Alissa Cohen Interview by Alex Malinksy

1. When and where were you born and what is your educational and professional background?

I was born on June 17th 1967 and raised in Marblehead MA.
I’m a nutritional counselor, polarity therapist, and personal fitness trainer. I have certifications in energetic bodywork, holistic counseling and nutrition, but opening my health food store many years ago and then working with people through a business I created after that, I gained insight into the physical, emotional and spiritual effects of food. I was experimenting with raw food before much information was out there. I began to teach myself and work with many well-respected teachers and trailblazers in the raw food movement.

2. What made you go raw?

Many years ago, when I was about 19 or 20, I met a woman while I was working in a health food store who had a 3 year old child. She was 100% raw and she was the healthiest, most vibrant child I had even seen, never had a cold, ear infection, nothing! I had Candida and Fibromyalgia and a host of other ailments and was looking for natural answers
I was vegetarian since I was 16, but when I heard this concept of eating all raw food to heal your body, something just clicked. When I would eat the so called ‘good’ vegetarian foods (steamed veggies, rice, tofu, etc.) I would feel lethargic and foggy-headed. When I ate raw fruits, vegetable, nuts and seeds, my body began to buzz, my energy began to soar, I noticed my back didn’t hurt, my Candida went away – within days! I couldn’t ignore how I felt when I ate raw compared to when I cooked food. The concept of eating whole foods full of life energy and enzymes made so much more sense to me then eating dead cooked foods. The only information I could find at the time was Ann Wigmore’s book Recipes For a Longer Life. I was blown away! “Living foods create live bodies, dead foods produce dead bodies”. It just seemed like the truth! So I began eating only raw foods.
After just a few months on the raw food diet, I had no symptoms of Fibromyalgia, my Candida was gone and I felt better then I had since my teenage years. My energy shot through the roof and I began to look younger and younger. I was more positive and happy. I began to share this diet with others and found they got the same kind of results.
I knew I had found the perfect way to eat for me and, I began to think, for others as well.

3. What do you think is the best way to get into raw foods? Do you think we should all be 100%?

Some people need to transition slowly while others are ready to jump right in. I personally tell people to go 100% raw. What I have found is that when people go slow they usually never get there. They get side tracked and eventually lose momentum and when your not eating 100% raw the results are slower so they lose motivation as they are not seeing the changes quickly enough. Read books, look on the internet, go to some raw food classes and find out for yourself what the best way to do this diet is. I do think that raw food is for everyone but that doesn’t mean that everyone should have the same raw food diet. This diet can be tailored to your needs and your situation. No one way will work for everyone, some people eat mostly fruit, some more fats and proteins, others more of a mono diet and so forth. You need to experiment and see for yourself what works best.

4. What are some of the main problems people encounter when going raw?

People get too strict. They try to eat a mono diet. They start fasting. They cut out nuts. They start thinking one food is not good, that fruits are too high in sugar, they shouldn’t have as much fat, they should not eat too much, etc. Eating raw food is drastically different to what most people are used to eating. What makes people think that eating an extra piece of fruit or more raw nuts will be the worst think in the world when just a week before they were eating pizza, ice cream and Mexican food? On this diet, people tend to go to the extreme. Raw food is extreme enough for most people. Just relax around it and have fun with it.

Another major pitfall is not having food in your house. You need to make sure you have enough food so that when you get hungry you can eat! For some reason when people go raw, they don’t think they need to have a lot of raw food in their home. But you would have cooked food if you were eating a cooked food diet! Make sure you know how to make some good raw food meals so when you’re hungry you know how to whip something up so you don’t find yourself driving to the nearest fast food chain.

5. What is the most amazing and inspiring raw transformation story you have heard?

Wow, that’s a hard one. There are so many.
I would have to say my sister who healed her lead poising (her story is in my book – it’s a long one!)
And my husband Dennis. He was told he would die if he did not go on interferon and now he is healing himself of liver disease and hepatitis C and is thriving. His enzyme load is now cut in half of what it used to be. It’s been amazing to see the changes he has made.
But you know, there are so many people all over the world healing themselves on this diet.
I get phone calls and emails everyday about people who are healing diseases, losing amazing amounts of weight, breaking free of depression, etc. Im constantly amazed at the stories I hear and I’m often in tears as Im sitting at my computer reading these letters from people who are so radically changing their lives.
Its really mind blowing and they all inspire me to continue what Im doing.
Just last week when we were in CA. doing a seminar, there was a man who had been sitting the whole time listening who I thought looked vaguely familiar. He came over to have me sign his book and as I was writing he leaned down and whispered to me ‘I have to thank you. You changed my life and you don’t even know it.’ Chills went up my spine and I realized who he was. He looked completely different from when I last saw him 6 years earlier. I did a seminar in that area with about 70 people and he was there. I spoke for a long time that day and I guess he was really affected by what I was saying about the raw food diet. I was so choked up I could barely speak. For some reason his simple, soft spoken words and the little smile he gave me while he walked away just said it all about why I promote this way of life.

