In this series of featured articles living food nutrition expert Mark Ament will cover several aspects of the raw vegan food lifestyle on Bali, from raw superfoods to gourmet living food cuisine available on the island.
Note: All the photos included are of made of 100% raw vegan ingredients.
Whenever I give talks or seminars on raw foods, I like to ask the audience the following question: “what do you think of when I say the term raw vegan food?” More than a few people get a slightly anguished look on their faces and answer something like: “carrots,” “celery,” “salads” or “rabbit food.” To them raw vegan food or living food seems like it must be boring. After all, how much can you really do with raw fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds?
I wondered exactly the same thing back when I started getting into the living food lifestyle in Miami Beach about 10 years ago. Whenever my friends talked to me about it, I just couldn’t relate. Even though I was already a vegan at the time and ate quite a bit of fresh fruit and vegetables, a 100% living food diet seemed to me like it must be incredibly limited – and boring.
I held that view until one day when I went to a gathering sponsored by our local yoga center. It was a vegetarian potluck and all the dishes were cooked, except for 2 that my friends Ryan and Marisa brought. One was a living food lasagna and the other a live food apple pie. The presentation of both was beautiful – the lasagna sprinkled with freshly chopped parsley and the pie topped by a white spiral of cashew cream.
The appetizing look of the food was only surpassed its remarkably fresh and vibrant taste. The lasagna had layers of fresh thick marinara, pine nut “cheese” and pumpkin seed pesto spread in between strips of zucchini “pasta” and was topped with fresh spinach. It tasted better and was more refined than any cooked lasagna I’d ever tried. The apple pie provided a similar taste explosion, with grated pink lady apples, chopped fresh walnuts and raisins atop an almond fig “crust.”
After such a remarkable culinary experience, I was impressed and intrigued enough to want to try more gourmet living foods dishes. Luckily for me there was a small company called “Food Without Fire,” that made and delivered gourmet living food meals 5 days a week. These included things like raw food “tacos,” “burgers and fries,” “chili,” “pad thai,” “chocolate mousse,” “carrot cake,” “cheese cake,” tiramisu and all sorts of specialty salads.
The meals were fantastic and made my transition to the living food lifestyle a breeze. After just 6 weeks eating Food Without Fire’s meals, I felt more energized and healthier than I ever had. So it was easy to continue my journey deeper into living foods.
Over the next couple of years, I discovered living food restaurants spread across the United States, from simple take away windows in Florida to high-end gourmet establishments in Northern California. There were also living food retreats, seminars and culinary schools to attend and enjoy. Those kinds of experiences made it easy for me to enjoy the benefits of eating a diet based on raw vegan foods.
I feel very lucky to have come across this information and to have had the opportunity to easily put it into practice. It has changed my relationship to food, to health and to the environment more deeply than I’ll probably ever know.
If you too are interested in experiencing the natural high of living on live foods, you’re living in the best time ever to do it. Never before have we had such easy access to this kind of life changing information.
And I’m happy to tell you that Bali offers tremendous support for anyone who already enjoys or wants to learn about living food.
Fresh, ultra-healthy food is in abundance here. Thanks to the efforts of a handful of dedicated local farmers, organic vegetables are readily available. Favorite raw foodist fruits like coconuts, mangoes, mangosteen and durian grow in many backyards. And world class superfoods are easy to find – I’ll be writing more about these in the next two articles.
Plus, raw vegan cuisine has started to go almost “mainstream” on Bali - there are now several restaurants across the island that offer a regular gourmet living food menu alongside their cooked dishes. There are also occasional gourmet live food only meals at some resorts and centers. That puts Bali way, way ahead of most places in the world - and in the company of more famous raw food meccas like New York City.
Finally, Bali also hosts living food weekend retreats and courses, where you can learn the art and science behind this lifestyle. You can get more details about all this information by visiting the website listed below.
I hope this article leaves you inspired to educate yourself the potential of this simple way of eating. You can see from some of the descriptions I’ve given as well as the photos included here that you don’t have to sacrifice great taste to enjoy great health. Even better, you don’t need to sacrifice the environment.
In the end, that’s the real beauty of living foods: you get to eat great tasting fresh foods that contribute to your health and healing while at the same time giving the earth a break from the consumerism of food.
As an example, one of my friends reported that his family’s garbage output went from 4 big bags per week to 1 medium bag per month when they “went raw.” He said that the change was due to all the food packaging he no longer needed to buy. That alone was enough to convince he and his wife to stay with it for life.
Mark Ament is an expert on living food nutrition and internal cleansing. He is the author of three books on the subject. Contact Mark on mark@healingvibes.com. To find out what’s happening in the raw food world on Bali visit
www.rawfoodbali.com
