A new raw food restaurant in Los Angeles called Leaf just opened its doors. Leaf serves raw vegan, organic, kosher cuisine and has two locations, one in L.A. just off the 405 freeway, and one in Sherman Oaks, CA. The founder is Rod Rotondi, who has a background in Italian and French cuisine, and previously worked at Juliano's Raw restaurant in Santa Monica. The menu looks great; wish it was closer to me.

Rod's story…

Growing up in an Italian-American family, Rod Rotondi, founder of Leaf Cuisine, learned to cook as a child, learned table service and Italian cuisine in Rome at the American Ambassador's Residence (his grandfather), took French cooking courses in Paris as a teenager (where his family lived), and worked in restaurants to pay his way through college and graduate school. Through 15 years of world travels (including working for the United Nations), he picked up culinary lessons from around the globe.

In 1996, Rod discovered raw and living foods and first introduced them in his restaurant in Egypt. Upon returning to the U.S., he opened "Rod's Wrap and Juice Bar" in Marblehead, Massachusetts and won the "Best of Show" and the "Best Theme" awards at the prestigious Marblehead Culinary Arts Festival. But California was calling, and Rod moved out to Los Angeles where well known raw foods chef Juliano hired him to set up, manage and chef at his new restaurant, "Juliano's Raw" in Santa Monica.

In 2004 Rod created Leaf Cuisine in order to offer "truly clean, delicious and affordable food in a convenient and relaxed format."

Interesting article on how to stay on a Raw Food Diet.

Staying on Raw & Living Foods: How to Avoid/Minimize Backsliding
by Tom Billings

Following a raw or living foods diet can be difficult, given the general stress of living in modern times, and the prevalence of junk food and cooked food. One is often tempted to take the path of least resistance, which is usually junk or processed foods.

Additionally, raw and living foods are cleansing diets, which means the body is slowly cleansing itself of toxins, which can cause cravings for inappropriate foods previously eaten. Also, other physical symptoms of detox, like headache, stomach pains, can make the dietary transition uncomfortable, which may (indirectly) enhance cravings for the temporary "comforts" of inappropriate foods.

Listed below are some things [you] can do to avoid backsliding. Others are invited to comment on this list and make additional suggestions.

A. Direct Actions

1. Avoid temptation:
Avoid temptations whenever possible. If you are going to the store for produce and you feel a craving for candy, then stay away from the candy section! Don't read, watch, or listen to anything that tempts you to eat inappropriate food (to the extent possible).

2. Think of the consequences:
If you are feeling cravings or being tempted to eat something bad, stop and think about the negative effect the bad food will have on your health, and your peace of mind. Often you will conclude that the bad food tastes good, but it's not worth the discomfort or suffering that will follow if you eat it. A relevant suggestion here, esp. for those who maintain a journal or diary: when you backslide, write down the negative side effects, then re-read those sections when you feel cravings. This approach works best after you have been on raw foods for some time.

3. Substitute good raw foods for cravings:
If you are feeling cravings for bad foods, eat snacks of natural foods instead. If you are hungry for sweet food, eat fruit instead; dried fruit is a substitute for candy. If you are hungry for salty foods, you can eat sea vegetables or drink celery juice instead (celery juice with a little bit of lemon/lime juice added is delicious and soothing) or eat raw tomatoes, provided you find them agreeable. Cravings for inappropriate fatty foods can be resolved with avocados or soaked/sprouted nuts (also raw sesame tahini). One caution here – when one eats good foods as a response to cravings, there are risks: overeating, psychological dependency, and, in the case of dried fruit, sugar addiction. Substitution may be a good short-term strategy, but is less attractive in the long term.

4. Consider modifying your diet if you have long-term cravings:
If you have an extremely restricted diet (e.g., mostly fruit), and cravings are a long term problem for you, then you should seriously consider changing your diet, to one that is more diverse. High fruit diets are notorious for their associated sugar (and salt) cravings. Consider adding more veggies, sprouts, nuts, to your diet. After all, if you have cravings all the time, can you honestly say that your "perfect" diet really works well for you?

