The more than 500 members of the Central Florida Raw Food Connection, including many from East Orlando, learn how to make raw dishes like kumquat cheesecake and no-bake vegan spaghetti and meatballs, ask questions about vitamin deficiencies and take field trips to events like mango festivals.
Raw is a diet consisting mostly of raw and foods cooked at temperatures no higher than 125 degrees (degrees vary from 105 to 125 depending on personal belief). The premise of the diet is that the living enzymes in raw food that help in digestion are damaged when the food is cooked.

Some reported benefits to the diet are increased energy and stamina, weight loss, and even relief from such afflictions as high blood pressure and cancer.

Olive Mackey’s diet consisted mostly of meat and potatoes. She even avoided lettuce and tomatoes on her cheeseburgers because she hated the way they slid off the bun. She regularly visited a chiropractor for achy muscles and a myriad of health issues including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, poor vision and dull hearing.

Seven years ago she attended a lecture on the 10 most deadly foods — all of which were featured stars in Mackey’s diet. She was determined to change.

In searching for the best diet, she stumbled upon raw foods. She tried the diet for 30 days, during which time her body underwent an intense transformation. She shed 20 pounds — 117 overall since adopting the diet — was able to stop taking her high blood pressure medication, strengthened her hearing and vision, and had a ton of energy. She remembers the “fabulous” taste of cooked food, but said the health benefits of raw food far outweigh the flavors lost. “I thought raw food was only salad. I could not imagine what else there was,” she said. The goal is to make it tasty, said Joe Diaz, owner of Café 118, a Winter Park restaurant that does not cook food over 118 degrees. The restaurant’s concept is to make raw food available and appealing to all walks of life — herbivores and carnivores, alike. He hopes to make raw food the next sushi craze.

“Years ago a lot of people did not eat at sushi restaurants because it was just a slab of fish on your plate,” he said. He found a way to make raw more appealing to the average consumer, successfully luring in all kinds of people with dishes like vegetable lasagna, zucchini and carrot noodle pad Thai, and nut-based mint-chocolate chip “ice cream.”

“For every ingredient used in conventional cooking there is a raw ingredient you can substitute. You can make ice cream just as creamy with young Thai coconut and creamed nuts,” Diaz noted.

“Most of my customers are not vegan or even vegetarian. They just want to try something new that is pleasing to the palate without contributing to the obesity epidemic.”

A 2005 University of Washington School of Medicine study showed that raw foodists had less chronic inflammation, lower cholesterol and less of a certain growth hormone that, when elevated, has been associated with breast and prostate cancers. The study agreed that the body has to work much harder to digest cooked food because the living enzymes are destroyed.

While there are obvious benefits to a raw diet, Orange County Health Department Dietician Debbie Amoedo said people should do their homework and even consult with a physician before making such drastic dietary changes. There may also be some drawbacks.

For instance, some foods like sweet potatoes, broccoli, asparagus, tomatoes and carrots have greater levels of antioxidants when cooked.

“We have digestive enzymes in our body naturally” she said. “We may not be getting active enzymes in cooked foods, but we have the enzymes we need to break down the food.” East Orlando resident Space Baker is an aspiring rawist. He eats raw whenever possible, but also eats cooked food because he found the raw lifestyle to be unaffordable. Certain equipment like dehydrators and food processors are required to make many raw dishes and the ingredients, like nuts, exotic fruits and vegetables, can be pricey.

Diaz said this keeps many people from becoming totally committed to raw food, but added that if more people demanded these products, prices would be driven down. “I love the diet. I have more energy and feel more light and clean when I stick to it. When I have to eat something cooked I can tell the difference immediately. I feel so sluggish,” said Baker, who has consumed a vegan diet (free of all animal product including meat and dairy) since 1996. “The only thing keeping me from it is the cost. I would be 90 percent raw if I could; every once in a while I like a warm bowl of soup.” Cost is no excuse, according to Mackey.

Four times a year she hosts a Raw Food Challenge, asking dozens of participants of all ages to stick to the diet for 21 days — the time it generally takes to build a habit.

Meanwhile she takes them to grocery stores to learn which foods to buy and how to fit them into their budgets. “Eating raw is like any other diet. Families on a budget might eat a lot of ground meat and only have steak on special occasions.

Some raw foodists substitute seeds that cost a dollar for costly nuts,” she said. “People say, ‘I tried raw food but I can’t afford it.’ I say you cannot afford not to do it and here is how to fit it into your life.”

Original article written by Megan Stokes: http://www.eosun.com/article-686-wrestling-with-raw.html