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Rawsome and rauseous in LA, part 2
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If anyone happened to read "Rawsome in LA," this is an ongoing series of blogs following my rocky transition to eating only whole, life, raw food. To recap, I decided as a part of my sustainable examination of LA, to start with myself as the first place I could go 100% green. Just like when the natural foods movement was in its infancy, the live or raw food movement is one that conjures up visions of unappealing, uncooked dishes created to mimic our home cooked favorites. Sometimes that happens to be true, for instance when I went to a raw restaurant and ordered "rawsagna." Not only did it not look like lasagna, the only thing about it that resembled the real thing was the name. At that point I decided to go on line and look at the raw cookbooks, perhaps a better term is uncooked books. Being a bit impulsive when Amazon shows me used books that are like new for pennies on the dollar, I ordered several. I figure if I make it myself then I can tweak ingredients and modify recipes to my own tastes.
So while I waited for my cookbooks to appear, I continued eating fruits in the morning and vegetables after noon. As the days went by, I began to eat mono meals. Raw foodists call eating one item meals, mono-meals. Quite frankly after just a week of raw eating, I'm not really hungry as much. In most of the raw books I've read, this lack of appetite is due to the fact that you're eating food in its natural state. As such, your body assimilates nearly all the nutrients, vitamins and minerals from the raw food. The result is you do require less food because your body is not having to extract limited nutrients from cooked or processes foods. Personally, I think I'm eating less because I'm so disinterested in what I'm eating but whatever it is, the holidays are coming and anything that makes me want to eat less is good. Plus, according to longevity experts, the fewer calories we ingest the longer and more high quality our lives will be. Again, that's good research data but I just want to look good for the holidays.
On a typical raw day, for breakfast, I always eat an apple, and when midmorning hunger strikes, I do more fruit, lots of bananas. At lunch, I make a green salad with olive or sesame oil and balsamic vinegar. For afternoon snacks (if I want,) I have an avocado or raw olives. At dinner, I have more greens. Before bed, I drink a nut milk like almond milk if I'm hungry. Admittedly, sometimes I get serious urges to sink my teeth into a chewy, cheesy slice of pizza. But as time goes by, I feel these cravings less. However I do dream about M & M s'. Even knowing that M & M s' have been found to have genetically modified ingredients in them doesn't make me think about them any less. They have been my downfall in this quest for rawness. I even bought the raw cacao which is stronger and is purported to have almost super food qualities by raw foodists. Doesn't seem to matter to my undiminished love and cravings for M & Ms'. I usually just wait until they pass (15 minutes) and hopefully at that point I'm not driving to the store to buy them. Its happened...a few times but I keep telling myself to stick with this. I want to see if I'll become a twig.
When I feel like really going crazy and eating everything cooked I love like Pad Thai,chocolate eclairs, Aglio Olia, John O'Groats tuna melt,oh my, this list could go on and on, but when I feel like I'm going to cheat on myself, I go to a raw restaurant. Thats right, a restaurant where they do no cooking. In fact, Los Angeles has some of the most famous raw foodists in the world among its residents and they have restaurants. This past week I showed up at Leaf Cuisine on Ventura Boulevard. From the moment I walked in, I noticed the clean, fresh scent. I also noticed the place was full of single diners. We raw foodists apparently don't have a lot of people scrambling to have lunch or dinner with us. I perused the menu and took great pleasure in ordering two desserts, "Oraweo" pudding and a chocolate brownie. Thats one of the cool things about eating raw. All raw dishes are so good for you that you can eat dessert for dinner and still be eating well and I did. Both these desserts were quite good. In fact, I must be frank, so far I like raw desserts much more than the raw entrees. But that may change as I get used to eating this way.
The raw restaurant I went to, Leaf Cuisine has an interesting story and owner, Rod Rotondi. Leaf Cuisine was the first certified organic, raw vegan restaurant in the world. For a restaurant to be certified organic it has to meet the strict criteria of Quality Assurance International, the world's leading organic certification. Leaf Cuisine is a Green restaurant which means they recycle all their paper, plastic and glass, use only non-toxic cleaning supplies, compost their waste and buy only recycled paper for napkins and restroom needs. Leaf Cuisine also uses absolutely no animal products. All Leaf Cuisines' food is live which means none of it is ever heated above 110 degrees.
In Rotondi's bio on the Leaf Cuisine website, I found the following quote which I think states his mission beautifully. Changing the world one bite at a time is Rotondi's approach to social activism. “Everyone has control over what they put in their mouth and these choices make a huge difference for our shared environment- our biosphere, as well as our individual environments- our bodies! Choosing organic, vegan raw foods is not only supporting our individual bodies with optimally nutritious foods, but supporting the growth of the whole organic and vegan industry- basically, our health and the health of our planet.”
Leaf Cuisine has its food in many health food markets like Whole Foods plus they cater to groups and deliver their meals in bio-diesel vehicles. Leaf also offers raw food classes. Leaf has several Southern California locations which are listed on their website. That said, I urge you to try it raw, you may even like it, I do, most days.
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