The Village Voice, 6/28/00: Eat It Raw

[Guest guest]

EAT IT RAW!

BY DEBRA DESALVO

Blenders, Sprouters, and Mashers Process Food in the East Village

 

" Yo! Any vegetarians in the house? " hollers Stic.man of hip-hop's

radical duo Dead Prez. A roar and dozens of fists rise up in CBGB,

which is packed. It's 3 a.m. and the young, mostly Latino crowd has

been hanging all night for a showcase of politically conscious Latin

bands booked by Ricanstruction. Despite the late hour, the air is

strangely smoke-free.

 

" Any vegans?! " More shouts from the crowd. " All right! " Stic nods

enthusiastically, dreads bouncing as he hops back and forth.

 

" What about the raw foodists? Any raw foodists in the house? " A few

whoops and hands shoot up, waving wildly. " Yeah! " Stic

shouts. " That's the shit! " as Dead Prez slam into " Be Healthy, " from

their Loud debut album, Let's Get Free.

 

" Be Healthy " exhorts would-be revolutionaries to forgo fried chicken

for juiced greens. They should play it at New York's newest raw food

restaurant, Quintessence. " It's a political act to eat raw foods,

because major corporations are poisoning people with over-processed,

denatured food, " says Dan Hoyt.

 

Hoyt and his wife, Tolentin Chan, both 37, opened Quintessence in

December above his former recording studio on East 10th Street. A

sandy-haired Midwesterner with twinkling ice-blue eyes, Hoyt first

reduced his space to rubble 16 years ago, cutting a hole in the

floor and installing Vital Music in the basement. He recorded scads

of East Village rockers, from Alice Donut to Clowns for Progress. In

1997 he tore the place apart and reemerged with the Lab, which

specialized in custom sound design.

 

Meanwhile, Chan was doing some rewiring of her own. A technical

designer at DKNY, Chan had asthma and caught frequent colds. When a

colleague raved about the effects of a raw food " cleanse, " Chan

visited her counselor, David Jubb, a self-described " specialist in

colloidal biology " with a Ph.D. from NYU, who's been eating raw for

27 years. He guided her through " nutritional fasts " consisting of

smoothies, blended soups, and juices. Today Chan, a slender woman

with bright black eyes, gorgeous skin, and a quick, slightly

mischievous smile, recalls, " My health improved tremendously. Now

I'm 100 percent raw and my asthma is completely gone. I never get

sick, and my energy is really high. "

 

Inspired, Hoyt saw Jubb too. " The results from fasting are really

drastic, so it's very motivating, " Hoyt says. " I lived with hay

fever, food allergies, but when these problems go away and you learn

more about eating this way, it seems so logical. "

 

The raw food diet consists of fresh fruits, vegetables, and sprouted

seeds, nuts, grains, and legumes. " Sprouted grain loses its enzyme

inhibitors and releases more nutrients, " explains Jubb. Raw foodists

obtain most of their calories from monounsaturated fats like

avocado, young coconut, and olive and flax oils, instead of cooked

grains and beans. Protein and minerals come from leafy greens,

spirulina, bee pollen, seeds, and nuts.

 

" People assume raw food is hard to digest, " Hoyt notes, " but when

you cook food you destroy its enzymes and must use your own to

digest it. Raw food digests itself. You don't even have to eat it—if

you blend a tomato and leave it overnight, it'll be 90 percent

digested by the morning. Cooking was invented to prevent foods from

breaking down overnight. "

 

" When you eat cooked vegetarian food, you lose the life force raw

food has, " says Chan. " Vegetarians are calm and relaxed, but they

don't always look energized, don't have that vibrant, glowing

quality. That's the difference between a raw foodist and a

vegetarian. "

 

Chan and Hoyt began attending classes and lectures around

town. " People were into the nutrition, but they weren't making the

greatest tasting—or looking—food, " Hoyt says, laughing. " We were

making really good food at home. "

 

So he gutted his space once again and, with Chan, created

Quintessence. They opened in bitter weather, but lines soon formed

out the door. " I thought there were a few hundred raw foodists in

the city, but there are at least a few thousand! "

 

Neighbors are drawn in by the restaurant's calm beauty and gourmet

menu. " People think eating raw is gonna be like chewing on weeds, "

Hoyt says, " but raw food is very vibrant. We use lots of spices and

sauces. The flavors are very strong and clean. "

 

These days Quintessence has regular customers from the tristate area

and beyond. " Six kids drove 16 hours from Iowa to get here after

they found us on the Internet! " Hoyt exclaims.

