The Complete Book of Raw Food is the Joy of Cooking for raw food. It describes what the ingredients are, how they are prepared and used and the appliances you are likely to need in order to prepare the majority of recipes. Unlike other books I have read, it is truly a cookbook. The authors don't overdo background information nor do the leave the reader completely hanging. I devoured this book and have been enjoying incorporating raw foods into my family's menu. Although I don't anticipate ever living completely on raw foods, the option is available using this book as there is enough variety to do so.

I have purchased several raw food "cook" books recently, as my family and I are transitioning to a raw diet. This is one of my very favorites. There is a HUGE variety of recipes and some great tips. I also love that there is a resource guide in the back of the book. This resource is a great asset, seeing as raw food is still so rare in the US. This book gives my family and I a great variety of wonderful new foods to try! I highly recommend this book for any beginning raw fooders.

I LOVE this book! It is one of my all time favorite books on Raw. While I want/need some of the scientific info about diet I tend to get bogged down with to much. What I wanted was a book with pictures of the food, great reciepes, stories about the chefs, simple info on how to and this book has it all. I probably use this book and Alissa Cohen's book Living on Live Food the most of any of the 15 plus books I currently own.

I like the fact that it tells up front what equipment is needed and substitutes you can use, how much food each recipe makes (important if you are preparing for 2 or 12).

I like the glossary for terms I was not familar with.

I especially LOVE the suggested reading section. When I was new to raw it gave me a huge point of reference at my finger tips without having to spend hours on the net or in the library.

I recommend this book as a "buy" along with Living on Live Food as the 2 must buy first time books. They have enough recipes to get anyone started. Or to add Raw food to the cooked meals at pot lucks, family events etc. I recommend Carol Alts book as a Library, friend loan, introduction to Raw food for family and friends that are on the fence, not quite ready to give everything up types.

Anything that promotes RAW and Organic Cuisine is GOOD and a good effort! This book is cool because you get so many unique Raw Cuisine creations from so many talented Raw Chefs and Foodists!

But my new book RAW IN TEN MINUTES makes it easier, faster and more delicious! All my recipes are under 10 minutes, no dehydrating so all the recipes are all under 10 minutes to make and ready to enjoy! Many are even under 5 minutes or 2 minutes too! Everyone loves it and it is listed on Amazon.com!

Bryan Au
http://www.Rawinten.com for all the color photos and info!

I must say that with the previous review, I was influenced and had my doubts about this book. However, when I received the book from the library, I was surprised and delighted, and glad that I decided to judge for myself. I have been researching raw food living and found that this was one of the key books I was looking for to help transition to raw eating in an organized, helpful manner. It may not be the only book you would want on your shelf--I myself have others.

What I like about The Complete Book of Raw Food is that it helps make the transition from cooked food to raw food easier to conceptualize and even exciting! I agree that many raw food books do seem quite complicated, where you would need to spend much time processing and dehydrating, etc., and often times with expensive equipment (like a Champion Juicer). However, this book has the best of everything, from simple to complex. And, I found that most of the recipes require minimal equipment, and therefore being able to make good use of the book. Only a few seemed to mention the Champion Juicer, and the book stated that you could use a food processor instead for most of those mentioned. Each recipe states what type of equipment is required, and this is another feature I liked. Another thing I liked about this book was the sources of chefs they use, and I found that many of them I had heard of and researched in books and on the internet. What I can say is that you can be assured that the recipes in this book were created by very passionate, creative, and experienced raw fooders who experienced much positive transformation in their lives. The beauty of a raw food diet is its capabilities of spanning from simple to creatively complex. But, the choice is yours, and you can expand at your own pace and willing.

While this may not be the best first book to use as a raw fooder, it is close up there. For a beginner, you may want to try Your Natural Diet by T.C. Fry and David Klein, which helps to introduce a more basic approach to a raw food diet, using the mono food "pearamid" and contains lots of motivating health information that makes good sense. You won't miss all those pots and pans and slaving over a hot stove!

Happy reading and eating!

This book would make the perfect gift for your raw foodist friends. This fantastic collection of over 350 recipes by 49 of the world's most reknowned raw chefs will have any uncooked enthusiast flipping madly through the pages looking for their favorite names. You'll find recipes from Stephen Arlin, The Boutenko Family, Juliano, Dave Klein, Viktoras Kulvinskas, Paul Nison, Rhio, Chad Sarno, Nomi Shannon, Shazzie, Cherie Soria, Jinjee & Storm Taliafero, David Wolfe, and many more. The book also includes recipes from the Quintessence raw restaurant.

