The Anti-Dead Foods Movement: An interview with Judith Sims

—by Heidi Goards

My funny friend, HPC member Judith Sims, knows a lot about so many things. She's an herbalist, is learning German, and has been involved with the raw foods movement for as long as it's been in the Twin Cities, about ten years. I interviewed her while we had breakfast at the Minneapolis mecca of raw foods, Ecopolitan.

Forgive me, though, as I digress. A couple months ago, I was at a classically Midwestern holiday party (in the middle of the day and no alcohol!) and as I grazed at the snack table, I was joined by a lovely man who actually started talking to me. He is not a native; he is originally from New York, which explains why he started talking to me.

I was eating potato chips and dip, my favorite snack food, and he was eating something with wheat. I said I wished I could try it, but I couldn't because wheat upsets my stomach, blah, blah. It turned out that he had in the recent past eaten only raw foods for two years straight. He said he felt fabulous. He lost all kinds of weight, his skin looked ten years younger, he had mountains of energy; it was amazing.

So, why did he stop? He said that one night he was at home and just wanted a pizza, he just had to have one, so he had one delivered. Just like that, tumbled off the wagon. He got violently ill after the pizza, but he did not go back to raw foods. Why? Well, I think Judith Sims can help us understand this.

Back at the Ecopolitan, we have just ordered our meal. We are going to share two breakfasts, the Flaxjacks and the Rawmlette, and we'll order Green Burritos to take home.

Heidi: Can you give us a general definition of the "raw foods movement"?

Judith: First, I would call it the “raw and living foods movement.” When you say "raw foods," people think you're just eating salads, or eating raw fish. People don't think of it as a movement tied to the 20th century that looks at a vegan and uncooked way of eating and draws on ancient methods of making and preserving foods. “Raw foods” really encompasses a number of food preparation and preserving techniques like dehydrating—having dried fruits and dried vegetables or dried grains that you might make into crackers. It includes sprouting. You wouldn't eat unsprouted grains or ungerminated nuts. You sprout your quinoa, you soak your nuts, you sprout your wheat berries, ...and then you might ferment the wheat berry into what is called "rejuvelac," a hallmark product of raw foods, an enzyme-rich, fizzy beverage that is one of the foundations of the original raw foods diet.

Heidi: And those processes are an attempt to draw out the greater nutritional value of the foods? I mean, you said you would never eat quinoa, for instance, without sprouting it, because the sprouting of it releases the nutritional value?

Judith: Yeah, exactly. When you germinate a nut or a seed, you're telling the embryo to start growing and access the nutrients that have been locked up. So when you soak your nut, you are changing the starch into simple sugars, you're changing the fats into fatty acids, and changing proteins into amino acids. It makes it all bio-available, it's easier to digest, and it's more nutritious, and it changes the products, from a starch or a fatty nut into something much more vegetable-like.

So, there are two reasons for drying, fermenting, sprouting, juicing, or otherwise concentrating things. One is to make a higher level of nutrients available; and two is just to preserve things, because fermentation and drying are ways of discouraging bad bacteria which date back to the dawn of agriculture. But, very few people eat 100% raw foods. A lot of people say they are 100% raw foods, but it's very hard to do long term. The low protein thing is part of it; the lack of variety is, too. You sometimes hear of raw fooders bingeing on cookies or something— you fall off the wagon, like your friend with the pizza. But even having 50–80% raw foods in your diet can be a big improvement.

Heidi: And where does this come from, this movement?

Judith: The original founder, a lot of people say, and I agree, is Ann Wigmore. She was the founder of raw foods in the first wave, she developed the original rejuvelac, and the juicing of wheatgrass and methods of sprouting food. She began her work in the mid '20s, opened her Institute in '58, and started publishing in the '60s. There were other adherents in the late '70s and '80s, but I'd say the movement really took off ten or 12 years ago. That is the current wave.

