Agnus Crawford - Rawlicious at Home: More Than 100 Raw, Vegan and Gluten-free Recipes to Make You Feel Great

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ISBN: 978-0-449-01618-3
eBook ISBN: 978-0-449-01619-0

Book design: Jennifer Lum

Photography: Rohit Seth

Published in Canada by Appetite by Random House,
a division of Random House of Canada Limited,
a Penguin Random House Company

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Wed like to dedicate this book to every single person who has ever walked into Rawlicious and tried something from our kitchens. Its a tremendous compliment and in return we vow every day to deliver the best-tasting, healthiest food possible to our customers!

How often do you find a completely new way to prepare great-tasting food? And how often do you find an easy new way to prepare great-tasting food thats also good for you and good for the planet? Welcome to the world of raw food!

Preparing wholesome, delicious meals from raw foods is easier than you might think. This book will help you discover how fun, creative and energizing a raw-food lifestyle can be! Weve included more than 100 raw-food recipes to help you get started. Theyve all been tested and tasted, and most have been served in our Rawlicious restaurants at one time or another. Some are old favorites with our customers, and some are newer additions to the menus. But theyre all intended to inspire you to expand your healthy-eating repertoire in the simplest of ways.

Were big fans of simplicity. At Rawlicious, we want our food to remain consistently flavorful, delicious and satisfying, regardless of who is preparing it. For that reason, we dont have any formally certified chefs in our restaurant kitchens. We hope that simplicity will soak into your kitchen experience, too, and that youll find our recipes a breeze to make. While a few of the techniques and some of the equipment in this book may be new to you, were sure youll find the recipes straightforward and the ingredients easy to find. It is important to note that some of the recipes in this book require soaking nuts and seeds overnight or dehydrating an item for a day or more. As a general rule, always try to be organized and plan ahead when preparing raw meals.

Weve found that most people are motivated to embrace a raw-foodessentially veganlifestyle due to concerns about either health or animal rights. Most often, they eventually embrace and promote the diet for both reasons. In 2008, a health crisis in Anguss family prompted a rethink of the familys eating habits, and learning to put together healthful meals became an essential skill. For Chelsea, living with a vegan roommate meant cooking meat was uncomfortable. Six years later, we have become passionate advocates for raw veganism because weve both seen its positive impact on the people we know and love and on the planet we all share.

While we respect everyones right to choose, we have one simple question: Do you feel good about what you eat? Its the only question you need to ask to figure out if what youre eating is right for you. Its okay for the answer to be no once in a while, just as long as its more often yes! To us, feeling good about what we eat means making better choices, having more energy and helping the environment.

When we opened the first Rawlicious in 2008, our customers were almost all raw-food enthusiasts. Now we attract a broader clientele, people who are simply looking to eat something more healthful. At Rawlicious everyone can find something delicious to eat. Whether youre a regular and always eat raw, vegan food, or youre a carnivore wanting a change from red meat, when you sit down in one of our restaurants, youre guaranteed a great meal!

More and more people are soaking nuts, sprouting seeds, and blending fruit at warp speeds. Why all the hype about raw food? And whats the motivating factor behind this lifestyle? We have done extensive reading into the research behind raw food, and what follows is our understanding of the basic science behind it.

First off raw food and living foods refer to the same thing. Any food that has not been cooked, processed or altered with heat above 118F would fall into either of these categories. For most people, raw foods do not include any animal products; however, there are some who consume raw dairy, and even meat.

Living food has the power to transform our bodies from the inside out. It cleans out toxins and impurities and can help heal chronic illnesses or injuries. One of the best examples of its potential to heal is chronicled in the film Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days, which documents US physician Dr. Gabriel Cousenss success at controlling diabetes with a raw-food diet and eliminating or greatly reducing his diabetic patients needs for medication. Also, the worlds largest nutrition study, the China Study, conducted in 2005 by Dr. T. Colin Campbell of Cornell University, demonstrated the power of a plant-based, vegan diet to reverse or prevent chronic diseases.

Our cells are living organisms, full of the vital energy needed to perform essential functions. By eating raw, nutrient-rich food, we are providing our bodies with the best possible foundation for carrying out these tasks. Our bodies are beautifully designed for survival, but we deprive our cells of tremendous amounts of potential if we eat food that drains our energy reserves. When we eat food thats been heated to high temperatures or exposed to synthetic chemicals, instead of each cell carrying out its designated function, its first priority is to rid the body of harmful toxins from the very foods we think are providing nutrition. Every day, much of our bodies energy is devoted to digestion. This energy drain is evident in the sluggish feeling we experience after eating any meal, let alone a big feast like a Thanksgiving dinner. Instead of energizing our bodies with food, we are depleting its reserves.

People following a typical North American diet, known as the Standard American Diet (SAD), consume food that is lacking enzymes, meaning their bodies must rely heavily on their own enzyme stores to make up this deficit. By eating food thats alive and still contains all its natural enzymes, we spare the body from having to tap into its own resources. This not only leaves us feeling energized and inspired instead of sluggish and lethargic, but also frees up energy to tend to other areas of the body that need attentionrepairing an injury, for instance.