Eat It Raw

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New York’s raw foodists even have their own restaurant, Quintessence, a Manhattan bistro whose proprietors, Tolentin Chan and her husband, Dan Hoyt, understand the political and the personal power of the raw-food diet. "Major corporations are poisoning people with overprocessed, denatured food," says Hoyt. As for Chan, she suffered frequent colds and asthma attacks before trying a raw-food "cleanse"—the way most raw foodists get started—to see if she could get some relief. "My health improved tremendously," she says. "Now I’m 100 percent raw and my asthma is completely gone. I never get sick, and my energy is really high." Hoyt followed her lead and found relief from hay fever and food allergies. But both of them know how unappetizing raw food can seem at first.

"People think eating raw is gonna be like chewing on weeds," Hoyt says. But in the right hands, he says, it can be a refreshing culinary experience. "Raw food is very vibrant. We use lots of spices and sauces. The flavors are very strong and clean." Somebody out there must agree: Raw foods restaurants have sprung up across the United States, from Berkeley, Las Vegas, and Chicago to Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C. It appears more are in the works.

Still, a raw diet isn’t for everyone. Holistic physician Ronald Hoffman says that some people do well on a diet of "living foods," but others definitely don’t. He also cautions that too many people use food as a personal statement. "It’s best to avoid arrogance," he cautions, "or using food as an emblem of virtue."

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