Raw Deal

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Camille Pyatte

WELL, RAW-TI-DA: Adriel Martinetti (left) and Evona Poplawski show off a full raw meal: Veggie Magic patties, Mediterranean couscous and Asian sprouted wild rice for an entrée, a fresh garden salad on the side, an espresso brownie for dessert and all of it washed down with a glass of fresh carrot juice.

INFO

Veggie Magic

4428 Bee Ridge Road, Sarasota, 377-6209 or veggiemagic.com, 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Mon.-Sat.

Thank Jenna Norwood for Sarasota's recent love affair with the raw food lifestyle. Since the release of her documentary, Supercharge Me!: 30 Days Raw, earlier this year, Norwood has turned a local grassroots raw food movement into one of the largest in the country. By last count, her Raw Sarasota group on Meetup.com had almost 300 members, second only to a similar group in Chicago.

Veggie Magic, a new raw and vegan joint on Bee Ridge Road -- only the second of its kind in Florida -- seems like an ideal physical home for Norwood's burgeoning clan. She opened the place last month with three friends, all raw food aficionados and trained chefs. At Veggie Magic's grand opening, over 90 people showed up to sample food that's more lifestyle than cuisine.

There is only one true law governing raw diets: Nothing can be heated to more than 105-115 degrees. Although some raw adherents eat fish or dairy products, most are vegans as well.

Keeping with those tenets, nothing at Veggie Magic is cooked. There are no animal products, and everything is organic. With only seeds, sprouts, nuts, fruits and vegetables to work with, none of which can be cooked in any traditional sense, creating a diverse raw menu can be difficult.

Of course, the first question that springs to my mind is: Why bother?

"I've always been into healthy living, so I tried it even though I thought it was a little bit wacky," admits Veggie Magic co-owner Evona Poplawski, who went raw two years ago. In short order, the raw lifestyle healed her hypoglycemia and other ailments. "Once I went raw, it was all gone, immediately. It just works." Well, that's one reason.

Raw devotees claim that heat destroys a wide variety of food's nutrients and enzymes. Many also feel that cooking food is unnatural; humans are the only animals that cook their food. "It brings you closer to the earth," says Poplawski. Eating raw can also bring weight loss, increased energy, cancer remission and a drastic decrease in need for sleep, according to some.

But plant enzymes are, well, for plants, and are very different from human digestive enzymes. In any case, most of the enzymes are destroyed by stomach acids, just as they are when cooked. Besides the science, though, raw diets raise an evolutionary concern: If we hadn't evolved the ability to cook our food to preserve it and render it safe for consumption, modern society would never have come to exist. Plus, it's hard to call a diet natural when B12 supplements are a necessary byproduct.

There are undeniable health benefits to a diet that makes use of raw food principles, but those can largely be explained by the mass consumption of all those healthy fruits and vegetables, as well as all those omega-3 fatty acids in the seeds and nuts. Everyone needs to eat more veggies.

Although my omnivorous ways will likely not be converted to the raw lifestyle, I'm always open to new food. If it's tasty, I'm willing to buy in.

At the restaurant, I peer through the glass doors of two refrigerators at a wide range of faux foods. Th need to mimic traditional foods is a problem that plagues many vegetarian restaurants I've been to. There you'll find veggie burgers and chick-un, soy chili and textured vegetable protein sausages -- pretend food for people who feel that they're missing out on something they've left behind. Here, it's all about pretend-cooking.

There are three necessary tools in the raw food chef's kitchen: a blender, a food processor and a dehydrator. "Bread" at Veggie Magic is made from pulverized and dehydrated seeds -- usually a combination of sunflower and flax -- flavored with onion, olive or banana. The result is a chewy, firm paste loaded with the fats and oils in the seeds. Think of it as savory, trail-mix jerky that leaves an unctuous film in your mouth.

