my first raw-staurant

A few days ago I ate my first meal at a restaurant specializing in raw foods. I was feeling mildly embarrassed not to have tried raw foods before, since there is so much overlap between raw foodism and some of my other lifestyle choices (for example, practicing yoga).

Now, I know I should not judge a restaurant, let alone a food movement, based on one meal alone. So I'll just present the meal and some of the facts about raw foodism, and I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

In brief, raw foods (also called living foods) are plants, fruits, nuts, and seeds that have not been cooked past 110 or 120 degrees. (Beyond these temperatures, certain digestive enzymes in the foods begin to break down.) People undertake a raw foods diet for a variety of reasons, including health benefits, weight loss, disease cure or prevention, and environmental concerns. Raw food gurus such as David Wolfe also claim that raw foods make you feel more energized.

(Here's a fun page of "before and after" photos of people who went on raw foods diets.)

So back to Cafe Gratitude, site of my raw food lunch. The first thing you should know is that all of the menu items are "affirmations," and our waitress informed us that when we order, we need to state our affirmation. So instead of saying, "I'll have the soup of the day," you say, "I am thriving." No kidding. Or, stated in the language of Cafe Gratitude: I am serious. (Check out their menu to find your favorite example of this.) I think this is a quirk specific to Cafe Gratitude, and not to raw foodism in general.

After considering my options, I went with "I am celebrating," or in layman's terms, the daily special. On that particular day the special consisted of spring rolls, side salad, and my choice of grain. My spring rolls were made of kale wrapped around cucumber, carrot, green pepper, greens, avocado, and dried cranberries. (Yes, the cranberries seemed a little random to me too.) There was no dipping sauce, just the rolls. My side salad was just mixed greens with some balsamic vinaigrette, and the grain on the side was steamed quinoa.

The salad was delicious. Of course, I eat salads all the time, and there is nothing novel about eating a "raw" salad. My quinoa had been steamed but was otherwise untouched. (Question for ye who know: doesn't steaming something sort of cross the line? Is it really "raw" anymore?) My quinoa really yearned for some olive oil, salt, and a squeeze of lemon. I made it taste better by adding some of the vinaigrette. Finally, the spring rolls. While they definitely felt healthy, they also struck me as... incredibly bland. Where in the raw foods rules does it say you can't flavor your meals? Isn't grey sea salt as raw as they come? Perhaps a chopped up chili pepper?

Janaki, my companion at this meal and sometime-raw foodist, informed me that after you eat enough raw food, the flavors of the foods themselves really start to emerge. In other words, the food itself is flavorful enough to stand on its own, without the assistance of spices or condiments.

I can understand the logic of this, although I think if you're aiming for maximum flavor from raw foods and vegetables, you have to find seasonal, locally-grown produce (disqualifying my spring rolls, since neither avocados nor green peppers is grown in NorCal this late in the year).

(Edit: I just returned from the Temescal (Oakland) farmer's market. To my astonishment, they had green peppers. This confirms that I don't understand the growing seasons in California.)

It's also true that this was my first raw food meal. If I were to commit to, say, eating only raw foods for a week, perhaps by the end of the week I'd feel convinced that my food was flavorful. (Would I also be hallucinating by then?)

Here are two things I can say for my raw food meal:
1) I felt full afterwards, and continued to feel full for the next five hours.
2) It must have been very fiber-rich. My toilet can attest to this.

Both of these points lead me to believe that yes, switching from a typical American diet (lots of meat, dairy, and processed foods) to a raw diet will cause significant weight loss. Common sense also dictates this: if I were to eat mostly fruits and vegetables, I would be likely to consume far fewer calories than if I were to eat, say, quarter-pounders with fries.

However, I can't say I envy raw foodists. There are too many things I would miss: grilled onions, cheese, and chocolate truffles, to name a few. I also think most of the pleasure I derive from eating would disappear. I absolutely adore fresh fruits and vegetables, but I would come to love them a lot less if they were all I had to eat, day in and day out. So I think I'll stick to my omnivore's diet, and while I won't become a regular at Cafe Gratitude, I'm certainly not opposed to trying a "raw" meal again in the future.

If you'd like to read a great article about raw foods, including a balanced perspective of the benefits and risks, here's one from The New York Times.