How to Follow a Raw Food Diet

Transcript Another great thing you can do for lunch and very nutritious is kale salad. Kale salad, you just strip the kale off the stem and you massage it with a tiny bit of olive oil. Extra-virgin olive oil is a raw food. You’ll see it change color. You’ll see it get softer. And then …

Transcript Well, a great dessert and quite easy to do is a chocolate mousse or pudding. A lot of people, once you’re on a raw food diet, the easy way is to go with nuts. But, after a while you get to the point where you’re eating too many nuts and it’s starting to affect …

Transcript So another great dinner that you can create using raw foods is nachos. And what makes nachos interesting is you can get a lot of the same sensations and flavors come out with the different ingredients. The key ingredients is going to be your nacho cheese. You’re going to also have some kind of …

Transcript Hi. My name’s Ron Russell one of the owners at SunCafe Organic Cuisine. We’re a raw food and cooked vegan food restaurant in Studio City. Right across the street from Universal Studios. I’m also a novelist. I wrote a book called “Don Carina”. It’s based on a true story about a woman who was …

Transcript Some of the things you can have for dinner, you can have some great dinners. One of my favorites, really simple too, is fajitas. You’re going to take traditional ingredients. You’re going to take peppers. You can use any kind of peppers, green, red, yellow. Slice them thin, thin strips just like you normally …

Transcript So one of the things we make at my restaurant SunCafé in Studio City is this lasagna. This is a little more complex for dinner but it’s so good. Now what’s going on here, lasagna is a layered dish. For the noodles, the big noodles that you use for lasagna, we actually are going …

Transcript If you want a really decadent raw dessert, this is one. This is SunCafe’s Cookie Dough pie. We’ve actually won awards for this. One of the most common raw desserts is versions of cheesecake made out of raw food but, of course, dairy free and it’s a layered dessert. There’s three different layers. The …

Transcript Okay. One real quick easy thing to make for dinner is spaghetti. Now we’re not going to use traditional noodles. What we’re going to use is zucchini. Zucchini is amazingly like a pasta noodle. It’s even white on the inside of zucchini. And the way we’re going to make noodles out of it is …

Transcript So some of the things we can have for lunch that are really satisfying and filling. First one is a burger. You can still have your burger. But this one is made with sunflower seeds, carroway seeds, sun-dried tomatoes, and then it’s dehydrated. And it’s very filling, very satisfying. Lots of flavor. And then …

Transcript Raw food and breakfast. A lot of people are confused. What can they eat for breakfast? Of course the most simple raw food thing you can do is a smoothie. You can either do a fruit smoothie or my favorite which is a green smoothie. What you need for that is any greens you …

Transcript A lot of people wonder about getting enough protein on a raw food diet. There’s also a little bit of a myth that you need massive amounts of protein in your diet. You definitely need protein, but one of the easiest ways to get protein is green, leafy vegetables. Things like spinach, charred kale, …

Transcript Another great thing you can make for lunch is chicken salad. What we’re going to substitute for the chicken is sunflower seeds. And then we just add in seasoning and we make a mayo out of sunflower seeds as well. And the trick with sunflower mayo is, you’re going to soak the seeds, blend …

Transcript Another great way to have a breakfast that’s very satisfying is create a, what I call, sunflower scramble. You’re basically going to soak sunflower seeds, and you’re going to puree them either in a blender or a food processor. You’re going to add seasoning, things like cumin powder, or, you’re definitely going to want …

Transcript So another great breakfast item is granola. Traditional granola is cooked though. So, we’re going to make granola out of buckwheat. Basically you take raw buckwheat groats. This is the finished granola but this is what buckwheat groats look like. They’re little tiny nutty looking texture. And, you want to soak them. You want …

Transcript Another great thing you can do for breakfast is chia porridge. I’m sure everybody remembers the chia pet, and it’s the same thing. It’s the seeds that are little tiny black seeds. They look a little like poppy seeds, very tiny black seeds. And they are just so full of nutrients. They turn interesting …

Transcript A raw food diet can actually also be great for the planet. One of the reasons is, animal production for meat is very intensive on resources. As an example, to create one pound of beef takes 5,200 gallons of water. By the same token, to create let’s say greens, it only takes about 30 …

Transcript A raw food diet. Some people worry that it’s too expensive. It can be expensive or it doesn’t have to be. And the way there are change outs that you can do that make it less expensive. You can buy processed raw foods like at the supermarket, in the health food store, certainty they …

Transcript Tap water probably is not the best thing you can do. It’s not going to kill you instantly, but over time there are almost always things in tap water that you don’t want. There’s PCB’s and pesticides. Now they tend to put chlorine in it to kill off any bacteria, but that’s also a …

Transcript Well, a question you hear is ‘Will I lose weight on a raw food diet?’. Well, that can be taken two ways. Some people want to lose weight; others don’t. Others want to build up, body builders and so on. And the quick answer is you can lose weight and you cannot lose weight …

Transcript I have heard of cases of people having dental issues with raw foods occasionally. It’s not that common, but sometimes it will happen. Some fruits, for instance berries and citrus, have a high amount of acidity to them and that tends to break down enamel. So one thing you can do is after you …

Transcript So should children go on a raw food diet? Some people are concerned about that. The basic answer is, it’s a very nutritious diet. However, just like all things, you need to make sure it’s a good diet. And what I mean by that is, for children, they tend to need more fat content …

