Bradley Saul, a former pro-cyclist, raw vegan and founder of Organic Athlete was recently profiled in The Arizona Daily Star. According to its website, Organic Athlete organizes bike races called Tour d'Organics in which participants race from farm to farm to promote organic foods and athleticism. Upcoming races are planned in Austin, Texas, Portland, Ore., and Santa Cruz, Sebastopol and Santa Barbara, Calif.

Excerpt below from The Arizona Daily Star…

On Pace: Can Vegan Diet Fuel an Athlete? He says yes.
by Jennifer Duffy

What did you eat yesterday? Bradley Saul, a former pro-cyclist and founder of Organic Athlete, stopped in Tucson last week to talk about his organization and told me what he had munched on that day: half of a case of strawberries, two heads of lettuce chopped into a salad, some oranges and about 50 small dates.

The tall and lean but strong-looking cyclist is a vegan, and a raw foodist. He promotes organic living for athletes to ensure personal and environmental health. (Being a raw foodist who eats only whole foods, he doesn't touch things like whole wheat bread or tofu, but will eat some brown rice in a pinch, he says.) Chowing down on a few heads of lettuce for lunch and avoiding all cooked and processed foods sounds a little extreme, but the principles of his vegan raw food diet are based on eating whole, organic foods that provide the vitamins, minerals and fiber that we all strive for in our diets.

Everyone's first question: Where do you get your protein? "Where don't you get protein if you're eating whole foods?" said Saul, who started Organic Athlete when he was living in Tucson in 2003 and now resides in California. "Human mother's milk has only 5 to 6 percent of its calories from protein. And that's for babies growing at a much more rapid rate than we are. We get enough protein if we eat whole foods, fruits and vegetables." He eats nuts and seeds in small amounts because they're high in fat.

Fruits and vegetables have a bit of protein per calorie — some more than others — so as long as you're eating whole foods, you can't not get enough protein, Saul says. These foods aren't as high in protein as meat, of course, but that protein is more difficult to digest, according to Saul. But this guy isn't just munching on heads of lettuce and lounging on the couch — he's an athlete. Doesn't he need supplements or a chicken breast once in awhile?

Nope.

He doesn't use supplements when he races, and when he recently ran a marathon he just ate dates for fuel during the 26.2-mile race. "I was fine." I can't even imagine a long run without chocolate energy gel, but Saul's minimalism is inspiring. Celery blended up in water provides the precious electrolytes athletes are always fretting over, although Saul says he really doesn't worry about whether he gets enough electrolytes. "I used to come out of a race all covered in salt. I'm not like that anymore," he said. "Since I've started this, I can say my recovery times are better. I wake up in the morning ready for the day, and I don't need stimulants or caffeine to keep me going."

He says he went through a transition period for a few months, moving from vegetarianism to veganism (no animal products at all), to eating raw, organic foods. "I had always known fruits and vegetables were the healthiest food and I ate a lot of them, but I had never heard of people that just ate them," Saul said with a laugh. Now he does, although he was raised on "traditional American food — but all made from scratch," and his mother still eats the way she did when he was growing up. "We had homemade birthday cakes, meat and potatoes. His friends were eating a lot of processed foods, but I just made everything from scratch. It wasn't necessarily healthy, though," said Molly Savitz.

"I'm surprised at how simple what he does is," said Savitz, of South Carolina, who will prepare food for as many as 700 cyclists at one of the Tour d'Organics race, put on by her son, this year. I'm a vegetarian, and Saul's principles of eating lots of fruit and veggies appeal to me — but I'm not giving up my organic tofu any time soon. What I am going to glean from his purist lifestyle is a focus on organic produce, locally grown foods and choosing nutrient-rich fruits and vegetables over processed snacks.

An introduction to the world of Raw Foods from Happy Cow…

What is Living and Raw Food?

Plant-based foods in their original, un-heated state are considered raw & alive. Raw foods may include fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, sprouts, grains and legumes in sprout form, seaweeds, microalgae, and fresh juices. These live foods contain a wide range of vital life force nutrients (vitamins, minerals, amino acids, oxygen) and live enzymes. Their nutritional properties are essential to the proper maintenance of human bodily functions.

Who Are Raw Foodists?

"Raw-foodists" (also called "Rawists") are those who thrive on live food energy by consuming a diet of mostly un-cooked whole plant foods — usually at least 75% though some say 100% is the only true path. Some contemporary famous raw foodists include raw chef & author Juliano, actress Demi Moore, and raw entrepreneur & author David Wolfe.

Raw enthusiasts proudly proclaim their break from an addiction to cooked & processed foods. They tell us that incorporating a few raw meals a week is a good start that will bring immediate changes to the body to feeling better and having more energy. Even if you have a busy schedule, you can still find easy to prepare raw & whole foods at your local health & natural food markets.

Why Go Raw?

Raw foods are easy to digest, and they provide the maximum amount of energy with minimal bodily effort. Studies have shown that living foods have healing powers that can alleviate many illnesses from low energy, allergies, digestive disorders, weak immune system, high cholestrol, candida, to obesity & weight problems, etc… Research and real life experiences have also shown that a person can prevent a body's healthy cells from turning into malignant cancerous cells by consuming a diet consisting of mostly raw & whole foods.

What's Wrong With Cooked Foods?

Heat changes the chemical makeup of food. Foods that have been heated have lost all of their life force, and their beneficial enzymes are destroyed. The digestive system has to work harder and longer to process cooked foods to get nutrition & energy from it. Once cooked, a food can lose up to 85 percent of its nutritional value. Raw foodists call that "dead food." Since we are essentially what we eat, consuming the dead energy of dead foods make our bodies feel heavy and stagnant, and contribute to increased illnesses.

