How many of your daily
meals are completely raw? Maybe one? Well followers of the raw food movement
have substituted all of their bready bites and roasted veggies for 100% uncooked kos.
Barbera Leiman is one
of the people who has realised the benefits of raw food.
Barbera, who has been a
vegetarian for 37 years, has been eating predominantly raw food for the past
three years. She said ‘live’ food has always made sense to her.
Now if you’re imagining a hippy, dressed in hemp, munching on carrot and celery
sticks you would be wrong. In her brightly coloured and mosaic adorned kitchen
in Durban, Barbera prepares deliciously innovative meals for her family and
friends. These dishes buzz with live enzymes, which assist in the digestion
process.
Barbera’s kitchen is
filled with high-tech looking machines that help her to create her nosh. But
the most functional, she says, is her juicer. “An Oscar juice extractor is the one which is difficult to do
by hand – you won’t be able to it the way it does it”.
But raw food newbies need not panic. “You can also do
well with glass jars and nets for sprouting seeds for salads. And for the rest
imagination goes a long way,” she said.
Sprouts are, according to Barbera, the artillery in
any raw foodie’s kitchen, and there should be loads in supply. Along with fresh
greens, sprouts create the basis of most meals.
Really delicious raw recipes
And although salads, like
Barbera’s subtle salad, do
make up a large part of her diet, Barbera does not just munch on ‘bunny food’.
Decadent desserts that could match their cooked counterparts are regularly
created too, like her innovative Lemon
avo pie.
Her experimentation has lead to the hosting of raw
food preparation classes, demos and lunches where she “teases people’s senses
into a new direction”.
But raw food will not only flirt with your palate, dishes like the Raw food salad and Raw chocolate mousse will also give your body all the nutrients it needs.
Uncooked food is laden with enzymes, which are the
proteins that aid us in the digestion process. Once exposed to temperatures
above 118 degrees these enzymes break down (in the wrong way) making it more
difficult for you to digest your food. So, cooked food actually forces your
body to produce its own enzymes, using valuable energy.
Eating solely raw food is a large step to take, and
most of us would find it hard to give up our roasted, toasted and fried foods.
But by eating one completely raw meal, like the Superfood smoothie, a day you will be aiding your digestive
system which in turn will help your body beam radiance and health.
To contact Barbera about raw cooking classes email her
on barmoon@netactive.co.za or call
031 466 6609.