Living on Live Food
by Alissa Cohen
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Book Reviews of Living on Live Food
Book Review: Good and Bad
Summary: 3 Stars
I ordered this book after watching the Tyra Banks Show, featuring Alissa Cohen. I couldn't wait for the book to arrive, so I could get started. I've been living on a vegetarian/near vegan diet for a while, so the switch to a raw food diet seemed the next logical step. When the book arrived, I pretty much read it within two days. The first half of the book is a great introduction to raw foods, and how to make the switch, and is written in a very enthusiastic and motivational language. However, some of the "scientific facts" presented in the book are just plain wrong. For example, the book states that enzymes get "used up" so the body needs to "replenish this source through food". That's not true. Nevertheless, I overlooked these little things and moved on to the recipes section of the book. After all, it makes sense to incorporate more fresh and unprocessed food in your diet, no matter how wrong some of the information was.
The first thing I made from the recipes are the flax seed crackers (p. 344), a basic in the raw food diet, since bread and other baked items are a big no no. The crackers were easy to make, but they taste disgusting. I had some friends come over the next day, and I had them try the crackers, and they said the same thing. The crackers taste very fishy and smell awful. Then, I made the granola (p. 444) to replace my morning cereal, but it turned out to be very bland and not crispy. Even after extending the dehydration time by several hours, I still couldn't get the stuff to get crispy. For my sweet tooth, I made the fudge balls (p. 491). The dough became so thick, I almost fried the motor on my (brand new) Cuisinart food processor. Also, the dough was very sticky and liquid, and I wasn't able to form any balls. In the end, I dropped spoon fulls on a sheet and put it in the dehydrator overnight, which helped. Despite the mess, the fudge balls actually taste very good, and even my husband liked them (he normally doesn't like anything sweet). I also prepared two different dips, the spinach dip (p. 305) and the mock salmon pate (p. 380), both of which sounded very good, but taste very bland. I had some really ripe strawberries and bananas, so I made a fruit leather (p. 524), which doesn't look very appealing and shriveled up so much that there was barely anything left of my fruit. What a waste. However, I did find one recipe that I will make over and over, because it was really really good. The berry bars (p. 489) are just delicious.
After my experience, I decided to go back to my previous vegetarian diet, with the resolution to make the switch to a 100% vegan diet soon. For this, I ordered some great books, such as "Cooking the Whole Foods Way" by Christina Pirello from the "Christina Cooks" show, "Vegan Vittles: Down-Home Cooking for Everyone" by Jo Stepaniak, and "La Dolce Vegan!" by Sarah Kramer, the coolest vegan on this planet, to upgrade my collection of vegan cookbooks. Another good book I already own is "How it all vegan" also by Sarah Kramer and Tanya Barnard.
Nevertheless, I will continue to try recipes from Alissa Cohen's book on occasion, just to mix things up, and I will continue to incorporate lots of fresh fruits and vegetables in my diet. For all of you that are successfully living a 100% raw lifestyle, I admire you. It just wasn't for me.
Book Review: A Raw Food
Summary: 5 Stars
If you want to try a raw foods diet, this book is a MUST HAVE!! I feel SO thankful that this was the first raw food book I came across. Alissa Cohen covers it all for the beginning raw fooder. Her large selection of recipes are outstanding and some of them are so tasty and energizing I don't ever want to live without them. After trying a number of her recipes, my husband and I are both feeling like we just discovered a wonderful secret that we didn't know about all our lives.
But more than that, she also has an extensive section where she presents her own story of discovering raw food along with a lot of other peoples' stories. Each case is interesting and inspiring, with details of what the person went through going raw, how they did it, what ailments spontaneously healed, how much weight they lost, etc. These case stories are priceless, in my opinion. For me, they gave me more understanding of the benefits of going raw and the motivation to do it.
The only negative thing I felt about this book was in the beginning -- I didn't like how big and heavy it was. Cohen produced it with oversized thick paper, so it's a little hard to just hold up and read comfortably. But once I got past reading the narrative parts of the book, I realized that most of my time spent with the book will be using it as a cook book. And for that it's great because there's extra room on every page where you can write your own notes or variations of recipies and the pages are heavy enough that the book usually stays open when you lay it open on a counter, turned to the page of the recipe you're using.
I HIGHLY recommend Cohen's DVD also, which she sells from her website. If you're not sure whether the raw food approach is right for you or not, get this DVD. And if you KNOW you want to go raw, get this DVD. There is a whole added dimension to seeing how things are done, how long they take, and what the different dishes look like. And I loved the selection of recipes she demonstrates in the DVD. You could practically just live off those alone, which are some of her tastiest recipes! Plus, she gives you tips and explains various issues as she prepares the food. When I told my husband I was writing a review on this book, he said, "Be sure to tell people what a great companion the DVD is!"
We've been preparing raw food dishes for about two weeks and it is wonderful! There are life-style adjustments for sure and habits to change, but we can see now that Alissa Cohen has given us the best start we could possibly hope for. Her book is fantastic. For anyone seriously interested in going raw, you'll want to buy as many books over time as you can. But I DEFINITELY recommend getting Alissa Cohen's book and DVD first! You won't regret it!
Book Review: The Proof is in the Pudding - It works!
Summary: 5 Stars
Scientific method? Where has it gotten us? Diseases such as diabetes and heart disease and cancer have risen to epidemic proportions in our nation.
