Raw Food Rocks!

[Guest guest]

Raw food rocks!

 

A raw food diet is no longer an underground trend. Devotees say it

offers unparalleled health benefits. By Juli Steadman Charkes

Columbia News Service

 

On a cold fall night, students sat shoulder to shoulder in rapt

attention at Manhattan's Institute for Integrative Nutrition as their

instructor led them through a cooking class that was missing some

standard appliances. There were no ovens, stove tops 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.

 

A few years ago, the Atkins diet, with its heavy emphasis on protein

from meat and fish, grabbed the public's attention. Now, a raw food

vegetarian diet seems to be moving into the culinary spotlight. " Raw "

restaurants have sprouted throughout the country. Celebrity adherents

such as actor Woody Harrelson and designer Donna Karan herald the raw

food lifestyle.

 

And Whole Foods, the trend-setting organic supermarket chain, has

begun devoting shelf space to raw foods. Its newest flagship market

in Austin, Texas, features a free-standing " raw foods bar " that

offers raw lasagna and " mock " mashed potatoes made from a mixture of

ground cauliflower and macadamia nuts.

 

" Just a few years ago, raw was an underground movement, virtually

unknown to most people, " said Joshua Rosenthal, founder and director

of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. But " interest in raw

foods has increased significantly over the past five years. "

 

Eating raw may bring to mind steak tartare and sushi, but even those

are off-limits. A strict raw-food diet bars meat, fish, fowl and all

dairy, including eggs, milk and cheese. The idea is to consume food

that is as natural and unprocessed as possible. Cooking is believed

to kill the valuable vitamins and enzymes that advocates say ease

digestion and contribute to overall health. Therefore, nothing can be

heated above 118 degrees.

 

Fans of the diet say it offers unparalleled health benefits, provides

a high level of energy and can even correct a variety of medical

maladies. After all, they argue, only humans and domesticated animals

experience debilitating illnesses.

 

" Your system becomes so clean and your digestive system so efficient,

when you eat raw it's like putting clean fuel in your body, " said

Sarma Melngailis, head chef and owner of Pure Food and Wine, a raw

food restaurant in Manhattan's fashionable Gramercy Park neighborhood.

 

A former investment banker, Melngailis became a devotee after she was

invited by a friend to a raw food restaurant and felt the health

benefits. She now eats an entirely raw diet made up of juiced

vegetables, salads, nut butters, fruits and supplements -- and

credits it with improving her sleep, alleviating PMS, even

eliminating the need for prescription medication.

 

Karyn Calabrese, who runs Karyn's Fresh Corner Cafe, a popular raw

food restaurant in Chicago, makes a similar claim. " All the women in

my family died overweight and very young, " said Calabrese, a mother

and grandmother who looks a decade younger than her 60 years.

 

Calabrese has been adhering to a raw food diet for 30 years since

discovering the teachings of the movement's founder, the late

nutritionist and holistic health practitioner Ann Wigmore. By eating

raw, Calabrese is convinced that she has reprogrammed her biological

destiny and avoided succumbing to the heart disease and diabetes that

has plagued her family.

 

With so many easy-to-cook foods off-limits, someone interested in a

raw food diet may be wondering what's left to eat. But eating raw

does not mean eating only fruits and vegetables. Grains are soaked

and sprouted; milks are extracted from nuts; and seed mixtures are

dehydrated for hours to approximate starches. These ingredients are

then used to prepare sophisticated dishes that often rival the

complex preparations found in traditional, high-end restaurants.

 

At Pure Food and Wine, popular dishes include lasagna fashioned from

layers of tomatoes and zucchini interspersed with a soaked pine

nut " ricotta cheese, " as well as tortillas culled from a dehydrated

mix of corn, flaxseeds and spices. The restaurant's " raw ice cream, "

created from soaked cashews and coconut butter, has a devoted

following.

 

For eating at home, such labor-intensive preparation is extremely

time-consuming. In order to soak, grind and dehydrate, it's not

unusual to have to plan days in advance before you finally sit down

to eat.

 

" Eating raw foods 100 percent of the time becomes your life, " said

Tamara Yapp, a Long Island mother of seven who became interested in

raw foods as a way to counter the effects of her son's autism.

 

It can also be expensive. Yapp, who does not adhere to an entirely

raw food diet, makes monthly visits to Pure Food and Wine in

Manhattan to pick up its raw ice cream in bulk, sometimes spending up

to $600 at a time. But the investment is worth it, Yapp said, because

the nondairy treat has diminished her autistic son's allergic

reactions and helped improve his overall condition. " This food is

medicinal, " she said.

 

But some experts disagree. There is no medical proof to support the

claim that cooked food increases the risk of disease. In fact, some

studies say just the opposite. A report in the Archives of Internal

Medicine points out that vegetarians exhibit abnormally low bone

mass, which may indicate an increased risk of osteoporosis. In

addition, the study shows that the intake of calcium and vitamin D is

abnormally low on a raw food diet.

 

" Eating closer to nature can be seen as beneficial because few

proponents of a raw foods diet are going to be consuming junk food, "

explained David Katz, associate professor of public health at Yale.

But he cautions that there are also hazards associated with eating a

diet based purely on uncooked foods, including the fact that some

nutrients are more readily available to the body when heated.

 

These include lycopene, found in tomatoes, and carotenoid, found in

carrots, both of which have been shown to protect against prostate

cancer. Those who shun all cooked foods in favor of a raw diet are,

according to Katz, " throwing the baby out with the bath water. "

 

But raw food experts are convinced that this way of eating will only

gain in popularity. " The more that the public is aware that it is

doable and enjoyable to eat food in its natural state, " said Josh

Rosenthal of the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, " the more the

health of this country will improve. "

 

We are mainstream now!

 

Blissed be, Annie

BodyByBliss.com