For the few names you might not recognize, you can flip to the "Meet Our Chefs" section in the back for a short bio on each one. You'll also find sections on "The Right Ingredients," "Essential Tools," "Juicers & Juicing," "Sprouting and Greening," "Dehydrating," and "Advice From the Pros," as well as a helpful glossary of ingredients, suggested readings, and an extensive list of resources.

The recipe section of the book contains everything from specialty dishes to create a gourmet, 5-course dinner to recipes for simple soups or salads. There are a few full-color photos interspersed throughout. My only complaint is that I wish there were more - but I'm sure they would have raised the price of the book. Each recipe lists serving size information and special equipment needed and often include variations and/or contributors' notes.

I disagree with other reviewers who've said the recipes all require too much time; that simply isn't true. I randomly flipped to five different pages, and each had at least one recipe that would take 10 minutes or less to prepare. Certainly, some do require dehydrating, but in my experience, once you get the recipe together quickly, you can leave it to dehydrate and forget about it till it's done; the time it takes is really deceptive.

What makes this book truly different from most of the other raw recipe books out there is that this one was written to appeal to raw foodists, vegetarians, and cooked omnivores alike! Beyond the 2-page "Why Raw?" introduction, there's no overt promotion of the lifestyle. The book aims to reach everyone and encourage them all to eat more healthful raw foods by providing a huge selection of mouthwatering recipes. "Do you have to be a vegan to eat raw food? Of course not! Many people who consider themselves 'raw fooders' eat a diet comprised of 50 to 100 percent raw food. [This book] is for anyone who wants to eat more fruits and vegetables and prepare them in exciting new ways."

As a longtime vegetarian and proponent of whole foods, I've greeted the raw food movement with some admiration and some skepticism. Eating lots of vegetables and nuts in as natural a state as possible can indisputably enhance your health, and some of the recipes in this book offer delicious and non-intuitive flavor and texture combinations.

But I believe quite strongly that the "movement" has a very unsavory cultish side to it, and following this diet strictly can lead to undernourishment if not anorexia. Following vegetarianism as long as I have, I've had the distress of seeing more than one friend grow alarmingly thin and frail on similar, obsessive diets. And sorry, but the "science" behind a lot of the movement's proclamations on enzymes and what heat does to substances are just pure snake-oil junk science.

Most of these recipes are very, very time intensive, and many require dehydrators, large sprouters and expensive juicers. By time intensive, I mean they require chopping, blending or processing, mixing and then 12 hours or more of dehydrating. It's not a cookbook you can leaf through to decide on what to make for dinner tonight.

The majority of the dishes are for desserts, sweet soups, and the like. Based on my personal observations, that is because people on raw-foods diets become obsessed with "healthy" substitutes for "junk food." And so you see recipes for things like "pizza crisps" and raw approximations of "refried beans" in this book.

But some of the recipes, like the sprouted chickpea hummus and guacamoles, are delicious. The dressings and nut-lump-things are OK if you don't mind the grassy/woody taste of soaked raw nuts. The "breads" I've tried bordered on inedible.

Technically speaking, the editing in this book is atrocious. I don't remember the last time I read something with so many typos, omitted words and flubbed tables. Additionally, there is an interminable section near the back filled with pointless, self-serving bios of the contributors. This should be another tip that you're in authoritative, lionizing guru-land.

You can take some nice dishes and approaches from this book, as long as you're aware that it's the macrobiotics of the '00s. Bottom line: It's a diet of raw vegetables, fruits, seeds and soaked nuts. It is nothing more, and it's not magic any more than some pill that claims to give you instant health.

Raw Food: Healthy, Delicious Vegetarian Cuisine Made With Living Foods is more than a cookbook featuring 350 recipes for preparing uncooked fruits and vegetables; it also offers a wealth of experience and insight into juicing, cutting, drying, and other methods creating delicious raw meals. Whether one is reluctant to heat foods above 115 degrees (F) in order to preserve their health giving enzymes, or simply wants to enjoy the natural flavor of nature's bounty, Raw Food is a superb primer and resource for enjoying the best of the best. Includes instructions for making great salads, soups, smoothies, cheese substitutes, and more. Note that Raw Food is a vegetarian cookbook and does not cover sushi or other fish and seafood preparation.