Customer Reviews

The Raw Food Revolution Diet

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Cherie Soria has lived this lifestyle for decades. As the reviewer above noted, she looks at least twenty years younger than her 60-something age.
Coming from a person like her, you can rest assured that this is not a fad, unbalanced diet. She is a vibrant, healthy, energetic person.

What I particularly like is that she has a great deal of sympathy and understanding of the challenges facing a person who is struggling with their weight and their health, and understands how intimidating it is to make that huge transition from a Standard American Diet to mostly raw vegan.

The best thing about the book is that each day's eating is completely laid out, so you don't have to fill your head with planning and making decisions. Just do what she says, and you'll very quickly 'get it' - because in the end, it's all very very simple. And you will feel so much healthier and cleaner (not to mention thinner!) very quickly. Within days. Once you 'get it', it's easy to use the book as a guide for taking over and planning for yourself.

There are lots of great raw cookbooks out there, but this explains the basics of what to eat, how much and when. So it's great for beginners.

She doesn't insist that you eat 100% raw, and has great suggestions for common concerns like cold weather, travelling, and eating out.

The book is very well-researched, and has a great deal of scientific information if you want it. There are easy to use charts. And she explains the big 'protein question' that always comes up - ie how do you get enough.

There are recipes for nutrient-packed and yet simple to prepare foods, with great sympathy for those of us who don't have a lot of time in the day. Nothing is very difficult to put together, and they are appealing to non-raw diners as well (who, if you didn't tell them what you were serving, probably wouldn't notice, and might even congratulate you on the quality of your hummus and hungrily devour the nut creams and desserts).

She goes on to explore and recommend special equipment like juicers and dehydrators, which might be useful additions to your kitchen if you continue to eat in this vein.

Overall, an excellent introduction to the new healthy you. My criticisms are minor, but I did find it a little hard to navigate without reading from cover to cover. And I would have preferred color photographs, to enhance the recipe pages. I'd recommend this book if your current food-style isn't creating the health and life you want to have.

I am surprised that this book has not already been reviewed. It unlike anything on raw food. It gives details of the diet from Cherie who walks the walk. When reading this book I became amazed. I saw Cherie at a booth during a Vegetarian Event last year. I thought she was around my age. In reading the book she is old enough to be my mother. That is an endorsement for this book. She must be in her mid 60's.

Of the recipes I have tried the cashew yogurt worked and tasted good. The zucchini hummus will be made again this week. I have shared the mexican-style seasoned cabbage with people at worked and everyone loves it.

The two other authors Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina give a thoughtful and scientific basis for raw food. Becoming Vegan by these authors is a wonderful book that any vegan should have.

"The Raw Revolution Diet" markets itself as a weight loss diet, which in some ways is a shame because the second half of the book is one of the best raw foods "cookbooks" on the market. If you're looking for a 5-star raw foods cookbook of mostly beginner and intermediate level recipes, then do not hesitate to buy this book! However, most people who come to Living Light (Cherie Soria's raw foods school) and need to lose weight, do lose weight on a raw foods diet.

The first half of the book is what I consider to be a 4-star book on vegan raw foods nutrition, weight loss and lifestyle. While I definitely recommend this book for raw foods nutrition and weight loss, the truth is that the very intelligent and knowledgeable vegan dietitians, Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina are capable of doing a more thorough job than presented in this book. Although they no doubt did many hours of research and discuss many studies on the advantages of a raw foods diet, the book references none of them! Without so much as a footnote or even author name, the reader is unable to evaluate these studies for her/himself.

As with their other books on vegan (and vegetarian) nutrition, Brenda and Vesanto cover macro (fat, protein and carbohydrates), and selected micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) of interest to vegans. Unfortunately, while their level of coverage may have sufficed about 10 years ago, there are a few gaps for the 2009 reader:

*Vitamin B12 - While otherwise extensive coverage, not a word is mentioned about which form to buy as a supplement. Health food stores commonly sell the better absorbed/shorter shelf-life methylcobalamin, as well as the less expensive cyanocobalamin. As a vegan, I'd be interested to know if the authors recommend only the methyl form, or if they also find the cyano acceptable.

