The Raw Food Revolution Diet
Discover how a raw foods diet will balance your weight naturally. This collection of recipes for imaginative, delectable, accessible and enticing cuisine is a far cry from a discipline limited to salads and sprouts. You’ll be able to enjoy delicious, easy-to-prepare meals without feeling deprived. And you’ll experience how raw foods can improve your health and make you feel more alive. Practical tips make it easy to choose the raw diet plan that’s right for you with handy menus to get you started. A “How To” section on putting together a raw food diet that is nutritionally sound ensures that you receive the nutrients you need as you achieve your natural weight.
User Ratings and Reviews
4 Stars Fabulous Recipes and raw lifestyle advice! A must if you can’t make it to Cherie’s raw foods school.
“The Raw Revolution Diet” markets itself as a weight loss diet, which in some ways is a shame because the second half of the book is one of the best raw foods “cookbooks” on the market. If you’re looking for a 5-star raw foods cookbook of mostly beginner and intermediate level recipes, then do not hesitate to buy this book! However, most people who come to Living Light (Cherie Soria’s raw foods school) and need to lose weight, do lose weight on a raw foods diet.
The first half of the book is what I consider to be a 4-star book on vegan raw foods nutrition, weight loss and lifestyle. While I definitely recommend this book for raw foods nutrition and weight loss, the truth is that the very intelligent and knowledgeable vegan dietitians, Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina are capable of doing a more thorough job than presented in this book. Although they no doubt did many hours of research and discuss many studies on the advantages of a raw foods diet, the book references none of them! Without so much as a footnote or even author name, the reader is unable to evaluate these studies for her/himself.
As with their other books on vegan (and vegetarian) nutrition, Brenda and Vesanto cover macro (fat, protein and carbohydrates), and selected micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) of interest to vegans. Unfortunately, while their level of coverage may have sufficed about 10 years ago, there are a few gaps for the 2009 reader:
*Vitamin B12 - While otherwise extensive coverage, not a word is mentioned about which form to buy as a supplement. Health food stores commonly sell the better absorbed/shorter shelf-life methylcobalamin, as well as the less expensive cyanocobalamin. As a vegan, I’d be interested to know if the authors recommend only the methyl form, or if they also find the cyano acceptable.
*Vitamin D - The authors mention that vitamin D supports bone density, and that a lack may be linked with depression, certain types of cancer, and multiple sclerosis. However, despite there being extensive research and anecdotal evidence of vitamin D preventing colds and influenza (more than a year prior to publication), there is no mention of this. Also, they mention the “vitamin D winter” when it’s difficult to obtain enough sunlight to produce vitamin D, but don’t give specific information on this. The information is available as what months constitute vitamin D winter for various latitudes and exactly how much vitamin D supplementation and skin exposure is recommended for both light and dark skin in these latitudes.
Curiously, in a book about raw foods nutrition, there is no discussion of any benefit a raw foods diet may convey due to the dietary enzymes not being destroyed in the cooking process.
Despite my quibbles with the nutrition section, I find it otherwise complete and helpful. I especially like the tables, listings of raw foods highest in calcium, and iron. There’s a helpful 4-page table giving, among other things, the number of calories, and protein grams in many raw foods, but curiously the number of fat grams are missing. (Although they do give you the number of calories from fat.) Most importantly, they provide sensible and specific guidelines for eating a raw foods diet that keeps people from making the mistake of gorging on nuts and seeds while considering cooked food to be “poison” and thus always foregoing steamed vegetables and cooked legumes.
I would have given this book 5 stars for the fabulous recipes and the mostly complete nutrition section, but they do not give caloric nor any nutritional information in the recipes! Occasionally they will mention in the comment section that a dish packs in certain nutrients, but it is not presented on a recipe-by-recipe basis. In a book touting itself as a weight loss program, I find that inexcusable.
Going back to the recipes, IMO that is the number one reason to buy this book. As a graduate of her raw foods school, I can tell you Cherie Soria is both a genius and perfectionist when it comes to her recipes.
I’ve made some of the recipes at home and others as a student at the school, and with a bit of toning down of Cherie’s generous amounts of onions and peppers, love every one I’ve tried! This includes the Not Tuna Salad, Onion Rings, Zoom Burgers, Zucchini Hummus, Garden Blend Soup and more. (Note to Cherie - The Basic Nut Cheese is delicious, but it calls for probiotic powder, which most people are not familiar with. If there’s a second edition, I think you should mention what this is and suggest a brand.) I want to give special mention to the Creamy Kale-Apple Soup and the Bananas I-Scream. Both recipes are amazingly simple and amazingly delicious.
5 Stars The Raw Food Revolution Diet
After being on a raw food diet for two months, I found this book very helpful and encouraging. It has a place on my bookshelf of un-cook books.
5 Stars The Raw Food Revolution Diet
The Raw Food Revolution Diet The Raw Food Revolution Diet is a book which finally directly addresses weight loss nutrition concerns of people starting a raw food diet. The information is clear, direct, and succinct. The recipe is section, alone, is a wonderland for raw foodists, with easy to prepare delicious foods which people at all levels of raw can enjoy.
I went out on a limb, buying this book sight unseen, but I have not been disappointed.
5 Stars meet her on one of her cooking courses!
This fantastic lady looks so young, and clearly its her diet. I have bought and passed on two of theses books to new raw eaters, I’m that happy with it.
Another great raw book is Raw Food and Health: The Raw Food Classic by the Founder of the Raw Food Movement and I recommend it to new raw folks as well as any raw person who has not read it.
Enjoy them both!
5 Stars Not just good, but amazing recipes!
This is an excellent book. The recipes are so delicious my taste buds were going crazy over every dish I made from this book. Seriously! Also, it gives some great information about a raw diet. I particularly appreciated the menu plan to get started. It was a nice way to plan out a few days to help get in the groove of going raw. ALSO the recipes are all pretty simple, so you don’t have to go buy wacky ingredients. Once you’ve modified your grocery list, you can easily make everything in this book.
Filed under: Weight Loss Book Reviews
