Ani Phyo on Liven' Raw and Green
by Sara Novak, Columbia, SC 
on 10.11.08
photo: Ani Phyo
Liven' the raw life and liven' the green life can often go hand in hand. In order to eat raw you almost have to invest in the greenest foods around. Raw diets tend to include sustainable, locally grown goodness like fruits, vegetables, beans, and nuts. High quality foods are what make this diet palatable. Just ask raw food and eco-lover Ani Phyo. Find out how the Raw Food Diet is an excellent transition into an eco-friendly lifestyle.
Many eco-chic foodies are turning to the Raw Food Diet and green chefs like Ani Phyo are showing how raw food can be a part of everyday life. Her "uncooking show" on YouTube, Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen Show, and her book Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen: Easy, Delectable, Living Food Recipes shows followers that today, it’s much more than just cut up fruits and vegetables. A raw food diet consists of sprouted grains, legumes, seeds, nuts, and of course, fruits and vegetables. All foods must be served raw or dehydrated.
Living Green = Living Raw
According to Phyo, one of the major changes she noticed was how her kitchen garbage disappeared when she began eating only fresh whole foods. She was no longer buying nor disposing of processed food packaging and all the plastics and cardboards. She can make a meal for 300 hundred people and at the end of it will be left with organic compost. The compost is fed to worms who then create fertile soil for her organic garden.
Meat's Huge Carbon Footprint
Additionally, the Raw Food Diet is naturally vegan which is inherently good for the environment considering that a study by the World Watch Institute found that 87 percent of all agricultural land in the United States is used to raise animals for food. This means that 20 times more land is needed to feed a meat-eater than to feed a pure vegetarian. A typical pig factory farm generates as much raw waste as a city of 12,000 people. The same study also found that livestock account for more than half of U.S. water consumption and cause 16 percent of the world's annual production of methane, a dangerous greenhouse gas.
In an additional step, raw foodies give up GMO processed fake meat which takes energy to process and if it's not organic, the soy beans used in the process are treated with chemicals and pesticides.
Lately, Phyo has gotten into the ancient superfoods as a part of her raw diet. Check out her Raw SuperFood Shake recipe:
Superfood Shake
Makes 1 serving
1 banana
2 tbsp hemp protein powder
2 tbsp hemp nut
1 tbsp hemp oil
1 tbsp coconut oil
1 1/3 cup filtered water
Blend until smooth and get your day started right.
Like the Raw Food Diet? Check out the 100 Mile Diet:
100-Mile Diet Launches Website
Living On The 100 Miles Diet
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Excellent and important message, but her monroe piercing is far more important! I love those piercings! If we could get all women to have one or something similar then we would REALLY have a better world. Rock on.
that shake sounds disgusting
hey ani you got something in your lip there honey
You might want to check out this article on different diets, including meat eater, grain-based vegetarian, and raw foodist, and how they affect the environment
http://www.raw-food-health.net/SaveTheEnvironment.html:
This sort of mixing up of various separate issues annoys me. Vegetarianism/veganism and raw-foodism are entirely separate and orthogonal things - I've heard of non-vegetarian raw-foodies (which, as you can imagine, is really a bit STUPID, there are slight safety issues with raw meat). Ascribing the environmental advantages of vegetarianism to raw-food diets is a bit disingenuous, eating cooked veggie surely has the same advantages - other than the energy used in cooking, I guess, so maybe someone would like to assess the impact of that. The same applies to the bit about processed foods and packaging - you can do the same with (home-)cooked wholesome food.
The health benefits are another question (and somewhat irrelevant on TreeHugger really) - I very much doubt them, to be honest. Sure, having a substantial raw component in your diet (fruit, salads etc.) is great, but I'm not aware of any evidence that eating nothing cooked at all ever has any compelling advantages. Some foods are simply not edible raw (various beans etc. come to mind), they may not be vital but you are missing out.
And the Superfoods thing is a HUGE pet peeve of mine, this obsession with "it contains lots of [fashionable nutrient X], antioxidants, blah". Eat a varied, balanced MIX of different things, don't get hung up on particular nutrients or particular rare, "ancient secret of the Amazonians" type berries or whatever. Especially if it comes in "completely natural" processed supplement pill form, or indeed as in the recipe above in "hemp protein powder" form. "Protein powder" - sounds REALLY natural and unprocessed, yeah.
/enough ranting for now. But this woolly thinking annoys me, and the Superfoods/Nutrient obsession thing REALLY annoys me.
What the hell is this Ani thing and why would I want to take advice from it?
This is the thing that bothers me about raw diets. A lot of raw foodists claim to be so eco-friendly, so in touch with what is natural, but that isn't really the case. Most raw foodists place personal health way above the environment, or at least that's how it comes across. How natural or environmentally friendly is it to live in North America and eat tons of bananas, coconut oil, goji berries, and maca? While it might be great for your health to eat those things, you certainly aren't reducing your carbon footprint
Unless you live somewhere like California, I would imagine that for some parts of the year, eating raw would be incredibly difficult for those committed to buying local. If I wanted to eat all raw here in New Jersey during the winter, I'd probably have to buy produce grown from far away in order to have enough to eat and obtain enough nutrition. I mean, there just wouldn't be much local stuff available at that time of year.
I can eat a cooked vegan diet that produces close to zero waste, and probably wouldn't have to import as many ingredients from all over the world during the winter months to sustain myself.
May I ask why my wife and I have so much gas when I recently started makeing smoothies with fruit mixed with kale.If you could please answer me,it would be appreciated.---------signed---trying to eat without meat and trying to go green!
Fibrous foods like kale are sometimes hard to digest. It just depends on the person. If it hurts your stomach, please don't eat it like that. Lightly steaming a veggie keeps the nutrients and helps to make it more digestible for people who have sensitive tummies. Do what you think is best. Eating kale raw is fine, it's just harder for some people.