Transcription of : VegTalk Podcast - Ani Phyo on Raw Foods
Aired : April 17, 2008
More info: Vegan.com
ERIK MARCUS: Hey everyone! It is Mr. Marcus here today, and today is April 17th, 2008. A beautiful Thursday afternoon here in Lake Tahoe. The first time all year, in like six months now, that I’ve been able to open my windows because it’s a nice enough day that it’s finally warm enough to do just that. So a palpable sense of relief, yet here I am inside, working on another Podcast for you.
The last couple of podcasts I’ve done have been very animal rights oriented. I had Paul Shapiro on about a week ago and then the day after I had Phillip Lymbery on from Compassion in World Farming. When I ended up that show I promised that this week’s show would be devoted to the foodies. So this time around I am about to welcome Ani Phyo to the show. She is one of the premier raw foods/live foods preparers out there today. She has a wonderful book out. But before I introduce her I want to very quickly run through a couple of things that I’d like you to know about.
The first, and I may have said this last week but I know that many of my listeners have found this show through iTunes and may not really know about Vegan.com. If you like this show I think you’ll also really like the blog that I maintain on vegan.com, which I’m updating many times a day. So please go check that out.
Now a couple of new things I wanted to very quickly run through. And that is, I am giving strong consideration if there is sufficient interest to organizing a small, activist workshop retreat. This would take place some time in mid to late July, or maybe early August. I don’t really know the dates quite yet. But the idea is really simple. There are a couple of really great animal rights conferences that occur in the summertime and they attract hundreds of people each. What I have in mind is doing something really different. Rather than a large hotel setting and baffling number of workshops and a huge number of people that you’re coming into contact with, what I want to do is something much simpler and, if anything, more intense, where we would get a nice cushy house probably in Santa Cruz, right on the beach, for the weekend. So the appointments would just be first rate. The food would be spectacular. And over the course of the weekend I would give several different presentations. I have already talked to Paul Shapiro, who you probably know is a regular guest on this show, and also Jack Norris of Vegan Outreach. And if they can work it into their schedules, which I have every reason to think they could, they would each come out for an afternoon and each of them would give presentations based on the amazing work that they do.
Now this thing would probably cost twice as much as attending the summer conferences do, if you’re going to stay in a hotel at the conferences. Or actually, because we’d be staying in a much nicer sort of situation and of course the head count would be a tiny, tiny fraction of the people who show up at the major conferences, since this is going to be a small, retreat-oriented workshop, I’m looking to have maybe five and certainly no more than ten people included in this. And I’d like to have the total cost, excluding travel, come in some where right around $1,000. So I don’t know if there’s going to be sufficient interest for this, but if this sounds like something that would be of real benefit to you, and a real alternative to hitting one of the big conferences, maybe you’ve done that several times and want to try something new, then send me an email right away because I have to figure out in the next week or so if it makes sense to move ahead with this.
Ok, with that out of the way, it’s time to welcome Ani Phyo to the show. Ani is, as I said at the beginning, just a wonderful live foods, you don’t want to say cook because she doesn’t cook, but a live foods chef. She has a book, a wonderful website. Her website even features free cooking videos for you to watch. I will be linking to both her book and website in today’s show summary on vegan.com. So please check that out. So with all that said, let’s welcome Ani to the show.
(Phone ringing)
ANI PHYO: Hello, this is Ani.
ERIK: Hey Ani, it’s Erik Marcus calling. Thanks so much for making some time for me today.
ANI: Thank you for inviting me. It’s a pleasure to talk with you.
ERIK: I definitely have a lot of things I want to cover with you on today’s show, because I guess, as you’re already aware, you’re the first person with a live foods/raw foods background who I’ve ever talked to on this Podcast. So there’s a lot of basic, introductory things I would love for you to acquaint me and my audience with.
ANI: Great. Sure, I’d love to do that.
ERIK: Ok, so I guess to start out let me just ask the most fundamental question possible about your work and your eating habits. What exactly is a live foods diet?
