Some like food raw

By Lisa McKinnon Scripps Howard News Service

June 5, 2003

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It's the ingredients, not the cooks, who can't stand the heat of the kitchen, say those who swear by "living" foods.

The patty is made from ground-up sunflower seeds. The buns are cabbage leaves cut into rough squares. And the mayonnaise is a blend of softened cashews and lemon juice.

Clearly, the "hamburger" sitting on Chakra Earthsong's plate isn't a hamburger at all but an incredible simulation.

It's also an example of raw, or "living," cuisine, one of the hottest trends in food right now.

Well, make that lukewarm. In accordance with the principles of living foods, nothing about this burger has been prepared at anything higher than 115 degrees.

That includes the way the sunflower seeds and shelled cashews were processed before they arrived in Earthsong's Ojai, Calif., kitchen. The burger itself was "cooked" in her dehydrator, but could just as easily have been left outside.

"I've seen people wipe their dashboards really clean and place veggie burgers in the sun," she said with a laugh.

As the name implies, raw foodists want not only their food but the ingredients that go into said food to be raw. Sushi is out because, although the fish may be raw, the rice is cooked. Coffee is a no-no because, among other things, the beans have been roasted at high temperatures. Milk (it's pasteurized), tofu (the soybeans are cooked) and chocolate (cacao beans are roasted) are also on the don't list for raw-food purists.

Earthsong, who prefers to be called a holistic nutritional consultant and live-food educator, isn't such a stickler about temperatures. When she makes Thai Coconut Soup (with "noodles" cut from pliable young coconut meat) for husband Rhythm and son Kai, 11, she has a simple way of gauging the heat.

"As long as you can stir your finger in it, the enzymes are intact," she said. (Earthsong conducts the test using a separate bowl.)

For living foodists, it's all about the enzymes, cellular proteins that act as organic catalysts for starting or speeding up chemical reactions like digestion.

Living foodists believe heat destroys the enzymes that occur naturally in food, requiring the human body to make up the difference. This is a bad thing, they say, because the body has only so many enzymes to go around.

To recharge the body's enzyme supply, they suggest a diet of raw, vegetarian foods. Possibilities include eating freshly sprouted (and therefore "living") buckwheat in the context of a sun-dried bagel, or drinking a smoothie made with almond milk and organic berries.

"I don't think of it as the way, just another way," said Earthsong, who began experimenting with living foods in the 1980s and now teaches classes in live-food preparation. "The intention is to boost vitality and bring energy into the body. It's not for everybody."

Traditional nutritionists are all for eating more fruits and vegetables. But they find fault with the enzyme-depletion theory.

"I've never seen anything to suggest that enzymes are in limited supply," said Lois Zsarnay, a registered dietitian with a private practice in Ventura, Calif. Aside from helping lessen the potential for salmonella, cooking some foods actually aids digestion because the fibers are broken down in the process, she added.

And some nutrients, like lycopene, a potent antioxidant commonly found in tomatoes, are more available to the body when heated. "Spinach is another example. Raw, it's high in B vitamins. Cooked, it's high in iron."

Ultimately, said Zsarnay, "the best nutrition is a variety -- some cooked, some raw."

How hot are you?

Just how hot is this form of haute cuisine allowed to get? That’s a matter of debate in the raw foods community.

Roxanne Klein, chef and co-owner at the gourmet living-foods restaurant Roxanne’s in Marin County, Calif., keeps things sprouting, blending and drying at no higher than 118 degrees.

At that temperature, sniff members of the Living Lighthouse, a Santa Monica, Calif., raw food collective, Klein might as well be using a microwave: The group’s dehydrators are set at 105 degrees.

But it’s to Klein and her 1-1/2-year-old organic restaurant that credit must be given for sparking new interest in raw foods, which Earthsong laughingly described as "the oldest cuisine in the world; it’s pre-fire."

Living foods last swept through the culinary community in the early 1990s, when a flamboyant, midriff-baring young chef named Juliano Brotman served "salmon" made from carrot pulp at his now-shuttered San Francisco restaurant, Organica.

Whereas Brotman continues to advocate living foods as a belief system (to him, eggs are "chicken abortions"), Klein is widely recognized for elevating the specialized cuisine to levels of beauty and tastiness heretofore unseen by those for whom self-denial has been a vegan badge of honor.

Klein’s tastebud-oriented approach has attracted the attention of chefs, foodies and restaurant critics, vegetarian and otherwise. Food & Wine magazine used words like "complex" and "voluptuous" to describe the food at Roxanne’s. There is a waiting list to get a reservation for one of the restaurant’s 62 seats.

And Chicago chef Charlie Trotter, author of a 2001 cookbook on meats and game, has teamed with Klein to write "Raw," a collection of more than 100 recipes (Peppercorn-Crusted Cashew Cheese, anyone?) that is slated for publication this fall.

— Lisa McKinnon

SUNFLOWER VEGGIE BURGERS

2 cups sunflower seeds, ground in a food processor to a coarse meal
1/4 cup golden flax seeds, ground in your blender to corn meal consistency
2 cups finely grated carrots
1/2 cup minced red onion
1/4 cup diced parsley
1/4 cup minced red pepper
3/4 cup minced celery
1 tablespoon soy sauce or tamari
Water as needed

Mix all of the ingredients, except water, together in a bowl. Add water 1 tablespoon at a time until it reaches a good burger-making consistency.

Shape mixture into eight to 10 burgers, patting down so each patty is about 1/2-inch thick, or a bit thinner. Place on baking sheets and dry in the hot sun, covered with a piece of cheesecloth, for six to eight hours, or bake in your oven on the lowest possible temperature.

MARINATED MUSHROOM MAGIC

2 cups sliced portobello, shiitake or cremini mushrooms (large pieces OK, as they will shrink)
1/2 cup tamari
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons fresh herbs (chives, basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary or cilantro), or your favorite dried blend

Place sliced mushrooms in a pan deep enough to allow them to be covered by the marinade.

Combine marinade ingredients in a blender and mix until garlic is pureed (you may wish to mince the cloves before adding them to the blender). Pour marinade over the mushrooms and allow to sit at least 1 hour before eating. The flavors will intensify as each hour passes.

The mushrooms will shrink as their juices release, so stir the pan to make sure they remain covered.

Marinated mushrooms will keep for about 3 days in the refrigerator. When you have eaten all the mushrooms, use the leftover marinade in a salad dressing or soup.

SIMPLE KALE SALAD

Look for the hemp and flax oils suggested in this recipe or stick with olive oil.

1 bunch lacinato or other variety of kale
1/2 to 1 teaspoon Celtic or other quality sea salt
1/4 cup olive oil or a blend of either flax and olive oil, or hemp oil and olive oil
2 cloves fresh squeezed garlic
Tamari or soy sauce to taste
Lemon juice to taste

Tear leaves of washed kale into bite-sized pieces. Set stems aside to juice or to add to a soup stock following your own recipe.

Place leaves in a large bowl, sprinkle with sea salt and squeeze and massage the greens until they wilt. This usually takes 2 to 5 minutes, depending on the level of pressure you apply to the greens.

Toss greens with remaining ingredients. Adjust seasoning according to personal preference. The salad is ready to eat immediately but is even more delicious if flavors are allowed to meld for 1 to 3 hours before serving.

Covered and refrigerated, it will keep for about 3 days.