Reflections on Raw Food

My primary reason for going to Bahay Kalipay was to detox.  After celebrating birthdays with food orgies in Taipei (mine) and Macau (my boyfriend's), I thought I would cleanse my system with a raw food diet for a week.

This is something I like to do, swing from one extreme to another.  I'll go on a seven-day fast in Koh Samui or Koh Chang then hit a champagne-foie gras buffet in Bangkok.  I just like to know that I can do both.  That I can indulge and that I can go without.

I first encountered the concept of raw food at the San Benito Farm in Lipa, Batangas.  There was a slew of publicity about it when it opened and I was intrigued.  A trip was in order.  Back then, you could pay a fee for a day tour which included a five-course lunch at their raw food restaurant.  I eyed the food with suspicion.  It all looked very nice but tasted, well, like... vegetables and I only ever regarded vegetables as a side dish, never the main attraction, and anyone who's ever stood in a buffet line with me knows that I often dismiss salads as a waste of space.

After lunch and a hot stone massage at the spa, my boyfriend and I got back into our car for the drive back to Manila.  As soon as we climbed in, I asked the driver if he had eaten.  He replied in the affirmative.  I asked if he had eaten the sandwich I had given him earlier.  My boyfriend was appalled.  "You're going to take back the sandwich that you gave him?!"  "Yes," I said matter-of-factly, "I'm hungry."  I turned back to the driver and politely asked if I could please, please, pretty please have the sandwich back.  As soon as it was in my hands, my boyfriend asked if he could have half.  Doh!

In Koh Samui, where we did our first detox, there were raw food classes being offered.  But I looked at the raw food chef and while he was probably the healthiest person on the planet and would live a thousand years, he was pale and gaunt and, quite frankly, looked like shit.  He and the other raw foodists I had seen were not good poster children for the raw food movement so my interest in it dried up and that was pretty much the end of that. 

Until... fast forward to last year when gal pal, Rosan Cruz, got into raw food.  While I poked fun at her on Facebook about it, I did promise that I would try out the raw food restaurant, Rawvolution, with her.  After several canceled dates, the restaurant moved to the same street where Rosan lives and we ran out of excuses not to go.

To my surprise, I enjoyed everything we ordered.  I thought the food looked fantastic and tasted pretty darned good.  Not to mention that the owner, Cheloy Ignacio, looked fabulous!  Of course, I was taken aback by the bill when it arrived (raw food can be damned expensive) but I liked the food so much that I was back in no time.

When I met up with my Aussie friend, Susan, in Ubud for a day when we were both in Bali last February, it was so hot and humid that I surprised her - and myself - by ordering raw lasagna for lunch.  It was delicious and perfect for that sweltering day. 

Raw lasagna at Little K, Yoga Barn's cafe.  Ubud, Bali, February 2011.  (Photo by Susan Brandstetter.)

Since then, I've done a raw food workshop with Asha Peri of Dahon Kusina, the vegetarian canteen of Asha's school, Creative Space, and while I thought the workshop was chaotic and was put off by the disorganization, when Susan visited me in Siargao, I served her and another guest some of the raw food I learned from Asha, which they both enjoyed.

In Cebu, where my boyfriend lives, I had taken to making green smoothies and drinking them throughout the day.

While you can read all about the mechanics of raw food online (- here's a link), I don't really subscribe to all that.

For instance, raw foodists insist that man wasn't meant to eat meat and that our forefathers ate only plants.  Well, they didn't have dehydrators or mandolin slicers back in the day either, did they?  And I doubt very much that Mr. Cro Magnon had green smoothies for breakfast.  And didn't they kick the bucket at about age 30 back then?

My friend's grandmother celebrated her 100th birthday recently and she eats pork everyday.  I certainly wouldn't want to live to be a hundred.  HAVE YOU SEEN PEOPLE THAT OLD?  Google it now and tell me if you ever want to look like that. 

If you've just googled the oldest people in the world like I told you to  (- fine, here's a link), you'll find out that a lot of them come from Japan, home of miso soup and tofu.  While they may eat a lot of seaweed and raw fish, that's probably the extent of their exposure to raw food.

Jeanne Calment of France reportedly smoked two sticks of cigarettes every day from when she was 21 up to 117.  She drank port and consumed about a kilo of chocolate every week.  She died at the age of 122.

So if raw foodists are to be believed that cooking at high temperatures destroys much-needed nutrients and enzymes in food, and we know for a fact that most, if not all the oldest folk in the world have eaten mostly cooked food, then - following that line of thinking - nutrients and enzymes must be overrated.

So, no, I don't buy into all that.

But I've always believed that what we take into our system has a very powerful effect on us.  And, nowadays, with all these chemicals in the soil and in our food, which end up in our system, these not only our physical health, but our emotional and mental health as well.

For our picnic by the beach, Bahay Kalipay served raw pesto with sundried tomatoes and Tropical Mango-Pineapple "pancit".  (Photo by Cris Silva.)