6. What are your favorite hobbies?

Anything outdoors, hiking, swimming, walking, writing, laughing… I make clay sculptures and will probably create a business someday with those as I’ve sold a few already but I just don’t have time right now to focus on that.

7. What's your favorite place?

Preston Beach in Marblehead Ma - where I spend the first 18 years of my life.
Laguna Beach in CA – so beautiful. I miss living in California and now there is so much raw food stuff happening there. I just go back from doing a seminar in Huntington Beach and there are two amazing raw food places there and practically one in every surrounding town. My friend has a large resource /book store there also with fun raw food stuff happening every week.
Sienna, Italy – its like a medieval looking town with castles and everything – the grapes are amazing and the olive oil!

8. When did you decide to write a book?

About 4-5 years ago I was working with a women in Palm Dessert, CA.
She had just got back from a raw food retreat center and although she felt great while she was there and on raw foods, she just could not stay on it because she never learnt how to make any of the raw food meals. She was eating mostly sprouts and salads and just plain getting bored!
So while I was there we made all sorts of delicious, gourmet, raw food meals and she lost 5 pounds that week. She kept telling me ‘you have to write a book about what it is you are doing with people. Write a book about what you did with me this week!’
As other raw food books came out I realized there really was a need for a complete ‘how to’ book. So I though about it for another couple of years until other people started saying the same thing to me. I never considered myself a writer but I knew I had a knack for turning people on to raw food and more importantly helping them to STAY on this diet.

9. What is your favorite section in the book?

That’s impossible to answer! First of all there are over 290 recipes in the book that are really unique and incredible tasting, like the eggplant parmesan, black forest cake, calzones, cannolis, etc… so this is definitely a favorite section of mine!
But then there’s the whole first part of the book, the first 250 pages that talk about how to stay raw, detoxing, enzymes and alkaline balance, how to get back to raw if you go off of it, how to eat out at restaurants, other things besides raw that are important like working out, meditating, etc. there is also a large question and answer section. But that’s not all, there’s a big section on what exactly raw food is, what raw food isn’t and how to set up your kitchen and a 4 week guide that you can follow step by step along with recipes, menu plans and shopping list!
Oh, and lets not forget the 15 testimonials with before and after pictures…

10. What is your favorite recipe and what is your daily diet like?

Hmmm, my favorite, hu? Well, my favorite one would have to be the enchilada or crepes.
But the ones I make all the time are really simple and easy ones like the mock salmon, pesto stuffed mushrooms, date nut tort or my seaweed salads. Below are the recipes for the mock salmon and date nut tort. You can see for yourself how easy - and incredibly delicious – they are!

For my typical daily diet I tend to eat simply. A usual day may be: a green drink in the morning (which Dennis makes me drink since I told him how good it was for us!)
Then some fruit later on, then normally a really huge salad with everything in it.
Usually we eat pretty simple but once every few days or once a week we make something yummy. Sometimes I go through days were I’m really hungry and making more stuff. It really varies.

12. What are some of your current events and projects, and where do you see the raw food movement, in 1, 5, 10 yrs?

I have a lot of projects in the works, a TV commercial for one. A lot of other plans but I cant really talk about any of them yet! Just finding way to get the word out in a big way.

I just see this movement getting bigger and bigger. I think it will take time but it has already made leaps and bounds in the last couple of years. A few years ago when I mentioned raw foods, people had no idea what I was talking about, they assumed I meant sushi. But now, in a restaurant, I ask for a salad with everything raw in it and the waitress will ask me if im a raw fooder, or I talk to someone at the gym and they have a ‘friend ‘ who eats this way, even my parents friends know what raw food is. Its really amazing how far the raw food movement has come in such a short period of time. I think it will just continue to grow as more people wake up to the fact that they need to take their health into their own hands and have more consciousness around the fact that what you put in your mouth effects you in a very profound way on so many levels.