Raw food lifestyle

Mark Boldero suggests people try a raw-food diet for a week to see how they feel. Picture / Carolyn Robertson

Mark Boldero sounds like a wacko hippie. He's a raw-food devotee with a redundant stove, a backyard full of organic vegetables - and he's just returned from swimming with the dolphins in Tauranga.

I fully expect him to whip out a pair of seaweed sandals.

Boldero is a former computer whiz turned chef/entrepreneur - and he's on a mission. He wants us to turn down the heat and try going raw.

Earlier this year, he launched Vital Essence, a gourmet raw-food delivery service. You'd be surprised at how many people can't get enough of uncooked pizza. That has to be unpalatable, doesn't it?

"I was just as sceptical about the whole raw movement. I didn't want to exist on rabbit food the whole time. But I decided to give it six weeks and see if it made any difference. I started noticing differences after the first week - and now I just can't see any downside," says Boldero.

There are a lot of restrictions along the road to a raw diet. There are no heated fats, no processed sugar, no preservatives, no dairy, no animal products, no gluten, and no wheat.

The key difference between raw and cooked food is 40C. Boil, fry or bake food and the raw food experts say you're destroying its natural enzymes.

In his book Living Love, Living Foods, author Mark Ament describes his foodie epiphany. "I imagined how I would look and feel after I was in boiling water for 20 minutes or in a 100C oven for an hour or in a frying pan for just 5 five minutes. I didn't like the image I saw ...

After a year of eating raw food, Ament says, "it felt like a fog or haze had lifted from my entire being".

You do have to be organised though. "If you're having an off day, it's difficult - and you don't have the option of eating out at restaurants," says Boldero. Which is why he and partner Veronique Piton started their catering company, delivering evening meals 10km from the Sky Tower. "We found ourselves wishing for our own personal raw-food chef and discovered there is a lack of health alternatives to mainstream convenience foods."

A true test must be in the tasting, so I order pizza with cashew cheese. It arrives on the doorstep looking surprisingly edible. The base is made from a mix of sprouted buckwheat and vegetables, stripped of moisture after a session in a dehydrator.

Piton's exquisite presentation makes it all the more appealing and it's really quite yummy. The mesclun salad is far superior to any supermarket version. The verdict from our tasting group is five stars. But one meal isn't going to cure my pesky wheat allergy. It takes dedication to the raw cause before you notice the benefits.

"The birth of our daughter Genevieve was the catalyst for us converting to raw food," says Boldero. "She's 2 now and she's never been sick, ever. Our supermarket bill has dropped from $200 to $80 and because we're not buying the mainstream food products our rubbish is a quarter of what it used to be."

The raw devotees may rave about the taste explosions, but seriously, who wants to pass on a good roast to nibble on a garden salad burger with no buns?

"I say try it for a week and see how you feel," says Boldero.

* For more information visit the Vital Essence website (see link below) or 0800 216662.