In a world of obesity, heart disease and other health problems, a score of trendy diets keep popping up to reverse the doings of bad eating habits. A "low-carb" buzz has sprung up with the Atkins diet, the Zone and the South Beach diet. With their "fad-diet" connotations it's almost unfair to throw the raw food diet into the mix, but the regimen is another way people have been trying to lose weight and get healthy.
Raw (living) foodists are vegans who follow an uncooked, unprocessed, unheated and organic plant-based diet. Raw foods have a higher nutrient value than those that have been cooked because their enzymes are still intact. And if it's been a while since biology class, enzymes assist in the digestion of foods.
According to www.living-foods.com, eating food cooled hotter than 116 degrees Fahrenheit is a no-no for Rawists because they believe it makes the body work too hard to digest the foods and zaps the individual of energy.
Rawsome! Café open inside the Gentle Strength Co-op, 234 W. University Drive, Tempe. 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday. 480.496.5959. rawforlife.com
So if the diet sounds unflavored, unexciting and unbearable, your sentiments are justified, but the Rawsome! Café is looking to change your perceptions.
Charlie Mort has been running his café, which is located in the Gentle Strength Co-op on University Drive, for the last two years. He hopes to shed more light on this lifestyle. He not only runs the café, but he organizes and sponsors retreats and seminars (from here to Oregon) that feature professional chefs, educators and others advocates of the raw persuasion.
"People have been eating raw food since the beginning of time - it's not a 'new' diet or fad," Mort says.
It may not be a new fad, but the raw movement really picked up pace in 1995 and is gaining more attention with a mention of the diet in a recent episode of Sex in the City. Now, raw restaurants are thriving in major cities like New York, San Diego and Las Vegas.
Mort says he believes that Arizona is rapidly becoming more aware of the movement, although he can't believe that the lifestyle has not caught on to more ASU students: "I think there is some statistic that says at least 20 percent of college students are into health, so why aren't they coming into here?"
Although you wouldn't expect much variety when you think about a diet limited to uncooked fruits, vegetables and grains, with a little creativity and a dehydrator, the Rawsome! Café has created a surprisingly diverse menu.
Aside from the expected salads and hummus, there are pastas, pizzas, tacos and even apple pie. To make the crust for the pizza, seeds are ground up and a dehydrator sucks out the moisture to make a flat, crunchy crust. The sound of it may make you want to trek a few blocks down the street to Oregano's, but Rawsome! Café makes an effort to turn everyday favorites into tasty and healthy alternatives.
No diet is complete without success stories and the raw community is not void of infomercial-worthy testimonies. Kathleen Pehail, a friend of Mort's from California, lost 85 pounds and quit using three blood pressure medications since going raw seven years ago.
"If you look at it this way, it's 'live food for a live body, dead food for a dead body,'" Pehail says.
Haley Ritter, an employee of the Tempe Public School District, is also an avid customer of the café and a raw food enthusiast. She claims that after having brain surgery recently, her consumption of raw foods has helped her recover well: "I just attended a pot-luck last week and discovered some new dishes ... I just feel a lot healthier when I eat this way."
If anything, those on the diet are passionate about their lifestyle.
"Their lives revolve around the food. The raw food community is very tight," Mort says, "People are waking up to things like corporate greed and religion. They are realizing that you can't put toxic things in your body, and expect good things to come out."
Reach the reporter at rekha.muddaraj@asu.edu.
