Living Foods And Dead Meat

Lacto, ovo and Vegan I thought you couldnt get much more specialised than that. But even the staunchest Indian vegetarian with an instant allergy to onion or garlic might well have blanched at the menus dreamt up by the latest food faddists in the West.

But first, a little history. In the beginning, there were fertilisers and square tomatoes fresh from the lab. They were followed by the organic food brigade, who argued that fruits and vegetables that hadnt been through the test-tube-and-spray routine tasted better and were healthier for you. (That should make us Proud To Be An Indian since when do you get anything but freshly nourished by genuine animal fertiliser produce?)

 

Then came the Living Foods movement, which argued that all kinds of cooking were bad for food, since it destroyed nutrients and was really a process of decomposition. Bottled fruit juice was by definition dead fruit juice; a baked potato equalled one nutritionless spud. Grog should never have dropped that piece of meat in the fire back in the Paleolithic Age...

Of course, there are divisions in every group, and the Living Foodists are no exception. The monicker embraces a wide variety of food faddists. The most common is the Vegetarian Living Foodist, also to be found masquerading as a Sproutatarian (chiefly eats sprouts and leafy greens), juiceatarians (who subsist mainly on fresh fruit and vegetable juices) and fruitarians (who eat avocados, peppers, tomatoes and beans in addition to fruit). Slightly less respectable are Lacto Living Foodists, whose diet is beefed up with yogurt, milk and sometimes cheese, and Raw Meat Foodists, who will eat anything so long as its raw.

My favourite is the Instinctive Eaters. These include people who eat just one food at a time, not stinting on quantity until theyre tired of eating, go through a taste-change and shift to another kind. This is not a group Id recommend to my six-year-old nephew, though: hed plump for definitely dead chips followed by deader and more nutritionally dubious sausages, washed down with huge draughts of cola.

Living Foodists warn that conversion does not come easy, but add that the benefits are so huge that youll never regret your decision. Judging by the number of new restaurants sprouting up around Seattle, fringe New York and Baltimore, they might just be right theyre almost definitely healthier than the rest of us.

But one aspect of general Living Foodism bothers me: although advocates of this philosophy are against all forms of cooking, they use something called a dehydrator as standard equipment. A dehydrator uses sunlight to dry food products into taste-bud submission over a two to ten hour period, and frankly, that sounds a whole lot like slow cooking to me.

Anyway, on the principle that the proof of the diet is in the recipes, Im including two Living Food recipes. Both require a blender, and one requires a dehydrator, though it can (successfully, if heretically) be microwaved or baked. Enjoy, and pay no attention to the faithless whore dialling up a pizza as they read.

Cashew apricot cookies 2 cups cashews, soaked overnight; 1 cup dried or fresh apricots; 1 small cup raisins, soaked for at least half an hour;2 overripe bananas

Blend in the mixie until mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Dehydrate for 24 hours at 105 F, turning them over halfway. (Or bake in a microwave at High for 10 mins, or in a standard oven on Medium for 30 mins.) Eat. Do not attempt to store.

Cream of mushroom soup

1 avocado; 1 tomato; 1 cup hot water; 1 red capsicum, diced; 1 cup mushrooms, sliced; 1 small onion, chopped; 1 clove of garlic; Juice of 1/2 grapefruit, chopped basil Blend avocado, grapefruit juice, garlic and hot water in the mixie until the soup is as thick as single cream. Add sliced mushrooms, chopped capsicum, onion and basil. Stir and serve.

I tried both recipes out, and lets just say that I am now a converted, committed Dead Foodist. But then again, one mans meat is another mans butchered animal corpse, and you might have better luck than me.