It used to be that you could not eat a raw foods diet without drinking wheatgrass, you had to have a wheatgrass juicer, that was just part of the protocol—to detox. And then, you could have nuts, and vegetables, avocados, smoothies, green drinks, and green soups. And that was the basis for the original raw foods diet, plus the rejuvelac, juices, wheatgrass, coconut. So, it's really evolved since then. Even if you don't do it 100%—because no one does— you can adapt certain parts of it to your own diet. There are great desserts. It is the one diet where you are certain of getting the correct amount of vegetables, which have a cancer-preventing effect, eight to ten servings per day.

People come to raw foods because they are ill. And Ann Wigmore did too. She grew up in Lithuania pre-WWI. She came to the U.S. as a teen, and within two years she broke two legs in an accident involving a horse and a cart, and gangrene set in in one leg. She refused to have an amputation and nothing was working to cure her, so she sat on her lawn and began to eat grass, because her grandmother had used grass in treating the soldiers and the wounded in their village. So, Ann Wigmore began to cure herself by eating grass.

I'd say raw foods is promoted and followed mostly by people with serious and chronic illnesses. If you go to the raw foods potluck, you will find people with chronic illnesses, cancer and so on. It can give your body a tremendous break, a body cleanse. The enzyme lift it gives your body lets your body get things done that maybe you wouldn't get done with cooked foods.

A raw foodist does not want to eat "dead" food. They want vital, living food. They want to eat stuff out of the back yard. It's not just organic. Olives for olive oil, for example, are handpicked, handcrushed.

(Our meal arrives. Here are the ingredients:

Flaxjacks: Dehydrated apple-walnut flaxseed pancakes served with tahini, fresh fruit, date syrup and cinnamon.

Green Burrito: Curried sprouted-garbanzo pate, sunflower seeds and sprouts,fresh seasonal vegetables, spiced lentil mix, wrapped in a collard leaf, served with salsa and guacamole.

Rawmlette: The "eggs": dehydrated banana, coconut milk and flakes, and flaxseed; the "cheese": macadamia nuts, cashews, jalapenos, nutritional yeast, apple cider vinegar, lemon, garlic, and sea salt; the rest of the filling: diced avocado, shaved carrot, onion, and cilantro.)

Heidi: So, all this food we are eating right now is cold. Is everything always cold in the raw foods diet?

Judith: There are two ways you can handle heat. One, you can add a lot of cayenne pepper, so you can have room temperature soup full of cayenne pepper and you can heat things up that way. You can have warm foods... there's a little controversy about it. Some people say that all enzymes are destroyed above 115 degrees. Although I have heard that some foods can be dehydrated above 140 degrees and the enzymes will still be intact.

Heidi: Who's doing this?

Judith: It hasn't hit the mainstream, but it's on its way. People in other fields are getting interested—Charlie Trotter, the famous Chicago chef, for example. I think they see the market potential.

Part of the reason that raw food is not more popular is that it requires an investment in equipment. It's kind of ironic that here is this natural diet with unprocessed foods, unadulterated, but you need at the least a Vitamix or a very powerful blender; you can hear it in the background. [The Vitamix was going most of the time we were at the restaurant.]

You need a dehydrator, a juicer, and you may have a separate wheatgrass juicer. And, it's kind of labor intensive, although there are more and more raw products available, like frozen sprouted breads and nutrition bars. And you can do raw foods without equipment. You can ferment stuff and you can sun-dry things. You can do some things without equipment, but if you are serious about raw foods, you need equipment.

Heidi: So, after your original investment, it'll be about $1000?

Judith: Yes, about $1000 in equipment. But the real problem with raw foods for people is that it is so laborintensive and it's so low protein. I used to have extended arguments with people in raw foods about how much protein is in, for example, sprouts.

Heidi: What about nuts?

Judith: Yes, you can eat nuts. But the fat and caloric content is quite high in nuts to get all your protein from nuts. Cashew cream is sensational, though.

Would you like to learn more?

A Raw Food Potluck is held every second Saturday of the month at the Friends Meeting at 1725 Grand Ave. in St. Paul. Speakers on health topics start around 5 p.m.; the potluck commences between 6:30 and 7:00 p.m.

[Heidi Goar, a devoted HPC member, loves to pick on "the establishment," is a pro-organic food snob, and prefers cognac over scotch.]