B. Indirect Support Actions

5. Eat sensibly
Eat moderately, at regular times, and don't overeat. This is standard common sense, and it can reduce opportunities for cravings.

6. Eat mindfully, slowly, with no distractions
Food that is eaten this way will remove hunger and be more satisfying (reducing cravings), than food eaten in a hurry, under stress, or while distracted (TV, reading, etc.)

7. Seek the company of other raw fooders when possible.
Join or start a local support group for raw fooders in your area. Starting a group is easier said than done – running SF-LiFE, our local group, is a big effort for those involved. However, a small group that meets at homes, is much less work to set up. SF-LiFE actually encourages small, special interest groups, in the form of meal clubs, which meet in member's homes.

8. Have a regular exercise program
Have a regular exercise program that is appropriate and suited for you. Exercise reduces stress, improves your health, is cleansing, and helps reduce cravings. Hatha yoga is an excellent form of exercise; it has considerable healing power. The meditative forms of tai chi can be very helpful also. However, yoga or tai chi won't help if you don't do them, so choose an exercise program that appeals to you, and that you can follow.

9. Positive affirmations and meditation
Positive affirmations and meditation may help you develop a positive mental attitude which can make you significantly more resistant to cravings.

10. Be careful about fasting.
Fasting is very healing and cleansing, and is one of nature's most powerful curatives. Through its cleansing power, fasting can (eventually) reduce food cravings. However, fasting can also cause a psychological sense of deprivation, which may lead the faster to overeating and/or binge eating after the fast is over. If your reaction to fasting is a cycle of overeating-fasting, then it is not doing you any good! Those fasting "experts" who suggest very long fasts, often ignore this problem.

11. Develop a spiritual or ethical foundation.
For the religious, this means being fully "grounded" in your religion. The non-religious (including atheists and agnostics) can adopt or develop a guiding philosophy of life, or a system of ethics. The benefits of this are in stress reduction, which makes one more resistant to cravings.

If you do backslide and eat something bad, simply resolve to avoid the mistake next time. Learn from your mistakes, but don't dwell on them unnecessarily, as guilt is a negative emotion. A tiny amount of guilt, if used only to motivate you to avoid backsliding, is OK. A large amount of guilt is bad for you as it is negative, and negative emotions are harmful to your body and mind.

Cravings can be a major problem during the transition to a raw/living foods diet, and may take more than a year to dissipate. After you have been on such a diet long enough, the cravings will usually dissipate. However, if you are 75+% raw, and are having severe problems with cravings in the long term, then you should evaluate your diet — raw and cooked portions, to see whether changes are appropriate. Although the goal of 100% raw is advocated by some raw-fooders, the reality is that raw food diets are not for everyone. Be kind to your self — do what is best for your body, whether the diet you follow conforms to raw- fooder dogma or not.

From the Santa Cruz (CA) Sentinel… 50-year old woman finds a cure for Epstein Barr, mononucleosis, and hypoglycemia with raw foods…

Rx For Raw Recipes
by Peggy Townsend

Robyn Boyd says her symptoms began when she was 10 years old. She would have debilitating headaches that required shots of Demerol to calm. Then came bouts of hypoglycemia, Epstein Barr and mononucleosis that left her weak and exhausted, she says. Anxiety attacks followed and, finally, after a day spent painting the baseboards of her house with oil-based paint, she collapsed, poisoned by the volatile fumes it gave off, she says. Barely able to pull herself out of bed, the petite, sandy-haired woman turned to a cure that didn't come on any prescription pad: Food. Specifically, raw food.

Nine years later, Boyd is a cheerleader for the benefits of raw foods and the author of a cookbook called "RawSome Recipes," which is in its third printing. Standing in her modern, Soquel kitchen with its red birch cabinets and green quartz-style counters, the woman who says she was raised on junk food smiles and explains that while a strict diet of raw food saved her life, a person doesn't have to be a fanatic to reap the benefits of this way of eating. Simple changes in the way a person shops and eats can lead to more energy and a healthier immune system, she believes. "I like to teach people how to take everyday foods and make them fun and pretty, but doable," she says.

