How do you do it :)

This is very new to me and seems sort of like learning a new language.

Don

I've been thinking about eating more and more raw foods and I'd love to know some of everyone's favorite recipes. Ideas?

One key to eating raw food is to find vegetarian protein sources that work with your body.

Here is a Tabbouleh with Mint and Pistachios recipe that I bring to dinner parties. Every time I make it a few people ask me for the recipe. Plus I feel so healthy after I eat it.

TABBOULEH w/ MINT and PISTACHIOS

Traditional Middle Eastern tabbouleh is more about the mint and herbs than the bulgur grains. The longer this salad sets, the better it gets, so make it up to a day in advance.

1/4 cup fine bulgur
3 Tbs. lemon juice
1/4 tsp. honey
1 1/3 cup finely chopped pistachios
1 cup finely chopped curly parsley
1 small cucumber, finely chopped (1 cup)
1 medium tomato, finely chopped (1/3 cup)
4 green onions, finely chopped (1/3 cup)
1/3 cup finely chopped fresh mint
3 Tbs. olive oil

Place bulgur in large bowl and add 1/3 cup boiling water. Let stand 5 minutes. Stir in lemon juice and honey, and let stand 5 minutes more, or until all liquid is absorbed. Fluff bulgur with fork, and stir in remaining ingredients. Season with salt and pepper. Serves 6.

If are ever in Asheville, check out BoBo's Bistro - a raw and living foods cafe and art gallery. A great place to loads of recipes are the meet-up forums on meetup.com. Earth Mothers Living cuisine is a raw and living packaged foods companies that creates affordable raw/living meals that you can simply follow the directions or add to your normal diets. Check out www.gaeafoods.com. We are not 100% raw, but we love many raw dishes. be well

@ Don: I really do think making raw food is a lot like learning a new language. I am really incapable of following recipes. My attitude has always been, tell me what's in it and let me taste it and I can make it. When it came to raw food though, there were whole new techniques, that made me have to stop and relearn food. I took a class from Victoria Boutenko (http://www.rawfamily.com/), nine years ago and it making raw food possible. There are also a lot of cookbooks out in the world now. So, if you learn that way, the options are plentiful!

@ Justine: Your recipe sounds great. My only caveat is that bulgar wheat is precooked and then dried, so it isn't raw even if you soak it without the boiling water.

I sometimes make the starchy part of tabbouleh with a combination of celery root and parsnips minced in a food processor. I have also seen it made raw with sprouted quinoa, but that can be very dense.

Kane, thanks for the celery root and parsnips idea. Sounds good. My Tabbouleh recipe has roasted pistachios so that would also exempt the recipe from being raw. Do you know the philosophy behind not heating food above a certain temperature?

@Justine: The concept is that enzymes are destroyed at 118 degrees. According to the raw food doctrine, food with enzymes is very easy to digest requiring less energy from the body.

I don't know that there is real scientific evidence that enzymes are the key to raw food's effectiveness. It is a kind of miracle cure though. I know people who have cured their breast cancer just by changing to this diet. There are a host of other diseases that have been 'miracle-cured' with raw food too.

It is a very hard diet to do though, and is really only effective for those miracle-type cures when done 100%.