. Cherron also introduced my palate to new culinary treats like goji berries, acai berries and more. Not surprising for a woman who calls her consulting business Dandelion Bunch.

Get rid of the toxins and parasites that have taken over your body
Raw detox

Jenn Gearey, Sun Media
March 5, 2007

I didn't eat meat, but slurped sodas, downed Irish cream coffees, shovelled fries and bit into warm jelly donuts on a regular basis.

I was a 'junk vegetarian', saving my furry friends but acquiring high cholesterol and excessive sodium levels at the same time.

Then Natasha Kyssa, creator of the SimplyRaw Detox Program, wrote me and proposed I do a story about her regime.

February 28, 2007—Rotten fish with custard, a dead dog, private parts. These are just some of the words used to describe the unique aroma of one of the most popular foods in Southeast Asia.

Like fine cheese in France, the pungent durian is considered a prized delicacy in Malaysian Borneo, and a single fruit can sell for the equivalent of $50 (U.S.).

Get a nose-safe view of the smelly treat some consider worth killing for, and find out why Malaysian hotels are waging a war with their guests over the beloved seasonal food.

Ryan Gehring doesn’t eat anything canned or cooked. “Eating raw connects me with…life. I become more sensitized to the energies within and without me,” says Gehring, a raw food practitioner, chef, consultant and incidentally, my housemate. The term “raw food” is something of a misnomer. “Anything can be raw. All of nature is raw. It doesn’t mean that you should eat it.”

Dr. Diana Joy Ostroff, an O‘ahu-based naturopathic physician/acupuncturist, says her dictionary of raw foods includes fruits, vegetables, nuts, uncooked seeds, sprouts and sprouted legumes. Ostroff adds that some raw foods, such as quinoa, can actually be “cooked” as long as they’re heated at temperatures below about 118, the holy maximum temperature in the raw food world

Raw Food: Rx for Health?
Playa del Rey chef says a vegetarian, raw food diet changed her life and she wants to share its benefits with the world.

By Muhammed El-Hasan, Staff Writer
February 27, 2007

Two years ago, Vicki Rosenthal felt rundown as she struggled with her weight.

The actress, producer and Playa del Rey resident also noticed little red bumps all over her body. Rosenthal, 50, said she solved her problem with a simple switch. She stopped eating cooked food.

After taking raw-food cooking classes, Rosenthal teaches the culinary practice from her apartment, where she recently prepared mock salmon pate, pesto mushrooms, carrot pecan burgers and chocolate cookies.

Rosenthal, who describes herself as a raw foodist, teaches recipes developed by raw-food chef Alissa Cohen

Eva Podaras, Staff Reporter
Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Ahimsa, a new vegetarian restaurant that specializes in raw food that will open next week, increases New Haven’s variety of establishments geared toward the health-conscious.

Raw food may not sound appealing, but for the owners of Ahimsa — a new restaurant on Chapel Street that is set to open next week — it is the cutting edge in the fast-growing market of vegetarian and vegan gourmet food.

A raw food diet is no longer an underground trend. Devotees say it offers unparalleled health benefits.

New Beginning
How Woody Harrelson's healthy lifestyle motivated him to return to the big screen

January 16, 2007
By Siobhan Synnot

Hollywood star Woody Harrelson swears by his diet of raw beans, nuts and veg. His eyes are bright, his skin is clear and he says he feels great.

But there is a drawback - his eating habits also made his Prairie Home Companion co-star Lindsay Lohan a little bit wary of him.

By Claire Heald
BBC News Magazine

What if humans cast aside processed foods and saturated fats in favour of the sort of diet our ape-like ancestors once ate? Nine volunteers gave it a go... and were glad they did so.

01/01/2007

Raw food is full of vital nutrients and enzymes. Once food has been kept too long, or if it has been cooked or processed then its nutritional value plummets.

On a cold fall night, students sat shoulder to shoulder in rapt attention at New York City’s Institute for Integrative Nutrition as their instructor led them through a cooking class that was missing some standard appliances. There were no ovens, stovetops or microwaves in operation.
Absent were any references to roasting, broiling or baking. Even steaming was verboten. What was turning up the heat among this group of health and nutrition enthusiasts, it turned out, were all things raw.

Eats of Eden
Sunday, 10 December 2006, 06:00 CST

By Martha Quillin, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.

SHELBY -- Sharon Surratt Robbs' heart is full of the Holy Spirit. Filling up her belly takes a little work. For the past several weeks, Robbs has been following a faith-based, strict vegan regimen: 85 percent raw food, 15 percent cooked. No meat, no seafood, no dairy, no animal products of any kind. No refined sugar, no white flour or white rice.

Nov 1, 2006

(CBS 13) SACRAMENTO Victoria Boutenko is a national expert on the Raw Food Diet. She says we eat ourselves into obesity because our bodies crave nutrients that cooking kills.