ANI: Ok, at the base all it means is that we’re not applying heat and we’re not cooking our recipes. And so the idea is that we’re starting with all whole, organic fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. That is my particular diet. Some people who do a raw food diet aren’t vegan. I’m vegan. So everything is uncooked. It’s whole and fresh. And the basic premise behind that is that if we’re starting every recipe fresh and whole than there’s no place along the way that a manufacturer could stick in an artificial coloring, a chemical preservative, an artificial flavoring. Raw foodists believe, and I personally believe as well, that a lot of our illnesses are caused by a build up of toxicity, toxic substances, in our bodies. And a lot of those toxins can come in through polluted air that we breathe, we can’t really control that so much except to maybe put some plants in our indoor environment. It may come in through water, that we drink. So hopefully I encourage people to drink filtered water, rather than water out of a tap. And it can also come in through food that we take into our body. So by decreasing the amount of pesticides and chemicals and preservatives and scientifically manufactured flavorings and things like that that really aren’t natural for us to be eating, we’re eating whole, organic produce and nuts and seeds, that it just decreases our levels of toxic substances that are entering our body. So that’s the basic premise.
And also by not applying heat to our foods, and because they are full of water, everything that is living is water-based, pretty much. So there’s sunshine, that everything that’s living needs, and water. So by eating things that are fresh and whole and not processed the main ingredients are water. And our body is made up of 70% water. So when we’re eating fruits and vegetables, it’s mostly water. And it’s actually the purest form of water, is being distilled by the plants. Their root system is very deep and rich and full into our soil. And it’s pulling up the water from our earth, the mineralized water, and it’s filtering that through the plant and depositing it into the leaves of the plant, or the fruit or the vegetable that we then eat. So that water is a living water. It’s very different from plastic, bottled water.
We’ve been hearing in the media that plastic also leaches, and so if we have water sitting in a hot car in a plastic water bottle, some of the chemicals that make up the plastic water bottles are going to end up in your water. So the best source of pure, living, clean water is through organic fruits and vegetables. Also, because it’s not heated, there are living enzymes as part of that food because it‘s a living food. Those living enzymes are what ripens avocados and bananas that sit on our counter. Those enzymes actually aid our bodies’ digestive process, placing less strain on our body to break that food down.
The nutrients in that food are also very nutrient dense and rich. So our bodies then are able to absorb those nutrients very easily and actually in the long run, eat less food. So this is a really, a lot of people ..I’m in L.A. right now, and in L.A. people are very concerned, I think everyone’s concerned,… I’m concerned with looking and feeling my best. So, a lot of people are concerned with weight loss. I believe personally that what causes obesity is that when we’re eating foods that are not nutrient rich, that means that there’s fillers, things like white flour that don’t really provide us with a lot of nutrients. We’ll take in that food. It stuffs us, makes us feel like we’ve eaten something. But yet at the base level our body isn’t getting all the nutrients it needs to function.
I use a term called nutrification or nutrifying. I’ve found that in my transition through my life, is that the more and more nutrient rich foods that I’ve been eating and adding to my diet, the less room I have for foods that have no nutrition or less nutrition. In turn what that means is that you’re taking in less calories. You’re taking in a lot of water. When you’re eating unheated fruits and vegetables, and also nuts and seeds, there’s a ton of fiber. That fiber fills us up so we can actually eat less. In then turn we use less calories and that makes us lose weight. And so that’s one of the great things too about the raw food diet.
ERIK: I’ve been vegan for about 20 years now and one of the things that is really starting to become quite evident is that finally, finally, finally after all these years, every time somebody hears that I’m vegan, the first question out of their mouth is not, “Where do you get your protein?” I think it took pretty much all the 1980s and 1990s and this question being answered to every person on the planet, before this question got sufficiently into the public consciousness that nobody really asks it anymore. At least not like they used to.
Now I would guess that the raw food equivalent question of where do you get your protein, the question that you must be just sick to death of, but hey this is a chance to get a 1,000 or so listeners having this question answered so that you won’t hear it so many times in the future. I’d imagine that the most common question that you’re getting is, “Well, if you’re not eating cooked food, don’t you miss bread? Don’t you miss baked potatoes?”
ANI: Oh wow. Yeah, that is definitely a transition. In the beginning, when I was introducing more and more raw foods, those were the types of things I really did miss. French fries, right?
ERIK: Absolutely.
ANI: Absolutely. The first thing I want to say though is that I never encourage anyone to be extreme about anything. So, I know that there are a lot of people out there for whom the 100% raw food diet works great. There are also some other people out there who perhaps at this time it doesn’t work for them. I believe it’s all a continuum. You know, for me too, I was first vegetarian and then vegan and then developed some health issues with cholesterol, vegetarian and was eating too much cheese and developed some cholesterol and weight issues, became vegan and was eating a lot of vegan, super-processed vegan junk-food type things and wasn’t feeling that great. And then eventually introduced more and more raw. I was raised on raw, but then came back around to it as an adult, full circle, when I discovered gourmet raw, which is really delicious.