*Vitamin D - The authors mention that vitamin D supports bone density, and that a lack may be linked with depression, certain types of cancer, and multiple sclerosis. However, despite there being extensive research and anecdotal evidence of vitamin D preventing colds and influenza (more than a year prior to publication), there is no mention of this. Also, they mention the "vitamin D winter" when it's difficult to obtain enough sunlight to produce vitamin D, but don't give specific information on this. The information is available as what months constitute vitamin D winter for various latitudes and exactly how much vitamin D supplementation and skin exposure is recommended for both light and dark skin in these latitudes.

Curiously, in a book about raw foods nutrition, there is no discussion of any benefit a raw foods diet may convey due to the dietary enzymes not being destroyed in the cooking process.

Despite my quibbles with the nutrition section, I find it otherwise complete and helpful. I especially like the tables, listings of raw foods highest in calcium, and iron. There's a helpful 4-page table giving, among other things, the number of calories, and protein grams in many raw foods, but curiously the number of fat grams are missing. (Although they do give you the number of calories from fat.) Most importantly, they provide sensible and specific guidelines for eating a raw foods diet that keeps people from making the mistake of gorging on nuts and seeds while considering cooked food to be "poison" and thus always foregoing steamed vegetables and cooked legumes.

I would have given this book 5 stars for the fabulous recipes and the mostly complete nutrition section, but they do not give caloric nor any nutritional information in the recipes! Occasionally they will mention in the comment section that a dish packs in certain nutrients, but it is not presented on a recipe-by-recipe basis. In a book touting itself as a weight loss program, I find that inexcusable.

Going back to the recipes, IMO that is the number one reason to buy this book. As a graduate of her raw foods school, I can tell you Cherie Soria is both a genius and perfectionist when it comes to her recipes.
I've made some of the recipes at home and others as a student at the school, and with a bit of toning down of Cherie's generous amounts of onions and peppers, love every one I've tried! This includes the Not Tuna Salad, Onion Rings, Zoom Burgers, Zucchini Hummus, Garden Blend Soup and more. (Note to Cherie - The Basic Nut Cheese is delicious, but it calls for probiotic powder, which most people are not familiar with. If there's a second edition, I think you should mention what this is and suggest a brand.) I want to give special mention to the Creamy Kale-Apple Soup and the Bananas I-Scream. Both recipes are amazingly simple and amazingly delicious.

This is my third raw food cookbook trial, but only the second one I actually want to use. The first was the Raw 50, which didn't capture my attention, the second was Ani's Raw Food Kitchen, which offers simpler recipes that I found some natural appeal in, and now I find myself with this book in my hands, wishing I had discovered something like it many years ago.

I don't think I am uncommon in my foodie ambitions. I want to eat healthier, enjoy good food, and not feel too restricted by any particular diet. I am intrigued by the raw diet, but nowhere near ready to dive in head first. I currently enjoy a salad and a smoothie almost daily, but raw food is still on the lesser half of my diet. It would be great to start incorporating some more raw snacks and the occasional raw meal, but it seems many raw cookbooks are filled with (numerous) sales pitches for the raw diet and time-consuming recipes instead of practical guides and easy recipes that will safely appeal to newbie taste buds.

The Raw Revolution does start by explaining the health benefits of the raw diet, especially from a weight loss perspective. Yet, the book moves on to explain how to get the nutrients you need, the types of food and equipment you will use, and starter menus. All in all, the introduction is 100 pages, and well worth every sentence. Then, the recipes begin ...

The recipes are very unintimidating and any potential questions that a newbie or veteran may have about an ingredient or process are addressed right then and there. But, what I found most fascinating about this cookbook is that it truly isn't focused on being 100% raw. The authors encourage and even aid readers in easing into the raw food diet by offering "almost raw" techniques and emphasizing that it isn't essential to demand that every single ingredient is raw, particularly when first starting out. For this reason, the recipes are not surprisingly a bit more appealing from both a taste and preparation perspective.

I just recently received the book, but have already ear-marked at least thirty recipes that I want to trial. On the tops of that list are the Mangoes in Lemon-Ginger Sauce, Basic Nut Cheese, Apples and Walnuts on Baby Greens w/ Poppy Seed Dressing, Broccoli with Bon Bon Sauce (I do love broccoli!), Figgie Nutins' and Carob-Banana Pudding. I immediately made the Banana Endurance Drink, which according to the author balances potassium-rich bananas and sodium-rich celery (yeah, celery, but I decided to chance it) to replenish electrolytes and energize muscles. I added a generous dash of nutmeg to my servings, which I think rounded this tasty, yet simple beverage out nicely!