 

Competitive triathlete Mathew Mercur, 26, another customer, is

convinced that eating raw enhances his athletic performance. " I was

nervous to try it, " Mercur admits, " but now I'm 90 percent raw and I

love it! I never get sick, I can train more, and I recover faster. "

Mercur, who won the U.S. triathlon series championship for his age

class and is training for the 2004 Olympic trials, says he benefits

from the concentrated nutrition provided by juicing and loading up

on raw fats. " I find fats a better source of long-term fuel than

cooked carbs, which weigh me down. "

 

As for protein, Mercur says, " When you eat a steak, you have to

break it down to amino acids. But leafy greens, nuts, and seeds are

packed with amino acids and minerals your body can use to build

protein right away. "

 

Until recently, the main resources for someone like Mercur were

classes and coaching provided by High Vibe, the city's only store

devoted to raw foods, and lectures and counseling by Jubb and his ex-

wife, Annie.

 

Jubb, raised on an island between mainland Australia and Tasmania,

was influenced by his Nepalese grandfather, " who understood that our

choice of food was affecting the earth. " Jubb loves the East Village

because " there are more people interested in this lifestyle here

than in any other place in the country. There's a critical mass of

consciousness building that's going to affect the entire earth. "

 

Dagger, who owns High Vibe, also senses an accelerating interest in

raw food among New Yorkers. " We get new people in here every day,

and now with Quintessence, more people are getting together and

communicating. Things are rolling. " Like Hoyt, Dagger transformed

his former creative space— " my art studio, my darkroom " —into his

business. He describes his inviting basement, with its cavelike

white stucco walls and strings of white icicle lights, as " the East

Village gone Southwest—a sanctuary, a place for people to hang out. "

 

A laid-back artist-photographer-musician with tattoos running up

both arms, Dagger got into raw foods because " I had done so many

drugs and I just felt so bad. But I always tried to eat right. I

started riding my bike like crazy and eating a lot of watermelon. I

felt compelled to eat tons of it. I found out later that it's very

alkalinizing, and drugs make you very acidic. " Although he credits

eating live foods with his vibrant health and ability to function on

four to five hours of sleep, Dagger says he's " not in favor of

zealotism. Do you feel good? That's the only thing that should

influence your decision. "

 

Paul Nison, who's developing a restaurant called Eden above the

Hygeia Center on East 23rd Street, agrees. Nison was diagnosed with

ulcerative colitis and told diet had nothing to do with it.

Desperate, he experimented with raw foods and his symptoms

disappeared. " I was told that by 30 I'd be lucky to have my

intestines and I'd probably have cancer. I'll be 30 this year, and I

did a 117-mile bike race, and haven't gone back to my doctor. "

 

Jubb student Narda Narvãez, a physical therapist, founded the

Natural Wellness School at Hygeia in February. " I started the school

to help the community, " she says. " Food is so connected with family

and comfort that you need a new family to support this. " Narvãez,

looking for a new space, intends to bring in a variety of health

practitioners. She's starting a database of clients who have

recovered from serious illness using raw foods " because we need

documentation and research. "

 

Jyni Holland, a registered dietitian at NYU Medical Center, wants to

see such research, as " there are no scientific studies showing an

advantage to eating raw broccoli instead of cooked broccoli. "

Holland also contests claims that raw foods provide greater

enzymatic activity, because " the minute you pull a plum off the

tree, you've separated it from its life force and it begins to break

itself down. I don't want to put this diet down without knowing

more, " she adds, " but if you have an immune system compromised by

chemo or severe AIDS, we recommend a 'no raw food' diet to protect

against bacterial infections. I would also be concerned about

adequate caloric intake, and adequate protein, B12, calcium, and

zinc. "

 

Holistic physician Dr. Ronald Hoffman notes that " some people do

really well on the raw food diet, yet some do abysmally. I do put

some cancer patients on a raw food diet, as it is marvelous for

detoxifying. We usually use it for two to three months. " Lots of

fats will " alleviate some of the potential problems with this diet.

I give high doses of coconut oil to patients with immune problems,

for example, as studies show it to be extremely helpful. Also, if

you have ulcerative colitis or celiac disease, using only sprouted

starches can help. "

 

Hoffman favors metabolic typing, a blood-test-based method of

determining appropriate diets. " We are finding that some people must

have meat, while for others it's not metabolically suitable. My

hunch is that the people doing well on raw food would be shown by

metabolic typing to be in the latter category. " He cautions

that " people use food like a personal statement—too much of that is

going around. It's best to avoid arrogance . . . or using food as an

emblem of virtue. The macrobiotic people destroyed their movement

with arrogance. "

 

Eliot Tokar, a practitioner of traditional Asian medicine,

agrees. " A raw food diet is a very strong yin diet; most people can

benefit when it's used for a limited period. It's in danger of

becoming a fad, however, with people thinking it can be applied in

any situation and be beneficial. This may be because the diet can

cause very rapid change and can make you hyper and spacey. "

 

While building Quintessence, Chan and Hoyt flew to San Francisco to

work at Juliano Brotman's Organica, a popular raw food

restaurant. " Juliano was so helpful, " recalls Hoyt. " He gave us

names of suppliers, showed us recipes. This is kind of a movement,

so if you know something you share it. It's a supportive community—

everybody's networking. We love that people come to the restaurant

and actually talk to people at other tables. That's what it's all

about. "