I was a little shocked to hear one of my favourite raw vegan restaurants in LA shut its doors this month. Leaf Organics wasn’t a five-star dining experience, no doubt. The service got better the more you visited and the interior had worn over time. But the food was always great and of course über healthy. Some of their smoothies were incredible, as were the burgers and wraps (loved the Flying Felafel).
As I Googled to find out the goss behind Leaf’s closure, I read a lot of comments from those who had visited Leaf at least once. Reviews were definitely mixed, but that’s bound to happen, especially when a restaurant is vegan and raw. It’s more than likely that some of the general public just don’t get it and that’s completely understandable. If someone had asked me to eat a mostly raw vegan diet just two years ago, I would have thought they were a touch on the crazy side. My, how things change.
What surprised me the most about some of the comments that referred to Leaf, was the belief that a raw vegan diet is extreme. Now as a mostly raw foodist (although this is only a label I give myself for the purpose of this entry), I’d of course have to beg to differ. But it did get me to wonder how many people out there think of the raw vegan lifestyle as off-the-scale extreme, and what part of raw veganism do they see as extreme? Inquiring minds are keen to know.
If you have any thoughts on, or questions about, the raw vegan diet, feel free to leave them in the comments. Or have your say in the poll below…
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Leaf Organics Culver City store
Main photo by: sweetonveg
Oooh I wish you had at least one more option in your vote. Like a “I’m on the fence, it’s not extreme but it’s not exactly normal”
Hi,
Being born in an indian lacto-ovo-vegetarian family,I never find it difficult to be a vegan in terms of taste and missing dairy, but now i am in the transition state to go on high raw path as vwell as getting better health( my all the friends and family who is mostly vegetarian,has difficult time to understand my organic high raw diet even) except my hubby .So I don’t blame people not understanding raw vegan diet.But we being in minority might have to struggle to find our place in society, but if we are right people will follow us eventually.I actually have high respect for people who being meat eaters are able to be vegan,when I myself being born vegetarian cann’t even leave dairy and eggs.
But I myself being born in India do consume raw milk(mainly raw buttermilk usualy.As according to Ayurveda and our hinduism belief, is one of the great superfood always offered to gods ) So my belief system also doesn’t let me go 100% vegan as honey and milk(both raw though) are highly prized in my tradition, where i have seen people live almost to 90 years life without chronic conditins.Definetly when i say highly prized, its written in our scriptures how to treat animal ( not the way they are treated in factory farms here) As mahatama Ghandi says”The progress of a nation can be judged by how do they treat there animals”
So here when i buy raw milk, i make sure i get from grass fed ,free range cows.treated with love…and so do honey….
just my 2 cents
Shweta:)
Hi there,
I definitely don’t think raw is extreme, but I have noticed a few things about eating at raw food restaurants: 1) there is an over-reliance on nuts and 2) sometimes the food is really oversalted.
I am not 100% raw by any means, but try to eat as much raw vegetable food as I can handle – I particularly love raw black(lacinato) kale with avocado!
Thanks guys, so great to read your thoughts on the subject! Eric, I’ll see what I can do about adding that extra question—great point
Anthropologists say the human species has been around for about a million years. For the first 990,000 of those years (99% of our total existence) we ate, as all primates do, an almost exclusively plant based, raw vegan diet. So in terms of the big picture of human existence, we raw vegans are the overwhelming mainstream while the SAD cooked eaters are the weird fringe.
Study after study links animal foods to cancer. Show me a single one that says fruits and vegetables are unhealthy.
And not only do humans need far less protein than the mainstream would have you believe (human milk is only 6% protein), we get it unadulterated and easily assimilated directly as amino acids from plants. So again, contrary to what the mainstream claims, plant protein is clearly superior and definitely more healthy.
Raw vegans, take heart in your well chosen approach to nutrition!
It’s fascinating Robert, to see it spelled out like that. From a health perspective, I know since eating raw, I’ve never felt or functioned better. There is a clarity and joie de vivre that I never experienced when every meal I ate was cooked/dead.
The opening statement of your post tells me a lot – your favourite raw vegan restaurant in LA had closd down. This implies that there are others in LA! In Cornwall, UK, there is not even a vegan restaurant, there are several excellent vegetarian ones, being vegetarian is considered fairly commonplace nowadays, but vegan, as we have ourselves become recently, is far less well understood/accepted. So, to be raw foodist as well, would be considered so way off the map as to be almost unheard of by most people in this part of UK, big cities are of course different. We have had guests stay who eat raw, and have provided interesting (I think!) food for them and my interest in raw foods has been awakened. that is why i had to vote for not considering it ‘normal’, from a purely statistical point of view nowadays. the comments by Robert are interesting, although i do not think I am sad!
Hey Vanessa, yes Los Angelenos are definitely spoiled for choice when it comes to veganism and raw veganism. It’s a pretty special place and GREAT if you’re a vegan! I totally sympathise re: not having any vegan restaurants where you live. I’m now experiencing the same. What a change! Means spending loads more time in the kitchen, that’s for sure.
Robert (I believe) was referring to the Standard American Diet (SAD) which consists of a lot of fried foods, meat and such, which I’m guessing you don’t qualify for
Thanks for voting!
What’s extreme about eating food in its natural state? I don’t eat much raw myself, but that’s only because of lifelong conditioning against it by a society that doesn’t understand how to relate well to its food. If you really want to label a diet “extreme”, you can’t beat the over-processed fat-laden completely unnatural “Standard American Diet”, which bears not even a passing resemblance to anything natural.
So hearing you Damien!