Going Raw

The 50-year-old former massage therapist and aerobics teacher has set out a mini-party of raw foods on her dining room table. There are Banana Fingers made up of slices of sweet bananas and chocolate pudding that she fashioned from avocados. There is a ranch-pesto dip made of soaked almonds and a yam salad that tastes like old-fashioned potato salad. She pours a cup of Rooibus tea from Africa, sweetens it with agave nectar and almond milk, and settles in to talk. Technically, raw food is never heated past 117 degrees, preventing damage to the enzymes that help us digest and assimilate food, she says.

But as a wife and mother in a world full of restaurants and fast-food joints, taking a hard line on raw foods doesn't always work, she says. "I want to be more practical," Boyd says. "Nourishment can come from cooked food, too." That's the reason her cookbook is named "RawSome." It has recipes with both raw and cooked foods and even includes recipes kids will like. For breakfast, Boyd says, she will make a smoothie out of almond milk, brewer's yeast, spirulina, flax seed and a banana. At lunch, she'll have a whole coconut or a lettuce-leaf wrap filled with guacamole, grated carrots and pine nuts.

Dinner will be a huge salad and maybe a warm soup or stew. Boyd doesn't even shy away from meat. She'll eat salmon and lamb. Organic, of course, she says. Food, she believes, shouldn't be a religion, but rather an intelligent way to nourishment and health. Filled with an easy energy, Boyd whacks open a coconut with a knife and offers the liquid to sip. Coconut, she says, is good for weight loss and has antifungal and antibacterial properties. She opens a cabinet and demonstrates how to make "spaghetti" out of raw zucchini, then zips to a storeroom to bring out crackers that she made herself.

Largely self-taught, Boyd talks about the hazards of cooking in a microwave, of storing food in plastic, of the benefits of spirulina. This month, she'll be teaching a class on how to ease raw foods into your diet and make an appearance at the Capitola Book Cafe. "People hear raw food and think it is scary and boring," she says. "But it's vibrant and exciting and good food."

Boyd will teach a class on her eating style from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, March 18, 2006 in Santa Cruz, CA. The $130 class will include making and eating 14 recipes, a full sit-down lunch and a copy of "RawSome Recipes." Call 689-0609 or visit Rawsome Recipes

New article from RawFoods.com…

Is Cooked Food Good For Us?
By T.C. Fry

In nature all animals eat living foods as yielded up by Nature. Only humans cook their foods and only humans suffer widespread sicknesses and ailments. Those humans who eat mostly living foods are more alert, think clearer, sharper and more logically and become more active. Best of all, live food eaters become virtually sickness-free!

Cooking is a process of food destruction from the moment heat is applied to the foodstuff. Long before dry ashes results, food values are totally destroyed. If you put your hand just for a moment into boiling water or on a hot stove, that should forever persuade you just how destructive heat is. Food is usually subjected to these destructive temperatures for perhaps half an hour or more. What was living substance becomes totally dead very rapidly with exposure to heat!

Cooking renders food toxic. The toxicity of the deranged debris of cooking is confirmed by the doubling and tripling of white blood cells after eating a cooked food meal. The white blood cells are the first line of defense and are, collectively, popularly called "the immune system." As confirmed by hundreds of researches cited in the prestigious National Academy of Science's National Research Council's book, Diet, Nutrition and Cancer, all cooking quickly generates mutagens and carcinogens in foods. Proteins begin coagulating and deaminating at temperatures commonly applied in cooking, and are devoid of nutritive value.

Vitamins are rather quickly destroyed by cooking. Minerals quickly lose their organic context and are returned to their native state as they occur in soil, sea water and rocks, metals and so on. In such a state they are unusable and the body often shunts them aside where they may combine with saturated fats and cholesterol in the circulatory system, thus clogging it up with cement-like plaque. Heated fats are especially damaging because they are altered to form acroleins, free radicals and other mutagens and carcinogens as confirmed in, "Diet, Nutrition and Cancer." Thus you can see that dead foods make dull, diseased and sooner dead people.

