Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine

The beginning of this book reviews the Author's premise regarding how the Standard American Diet (SAD) is damaging us. Essentially our unhealthy diet is creating a state that the body recognizes as death, so it begins to decompose the body - this is what our poor health, and auto-immune disease stems from (to some extent). The author calls this "self-composting' as they body is trying to break everything down into basic elements (like composting does). He then explains how live, raw foods, which are rich in vitamins and essential enzymes, are the key to "shutting off" the compost button, so that we have superior health, longer lives, increased vitality, etc.The next part of the book has a variety of raw-foods recipies. The think that I like about their recipies is that they acknowledge and utilize the need for balancing of the 4 tastes: sweet, astringent, fat, salty and their recipes account for it. This contributes to a more rich, fulfilling taste. The bummer with the recipes is that they lack any commentary, such as "This one is a real favorite with kids" or "Many people think this one tastes just like lasagna", or "this is Gabriel's favorite!" etc. I love cook books that have that commentary, as often it will help me decide which recipes to try first. It also makes the recipes more interesting in my opinion. But obviously this additional commentary is not a necessary part of a recipe.If you are trying raw for the first time a book with pictures for every step would be much more helpful, such as  Raw Family Signature Dishes: A Step-by-Step Guide to Essential Live-Food Recipes . The step-by-step pictures make it less daunting, and they also include info on what equipment you need to get started with the lifestyle, how to sprout stuff, etc.This is a great book & it has me seriously considering a raw food prep retreat at Gabriel's center in Arizona!

Great recipes! Was afraid at first they would be healthy but not too tasty. NOT SO!!!! And easy to make. never thought using dill for example would taste so heavenly and have such a immediate and noticeable healthy effect. I am talking about the tomato soup recipe (there are several all with distinctly different flavors!) made with pine nuts and dill that can be made in under seven minutes! Tastes heavenly and was a great hit with my family, even my mom who is 94 and set in her ways. Try this book, it has several good and tasty recipes easy to make. It is by the same author of the book on how to cure diabetes and these recipes are labeled in such a way to show you how to incorporate them into the plan for addressing diabetes effectively. The recipes don't compromise optimal health benefits for the sake of taste, as in some raw food cook books, yet they taste wonderful! So definitely get this raw food cookbook because it keeps raw food interesting and tasty and the recipes are as pure and healthy as they get!!!

I consider Gabriel Cousens to be the most tenable among the proselytizers of live food/raw food nutrition. I say proselytizer not necessarily as a pejorative but to describe that Cousens is advancing a particular program as a believer to convert others. All authors of diet books do this, of course, so this book, like any other, should be approached with a healthy skepticism. Some of the science in the opening chapters may seem hokey, but I think that the general principles that shape Cousens' dietary regimen are quite reasonable. For instance, he is very attentive to the pitfalls of a high glycemic diet, which is why his recipes do not contain many fruits (bananas, mangoes, etc) and dates, the latter a food that is overused in many raw food recipe books. Sweeteners are also quite limited and he doesn't use much agave nectar, an ingredient used in just about everything by some rawfoodists. This is a recipe book that is very sensible and healthier than most, raw food or otherwise. It is also perfect for those suffering from yeast overgrowth.All this being said, the book is not without problems. Because Cousens desires simultaneously to espouse a strict vegan diet AND be mindful of the individuals have different dietary needs (metabolic typing/Ayurveda), he has to do some odd contortions. Protein types, he believes, can get all the protein they need from nuts and seeds but he doesn't seriously consider that with such sources of protein comes a lot of fat, so the percentage breakdown of macronutrients (carbs, fat, protein) for such types doesn't quite add up. And he also quickly wishes away the Ayurveda use of meat for some people and rather monomaniacally insists that a raw vegan diet is doable if not ideal for everyone. It's fine if Cousens advocates a vegan diet for ethical reasons but to prescribe such a diet for all people as one supporting optimal health seems unsupportable, even according to his own reasoning, and perhaps irresponsible. The fuller case that Cousens makes for veganism and livefoodism in the new edition of Spiritual Nutrition doesn't do much to dispel this problem and others.Now live-foodism clearly has much to recommend it, so I say all this as someone who is not at all hostile to many of its precepts. And Cousens's recipes are generally easy to prepare (although you will need a dehydrator, high-speed blender, homogenizing juicer, and food processor to take full advantage), use readily available indredients, healthful, and often delicious. There are some problems with the recipes, however, which more careful proofreading could have corrected. Very often the amounts of some ingredients, such as salt and oils, are way off (tablespoons are indicated instead of teaspoons, etc.). I've made a lot of the recipes in this book and always proceed with caution and recommend not adding immediatley the full amounts of oils, salt, and spices indicated and let common sense and taste be your guide. If you do this and use the recipes as a starting point, you will consistently have good results--at least that's been my experience.One other problem with this book is its construction. Soon after I got the book, pages started to come loose from the spine. Over a year later about half the pages are detached--rather a nuisance. And I treated this book as I treat all my books, with great care. I've heard similar reports from other owners of this book, so this may not be an isolated problem. If after getting it you discover that pages are coming loose, return it and get another one before Amazon's return period expires. (I emailed the publisher over a month ago about this problem but have yet to hear back from them.)Overall, this is a book that I very much recommend to rawfoodists, dabblers, and just those interested in eating more healthily and who are open to trying something new.

Essential if one is looking to go beyond the cosmetic side of Raw Living cuisine. There is inspiring medical findings here. It is much more than a 'recipe book' ... This volume pretty much was the seed which kickstarted our home business "BIA BEO - Living & Raw Foods in Éirinn" few years back .... Legend! Eventually meeting the good author at his Tree of Life center in the Arizona desert; and the next year, embarking on a spiritual fasting retreat with Dr Cousens in the desert near the Dead Sea in Israel. Now we hope to introduce his amazing Teachings to the emerald isle in the spring of 2016. Wish us luck! (Thanks Amazon for delivering this book to us and igniting a fire!)

It explains in great detail of the values of the Raw Diet. My wife has been on Phase 1 for about 1 month and is feeling much more energy.The only problem is that there is not enough breakfast recipes for phase 1 and she does not want to advance to the next phase without giving it a good test.We would recommend this book to anyone who will listen.

Dr. Cousens' work with healing type 2 diabetes and other diseases through raw food can be seen in the documentary "30 days of raw". This book outlines his basic theories, but the majority of the book is on raw recipes. His dehydrated croquettes are amazing! All these recipes are from what they serve in his Tree of Life retreat. It's great how he incorporates Ayurvedic principles even when going raw. Highly recommended as a raw food classic text.

L'autore, noto come pioniere della dieta raw spiega in dettaglio la differenza tra mangiare crudo e cucinato, con tanto di ricette. Un "must have" per tutti gli amanti della dieta raw.

ce livre est considéré comme une bible par les crudivores à fortes raisons. Je ne pourrais plus m'en passer et le conseille vivement à tous ceux qui veulent se lancer dans l'alimentation vivante.Toutefois une bonne connaissance de l'anglais est nécessaire et malheureusement ce livre n'est toujours pas traduit en français. Quel dommage.