And so in the gourmet, raw cuisine I was really lucky because when I first became 100% raw, I was actually working with Juliano, who is one of the grand-daddies of the gourmet style of raw food. So I had all this amazing raw food , very complex, available to me every day all the time. So I’d be stuffing my face all the time.
In raw foods, we have things like bread and crackers, and bagels and scones and all those things, but for me, for example when I make a scone, the traditional, because I was a pastry chef for a little while, the traditional you’re using a ton of butter. You’re using white flour. You’re using eggs. In a raw, when I make scones raw what I’m using is almonds and carrot pulp, if you can believe that. And then I’m dehydrating it. So if you see what’s in it, carrot pulp is just the fiber so I‘m adding fiber. The fiber, I love fiber because fiber acts like a broom through our system. Sweeping through our system and helping to cleanse our bodies. And then the water that’s in live foods acts as a hose to wash our system out. So that’s how I like to think about it, keeping my insides clean. The cleaner we are the less there is for bacteria, fungus, molds, yeast to feed off of and grow. So then if my insides are all clean they keep me healthy. So that’s sort of, on a high level, how I look at that.
In raw food there are definitely ways, and even today in the raw food movement is growing more and more, it’s definitely regional. So many of the co-ops and natural food stores actually carry crackers and crusts and things like that that are made out of flax. So all we’re doing is grinding up flax. And flax, if you just mix flaw and water and it becomes gelatinous. Flax is great for omega three and sixes. It’s great for essential amino acids, essential fatty acids. In the summer time when the sunshine is so bright, the more essential fatty acids we eat, it actually acts as a natural sunblock.
And so I also encourage everyone to sort of consider the types of products we’re putting on our skin. Because our skin is our largest organ and whatever we put on our skin is basically the same as eating it. I don’t wear nail polish. I don’t wear…what I use for moisturizer basically is coconut oil or jojoba oil because I can eat either of those two things. (Laughing) That kind of stuff I’m a little extreme on, because I don’t want to put any chemicals on my skin that is going to add to my toxicity levels again. I live in Los Angeles, so the air is dirtier than a lot of other places so I’m concerned about how many toxins are entering my system. So that’s sort of where I was going with that.
ERIK: Well let’s pick up with, getting back to this, don’t you miss the whole bread and potatoes thing, and moving on to what do you eat instead of those things? You’ve already talked about the gourmet raw foods that have been pioneered by Juliano and the sort of stuff that you’ve further contributed to, in your wonderful book, ANI’S RAW FOOD KITCHEN. There’s also a large percentage of raw foodists who feel like even that is something to even move beyond and they eat most of their food in the form of just raw fruits, raw vegetables and just eat very, very simply.
One of the things that…I had a raw foodist visit me this past summer. For anyone non-vegetarian or vegan who is just acquainted with that style of eating, there are raw foodists out there who by conventional standards just eat what would be an insane amount of fruit. One afternoon I think I saw her scarf down about seven pears and that was her lunch.
ANI: Yeah, that is called “mono-dieting”. The concept behind that is, in nature, we are at the base animals. If we’re living in nature, like a grizzly bear or a wolf or our fellow animal friends who we love so much, if we watch them eating, the way that the eat is, a bear will come across a blackberry bush and then they will eat as many blackberries as they want, until they are content before moving on. And then they’ll just go through their day until they’re hungry again and come upon something else. So the idea is that if we were in nature we wouldn’t necessarily be mixing a blackberry with a pecan, with a date, with a banana, with a lettuce leaf. So that’s the idea. By introducing only one food at a time our digestion is taxed the least because it’s only having to deal with one type of food. And then it can digest that food, pass it through. Sweets, like fruits, watery fruits, most of them digest in about 20 minutes. Things that are a little bit more dense, like bananas and dates, will take maybe like 40 minutes or an hour depending on your metabolism. So for people who have sensitive metabolisms, or who want to put the least amount of stress on their digestive system, they’ll eat their fruits first, wait an hour before they eat something else. Because lettuces will take a little bit longer. Also nuts and seeds, they have fat, they take the longest to break down. So what happens if we have a sensitive system, if we eat a nut and seed first, which takes maybe a couple of hours because it has protein, a lot of fat in it, actually greens have protein as well, but if we were to eat a nut or a seed and then eat a fruit afterwards, the fruit will start breaking down because it only takes 20 minutes, but yet it’s trapped behind this protein that’s taking two hours to digest. So fermentation will actually happen in our digestive tract, which then causes bloating and discomfort. So that’s sort of the science behind the food combining and mono-dieting.