The excerpt below was originally published at Raw Food Info.

Cooked Food Versus Raw: Some of the Known Differences

Cooked foods cannot create true health because they are missing some very vital elements needed by the body for its optimal functioning; things like enzymes, oxygen, hormones, phytochemicals, bio-electrical energy and life-force. When foods are heated above 105 degrees Farenheit they begin to lose all of these. By 118 degrees Farenheit, most food is dead. Yes, the vitamins, minerals, carbohydrates, fats and proteins are still there, but in a greatly altered state — not at all what nature provided.

Each cell of the body is like a tiny battery, and raw and living foods supply the bio-electricity which charges these batteries. The bio-electrical energy of raw food can be clearly seen in Kirlian photographs of the food. This photographic process shows electrical discharges that naturally emanate from all living things as luminescent, aura-like flares surrounding the subject. The glow is bright and radiant in raw foods, yet almost totally absent in Kirlian photographs of comparable cooked foods.

To me "life-force" means "the energy that is able to create life." The sprouting ability of raw foods demonstrates the presence of the life-force within them. All grains, legumes, beans and seeds sprout. Nuts in the shell sprout. Potatoes sprout and create new potato plants. (Do not eat potato sprouts as they are poisonous.) If you stick the top part of a pineapple into water, it will sprout roots. Apple seeds create apple trees. Avocado pits and mango pits sprout. Now, take cooked versions of all the above, put them into soil and see if a plant will grow. Cooked food rots, rather than sprouts, and a new plant does not come forth. Through observation, you can easily demonstrate for yourself what you are losing by eating cooked foods. A food that is cooked cannot create life and cannot maintain the life-force energy in our bodies.

Cooking food disrupts its molecular structure and kills all the enzymes too. Enzymes are the indispensable catalysts which enable the body to utilize vitamins and minerals. (Think of enzymes as the workmen and vitamins and minerals as the bricks and mortar. Without the workmen, the bricks and mortar don't get put into place.) Enzymes are extremely heat-sensitive and thus do not survive in cooked foods. The vitamins and phytochemicals also are injured, greatly diminished, and left in an altered molecular state. The minerals are made less soluble.

The fats have turned from life enhancing fatty acids to trans-fatty acids, which create damaging free radicals in the body. Trans-fatty acids also interfere with respiration of the cells. The proteins (including vegetable proteins), become denatured; they then coagulate (like the white of an egg) and are very difficult to digest. Some researchers report that unmetabolized protein particles in the bloodstream are a possible cause of allergies.

When you eat cooked (enzymeless) foods, you put a heavy burden on your body, which then has to produce the enzymes missing in the food. One of the reasons you feel lethargic or sleepy after a cooked meal is because the body is diverting its energy to replacing the enzymes that were not supplied. By comparison, a raw food meal leaves you feeling light and full of energy. You can judge this for yourself. Uncooked foods digest in 1/3 to 1/2 the time of cooked foods. The stress of creating and replacing enzymes, meal after meal, day after day, year after year, greatly contributes to accelerated aging.

Ingesting cooked food also causes the body to produce a surge of white blood cells (leukocytosis). These cells normally defend against disease, infection and injury to the body, but their production is a routine effect of ingesting cooked foods (as if the body considers such food a threat or danger). Because leukocytes carry a variety of enzymes, there is another possible explanation for the increase in white blood cells. The leukocytes may be delivering the missing enzymes so that digestion can proceed unhindered.

Leukocytosis does not occur when raw, unheated foods are eaten. According to Viktoras Kulvinskas, "in any pathological condition, including the intoxification of the digestive system with cooked food or other toxic materials, these white cells increase from 5 or 6 thousand per cubic millimetre to 7, 8 or 9 thousand per cu.m.m." Leukocytosis also occurs when additives, pesticides and chemically based supplements are ingested. And, of course, producing these cells creates an additional stress upon the body.

