Book: “Choosing Raw: Making Raw Foods Part of the Way You Eat”
Author: Gena Hamshaw
As soon as Hamshaw began experimenting with a raw food diet, she saw the benefits. The clinical nutritionist credits the regimen with solving her digestion woes, boosting her energy level, expanding her taste horizons and even changing her life.
But she still craved roasted veggies tossed in olive oil and sea salt. So she ate them.
Hamshaw’s continued fondness for cooking — with actual heat — may make her seem like an odd spokeswoman for the raw foods movement. Her accessible approach, however, keeps attracting readers to her 5-year-old blog, Choosing Raw. And it’s why she hopes her new book with the same title ($20, Da Capo Press) will persuade more folks to sample some of her favorite foods, including homemade hemp milk, chia pudding and zucchini “pasta.”
What motivated her to start chronicling her dietary journey was the fact that she was young, busy and making only $28,000 a year, which forced her to be realistic about raw food.
Complicated recipes that required three days of sprouting and dehydrating hard-to-find ingredients were off the table. Instead, she developed techniques that helped her understand how to whip something up with whatever produce was in her fridge: hearty salads, blended soups, raw “rice” made from finely chopped veggies.
The 125 dishes suggested in the book are meant to be played with, Hamshaw says. Some are raw, some are cooked and some are a combination, but all are 100 percent vegan.
— Vicky Hallett, The Washington Post
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