In our real world though, for myself, I have emotional attachments to eating. I think a lot of people do. It’s a social thing as well. So for me, that’s why I’m a chef, I just really enjoy good food. When I make food, if I take it to a potluck, I’ll just put it out there. And people won’t even…they’ll just eat it and be like, “Wow this is so good. What is this?” And I’ll say, “It’s a blackberry cobbler.” “Wow, it’s so delicious.” And then if they’re really curious they’ll ask me, “What’s the recipe? How did you make it?” And I’ll tell them what‘s in it. And they’ll notice, the crust only has pecans and dates and salt! Really? There’s no flour, there’s no butter, there’s no eggs? And then, of course, I’m not saying how you bake it. And they’ll say, “How do you cook it?” And I’ll say, “It’s uncooked. It’s unheated.” So that’s my whole trick. That’s how I try to convert people. It’s like when you’re eating foods that are fresh, with fresh ingredients unheated, the flavor of each ingredient really shines. It really pops. It really comes through. It’s so flavorful and really delicious.
In my main dishes, especially now that it’s summertime as well, I always encourage and I use tons of fresh herbs. And so those fresh herbs, when they are fresh as opposed to cooked, the flavor profile is so much stronger and so much more vibrant and full. And it just tastes delicious. You don’t have to actually use salt. Salt is a flavor enhancer. So you’ll find that as you use herbs, that are so bountiful right now, at the farmer’s market, or in your garden, you don’t have to actually use salt. Your food actually has a lot of flavor.
ERIK: It sure does. You know, what you’re talking about brings to mind a story that I really want to share with you and the listeners from about ten years ago. Because I’m not a raw foodist now and certainly ten years ago not only was I not a raw foodist but I had a real biased against it. I thought, how is anything that’s raw, going to compare in flavor, to a really nice, cooked dish. And one evening a friend and I went out into San Francisco and this was back when Juliano was running his restaurant just off of Golden Gate Park. And she wanted to take me to his restaurant and have dinner there. I guess I was reasonably ok with checking that out, hey it’s all vegan, whatever. The hard thing for me was knowing that immediately next door to this restaurant, at the time, was a really good Middle Eastern foods restaurant. And I love falafel, I love hummus, and as I passed the window to the Middle Eastern restaurant I was looking through the window with these big puppy-dog eyes and thinking, “Oh, this is the place I really want to go, because I would get filled up. I would eat delicious food.” And it was with a feeling of some self-sacrifice that I agreed to go into Juliano’s place where I knew I’d spend twice as much for the food and probably get half as much food and probably walk out hungry.
Well, I gotta say, I had the surprise of my life. I went into there and not only was the food I was served hands down vastly better than even excellent Middle Eastern food, this was some of the most delicious food I had ever eaten. And it would compare and in fact blow away much so-called gourmet vegan cooked food. I just could not believe how tasty the finest raw food can be. It really, on its own merits just in my opinion, blows away a lot of the very best cooked vegan food you’re ever going to find.
ANI: And then how did you feel after you ate that?
ERIK: Oh, yeah, that’s the other side of the thing. I felt just fantastic and wanted more of it. I didn’t become a raw foodist on the spot or anything like that, but it definitely started pushing me in a direction where I wanted to include more and more raw foods in my diet. Now we only have a couple of minutes left here so I’m going to ask you Ani, if you don’t mind, to email me two or three or four of the best links. Of course we’ll be linking to your website and to your wonderful book, ANI’S RAW FOOD KITCHEN, which I highly recommend. You gave me a copy last year when we met in San Francisco. It’s just a spectacular book that I think everybody should get even if they have no direct interest in raw foods. These are recipes that everybody should be making. But I’m going to ask you to send me, not just that, but some links to getting started in raw foods for people that are new to it. I know that you have a bunch of videos for free online, so I’d like to feature all of that on the front page of vegan.com and the show summary for today’s Podcast. Can you close things out today passing along some basic advice for people who want to start moving in this direction?