Raw foods are full of oxygen, especially green leafy vegetables which contain an abundance of chlorophyll. The chemical structure of chlorophyll is almost identical to the hemoglobin in our red blood cells. The only difference is that the hemoglobin molecule has iron in its nucleus and the chlorophyll molecule has magnesium. Chlorophyll detoxifies the bloodstream and every other part of the body better than anything else you could eat. When you eat raw green chlorophyll foods, you oxygenate the blood. The bloodstream, through its capillary system, then delivers this oxygen to every cell in your body. And when you eat greens in blended form, such as juicing this process is even more efficient.

Sprouted seeds contain vital elements which nourish our glands, nerves and brain. The hormones needed by the body are created out of the natural fat and other essential principles found in seeds. Think about how few seeds are found in the average diet. The plant breeders are hybridizing most of the seeds out of our foods. Now we can get seedless watermelons, seedless grapes, seedless citrus, and the list goes on. Even if we did find a seed, most of us don't understand the value of eating it and thus, it would be discarded.

When you eat cooked starch, the body absorbs more than it needs. Getting rid of the excess starch then becomes another burden to the body. Those who favour cooked foods often make the point that since the body cannot absorb raw starch, this is a sign the food should be cooked. Another way to look at it, however, is that the body absorbs just enough of the raw starch for its needs and then passes out the rest. (When pig farmers feed their pigs raw potatoes, the pigs stay slender. Since farmers sell their pigs by the pound, they have learned to feed them cooked potatoes, which fattens them up.)

Cellulose — the woody, fibrous part of food — was previously believed to be unnecessary to the body because the body did not absorb it so it was deemed unimportant. Now we know that this fibre is what keeps things moving through our body so that we don't become constipated. Nature is vindicated again! I believe, in addition, that raw fibre has the ability to act as a broom which sweeps the intestinal tract and keeps it clean. Cooked fibre has lost the ability to do this for us. Enemas and colonics serve their purpose, but they are a poor substitute for what nature, by putting (raw) fibre into foods, has provided.

Raw and live foods nourish and improve the body's inner environment. Raw and live foods enable the body to dislodge and expel accumulated wastes. A member of my family had a tiny sliver of metal lodged in his hand as a result of an accident. For two years he tried to get it out by squeezing, pushing, and probing with sterilized needles, etc., but it wouldn't budge. He went to the Optimum Health Institute (to learn about live foods) for a week and, when he returned home, decided he would continue on raw foods. Four weeks later, a bubble formed on his hand and inside the bubble was the sliver of metal. The bubble then burst and the sliver came out. This is an example of what raw and live foods do. If something is not supposed to be in your body, it will be expelled.

Eating cooked food prevents the immune system from working on what is really important in keeping us superbly healthy and young in body, mind and soul. We exhaust and dissipate the body's strength by using the immune system to combat the unnatural cooked foods, chemically based supplements, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, hormones (in meats, poultry, fish and dairy) and numerous other toxins we ingest, breathe in or absorb through our skin. When we really need the immune system to support us (as when a disease or infection develops or an injury occurs), it then lacks the strength to defend us properly.

Eating healthy means giving your body power foods it can easily assimilate and use for regeneration and rejuvenation. Life comes from life. So the more foods you eat which are organic and straight from nature's raw garden, the better you are going to feel.

Raw Food Heats Up Some Pros and Cons
by Marilynn Marter
Knight Ridder Newspapers

Raw food as an alternative lifestyle has been promoted since the '50s. In recent years, the success of raw-food restaurants in California has spread the concept nationwide. With Raw (Ten Speed Press, 2003), two visionary chefs — Charlie Trotter in Chicago, Roxanne Klein in San Francisco — created a landmark volume celebrating raw food, giving it gourmet glam and nudging it into the culinary mainstream.

