Customer Reviews

Living on Live Food

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I really wanted this to be like many of the other raw food videos-instructional, filled with information and a fun watch. Instead I found this to be extremely bad. Much of the video is filled with the author getting comments and complements from two ladies who are guests in her home kitchen and observers to her preparation techniques. They were very loud and drowned out some of Alissa's comments. As one reviewer stated, this was extremely distracting. Not only that, but the food was prepared in such a sloppy way.
For example: When Alissa used her hands, seldom did she wash them. And the cutting/preparation board was never cleaned between foods.
Often there were foods being prepared on top of juice and remains from previous items. Making for a very disgusting, stomach turning work area.
Not once were items measured or recipes given. I almost felt that this was supposed to be a documentary, yet there was no narrator and really too much laughing and direct conversations that really served no purpose. I mean at one point, one of the ladies talked about her boyfriend and how he would not go raw. Who cares? We want to see meal preparation and facts about raw living not personal life details.
I really wanted this to be good but it really was very bad.
Save your money and invest in the DVD by Jennifer Cornbleet or Victoria Boutenko as they are much neater and more instructional.

I really enjoyed Alissa's book and had high hopes for this DVD. As one reviewer mentioned, it sells itself as an instructional video, yet falls short of its description. While it is inspiring to watch how easy and fast the recipes are to make, Alissa's "instructions" are slowed considerably by the incessant chatting and cackling of the two women "observing". Alissa spends more time answering their questions than helping us make raw food. I also find it super annoying when they do close-ups of the women while they are enjoying the raw meals. I am already sold on the idea, you don't need to show me the weird expressions on the ladies' faces to show how good the food is! All in all, needs more instruction and less blabbing.

I LOVE Alissa's book...it's my most used raw recipe book. However, this DVD was such a disappointment. I can't even see it being useful for those coming from standard American diets. This seems really basic and is embarrassingly put together. The women in the DVD make really weird faces, almost like bad acting, to show that they like the food. Alissa's use of her hands, while fine in everyday life, is not professional when making foods for others (especially in a DVD!). Save your money and buy the book instead.

While the video may not have been directly "instructional" to the viewer, I enjoyed watching Alissa make A LOT of her delicious recipes found in her book. It was inspiring and very helpful to my new-found desire to become raw. I did think it was funny to watch the ladies in the video eat SO MUCH FOOD in one sitting. If they didn't walk out of there with indigestion, I know I felt it just by watching. But at the used DVD price that I paid, I was extremely satisfied and thankful to have this in my library of DVD's for raw food prep. Her recipes are very delicious, especially for people coming out of the SAD way of eating.

This is a great DVD for those new to raw food. As mentioned by other reviewers, there is a continual conversation with two ladies who taste each recipe. One lady is particularly annoying with her over-enthusiastic comments and facial gestures. However, despite this I have given the review 5 stars as I have a large number of other raw DVDs and this is one of the best un-cooking DVD out there. You almost get use to the conversation after a while and you do learn additional suggestions to modify the recipes. The conversation also offers tips and tricks and glimpes into Alissa's life.

Other DVDs I'd recommend are Raw Food Made Easy by Jennifer Cornbleet (no conversation in Jennifer's DVD) and Raw For Life: The Ultimate Encyclopedia of the Raw Food Lifestyle by Tony Robbins, Woody Harrelson, Morgan Spurlock, and Reverend Michael Beckith.

Annoying, and I'm not talking about Alissa. Her two students were loud and obnoxious, I wanted to slap them and tell them to shut up. Unfortunately I didn't get to view to entire dvd. I have purchased these dvd's 3 times and each one was defective. It plays fine until track 6 (mock tuna) and then the picture scrambles, the sound goes in and out, and then it just stops. I don't think this is a coincidence, not with three different sets (purchased from different places). I think they must all be defective. I have emailed her company about this twice and never got a reaponse.

I purchased the book and the DVDs at the same time because, after a great deal of personal research and experimentation with a variety of diets, I became convinced that a raw vegan diet is far safer than the FDA approved disease promoting modern American diet (MAD) or standard American diet (SAD). After reading the book and getting to the recipes, I felt the same as I did after reading other books with recipes. I felt like I was looking at a road map for the first time. It looked too difficult. But after watching the video and seeing how easy it was to prepare raw vegan meals, I was sold. True, the video could have been a bit more instructional with less chit-chat (my four stars), but it served the purpose for me.

I enjoyed watching this video. I already purchase the book, but of course seeing how the recipes are made really helped. Also she went over all the questions I had on my mind about the diet. She gives testimonial about how changing her diet changed her life.Great video very discriptive. And informative.

I love Alissa's energy and passion for raw food. I will enjoy working my way through the book. The DVDs would have been better if it had been more food prep/ how to and less talking. They were still interesting and inspirational.

This is a fantastic book, it is beautifully illustrated and it is full of interesting and easy to follow information for starting on the road to Raw food eating. Highly recommended