Raw green beans are covered in a thick sauce heavily accented by mustard and topped with dehydrated shallots, a play on 1950s green bean casserole. Sprouted wild rice is seasoned with tamari and garlic, seriously crunchy but inoffensive. Both are leftovers from Veggie Magic's Thanksgiving menu, which featured a parade of mock cooking.

There are also spongy veggie burger fritters and chewy Mediterranean brittle that taste of raw spices, both bland offerings assisted by tomato sauce fortified by bright sun-dried tomatoes and dried herbs. When done properly, sauces are where raw food can shine: A fabulous creamy avocado spread brightened by a little citrus and olive oil is reminiscent of an exceptionally refined and elegant guacamole.

Unsurprisingly, Veggie Magic's best foods are also the ones meddled with the least -- shredded zucchini pasta, salads and simple dressings. That's the real secret of the raw lifestyle: Fruits and vegetables taste good.

As for the other stuff, "it's transitional food, so that people don't feel that they are missing out," according to Poplawski. She tells me that most raw food consumers largely eat plain old food with little fussing about in the kitchen. That's the core of the diet. But when people first experiment, they feel like they are denying themselves. That's where Veggie Magic's faux-food comes in. "This food allows you to get what you are craving," she says.

In the end, nothing at Veggie Magic is going to make a convert out of someone who isn't already on the raw bandwagon. But that's not necessarily the goal Norwood and Poplawski (as well as the other partners, Adriel Martinetti and Scott Nuss) have in mind. Veggie Magic is working with a local doctor to provide his patients three meals a day for an entire month, replicating Norwood's filmed adventure. The group also provides food to the Waldorf Schools and plans on making bagged raw lunches for kids.

"It's not about perfection, it's not about if you are 100 percent raw," says Poplawski. "It's about introducing people to a healthier choice and supporting the community.

Tags: Raw Deal

COMMENTS

RE: Raw Deal

Posted by ForTheRecord on 06.05.09 @ 01:46 PM

I need to correct my post now too!

Actually Brian appears to be mistaken regarding the enzymes being destroyed in the stomach. Enzymes are proteins; proteins are long chains of amino acids. Biochemically HCl at the stomach pH does not destroy proteins. If stomach acid destroys plant proteins, then why wouldn't it destroy animal proteins? Our stomachs would destroy themselves if the stomach acid destroyed proteins. However, heat and fire destroy proteins (including enzymes).

Is it the proteases and pepsidases that disassemble the proteins (including enzymes) in the intestines?

The denatured (cooked) proteins we eat are crumpled up and destroyed rendering much of the amino acids unusable. The process of our bodies trying to use these denatured (damaged) proteins is inefficient. The raw enzymes enter the intestines perfectly ready for disassembly, in other words ready to be "cut" into the individual units of amino acids (then the individual amino acids are used to make different proteins for our body on an as need basis).

It's the amino acids we need to have access to within our bodies. Enzymes ARE long chains of amino acids; enzymes ARE proteins. The chains of amino acids get "cut" in the small intestines (not destroyed in the stomach).

RE: Raw Deal

Posted by ForTheRecord on 06.01.09 @ 12:46 PM

Brian Ries is mistaken when he states that B12 supplements are necessary. B12 is produced by bacteria. B12 is obtained by eating the bacteria. The B12 producing bacteria are on fruits, vegetables, fungus, decomposing organic matter such as animal flesh, etc. Of course we need to have a healthy internal environment to absorb B12. Ingestion and absorption are both needed and just as many meat eaters need to take B12 supplements as plant eaters. Brian is absolutely mistaken.

He (Brian Ries) also states that "modern society would have never come to exist." I suppose Brian can't imagine a modern society that is better than it is now, more healthful, peaceful, and differently prioritized.

Brian is correct about the enzymes being destroyed in the stomach, but digestion begins in the mouth, and eating fresh ripe fruits and leafy greens is the most metabolically efficient and natural way to eat for primates. The last time I checked, humans ARE biologically academically in fact primates.

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