Frederic Patenaude's book "Sunfood Cuisine" is designed as a practical guide to assist people in going as raw-vegan as they want to go.

I got this book due to a weekend retreat that one of my musical ensembles had recently. When we retreat to someplace cool like a ski cabin, we have to haul in all the food; it takes a lot of planning; requires time to drive there, plus it is too tempting to spend too much time skiing instead of working on our music. Because of all that we decided to have the event in town at people's houses, and the host would provide the food. Day 1 of our retreat was at X's. (X is very paranoid about her identity and she wouldn't appreciate me even using her first name in public.)

I have to tell you a bit about X. Up til about a year ago, X was a very unhealthy person. She was extremely overweight and suffered a huge list of chronic health problems. I had heard X went about 90% raw-vegan. She has obviously dropped a lot of weight (about 50 lb), and is just easier to be around in general, although she could still stand to drop some more poundage. Subjectively I would also say that her musical performance has a taken on a more relaxed aspect in the past year.

Well, in my mind I had pictured a raw-vegan diet consisting of wheatgrass juice and chopped lettuce. Nothing could be further from the truth. The food that X prepared for us was both satisfying and delicious, and on my Sunday morning run after a full Saturday of noshing on raw-vegan food, I tore out at the head of the pack. Psychological? Maybe....

OK... about the book.
Part I starts out with a justification for this diet that to me is not scientific enough. It baldly states that "we humans are the sickest animals on the planet." and why do we fail to thrive like wild animals do? Well I could point you to some wild animals populations that are not thriving and suffering all kinds of diseases... for starters. But some of the logic is provable... for example that animal products linger longer in the gut. However, Patenaude is not in the business of scientifically justifying anything. As he himself says "let me ask you to do something. Just try it."

Part II is just a catalogue of food items classified according to the raw food system. It is useful because it gives information on some more exotic fruits and vegetables. I learned a few things here, for example, a cucumber is actually a fruit and that it's related to the melon family.
It has some really nice photographs.

Part III (about half way through the book) is where the recipes begin. Each little chapterlet has about a dozen recipes in it. Patenaude classifies recipes into the following categories:
1.salads
2.dressings
3.soups
4.green drinks
5.fruit juices
6.nut milks
7.smoothies
8.desserts
9.raw pies
10.pates
11.dips
12.gourmet
13.snacks
Raw Pies! You have to see those to believe them. And X even makes raw "cookies." These recipes combine ingredients in ways I never thought of before. Whoever heard of putting apples and beets together? And yet... it tastes great!! Another thing I liked is that most of these recipes (with the exception of the gourmet) seem fairly easy to make. Finally I like the fact that a most of these recipes do not require a juicer. As I remarked to "X" some raw food recipes are only achievable with a juicer, and would have not been achievable by primitives foraging about in the "wild." The answer I've heard given to this is that our food supply in general is diminishing in nutritive value and we have to distill the parts that have the vitamins in order to consume enough. One thing for sure, the people selling juicers are doing well by it.

Here's a very simple sample recipe that I made yesterday.
Take equal quantities of flaxseed meal and water, and throw a little tamari in. Let it soak for several hours. Spread it out on the drying plate of your dehydrator and dry for several hours. (A warm oven with the door open works also).
Voila crackers. I also did something extremely tasty with collards, a food I previously thought had to be cooked.

The gourmet raw food chapter is designed to impress the non-raw feeders with what can be done. These recipes are fiddley and complex. Though they sound yummy I won't be making them any time soon.

The book concludes with appendices on how to transition to raw, how to deal with your skeptical friends and family, (the advice given there is just don't talk about it unless asked, and if asked, feed people rather than talk, which is what X did for us.) It brings up the subject of toxic food withdrawal. Food, of course, is a drug that we are all addicted to. If your system is used to toxins, you might feel crappy for a while if you go off them, as anyone who has ever tried to give up coffee will hasten to tell you. And it says a few words about GM foods, organic vs. non, and wild foods.

The index is complete, accurate and fairly useful.

Overall this is an interesting addition to my cookbook collection, and the flax "crackers" will be made regularly in my house because flax is so good for you in so many ways that I'm not even going to belabor it.

Recommended: Yes