Last week, I had the pleasure of attending a raw food prep demo, lecture and book signing with Rod Rotondi, raw food chef, thought leader, and entrepreneur.  This event took place downtown at Organic Avenue’s, The Space of Love on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Organic Avenue serves a delicious live organic vegan experience through an assortment of fresh juices, smoothies, salads, soups, dips, entrees and salads.

Rod is a world traveler, culinary eclectic, and founder of Leaf Organics, along with social activism and award-winning cuisine he is working to, “change the world one bite at a time.”  His signature cuisine wows celebrities, like Woody Harrelson, Mariel Hemingway and Jenny McCarthy, who frequent his Los Angeles Leaf Organics restaurants.

Rod presented topics such as, “how to make a salad into a meal,” and how to transition to a healthier diet that can work in today’s hectic lifestyle. He demonstrated the incremental steps to develop a healthier relationship with food and deliver his promise to keep it simple and easy; after all he is known for making Raw Food for Real People.

Thank you to Organic Avenue for this educational and inspiring evening at the beautiful Space of Love location. For those of you who are not familiar with Organic Avenue, it surely is worth the trip to their locations in Manhattan, as well as their website.  The juices, salads, soups, chocolate, smoothies, dips, entrees and ‘mylks’ looked delish and I am surely going to return soon to taste each of these beautifully crafted raw meals.

I truly enjoyed listening to Ray’s approach to eating raw and learned a few pointers, myself.  Although I personally could not thrive on a raw food diet, many people have found success with this style of eating. I must admit, I love my cooked foods as much as my raw, and could never pass up a warm buckwheat noodle soup with sauteed vegetables and tofu as I had this evening.  I do, however, love my vegetables and I enjoy eating kale, collards, Swiss Chard, snap peas, carrots, zucchini, cucumbers, peppers, daikon radish, nuts and seeds in their raw form.

How about you? Have you ever tried eating raw?  How did you feel?