Kate Wood - Raw Living: Detox Your Life and Eat the High Energy Way

When Kate Woods first book, Eat Smart, Eat Raw , came out, I was so excited! Having read a dozen or so raw books from the USA, here was the UKs first raw recipe book to include ingredients that I know, love and can find in the shops!

Kates book was so practical, I actually used the recipes. What a revelation for me! Now, after seeing the recipes in her second book, I am so glad that Kate has done it again.

I have a confession to make. Over the past year, Ive been eating Kates food at every opportunity. OK, I have a further confession to make, I havent been making her recipes, she has. Ive been loitering in her large sofad up kitchen and marvelling at the way she just presents me with a bowl, a smile and a question such as, Would you like some spinach cakes? I enjoy the spinach cakes, I enjoy the company, and then Im presented with a delicious pudding and the same smile as before. Her eldest son Reuben does the same, Ive made some sweetcorn and almond soup. Would you like some? Then he gently warms it and hands me a bowl, topped with crunchy bits. My daughter Evie wanders over to the dehydrator, which is always on, always making something. I want a biscuit! She demands. Kate produces tomato crisps, biscuits and flapjacks for Evie to enjoy.

This is the essence of Raw Living . Its not just a collection of raw ingredients thrown together haphazardly. Its a raw familys gift destined to help us all create wonderful food choices for our families.

Raw Living is for everyone. We all know we need more fruit, vegetables and raw foods in our diet. So many more of us are now listening to the cues that our bodies are giving us: Be gentle with me, nourish me, love me, give me fresh air, snuggles and love, and Ill give you the best life ever. Were all waking up to the fact that lighter living in all ways is the only way that makes sense. No nutritionist ever said, Eat more burgers and chips! Raw Living offers us so many ways in which to nourish ourselves, that our bodies can cross it off its list of things to remind us to do.

Kate is the mother of three raw home-schooled boys. Shes an author of two books. Shes a company director, she has a shop and a cafe. She also likes to party! She manages to do all this because the foods she eats gives her the energy to do it. Raw Living is an infinite energy bank. Kate is a true example of a superbeing, and you can be too, just by eating her food. OK, you may not get to hang out in her kitchen, but you can eat Raw Living s recipes - its surely the next best thing!

Kate is also one of the leading lights in the Raw Chocolate Revolution. Shes created more delicious chocolates, cakes, biscuits and savouries than anyone else I know. Some of them are in this book, so if you cant reach her shop, you can still experience them. Arent you lucky?

So without further ado, all that remains to be said is: Let them eat, Kate!

Shazzie

Author and managing director of Rawcreation Ltd

Introduction

Healthy eating is officially here. It seems you cant move these days for nutritionists advising you what to eat, celebrities endorsing a new diet regime, governments issuing strategies, or the media supplying alarming statistics. We are becoming a nation of people who take our health seriously, who want to eat the right things, who want to be slim, fit and youthful. We are realising that in some foods quality has deteriorated over the past fifty years, to the point where we can no longer get all the nutrients we need from it. And there are so many more stresses to contend with, which deplete our reserves: environmentally in the form of pollution, chemicals in the home, and electromagnetic radiation; and socially, in the fast-paced, high pressured lives so many of us live these days. If we do not look after ourselves properly, inevitably we become prey to one of the numerous symptoms of ill-health that affect us all; from general fatigue and muddle-headedness, through to asthma, eczema and psoriasis, all the way to cancer, heart disease and diabetes.

But it can be very hard to bridge that gap between our good intentions and our day-to-day realities. You may have read half a dozen times now that you need to get lots of Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs) to help prevent depression, but youre still not really sure what to do with that bottle of flax oil at the back of your fridge. Youve realised your childrens diet is low in minerals, but how do you get them to eat their greens? Youre ready to kick the Dairy Milk habit, but what are you going to replace it with? Or you may simply not have the time and energy to research thoroughly the new foods you should be eating to achieve vitality. Thats where Raw Living steps in.

If you examine all the various nutritional theories and diet plans closely, all that advice has a lot in common. Jill says add a little ingredient X, Paul wants you to add supplement Y, and for Caroline, cutting out Z is the key. But break it down and they are all saying the same things:

Eat more fruit and vegetables

Drink more water

Eat more healthy fats

Take some extra vitamin and mineral supplements

This is Raw Living in a nutshell. The basis of a raw food diet is raw fruit and vegetables, preferably organically and locally grown, and eaten seasonally. To that add liquids in the form of pure water and fresh juices; fats such as nuts, seeds, avocados and olives; sprouted grains and pulses; and superfoods like bee pollen and spirulina (a microalgae). You need to avoid meat, dairy, gluten, sugar, and all processed foods, but one of the joys of the raw food diet is that it is effective if you follow it at least 50% of the time. So you could have a raw breakfast, a cooked lunch, and a salad and something cooked for tea, or eat raw all day and then have a cooked dinner. Chances are if you picked up this book, you are doing some of that already. See? Eating raw is easy, because its intuitively what we want to do. You dont have to give up your favourite foods, but you will find over time that if you stick with it, your taste buds will change, and you will stop craving junk food and start craving superfood!

I dont want to tell you what to do; there are enough experts around to do that. What I do want to do is to open the door to a whole new world of raw food cuisine. Raw foods are a revelation. After well over a decade of eating raw, I am more excited about this food than ever. I am still constantly discovering new ingredients or coming across new combinations. If I eat out at a raw friends house, I am invariably delighted by the variety and individuality of their cuisine. Raw foods inspire us to fulfil our creative potential, both in the kitchen and out of it! Eating this way is a real pleasure: simple and easy to prepare, this food can be savoured and enjoyed however busy your day, and fuel you with energy to cope with lifes demands. When you eat foods that are fresh, locally, seasonally and organically grown, you are tapping into the infinite life force of the earth, you are accessing divine energy, and it tastes good.