Certainly, eating some raw food is natural and healthful; raw-food vegetarian diets can promote health and healing. But questions of long-term success, and possible vitamin deficiencies, remain. Face it, the concept runs counter to evolution and thousands of years of cooking. If that's not enough to stir controversy, add the nutritional complexities to the mix and you could have a food war on your hands.

Here are a few of the pros and cons: Raw food contains live enzymes that aid digestion, said chef-author Matthew Kenney. Heated past 118 degrees, those enzymes begin to die, leaving only the enzymes our bodies produce to digest what we eat. When the body supplies those enzymes, some believe, it speeds up the aging process. Research has shown that a raw food diet can have a major effect on health, normalizing weight and increasing energy. Raw foods can be more easily digested, producing less acid and bile. Combining raw and cooked foods at the same meal, however, may cause indigestion.

There is some concern that raw foods have higher pesticide levels than cooked foods, thus use of organic ingredients is recommended for raw food dishes. A small supplement of Vitamin B-12 is suggested with vegetarian diets since that nutrient is found primarily in meat. Nuts, seeds and sprouts are good sources of protein. But because plant proteins don't have the "balanced" amino acid profile found in animal protein, it is best to include a variety of protein sources in vegetarian diets. For essential fatty acids, Omega 3, typically found in fish, is very important. A precursor of Omega 3, alpha-linoleic acid, is found in green leafy vegetables and walnuts.

Take note: While eating most foods raw won't hurt you, the nutritional benefits of eliminating cooked foods, or for that matter, of going vegan and cutting all meat and dairy items from your diet, remains a subject of controversy for dietitians and doctors.

For those interested in learning more about raw foods, here are three books to explore:

Complete Book of Raw Food: Healthy, Delicious Vegetarian Cuisine Made with Living Foods by Lori Baird (Healthy Living Books, 2003) — More than 350 recipes from more than 40 top raw food chefs worldwide, with tips for making elegant and healthy meals, from preparation to presentation.

Living Cuisine: The Art and Spirit of Raw Foods by Renee Loux Underkoffler (Avery Publishing, 2004) — A comprehensive introduction to a raw-foods lifestyle, including tools, techniques, nutrition and safety tips and more than 300 gourmet vegan recipes from the former chef/co-owner of Raw Experience in Maui.

An article about Glaser Organic Farms, which is one of the largest raw food producers in the U.S. From TheLedger.com …

Farm Finds Success With Raw, Vegan Dishes
Glaser Organic Farms near Miami doesn't use heat or animal products.

Served under a blue and-white tent, the strawberry ice cream at the Coconut Grove Farmer's Market is unbelievably creamy, the tropical fruit pies are rich and succulent and the patestuffed portobello mushrooms are savory. Quite a feat, considering that all the food served here is raw and vegan — no animal products or heat involved.

The "ice cream" is actually made of finely ground cashews, the pies sit on a pecan crumb crust and the pate stuffed inside the mushrooms is devised of almonds and herbs. These raw food dishes, which draw health-food enthusiasts from around the region, are the creation of Glaser Organic Farms, a 15-acre farm south of Miami that has grown into one of the largest raw food producers in the United States.

Glaser farm products, which range from unbaked cookies called "rawies" to a bread made from sprouted whole grains dehydrated at very low temperatures, are shipped across the country and widely found in health food stores, such as national chain Whole Foods Market. "Our business is growing every year," said owner Stan Glaser, who started selling raw products to local stores 25 years ago and is now building a new, 3,000 square-foot kitchen — three times the size of their old space — to keep up with demand. "The volume just seems to increase, increase, increase."

Some think raw foods are healthier because heat breaks down vitamins and minerals in food and kills enzymes, which aid digestion. Others say it's the most natural way of eating. "Raw food was the original food," Glaser explained, pointing to the biblical story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. "What were they eating? Steaks? McDonald's?" They probably weren't eating mint and lemon tabouleh or tiramisu either, though both concoctions are a hit at the Farmer's Market, which Glaser Farms hosts every Saturday.

