About the Raw Food Diet
People who partake in a Raw Food Diet usually limit what they consume to fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds. Some people also eat raw fish, raw milk (un pasteurized), raw meat and even raw eggs. However, most raw foodists do not consume animal products.
Therefore, a traditional raw food diet is very similar to a vegan diet, which also eschews the eating of animal products. However, in a raw food diet, none of the food is cooked (duh). To be more exact, no food can be heated above 118 degrees Fahrenheit. This is the temperature at which raw foodists believe that enzymes that are in the food, and that are vital for the proper digestion of the food for humans or other animals, break down. The idea is simply that animals don't cook their food. Only humans cook their food. Therefore, it is unnatural to heat foods to high temperatures and expect there to be no negative consequences.
Science or Junk Science?
But is there any real science to this? Enzymes breaking down at 118 degrees Fahrenheit? Has any of this been proven?
Advocates of raw food point to the lack of raw food in the modern western diet as a cause malaise, chronic disease, asthma, development of allergies, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, learning disabilities, depression, candida, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, and pretty much everything else under the sun. But isn't this just some new crazy diet?
I have no answers. I'm not a scientist. But I am in Weird Science. My personal, unscientific view? Anything that gets people to eat more vegetables and stay away from artificial sweeteners, processed foods, junk foods, fried foods, and foods that can only be categorized as 'artificial foods' is a good things. And besides, raw foods taste great (even if my attempt at making them wasn't exactly 5 Star Cuisine).
Raw Food and Polyphasic Sleep
There is one interesting bit of limited testing that I was able to observe with the Raw Food Diet. My friend, and frequent guest lecturer, Ty Hutchins had been Polyphasic Sleeping for about two or three months. For those that don't know, polyphasic sleeping is where you sleep 25 to 35 minutes, every 4 hours during the day instead of sleeping a full 8 hours at night. This way, you only sleep about 2.5 to 3.5 hours per day which allows you to be awake almost 35 hours extra a week where you would be sleeping. That's almost a full work week. It's weird science in it's own right.
The amazing thing was that it worked. Ty literally never slept at night. He was persistently awake (aside from his routine naps). I was amazed. But, in Ty's own words, "I'm still not fully on it. It's not perfect yet." Basically, it was working, but it was still a bit of a struggle.
Enter Raw Food. I can't remember who thought of the raw food diet, but it was probably me because I'm crazy and I'm always looking at whatever crazy diet is under the sun. The vegetarian diet, the vegan diet, the alkaline diet, bulking diets, protein sparing modified fasts, South Beach Diet, caloric restriction, and yes... raw food. I've read about all of them and experimented with all of them. Some I've been on for years and others I've only experimented with for a few weeks.
So, raw food. Long story short, Ty decides he's going to try raw food to see if it will help with his polyphasic sleep, and bam, "I'm totally on it. It's awesome. Raw food made a huge difference. I have an absolute ton of energy all the time. Thank you Amit. Thank you, thank you, thank you. How can I ever repay you? Here take my Mercedez Benz. You are a god."
Ahem.
Okay, so maybe I embellished a little (a lot). But there you have it. If you're going to try to adapt to the polyphasic lifestyle, we have conclusive evidence that the raw food diet might help you.
Recipes!
All the recipes that we brought to class are below. They're all from the awesome book Raw Food/Real World: 100 Recipes to Get the Glow. I don't know about all this glow nonsense, but many people do report looking better after they start eating raw. Once again, moving from fast food to fruits and vegetables might be a good thing. I don't know. I'm not a scientist. Do what you want with your life. See if I care.
Pineapple Star Anise Lassi - Serves 2 to 4
Ingredients:
3 cups diced pineapple
1 cup macadamia milk
3/4 teaspoon ground star anise.
Directions:
In a blender, puree all ingredients.
Oh yeah, you'll probably need the recipe for macadamia milk.
Creamy Macadamia Milk - Serves 2 to 4
Ingredients:
1 cup raw macadamia nuts, soaked 1 hour or more
3 cups filtered water
3 tablespoons agave nectar
2 tablespoons coconut butter (optional)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 tablespoon lecithin (optional)
1 packet stevia (a natural sweetener that won't give you cancer)
Pinch of sea salt
Directions:
In a blender, blends the nuts and the water on high for 2 minutes. Add the rest of the ingredients and blend to combine. Strain if desired.
Yeah, so making raw food is time consuming, which you wouldn't think it would be since, you know, you're not supposed to cook it. But that doesn't mean that you can't blend it, cut it, mash it, arrange it, strain it, mix it, drain it, and whatever else that fancy people do in real kitchens.
Alright, one more recipe.
Chocolate Pudding! Raw! - Serves 4
Ingredients:
2 cups coconut meat
3/4 cup coconut water
1/2 cup maple syrup
1/3 cup agave nectar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
Directions:
In a Vita-Mix (basically a blender so powerful that it'll make your lawn mower cry), puree all the ingredients until completely smooth. Move to a bowl and chill the pudding in the refrigerator.
Okay, so that doesn't seem hard. But it's sneaky. You see, you need 2 cups of coconut meat. That doesn't seem that bad. Except you need the coconut meat from Young Thai Coconuts. Which aren't that hard to find. We got them at HEB. The problem is, you need a huge machete, a strong arm, and a lot of time to open up a dozen coconuts. Too lazy for that? Well, I guess no raw, healthy, awesome chocolate pudding for you.
If that doesn't look awesome, I don't know what does.
Pictures of the Presentation
Okay, and finally, we have pictures of the event. If I find the pictures that Ty and I took while actually preparing the food, I will upload them, but I fear that they may have been on one of the hard drives that died recently.
Here we're getting prepared.
Here I'm practicing my judo chop. JUDO CHOP!
Ty is practicing his judo chop as well.
