�Drinking a raw food smoothie with superfoods for brain power and energy is a great way to kick the late-night caffeine addiction that plagues most college students,� said David Wolfe, a renown expert on raw food nutrition, and author of best selling books Eating for Beauty and The Sunfood Diet Success System. �In addition to being amazing superfoods, cacao beans and hemp seeds are incredible aphrodisiacs.� Another invaluable tip.
Alicia Silverstone, Demi Moore, Donna Karan and Woody Harrelson are among a growing number of celebrities who attribute their health and vibrancy to eating a raw food diet, said Wolfe. On one recent episode, the women of �Sex and the City� visited the fictitious restaurant �Raw,� a fantastic example of the homage New Yorkers are paying to the cutting-edge food trend.
Raw foods are an ideal addition to the diets of busy college students. They are healthy, quick alternatives to fast food for those late-night hunger pangs that need of instant gratification.
Raw foodists, or those who have �gone raw,� believe that eating uncooked, organic food is the most natural thing for humanity to do. It is simple and reconnects us to nature. Eating raw is also ecologically friendly because there is no excessive packaging needed.
Wolfe tells beginners to add raw foods to their diet, instead of depriving themselves of the foods they love. �Eating raw is not just about eating salad,� he said. �You have to do it with some level of cleverness. This includes eating a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, sprouts, wheat grasses, non-toasted seaweed for minerals and well-selected supplements in addition to your everyday diet.� And, of course, there are �superfoods.�
Raw foodists believe that when food is cooked it loses all of its enzymes and most of its protein. Rather than eating meat, they get their protein from �superfoods,� a category that includes spirulina, blue/green algae, powdered grasses, bee pollen and hemp seeds, all of which are available at most health food stores. The �superfoods� are then blended with fruit and water, and perhaps fresh cacao beans to add a chocolate flavor to the smoothie.
�Superfoods are the best brain food, because they give you more energy after you eat them instead of making you feel tired,� said Wolfe, as he sipped on his �superfood� smoothie and ecstatically peeled open mountains of cacao beans. �I used to need close to eight hours of sleep as a college student, and now I sleep three hours each night because of all the energy I get from superfoods.�
MaryKay Bray, a senior advertising and marketing communication major at the Fashion Institute of Technology, agreed that she �always feels energetic after eating raw, because of all of its nutrients.�
Most Americans do not get enough nutrients, according to Teresa L. Mascitti, a professor of nursing at Adelphi University. Mascitti said she felt most Americans ate too many empty calories void of nutritional value, leaving out of their diets raw foods that are better suited for their bodies. �Our human G.I. tract�is meant for food with more roughage, and roughage comes from food that is raw. Also, diseases such as diverticulosis, which is an out-pouching of the colon, have evolved as a result of eating processed foods. Eating a raw diet with the exception of seeds, can be preventative for these sorts of illnesses,� she said.
Holistic health counselor Aarona Pichinson, a raw food enthusiast and director of The Yoga of Nourishment in New York City, believes �superfood� smoothies can boost immunity and brain function and satisfy even the most raging of appetites for an extended period of time. �Drinking a superfood smoothie helps make you less hungry because of the way protein and fruit react,� Pichinson said. �After I drink a smoothie like this, I can go for hours without feeling hungry.�
To find out which raw foods are right for you, Pichinson suggests doing a breakfast experiment. �One morning, try eating just fruit, which is high in sugar and carbohydrates, and see how your body feels a few hours later. The next day, try eating a more fatty breakfast of a salad with raw avocado, and notice how you feel a few hours later. On the third day, eat a high protein breakfast of fruit and Brazil nuts and see how your body feels afterward. You can figure out what your body needs more of by which breakfast gave you the highest energy and kept you satisfied the longest.�
It is easy to get overwhelmed when trying anything new. �It feels great to eat salad and other raw foods, but I don�t do it all the time,� said Christina Dunham, a senior theater major at Pace University. �I think eating raw is one of those things that is really hard to have as a lifestyle, but I would eat raw more often if I had access to a restaurant that prepares raw food.�
The easiest way to add more raw foods to your diet is to drink a glass of fresh-squeezed, raw, organic vegetable juice each day (found at most health food stores or juice bars), snack on fresh cacao beans, dip organic celery sticks in raw almond butter for a snack, and use raw honey instead of processed sugar to sweeten that inescapable cup of coffee.
Kelly Rowland