Ani Phyo

The raw foodist

By Miriam Wolf

September 11, 2007

A decade ago, Ani Phyo co-founded Smart Monkey Foods, a company whose healthy snack bars are simultaneously organic, vegan, and raw. The raw-foods movement (also known as the living-foods movement) advocates eating only fresh foods not cooked above 116 degrees. Along with packaged foods such as Smart Monkey’s bars, there are raw-food restaurants and raw-food cookbooks, including Phyo’s new book, Ani’s Raw Food Kitchen. The book offers simple raw-food recipes for both longtime adherents and raw-food newbies.

How long have you been eating a raw-food diet?
I grew up on a lot of raw foods. My mother had an organic garden and she used to make us vegetable juices that were filled with everything she thought was good for us. They were a brown sludge; my brother and I would have to hold our noses to drink them.

My father was into raw foods, too; I would watch him eating bell peppers like they were apples. I always just thought it was a habit from the old country; I thought, “Oh, he’s so unsophisticated.” Now, when I look back, I realize he was actually mono-dieting — eating good food really simply.

When I got to college and I was on my own, I started eating all this food that I never really had around me when I was younger. And I gained weight, developed cholesterol issues, all that stuff.

Ani Phyo, as pictured on the front of her cookbook.

Then, in the early 1990s, I was living in San Francisco and I went to the raw restaurant run by Juliano [who now owns Juliano’s Raw in Santa Monica, California]. I fell in love with the food. When I ate Juliano’s food, I could stay up all night. The more I ate that way, the more energy I had. I wouldn’t get sick, even though I wasn’t sleeping one night a week. And it was really delicious. I started getting into preparing it myself, and eventually ended up working there.

Me going 100 percent raw vegan, that was over a period of seven years.

People who eat raw diets often say it gives them more energy. Why does eating raw foods make people feel so full of vitality?
First of all, because it’s lighter. The analogy that I use is that when I think about white flour, I remember I used to use it to make papier-mâché. It’s a paste of white flour and water. And that’s also the mixture they use to stick concert posters up on construction walls and things. I just think when I’m taking that in — like, a piece of bread — it just takes a lot of energy for my body to process that and pass it through, because it’s really like a paste going through the system.

But when we’re eating fresh organic produce, it’s just water and fiber. There’s so much water in raw food. Our bodies are like 70 percent water; produce is like 70 or 80 percent water. Another reason is that there are no fillers; it’s nutrient-dense food with the minerals and vitamins and nutrients that we need. So we’re getting all this nutrition, and that gives us energy, too.

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And because the food is not heated, the enzymes are active; the enzymes are what ripen the banana, what help break it down. The enzymes help break the food down in your body, too.

What are your thoughts on transitioning to a raw diet?
It’s easy to be raw in southern California, where there are tons of places to get raw food. I really feel like [Californians] are the people who don’t need the help right now. But there are so many people right now who aren’t in good health, or maybe the toxicity levels in their bodies are caused by the preservatives, colors, and other toxic chemicals that are in our food supply and in our air. Those are the people I really want to help.

Recently I was at a raw festival down in southern California, and a very, very overweight woman came up and told me, “I found your book, I found your website, I came here by myself because nobody would come with me. I just had to come and see you because I just lost my husband to colon cancer and my doctor’s telling me I can’t eat all these things that I eat all the time. I don’t know what I can eat.” She was in crisis mode.

I talked with her for a while and I walked her around to the different booths. She ate vegan, raw organic food for the first time, and she was flipping out! She was like, “This is vegan? This is raw? This is so good.” Her whole world expanded with all these options. Nobody had ever shown her that before.

I think that a lot of people, when they develop health issues, are like, “Oh, I can’t eat this thing that I’ve always eaten,” and they kind of freak out.

I help them by saying, “OK, so you want to eat a burger and fries? Go ahead and eat a burger and fries. But here, have this giant salad first, because the fiber and the water will fill you up, and there are nutrients in it because it’s organic, so you’ll give the body the nutrition it needs with no fillers, and you’ll feel more satisfied.” What happens all the time is that they’ll eat maybe half of [the burger and fries].

Do most raw foodies eat 100 percent raw food?
I don’t think so. I think being able to eat 100 percent raw food really depends on your climate, your location, your lifestyle. Unless you’re making your own food all the time, which some people don’t really have time for. Even [raw guru] David Wolfe and people like that are saying, “Eat 80 percent raw.” Some people even say 50 percent raw. It’s kind of difficult to be 100 percent raw in our world with our lifestyle.