On the other hand, the first day you try the raw, living food lifestyle, you feel the difference. And you feel better and better each day that you remain on it. The way to rightly judge a method of healthy living is to see whether or not it works. Your lab is your own body.
When Alissa Cohen discovered this amazing path to health her heart prompted her to share it with the rest of us. And what sense it makes! Imagine taking fresh food provided by nature and improving upon it by cooking it, in essence destroying the very elements the food contains that we need to survive and thrive, and adding all kinds of man made things to the product, and then packaging it and storing it on shelves. That doesn't make sense to me. No, rather than pulling boxes and bags off the shelf that are who-knows-how-old and contain who-knows-what, essentially dead junk with nothing living in it, which will clog up my cells with waste and poisons, it makes sense to me to obtain food that is closest to the way nature prepared it for me, full of minerals (the materials) and living enzymes (the crew) to build me a healthy body.
Melissa's book is full of before and after stories, with photos, full of colorful recipe pictures, and her writing is friendly and fun to read. Her recipes are mouthwateringly scrumptious and most of them are very easy. She has packed so much into her book.
And as far as health goes, from my own personal experience, I can vouch for the effectiveness of her method. Following her advice, aches and pains almost immediately disappeared, allergies disappeared, my eyesight improved, my skin began to glow, pounds started melting off, and best of all, my depression disappeared and I felt joy upon awakening each morning. It was easier for me to deal with everyday irritations and minor catastrophes, staying calm and focused. My husband has commented again and again about my postive change in attitude. And the energy! I told everyone that I felt like I had a brand new body and mind. In other words, I started getting younger and having fun doing it, with no bad side effects. That is not fluff! ;)
My husband has since read Alissa's book and eats mostly raw now. He's lost all excess weight and has amazing energy without his daily cappuccino. An exciting bonus: hair has grown back where he once was balding.
Book Review: Could be more organized,
Summary: 3 Stars
This is an interesting introduction to a raw food diet, and unlike many raw food aficionados, Ms. Cohen actually looks healthy rather than close to emaciated.
However, this book could be could be better written/organized. The first half is interesting to read once or twice, but many of the before/after pictures of people on the diet were not impressive enough given the claims that eating raw foods exclusively will make you look younger, etc. to make one want to switch.
Also, reading the first part, you get the distinct impression that most people on a raw food diet do not go and make the more labor/planning-intensive recipes on a regular basis (perhaps because they are busy), and the book has many of them.
As to the recipes, they should have been organized from easy to more involved within the food groups, which would make them far more useful to a wider audience. Also, if someone (in this instance, the author), has been eating raw food for several years, I don't think he/she is truly qualified to say that this or that raw food recipe tastes "just like" cheese, or cake, or whatever. So, all the recipe names in a way make it very difficult to make the switch, because it just serves to remind you of what you're giving up. I'm not saying call something "date mush over wheat berry mush" (even though that's what a lot of the desserts look like, ;-), but the recipe names could be more honestly descriptive of what's actually in the recipe, and in that way actually encourage people to try them.
Part of the problem with the raw food movement is that many would have it be an all-or-nothing issue, which is a real turn-off to many. It does not occur to some of these people that ANY substitution of more fruits/veggies and less meat would be a good thing. This is something I see with other raw food books, not just this one. Why reduce the potential audience for these books by being so rigid?
Finally, while I could understand some (not all) of the extra space in the recipe section of the book, there was no need for it in the first section, which takes up almost half the book. That alone makes the book much more expensive than it needs to be.
Check out of your library first--it is an expensive book when you consider that almost half of it is not going to be used on a regular basis.
Book Review: My new favorite "cookbook"
Summary: 5 Stars
Alissa Cohen's book is well-written, organized and used in our home. This is the first raw food book that I have purchased and it is worth every penny! Those raw vegan cookbooks that I checked out at the library over the past few months were not inspiring and the recipes "assumed" that the reader had experience with raw vegan cooking/lifestyle like sprouting which is totally a new technique for me. This book makes the raw vegan lifestyle more acceptable, reachable and possible using easy-to-follow recipes that taste good and are created using natural, organic ingredients.
The first item I made from this book was the Walnut Fudge which all 5 of my children, husband, and myself found delicious. Don't tell my 5 year-old son that it contained walnuts as he "thinks" he doesn't like them! My 11 year-old daughter is learning how to prepare these fun, healthy and yummy recipes with me. The book has sturdy pages that are nearly waterproof so spills while preparing the foods can be wiped off easily. Carrot Pecan Burgers, Spinach Dip, Enchiladas, Stuffed Portobella Mushroom Caps and Almond Milk are some of my family's favorites. I like how Alissa suggests that the leftover almond paste/meal from the almond milk can be used to create the scrumptious raw cinnamon rolls.
I am disappointed that a few people have given this book a bad review. I am sure that they are jealous of Alissa's growing popularity and success. She is knowledgeable, healthy-looking, glowing, gorgeous and comes across in her DVD as a person with a calm, positive disposition. Last week, I loaned my DVD to a friend who viewed part of it and the next day asked me to order the book, DVD, and spiral slicer for her from Alissa's website (since this friend doesn't have Interent access). Last weekend, I watched the DVD again and picked up more food preparation tips that I had missed the first time. This is a wonderful DVD/book set! I wish Alissa continued success in promoting a raw food lifestyle. I hope she tours the West Coast sometime promoting her book...specifically the Seattle area!