Transcript You can freeze raw foods. It does break down the food a little more. Does, I believe kill some of the enzymes. But it’s still going to be raw. So, it’s kind of a half and half. It’s not something you want to do often in my opinion because it does get rid of …

Transcript So fruit sugar, will it make you fat? And the quick answer is, yes and no. It can. Certainly it’s possible to get a lot of calories through fruit, and it boils down mostly to that. And sugars can turn to fat in the body. That being said, I know fruitarians who eat a …

Transcript So, B-12. Some people are worried, “Am I going to get my B-12?” There’s two things; the raw food diet, most typically, is also a vegan diet. No animal products. That’s the main place people get B-12, is animal products. But you definitely can get B-12 on the raw food diet. The first way …

Transcript People often want to eat sprouts on a raw food diet. And the reason being is, sprouts are a living food. They’re still growing. And there are certain enzymes, nutrients that really proliferate in that kind of environment when that food is still growing. As far as creating sprouts the basic rule is you’re …

Transcript Some people complain that they have issues with flatulence on a raw food diet. This can come from two different things. One is they tend to be eating more cabbage family products. So, cabbage can cause flatulence. Also in that family are kale and broccoli. So that’s one thing. You can either eat less …

Transcript So some people ask about being a fruitarian. This is someone that eats a diet primarily based of just fruit. People ask is it safe? What are the effects going to be? From the people I’ve known that have been fruitarian, I’ve known a fair number, they tend to be really healthy. So I …

Transcript So, people like the taste of food, obviously. So, when we’re wanting to substitute raw food for something we’re use to, there’s some tricks. One of them is cheese. Everybody seems to love cheese. Well, you can actually make raw food cheese. Basically, cheese is a few ingredients and just alterations of those ingredients. …

Transcript Juicing can be a great way to get a lot of nutrients quick and easy. I try and to at least on green juice a day. Green juice is what I consider the healthiest juice. A lot of people also of course use wheat grass witch is very good for your system very nutritious …

Transcript So, you can pickle and/or ferment many raw foods. They still remain raw that way. It adds quite a few benefits by fermenting. Fermenting actually causes the increase of good bacteria. Things like acidophilus, which you’ve probably heard of, helps in the digestion of the food and helps build up the positive bacteria in …

Transcript Okay, so kitchen appliances that you need to prepare raw food. One thing you just cannot do without and that’s a blender. You need an ideally very high powered blender because then you can even create soups that are warm using the blender. And also to break down things enough to create sauces into …

Transcript So, some of the things that are great to have in your kitchen at all times for cooking with raw food. Two things that I use a lot, sunflower seeds. I make burgers out of them, seed pates. I make a fake chicken salad out of it. So, I use a lot of sunflower …

Transcript I get asked, “Can I heat raw food?” The quick answer is yes you can heat raw food. You want to be careful about the temperatures you heat it to. When you heat above 118 degrees you start killing enzymes, and one of the great benefits of raw food is the natural enzymes that …

Transcript One of the things about raw food is the enzymes that are associated with it. That’s one of the real benefits of raw food. To process your food you need enzymes. That’s what’s happening in your stomach. Enzymes are breaking down the food, and that helps to process it and also breaks it down …

Transcript Some people ask about detoxing with raw food. Raw food is great to help detox the body. Just a word about what detoxifying means and why we need to do it. In our society, certainly the way we eat, our pollution, all that, some of that gets trapped in the body. We’ve all heard …

Transcript Some of the tips and tricks of eating raw food one of which is keep it simple. Make simple things to start for sure. If you make recipes that are too difficult you’re just going to get tired of being in the kitchen all the time. So another thing is you want to eat …

Transcript There’s several different kinds of raw foodists. The most common by far is the vegan raw foodist, meaning you don’t eat any animal products. Anything that is derived from an animal, you stay away from. That’s the most common form of raw food. There’s also the vegetarian raw foodists who incorporate raw milk into …

Transcript So, as far as dehydrators the two biggest names are probably Excalibur and the Sedona. Both are expensive though. They’re both like 300 dollars or more. They have a large capacity. But if you don’t want to go that much you can definitely get one for like 50 dollars even. They’re smaller, you know, …

Transcript Raw Food Diet: How to Start? A lot of people are intimidated by starting a raw food diet. They don’t know where to begin. One was I’ve seen people do it is gradually. You start adding more raw food, and you’re still using some cooked food, so you don’t go cold turkey, so to …

Transcript Some of the myths about raw food that I hear a lot are, “Am I going to get enough protein?” Well, you very much can get enough protein just eating raw food. Greens are just packed full of protein. Spinach, chard, and kale, per calorie count, are actually higher in protein than meat. You …

Transcript Two ways you can define live foods. Live foods are raw foods, meaning they have not been cooked in any way, and therefore they still have all the natural enzymes in them. Once you heat above 118 degrees, you kill off the enzymes which help your body digest the food. That’s one definition. Another …

Transcript Some of the pros and cons of eating raw food, as far as nutrition goes, there aren’t too many cons. But, there are a few items. Like a Russet potato, for instance, needs to be cooked. You shouldn’t eat a potato that isn’t cooked. The starches don’t break down, and it’s hard to digest. …

Transcript Raw food diet. It sounds simple. It is simple. It is things that are not cooked. The basic rule of thumb with raw food is you don’t want to heat anything above 118 degrees. Some people say 115 degrees. And what that means is with the raw food, if it goes above 118, you …