If you're new to raw food, this article may help. (It was actually an exercise for a journalism course, but we thought you might be interested!) By Jackie Rasmus

Everyone loves pizza and pizza was on the menu at a recent “Alive” meeting that I attended. “Alive” or “The Irish Living Foods Association” is a group that promotes eating raw and living foods and is based in Dublin and Wicklow. At their meetings once a month on a Sunday afternoon, a speaker will talk on some aspect of health and they will follow with a raw foods feast.

There has been an increasing trend towards the raw food diet recently, with various Hollywood celebrities like Demi Moore trying it out. Also, in the UK, an exclusively raw food restaurant has opened up, The Little Earth café in Primrose Hill, London.

Raw and Living Foods include a variety of fruits, vegetables, nuts seeds and sprouted and grains - used in various specific ways - blended, fermented, dehydrated, or juiced - but not cooked. To clarify, living foods are those that are soaked and sprouted, like bean sprouts or broccoli sprouts that you can buy in supermarkets these days. Raw foods are foods that are just uncooked.

Raw food experts such as Brian Clements of the Hippocrates Institute in Florida, a raw food healing centre, claim that when food is cooked above a temperature of 118 degrees Fahrenheit that the enzymes within the food are destroyed.

There are two types of enzymes that the human body produces: digestive enzymes which break down our food for us and metabolic enzymes which are required in every process that takes place within the body from breathing to thinking.

Dr Edmund Howell who did extensive research into enzymes states that as we get older we produce less enzymes so eating our food raw adds enzymes to our diet and thus keeps us young and give us loads of energy. However this is flatly denied by other scientists.

The pizza served at the Alive meeting was raw. Made from a base of flax seeds and buckwheat that has been sprouted, with a cashew nut cheese sauce and a topping of olives, peppers and avocado.

It tasted beautiful, and the “cheese” was creamy. There was also a selection of salads far removed from the traditional lettuce, cucumber and tomato salad.

For dessert we were served chocolate cake made from seaweed, coconut and carob. I felt guilty eating it as it seemed so sinful, but I was reassured that it actually was good for me as it still contained all its enzymes. It was still rather heavy though and left me quite tired.

Thankfully we are not served wheatgrass juice, although it is spoken of here. Wheatgrass juice is a powerful cleanser made by juicing by sprouting wheat berries. It is currently served at Cornucopia, the vegetarian restaurant on Wicklow Street and by Nude on Suffolk Street. It is such a powerful cleanser it can often make a person feel nauseous.

So, are there other benefits to this lifestyle?

The Living Foods Network in America claim that there are many reasons why people eat a raw and living foods diet:

1. Health: Persons embracing this type of diet invariably experience improvements in their general physical and mental status, including more energy, better health, more energy, weight loss, detoxification, and a sturdier immune system that better resists and recovers from just about any kind of disease... and the list goes on...
2. Energy efficiency: Since you no longer have to cook, you don't waste electricity, and save the environment.
3. Since you eat organic agriculture, you help to save the planet. Most become more in-tune with their body; many report definite spiritual improvements.

If you would like to find out if the raw foods diet is more than just sticks of raw celery and carrot, you can find out more about “Alive” by visiting their website http://www.irishlivingfoods.com.