"I like the whole feeling of it," said Arthur Ackerman, a Key Biscayne business owner and yoga teacher who frequents the market's deli. "I like the ambiance, I like the food." Ackerman, 66, isn't a raw foodist, but says he tries to eat a healthy diet and the raw food dishes make him feel more energized and sleep better. "My disposition is more upbeat," Ackerman said.

Sitting at a nearby picnic table, a flight attendant who gave his name as Kachito called the Farmer's Market "the temple." The South Beach resident started eating a primarily raw foods diet after experiencing some health problems three years ago. He now says his allergies have disappeared and his annual physical exams consistently show he's healthier than average. "Raw foods is my life now," said the slim, bright-eyed man who looked younger than his 62 years. "I don't do it to live to 200, I just want to feel good every day."

But nutritionists don't recommend the diet. Although it's great to eat fresh fruits and vegetables, dietitian David Grotto said an optimal diet would include both cooked and raw foods. He said there's little scientific evidence that eating exclusively raw foods is healthier.In fact, cooking foods can bolster the amount of some vitamins, such as beta carotene. "It's not as simple as cooked equals less nutrition," said Grotto, a spokesman for the American Dietetic Association and the director of nutrition at the Block Center for Integrative Cancer Care in Evanston, Ill. Grotto said he's seen extreme cases of cancer patients on raw diets who have died from malnutrition.

Yet interest in raw foods and demand for such products is steadily growing. Adult education courses offered in Broward County, north of Miami, include a raw foods class called "Change your life: Cook with no heat." And few can deny that most Americans would benefit from eating more fresh fruits and vegetables. Glaser said he doesn't expect everyone to give up cooked foods, but he says the growing interest in raw foods is a "positive trend" because people could increase the percentage of their diets made up of raw foods.

A raw food "cooking" show?

It's in the works, according to Paul Benhaim, author of Living Food Recipes and presenter of Not The Cooking Show. Paul, an Australian native, plans to do a 26-series TV episode showcasing raw food preparation.

From the press release…

Raw and Alive!
From Thai Curry to Macadamia Pie—Raw Foods Come to a Kitchen in your Home.

Raw Food Cuisine is regarded as one of the most chic and desirable dietary trends among movie stars, super-human athletes, enlightened gurus and evangelistic vegetarians. Supposed benefits include rapid weight-loss, increased physical vitality, greater mental capacity, balanced emotional disposition, vibrant and beautiful skin, stronger immune system and spiritual peace of mind.

Haven't we had enough of diets and new food fads? How long do they last? Well, apparently this one is the oldest of them all—originating way before we invented fire. Can you smell a roast or fried foods when walking through your local forest? If cooking is so good, then how come insects and animals, which have lived for so much longer than we have, have not chosen to cook their foods?

Demi Moore, Woody Harrelson and Alicia Stevenson are some of today's celebrities who agree Raw Living Foods not only suit their busy lifestyle but provide all the elements for beauty and longevity that we all long for. “If it's raw it contains all the living enzymes, the total mineral content and live nutrition that is destroyed by cooking,” states Paul Benhaim, author of Living Food Recipes and presenter of Not The Cooking Show.

But rather than bore us with his theories, Paul has recently launched the first hands-on episode in a series planned for TV next year. “It's simple, there is no cravings in this diet –- you get to eat what you like, and lots of it. The only difference being, you don't cook!” And having watched the first episode (and checked out the numerous extra recipes found on the new DVD), I am convinced that raw foods can be quick, simple and just as delicious. I particularly enjoyed the topping for his Macadamia Pie with the raw dairy-free ‘ice-cream' (I didn't bother with the pie base).

Paul prefers to share the practical side of Raw Foods. The DVD gives all sides of the story — including interviews with a Natural Hygienist Doctor, a scientist and a psychotherapist as well as an in-depth interview with Paul. The evidence is quite conclusive and, unlike much of the medical profession, the crew is not sponsored by hundreds of chemical corporations. The proof is in the pudding (try Lemon Meringue or Chocolate Cake Supreme on page 36 and 40 of Living Food Recipes).