ANI: The easiest thing to do, when people think about raw foods they think about salads, but salads are raw, apples are raw. The easiest thing to do is just start acquiring, going to the farmer’s market, going to your co-op, and having fresh fruits and vegetables around. Having healthy snacks around. The easiest thing to do is to, to any meal, just add a salad. Especially when I’m working with people who are trying to become 100% raw, and we’re slowly transitioning them, I’ll have them make whatever they’re going to traditionally have for lunch, but have a salad that’s at least as big as the other thing that they’re going to have, whether it’s a veggie burger or whatever. And have the salad first. That way you’re getting all your nutrients. You’ll notice that your body will actually feel satisfied. And what always happens is that they eat maybe half of their cooked portion of what they’re going to eat because they no longer have that need to be eating that because they got the nutrients they need. Also, adding smoothies. Smoothies are really great, a really great easy way as well. And guacamole is raw. It’s easy to go to a restaurant and get some salad and guacamole and things like that.
ERIK: I am all about guacamole. If I could inject that stuff with a syringe I would do it. (Laughing) One last thing to say. You just mentioned salads and I gotta tell you, just to be honest, I don’t like lettuce. And a salad does not have to be made of lettuce. Dandelion greens, and raw cabbage and all sorts of stuff. Just because you’re eating a salad, it does not have to be the quintessential American salad of 90% green lettuce or even iceberg lettuce.
ANI: Yeah, it’s just whatever chopped up vegetables you want, and then whatever dressing you want. If you don’t like eating salads you can actually wrap it, like in a Nori leaf or you can wrap it in a collard green leaf and have it as a handheld. Just as like a roll or a taco or something like that.
ERIK: That’s all fantastic advice. Like I said, I’m going to ask you to email me your top links. We’re going to be linking to your book. It just blows my mind that not only are you a cookbook author but you’re an entrepreneur and you’re a graphic designer person. You wear more hats than just about anyone I’ve ever met. So we’ll be linking to all that stuff in today’s Podcast show summary on vegan.com, so I hope everyone will check that out.
Ani, thank you so much for coming on today, during your lunch hour in fact, and bringing us through the ABCs of live foods eating. I really appreciate you spending the time today and maybe we can have a more intermediate discussion some time in the near future.
ANI: I would love that. Thank you so much for inviting me to be on your show. It’s been a pleasure.
ERIK: Thank you. Ok, so that is going to wrap it up for today’s show. If this summer retreat thing sounds like something that float’s your boat please let me know right away so I can figure out if this is something that we can move forward with.
One last thing to very quickly mention and that is just yesterday I posted a major new feature to Vegan.com It’s the Top Ten Recipes of 2008. And this includes some of the best recipes from some of the best cookbook authors in the business. Let me run through some of the foods for you. We’ve got a Plantain Omelet that is just amazing. We’ve got Thai Coconut Corn Soup, Indonesian Coconut Rice from Robin Robertson. We’ve got Baked Ziti. Dreena Burton contributed her amazing Moroccan Phyllo Rolls. We’ve got one of my family’s favorite recipes from Bryanna Clark Grogan. She contributed her Italian Stuffed Crepes. And the last entrée we have is a wonderful Chickpea Curry from a brand new book called THE ASIAN VEGAN KITCHEN. And boy, we have not left out desserts either. In fact Isa Chandra Moskowtiz gave us her Banana Chocolate Bread Pudding which is amazing and a snap to make. We’ve got Hannah Kaminski’s Rootbeer Float Cupcakes. And finally, Ani, who was just on today’s show, gave us a raw dessert recipe and that is her Fresh Mango Cobbler. So you can follow the link right on the front page of vegan.com to our Top Ten Recipe feature. All of these recipes have photographs and introductions just for this feature written by the cookbook authors. It is an amazing feature. Definitely the best thing we’ve ever published on vegan.com. I need your help publicizing this thing. If you have a blog, feel free to swipe our cute little Top Ten Recipes banner button and stick it straight on your blog or your myspace page or your facebook page. Or if you are still in the technological dark ages and just getting along barely by email, email your friends. Anyone who would love some great vegan recipes. This is, I think, the best online vegan recipe collection that has ever been published. I’m very proud of this. I’m very grateful to all of the cookbook authors who made this possible. So please check it out and please spread the word.
Ok, so that is going to do it for this week’s Podcast. Thanks so much for joining me. This is Erik Marcus and have a terrific week.
This Podcast content made accessible thanks to transcription by The Transcript Library
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