Below you'll find a press release about the 2005 Organic Athlete Conference…

Vegan Athletes Flex Their Muscles
The OrganicAthlete Conference will highlight examples of successful vegan athletes.

In a recent interview, Olympic track star Carl Lewis, who was a vegan during his best years, says he believes that “most athletes have the worst diet in the world, and they compete in spite of it.” Members of OrganicAthlete’s “Vegan Pro-Activist” team are out to prove that a plant-based diet is the best diet for optimal health and performance, and that they can succeed at high levels in sports because they are vegan.

Many people are resistant about becoming vegan because of dietary myths like not getting enough protein, but elite vegan athletes and health professionals are participating in the 2005 OrganicAthlete Conference to dispel these myths. Scheduled for September 24th, the goal of the conference is to share information about the benefits of a plant-based diet. “At first other athletes told me I should really start eating meat,” says Brendan Brazier, a professional tri-athlete and vegan for six years. According to Brazier, those same friends now realize, based on his outstanding athletic example, that a vegan diet is optimal for high performance athletes.

The conference schedule includes talks from endurance athletes like Brazier and Christine Vardaros, a world class cyclo-cross racer, who has risen to the top of her sport as a vegan. But even in the protein-crazed sport of bodybuilding vegans are finding success. Kenneth G. Williams, a bodybuilder who placed 3rd at the 2004 Natural Olympia, and Charlie Abel, a raw vegan muscleman and personal trainer, will both speak at the event.

Leading nutritionists Dr. Doug Graham, Rozalind Gruben, Dr. Ruth Heidrich and Dr. Rick Dina will join the athletes in explaining the science of vegan nutrition. Dr. Graham, who has trained many Olympic caliber athletes, explains: “Every nutrient known to be essential for human health is available, in proper concentration, in plant foods. This is not so with animal-based foods, as there are many essential nutrients totally absent in them.”

The conference will be held at Sports Basement’s Presidio store. The $65 fee includes all educational seminars, food demos, training sessions, lunch and a gift certificate to Sports Basement. The World Vegetarian Day Celebration will be held the following day in Golden Gate Park.

More information about the OrganicAthlete conference. You can also call 707-360-8511 to find out more information about the event.

This article is from The Rocky Mountain News, and it's focused on Doug Walsh's raw food hike (which I've already written about in an earlier entry).

Raw Food Power Behind This Hike
Advocate tackling Great Divide to spotlight eating style

Between the sleeping bag, tent and extra socks in Doug Walsh's backpack, there will be a tiny, 4-ounce food grinder and half-pound seed sprouter. Not your average backpacker's load. But this is not your average backpacking trip, either. Eating only raw foods, with a mission to raise awareness for his alternative diet and money for some of its biggest advocates, Walsh set out last week on Earth Day to hike the entire Continental Divide Trail over the next five months, starting in New Mexico and ending in Canada.

Walsh has been a raw-foodist, someone who does not eat cooked or heated foods, for the past 10 years. He is determined to prove that even the most stringent of regimens can be supplemented with a raw-food lifestyle. "There's no comparison. I feel better at 41 than I did at 24," he said about his health. In addition to raising funds and drawing attention to the benefits of raw foods, the outdoorsman also will be fueling his love of the wilderness and passion for exploring it. "I'm in love with the Earth," he said. "So I like to eat food that's full of the Earth's energy."

Walsh will use his miniature grinder and sprouter to preserve and produce raw foods that have what he describes as the "life principle." He used a sunflower seed as an example to explain the concept. In raw form, the seed can sprout into a plant. After it is cooked, he argued, the seed won't sprout. "There's some kind of information present in raw foods that is no longer there when we heat it," he said. "It's something that's essential to our life."

Walsh, a graduate of the Living Lite Culinary Arts Institute in Fort Bragg, Calif., a gourmet chef's school for raw foods preparation, is walking to raise money for the school's new building. He has raised more than $5,000 and wants to give his alma mater as much money and attention as he can. During the 3,000-mile trek along the trail, Walsh will stop at 30 previously planned resupply points. His food will be shipped to him at post offices at those locations. "I'll just hitchhike into town and pick up my box of new food," he said. Staples for the trip include nuts, dried fruits and sprouts.

Walsh made himself crackers – by mashing nuts and other ingredients into a paste, spreading them thin and drying them out in a dehydrator – as well as raw bread and even pizzas. Walsh will be carrying a digital camera, cell phone and portable e-mail device to send updates to sponsors and fans. Walsh expects to encounter snow and cold, dehydration and heat, unmarked trails, numerous stream crossings and other unexpected wilderness adventures during his time on the divide. While he's taking his raw-food diet to the extreme, Walsh said anyone can enjoy the same without being an adventurer.

Steve Phillips, a raw-foodist and owner of the Longmont Co-op Market, has been eating raw foods exclusively for about a year and a half. He said they are as appetizing as cooked foods, and better for you. The secret is developing proper preparation skills, Phillips said, noting he and his family made a wonderful pizza recently with dried tomatoes on top. "Yes, it takes a little time, but once you figure out how to make a few things, you just go from there," he said.

I stumbled across a very interesting site about an all-raw 3,000 mile hike along the Continental Divide. The Raw Food Hike-A-Thon (created by Doug Walsh) wants to spread the message of raw food to the world and demonstrate that raw food can provide all the energy one needs for strenous activity (not to mention, just day-to-day living, which can also be pretty stressful at times).

Way to go Doug for coming up with such a unique idea to increase awareness of the benefits of raw foods. Learn more about what Doug ate on one of his past hiking trips.