When we watched the video "Raw For Life", it struck a chord in me when they spoke about energy coming from food.  Having had only raw food for a few days, I felt light, clean and clear.  When they mentioned bacon and fried food (my favorite foods), all I could think of was how heavy and dense their energy was.

Animals no longer eat what they are supposed to eat and are pumped full of hormones so that even before they are butchered, they no longer resemble the animals they are supposed to be.  Then there are the additives that go into packaging and storing so that they still look fresh once we come face to face with them at the grocery.  And then we fry or grill or broil or bake them to become palatable.  How much energy - pure energy - can we still derive from food that has been processed and prepared this way?  I can imagine that people who eat only this must suffer from depression and mood swings a lot.

I have no doubt that raw food is the way to go for optimum health.  Do watch this other documentary called "Raw for 30 Days" in which diabetes patients were put on a strict raw food diet for 30 days.  The results are pretty amazing.

Bahay Kalipay's best dessert was this beetroot "crepe" with mango-banana filling, guyabano (soursop) "ice cream" with choco-coco-almond shards.  (Photo by Cris Silva.)

I think seven days wasn't enough time for me to experience the full benefits of a raw food diet as my body would have still been in the process of detoxing and getting used to raw food.  My next challenge will be to go raw for, at least, a month.  If I were strong enough, I would probably adapt a raw food diet for life.  But I do love to eat and I love to cook and I love travel and, as I said, I have no desire to live forever...

The best advice I can give is to listen to your body.  If you've only ever eaten meat in your life and you find yourself sickly or depressed a lot, try to incorporate more fruits and vegetables into your meals.  You can start of by making fresh smoothies every morning.  Have these instead of a cooked breakfast.

A typical breakfast at Bahay Kalipay consists of chopped fruits in season (shown here top to bottom are: red papayas, bananas, avocados, jack fruit, mangoes and dried raisins) served with with plain coconut milk and/or coconut milk with carob.  They might also serve sunflower seeds and dried coconut meat on the side which add a nice, crunchy texture to the fruit.

When I got off raw food, I went into retox mode straight away.  Fried fish, fried eggs and white rice.  I immediately noticed the build-up of mucus in my nose and throat.  It was noticeable because I didn't have it when I was on raw food.  Now that I'm fully retoxed (it didn't take very long), I've gotten used to its presence and it's now normal to me.  Just as it probably was normal for me before I went raw and my passageways cleared up.

Then again, a friend's brother once tried being vegetarian and he became one of the grumpiest people in the world.  His mood changed when he finally resumed eating meat.

So listen to your body.  Most of the time, it knows what is best for you. 

Comments

[Noemi torres]

Hi, i got interested with raw food. Can you share with me some of the recipes? Also, how do i start cleansing and detox?

Thank you.

Noemi

[Gai]

Dear Noemi,

So sorry for the late reply! I don't really have much access to the internet nowadays. But thank you for reading the blog and thank you for writing in!

Re raw food, please email me at [email protected]. I really recommend that you start out your raw food journey by doing a course with a real practitioner (- I'm a mere dabbler) so that you can get proper guidance. Here are some people you may get in touch with:

Asha Peri: https://www.facebook.com/dahon.kusina
Bahay Kalipay: https://www.facebook.com/bahaykalipaypalawan?fref=ts
Day Tormo Montano: https://www.facebook.com/dltormo?fref=ts
Lakapati Basa: https://www.facebook.com/Lakapati?fref=ts
Mona Lisa Neuboeck: https://www.facebook.com/monalisaraw?fref=ts

In Cebu, there's Eleanor Rivera of Healing Present Nature and Wellness Farm: https://www.facebook.com/healingpresent?pnref=lhc

Re detoxing, I'm wary about giving advice since I am not a nutritionist, nor a medical practitioner. This is an interesting read though: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ben-greenfield/is-detoxing-really-a-myth_b_6385924.html

Eating raw food is a good way to start, as are colemas. If you are traveling to Thailand any time in the future, you might want to check out the Spa Samui group. I think they offer some really good detox programs. But bear in mind, that before you start feeling better, you'll feel terrible first. It's normal. Stick with it though and you'll feel better!

Best of luck!

Yours truly,
Gai

[Noemi torres]

Hi gai, how are you doing? Your posts are very enticing... Are you attending asha's workshop? When was the last time you attended? I have some questions to ask sana. Where do u buy your raw mat for your raw food? What book can you recommend as reading matl and an informative one.

Thank yo so much.

Noemi

[Gai]

Hello again, Noemi!

I only attended one workshop by Asha, which was ages ago. Whenever I am at the Sunday Market in Legaspi Village in Makati, I stop by her booth to get some stuff like pili nuts and some of her raw snacks.

Re raw materials, just go visit your local market. As I said, I'm only a dabbler. It's best if you contact any of the raw food authorities that I cited above.

Hope you're well!

Gai