“Humans have never been more malnourished than the last 200 years,” said Boutenko.

On the day we went to dinner at Ecopolitan in Minneapolis, my 15-year-old daughter, Robin, had eaten leftover pizza for breakfast and leftover steak for lunch. So, for dinner, I thought it might be a good time for something a little more healthful, like Ecopolitan's menu of all-organic vegan dishes.

We were joined by my friend Heidi, who doesn't eat red meat, and her kids, Ethan, 11, and Hannah, 14, who are accustomed to noncarnivore concoctions like walnut burgers and the fungus protein Quorn.

The restaurant takes its commitment to what it says is a more healthful plant-based diet a step further. Not only are there no meat, fish, eggs, butter or dairy products but also no wheat, corn or soy. And nothing is cooked.

'Living foods' guru Roxanne Klein saw her marriage and restaurant crumble. Now she's dishing up a comeback.

By Shawn Hubler, Shawn Hubler is a senior writer for West.
October 8, 2006

It isn't easy to get philosophical while ramming raw beets into a juicer, but the lunch hour is waning and Roxanne Klein has a lot to say.

"It's about evolution, I think," the onetime queen of the raw food movement is musing, knife in one hand, vegetable in the other. RRRrrrrrRRRRR!! She plants her bare feet on the checkerboard floor of her Mill Valley kitchen and shoves another chunk into the machine. "The food, the business," she says, smiling. "My own life."

Perhaps you remember Klein. Two years ago, she was the hottest thing on the American food scene. People called her a revolutionary. Comparisons to Alice Waters were made.

Trelawny, Jamaica—Vowing to sniff my way to wellness, I inhale deeply the aroma of lavender, jasmine and carrot seed oil as they are massaged into my feet.

Dieting with raw foods, reflexology, shiatsu, tai chi, repairing emotional wounds through psycho-kinesiology, preventing diabetes naturally, traditional Chinese medicine like acupuncture, and "Oriental visual diagnosis" — figuring out health problems from the eyes and face — were also taught by experts in Jamaica.

A plant-based diet of vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds — but no dairy products, caffeine or refined sugar — is healthy because cooking destroys nutrients and enzymes in live foods and brings toxins into the body, and can be tasty as well, Latham explains.
Latham trains vegan and raw-foods chefs for various hotels, and offers consulting, catering, and nutrition education.

Sep 28, 2006 — It's every dieter's dream to pick up a restaurant menu and not have to ponder over which dish is going to put the least flab on their abs.

At Loving Life Café in New Oxford, weight watchers can abandon calorie counting for the day - even with the list of rich desserts. Everything on the menu is made of fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds.

In July, Jody and her husband, Joey Allen, along with chef Tom Bibb opened the café, which is vegan and vegetarian, non-dairy, gluten free and organic as possible. They only serve living foods, which means no stoves, no grills and no ovens. They use dehydrators and food processors to prepare their food. It's the way Joey eats and counsels others to eat through his nonprofit ministry Essene Wholeness. From his experience, he says he's much healthier.

How about a sprout burger? A sprout burrito? At this Kapahulu eatery, nothing gets cooked

Off Kapahulu's main drag of fast-food eateries, there sits a small brick building serving homemade burgers, sandwiches, cookies, brownies, fresh juices and other morsels that, besides being edible, have one thing in common. They are all raw.

Instead of ovens and microwaves, the store uses dehydrators and sprouters. Instead of chemically processed ingredients, the store uses living plants, which can be seen growing out of black plastic containers sitting on wire shelves behind the cash register.

The concept of a raw foods lifestyle is likely a new one, and possibly a conundrum for many, but familiar to the 200 or so attending the Vibrant Living Expo last weekend. Multiple events were held from 9 a.m. into the evening at Fort Bragg Town Hall and The Company Store, where the Living Light Culinary Arts Institute is located, from Friday through Sunday.

Whether a food fad or a sustainable life choice, there is a movement — some say a revolution — afoot. Scan the dozens of referenced pages on Google and the raw foods concept unfolds as less eccentric and vaguely squeamish to more tolerable and perhaps prudent, if pursued sensibly and in moderation.

"Living Nutrition" magazine, with subscribers in over 40 countries, asserts itself as the world's most progressive natural health periodical that teaches how to succeed at eating a diet of raw foods, how to self-heal using the body's natural ability to restore itself, and how to build sustainable vibrant health.

When the doctor can't prescribe something that works, maybe trying a raw fruits and vegetables diet will cure the sickness or disease.
Internationally acclaimed author, educator and raw food chef, Paul Nison, 35, recently brought his knowledge and skill to McPherson at the upper floor of the Button Hole and Health Food Market.

Nison spends 10 months of the year traveling, mostly in the United States. The results of the raw diet with all the people he has interviewed is 100 percent cureable.