Article on new raw food restaurant in Toronto…

Live's Drive
Organic Bar Gets Parlayed Into A 30-Seater On Dupont
by Steen Davey

Jennifer Italiano is understandably stressed. In less than 24 hours, the vivacious chef will host a launch party for Live Organic Food Bar, the 30-seat upscale sequel to her wildly original –- but tiny –- Annex café. Acclaimed for its raw California-style vegan cuisine, the stylish bistro needs a lot of work. For starters, the banquettes have yet to arrive, someone just delivered a refrigerator and the construction crew seems to be weeks away from finishing. As if that weren't nerve-wracking enough, tomorrow's bash will be shot by Opening Soon, the Food Network's resto reality show that's been filming Italiano for months. Three days later, Live is scheduled to welcome its first paying customer. Now, NOW hails the latest version of Live as Toronto's top vegetarian restaurant. You'd be frazzled, too.

"I don't know why, but I keep breaking into tears," she laughs. Live was still in its infancy when we first surveyed the local veggie scene two years ago, but by the end of 2003 the four-seat eatery was named runner-up for NOW's restaurant of the year, right behind winning Clafouti and ahead of Chippy's, JK Wine Bar and Edward Levesque's Kitchen. Even if she hadn't moved two doors west into chic new digs and introduced a greatly expanded menu, Italiano would still be topping this year's vegetarian review.

At the new spot, old favourites like Live It Up Lasagna –- raw zucchini noodles layered with cashew ricotta, tomato marinara and basil pesto ($7.25) -– remain on the card, but Italiano ventures into new territory with vegan sushi rolled in untoasted nori stuffed with Cajun-fired almond "cheese," scallions and processed yam in apricot "cream." Another maki set sees cooked brown rice –- no purist, Italiano isn't afraid to bend the rules –- sweetened with red beet and mango garnished with fiery cashew wasabi ($7.50).

None of this will prepare devotees for another novel creation that is surely destined to become Italiano's signature summer dish, a cold, completely raw gazpacho ($5.75) of diced watermelon, corn, tomato and crisp pepper topped with red beet cress and chili coriander pesto. One second it cools you down, the next you break out in a delicious sweat. Desserts are always a highlight, especially Live's awesome take on Key Lime Pie made with raw avocado mousse, and a double "chocolate" cake made with another mousse of raw cacao and hazelnut, both built on uncooked raisin-walnut crusts (both $4.50). Yes, service will more than likely be shaky to start, and it's impossible to gauge how Italiano will handle the salivating throng already ringing her phone off the hook. But, come year end, don't be surprised if they and critics agree that Live Organic Food Bar is one of the best restaurants in town –- vegetarian or not.

Live Organic Food Bar
264 Dupont, at Spadina,
Toronto, CANADA
(416) 515-2002

Complete meals for $35 per person ($20 at brunch), including all taxes, tip and a squeezed-to-order juice. Average main dish is $10.
Open Tuesday to Saturday 11 am to 10 pm.
Brunch Sunday 11 am to 4 pm.
Closed Monday and holidays.
Reservations recommended.

"It's been said that half the fuel used in the world goes to the cooking of food. We use more fuel for cooking than we do for driving our cars.

"Every creature has foods for which it is biologically designed. In our case, fruits and tender young vegetables are ergonomically designed. A lion's mouth waters when it sees an antelope. When we see cherries or peaches on a tree, we sense food.

"Cooking is not a requirement for healthy eating. I found such amazing health results as an outcome of [raw food] that there was no turning back. Protein is found in the nucleus of all living cells. We know of no such condition as protein deficiency. Almost all conditions in the Western hemisphere are conditions of excess, not of deficiency."

- DOUGLAS GRAHAM, chiropractor, founder Healthful Living International, 100 per cent raw for 30 years, Key Largo, Florida

"In general, heating of food has been associated with the generation of carcinogens and of these compounds that, once absorbed, may over time generate disease. Of course, I am mostly talking about meat. Vegetables create very little of these."

- JAIME URIBARRI, associate professor, medicine/nephrology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York