Though many raw cookbooks claim it is okay to gradually become raw, their recipes, tips, and pitches take on `all or nothing' or nothing air. It was refreshing to discover this nutrition-first cookbook which I am sure will actually help this avid home baker to increase her raw food intake (at least a bit) rather than running in the other direction to a pile of fresh-from-the-oven cookies.

This is an excellent book for health, weight loss and potentially a plethora of physical ailments. I know people who have cured everything from migraines to IBS following this plan. The information is solid, reliably cited and the recipes...to die for. I especially like the zucchini hummus, tastes just like the authentic middle eastern version, minus the gas! If you want to feel better, look better and eat delicious food while getting there, get this book. It's worth it.

This is a nice book if you are interested in transitioning to a higher % of raw foods in your diet. The tone is non-dogmatic and encouraging, with the co-authors offering various viewpoints and approaches to consider. The recipe section is large and varied. I recommend this book for those who are interested in including more non-cooked, high-enzyme foods in their diet.

This is an excellent book. The recipes are so delicious my taste buds were going crazy over every dish I made from this book. Seriously! Also, it gives some great information about a raw diet. I particularly appreciated the menu plan to get started. It was a nice way to plan out a few days to help get in the groove of going raw. ALSO the recipes are all pretty simple, so you don't have to go buy wacky ingredients. Once you've modified your grocery list, you can easily make everything in this book.

If your really trying to make the Raw Foods lifestyle real for you, this is a great place to start. Cherie has worked with well known dieticieans Brenda Davis and Vesanto Melina to pin down the how's and why's of raw food. Two thirds of this book is delicious raw recepies featuring everything from soups and salads to Raw but warm breads! It's clear and consice writing style makes it quick and easy to get from understanding the body to the real fun, playing in the kitchen!
I highly recomend it!

I bought this book along with a Boutenko family book knowing next to nothing about raw foods vegan diets. I've been an ethical vegan for a decade and was getting in a rut, eating too much vegan junk and convenience foods and not enough fresh whole foods. So I got myself a dehydrator and a food processor for the first time in my life (along with a very sharp mandolin that I haven't used since I sliced the top of a thumb off) and got busy learning.

This book is obviously meant for those who are trying to lose some weight, so the calorie content of most of these items is fairly low. I'm not much interested in dieting, nor do I want to go strictly raw foods. I just wanted to introduce some interesting raw recipes into my otherwise predictable mostly cooked vegan diet. And this book has a number of them, after you get through reading the informative first half, which is what I'd call Raw Foods 101.

For example, right now my dehydrator is busy working on sprouted seed pizza crusts, which smell heavenly (kind of a rye aroma) and which I've tweaked a bit to exclude celery, which I loathe, and substituted zucchini. This is my second time doing the crusts, and I eat them with the Soria's pizza sauce and pine nut parmesan (adding avocado and jalapeno for a southwest flavor). I've also tried flax crackers (tasty), crunchy buckwheat granola (a bit bland; I think next time I'll add more spice and maybe some agave), basic almond butter (took foreverg to process but it's yummy), sprouted lentil pate (a bit salty), zoom burgers (I liked these, although the Boutenkos' garden burgers are better), turtle truffles, figgie nut'ins, chocolate chip cookies, and my favorite Soria sweet, chocolate velvet. I also do a lot of sprouting and add the sprouts to both raw and cooked foods.

I found following the recipes a bit daunting at first, because some of them require a sauce or something that you also need to prepare to accompany them. And the issue of soaking and drying seeds and nuts for hours before using them to make them more digestible and nutritious, not to mention waiting for many hours before the dehydrator has dried whatever food you're preparing require patience and pre-planning. That's the irony about raw foods: it often takes a lot longer than cooked, so you have to be willing to invest the time (and some money also).

great, thorough explanation of what a raw diet is,how it affects your system, how to implement it.
Good recipes. Good book for people new to raw, and more experienced as well.