This book is a great place to start if you're curious about the growing raw food scene. Judita Wignall, in a warm, practical and easy tone, explains it all. She lays out the kitchen basics including tools and techniques, offers a range of wonderful recipes from the simplest, throw-it-together-and-eat-in-your-hand wraps to wonderful tasty raw main dishes and the prettiest desserts. Each recipe has a step-by-step photo series, showing exactly how to get it done. There's nothing precious or intimidating about her recipes, and she has included foods that are not too far removed from the already familiar, like her gorgeous raw vegan pizza, and her OMG brownies.A great feature of the book is the planned menus, and the clear and easy nutritional information. She seems to have covered all the FAQs, including what she herself eats in a day.
And...the bonus DVD, tucked inside the cover, features Judita demonstrating recipes and techniques, which just brings it all to life.
Even if you're not into raw food, the book itself is a beautiful piece of art for its design and photography alone. Just a lovely thing to look at and admire.
I can't recommend this book highly enough if you're a beginner, and need guidance on how and why and what to do.
Her recipes aren't crazy unique, but they are all wonderful and everything I've tried have all come out amazing. Also, like most raw food books, there is a great deal of information on sprouting, dehydrating, technique, and reasons to be raw. Though most raw food books all say the same thing, I still managed to learn new things and think about things I already knew in different ways, which I really appreciated. And the fact that she has a method for blooming wild rice the raw way and have it turn out just as good as cooked rice is reason ALONE to get this book! I seriously love everything about this book, so don't hesitate to go for it!I really like this book. The accompanying DVD helps, Judita is a cutie and the kitchen is trendy (complete with a gazillion other cookbooks in the background, likely intentional). The book is well organized, with WONDERFUL, LARGE COLOR PHOTOS. Collecting the materials mentioned in the book quickly turns into a scavenger hunt; finding the right, high quality goods for the best price. But it's all fun...unless you're piss poor, which many are. Some may grow disillusioned with 'healthy eating' as marketed by all but the Raw Food on a Budget book (and even that advises that one saves up for a Vitamix).
"Going Raw", like most other raw food cookbooks, require:
Vitamix centrifugal juicer masticating juicer bamboo mat zester wisk
mandoline plane slotted spoon citrus juicer dehydrator food processor
ice cream scoop spiralizer Ice cream maker Cocktail shaker wisk microplane
pie/tartlette pan Colanders (varying sizes)ceramic knives quality boilers (tea; melt cocoa)
Lg glass + SSteel mixing bowls TONS o mason jars (+ sprouting top) tongues
Bamboo cutting boards molds rubber icetrays glass measuring cups (vary sizes)
spice mill/grinder (incl stone AND ceramic) SSteel Sieves (varying mesh density)
SSteel/plastic dry measuring cup
So, we're talking about some serious cash! Not to mention the obscure nutritional supplements, sea veggies, nuts and seeds, herbs, spices, fermented goods and the like. And once THAT'S all taken care of, you'll need the TIME to actually do this stuff. Perhaps that's why it's called a lifestyle. Perhaps that's also why the USA thinks that it's considerably more expensive to eat healthier, when in fact it really isn't.
So for those who have most or all of the above-mentioned items they generally will like such cookbooks while those that don't have these items will enjoy them less. Specifically, if you're wanting to make 'bread, fries or onion rings', you'll need to get all of this stuff, because all of these tools create the RIGHT TEXTURE and AESTHETIC closest to it's cooked, non vegan counterpart. And when you've labored over the dish, you'll want it to look like the beautiful pictures in the book.
There's a colossal hamburger and onion rings on the cover of the book, so I can't feign ignorance to the mimicking other foods rabbit hole. Though I don't understand the obsession with Raw Cookbooks immulating the very stuff that culture warns that I should avoid?! Why not simply create dishes that don't mock spaghetti or coffee cake? I don't want to eat meat. So i'm not spending $50 on nuts to crumble them up and ferment them to make fake meat. I have the equipment, so I'd better use this stuff, but is it REALLY necessary to create delicious dishes?
I do like how Going Raw has a fair amount of dishes that aren't seed and nut heavy. And it's fascinating the various manipulations of coconut meat to make things like phylo dough, tortillas etc. I also realize that for those who are truly raw, they don't eat such complex dishes all the time.
Going Raw encourage mostly healthy eating, by adding lots of greens to your plate. Though many of the deserts are nut and seed heavy.
Personally, I have no regrets for having purchased the book, or many of the tools required, as I approach raw cuisine as a hobby, not a way of life. Also, this book isn't as heavy on the seeds as many others are, and for that, I commend Ms. Wignall.I've been a raw foodie for quite a while, but I still found the recipes in this book to be inspiring as well as easy to follow. Included are many other informative tidbits of information which would really help anyone thinking about this lifestyle. I have many raw food recipe books, but this is definitely my new favouritethe pictures are colourful and inspiring, the ingredients used in the recipes are not strange or unusual and the bonus DVD is also a good bonus. The only flaw is the reliance on a dehydrator, which may deter some people from being able to make a number of the recipes. However, for anyone new to the raw food lifestyle, there are so many useful tidbits and tips that this would be a great starting purchase, and for those who have already adopted the lifestyle, the recipes are interesting and you will get a few new ideas.I bought this as my first raw cookbook. Based on the reviews, I thought I would be able to make a fair amount of the recipes with what I had for equipmentjust a food processor. There are a few reviews with different opinions on the subject, so I thought I would use numbers to make it easier to decide whether you have what you'll need.
There are 98 recipes in this cookbook, not including the salad dressings.
24 recipes need a blender
13 recipes call for a high speed blender such as Blendtec or Vitamix.
26 recipes use a food dehydrator.
17 recipes need a food processor.
4 recipes use a mandoline.
4 ice cream recipes use an ice cream maker, which I think can be made with a high speed blender.
A few recipes use a mortar, spiralizer, coffee grinder, nut bag or a chocolate mold.
18 recipes don't use any special equipment. Many of these are salads.
I'm not saying don't buy this bookI like it a lot. After buying a Blendtec, I can make a lot of the recipessoups, smoothies, salads. But I'll need a dehydrator to make anything substantial. There are also good recipes that come with the Blendtec blendersmoothies, milk alternatives, salad dressing, sauces, soupsthat are or can easily be turned raw.
What I'm trying to say is, if you're seriously considering going raw, you'll definitely need a blender (probably high speed) and a food dehydrator. Then you'll want to get food processor, a sprouter and mandoline and nut bag. And this book! It does have very good recipes that you just know will taste great.
Update:
Creamy Tomato FettuccineI am becoming more amazed at how raw foods are really delicious. For a junk foodist like me to actually like this cold, raw zucchini pasta is saying something.
Chia puddingI liked this better than I thought also. It sounds like it might be gross, but is actually pretty tasty, although the seeds still crunch in the pudding.
Another awesome thing I noticed about this book is the repeat of ingredients which is helpful for not spending a load of money trying to learn your new lifestyle. This book has opened up a whole new culinary world for methere are so many new ways to prepare food, and they are easy, not time consuming or expensive as you might at first think.
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