Interview with "Kevala" Karen Parker, master raw foods chef

Mike: I'm here with Kevala Karen Parker, master raw foods chef and quite an experienced chef at the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center in Patagonia, Arizona. Thanks for joining us today, Kevala.

Kevala: Thanks for coming out.

Mike: You have an enormous amount of information and experience to share with us today. Where shall we start?

Kevala: Well, I guess we can start by saying, first of all, that it's taken me several years to get to the point of having this knowledge. I'd like to say, actually, that it's more experience than anything else that I like to convert into inspiration for other people, for real people. My background is actually in environmental studies with a concentration in economics and conservation, so I'm not a nutritionist, I'm not a doctor; I'm more of a culinary artist, you can say.

Mike: That's a great way to say it.

Kevala: Yeah, I like to work with people one-on-one and also in groups, getting people informed and inspired about what the raw food lifestyle can do for them.

Mike: I'd like to share with those reading that what you can do with raw foods as an artist is absolutely astounding. I just had a raw foods brownie. I've seen the recipes for making raw pizza, sushi and hummus out of raw ingredients. You have hundreds of dishes that you can assemble artistically out of these foods.

Kevala: Yeah, it's a whole new way of looking at food, and I really like the potency of taste. It makes us, forces us, to reevaluate the way we look at food entirely, and that's the way we can look at our health and experience health and peace in our bodies and in our relationship with the earth and our lifestyles in general.

Mike: So, what got you initially interested in pursuing this?

Kevala: That is a great question. Where to begin on that? Well, since I was 14, I've been a vegetarian. I'm 29 years old now. Being a vegetarian and a youth, you're usually bombarded with questions from those around you, who are wondering why you're not fitting in like everybody else, and why you don't want to. So, I just chose to arm myself with facts and lots of information, and I was amazed at all the health benefits that come from being a vegetarian. Well, I originally went into the whole thing with more of a concern for the animals and how they're treated, and the factory farms in particular. I took heart in the lifestyle and health gains that could be had by doing a vegetarian diet – even something that included fish – just by cutting out red meat, pork and chicken; how people could dramatically increase their lifespan, lower cholesterol level, obesity, etc. Then, that just became kind of my modus operandi. I wound up researching nutrition and health; it kind of was an evocation, so by the time I was a senior in high school, I was a committed vegan, meaning someone who does not consume any meat or animal products, including cheese, eggs, fish and dairy products.

Mike: Do you also believe – as I do, I'll say up front – that the treatment of the animals, the slaughtering process, the violence of that, is in a way imprinted into the animals?

Kevala: Oh yeah, definitely. How can we quantify that? I mean, for a lot of people, that doesn't hold any weight. They'll say, "We've been slaughtering animals for thousands of years, why should it matter now?" Well, there's certainly a difference in the way that animals were once killed and how they are killed now, and not just in the slaughtering process, but in the horrid conditions that people are completely unaware of. If they had even the slightest exposure to this – and the resulting nauseating condition it brings up inside of our bodies, which is of itself a symbol from our bodies saying that we shouldn't be agreeing with these eating practices – I think that even the most meat-and-potatoes steeped person would at least rethink where their food comes from. There are a lot of cattle ranchers who certainly know the difference between something that is grazed and allowed to lead a decent life, and an animal that is kept indoors and isn't even allowed to roam around and walk and live a natural life. The effects that such stressful conditions have on the glands and the tremendous amount of adrenaline and other hormones that are secreted are then consumed by the people, on top of all the antibiotics that are put into food these days. Not to mention that we are what we eat, and these animals are also eating things like sawdust and chalk. And we're living in that age where just a couple years back, they found mad cow in Washington beef, and that came from these animals eating other animals.

Mike: Yes, it was verified in a Texas cow.

Kevala: I didn't know; I was unaware of that.

Mike: That was the second case.

Kevala: But here's the thing. Talk to Dr. Gabriel Cousins about that, because he is saying that, in fact, all of the cattle in the United States are tainted, and it's even spread to deer and other grazing animals, and it's also, right now, latent in dairy products and waiting to kind of be activated until, you know, a couple of years, when the body reaches a certain level of toxicity. So, it's a very interesting time to consider being a vegetarian, and we can rule out all the ethical issues and just go right to the heart of the matter – for health.

Mike: Just health issues alone.

Kevala: Just health in itself.

Mike: People don't realize the mad cow disease prions cannot be killed by cooking, so if you pasteurize milk, it doesn't matter.

Kevala: That's a whole other issue, isn't it?

Mike: Yes, now, I don't want to focus on the horrors of food too long…

Kevala: Food fear!

Mike: But for those reading, you have a website where you talk about some of these raw foods. Can you give out that website?

Kevala: It's www.raw4real.net. That's raw food for real people, also raw food for authenticity or, you know, a more potent reality.

Mike: Okay, so let's talk about that, a more potent reality. We're in a pretty potent reality right now where we're doing this interview, at the Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center in the yoga pavilion. Surrounded by mountains, nature all around us, raw foods we just consumed – that's pretty potent reality. So, how do we allow others to share in that?

Kevala: Wow, where to get started? I think probably one of the biggest hurdles facing someone sitting out there just reading these words on a computer – at their job site or at home – is linguistic reality. When you say the word "raw" or "raw foods," it sounds very boring. It sounds the opposite of potent, vibrant or lively. People usually think of a cold salad and think, "Who would want to eat that?" And who could blame them? When I first got into raw foods, I was a vegan, and I started studying film in San Francisco. I was eating different cultural cuisine pretty much every night because I just wasn't a big fan of spending all the time cooking for myself. I'd rather be out playing in the world, and in San Francisco, there is a fantastic dining scene. There was the first raw foods restaurant in the world. I have to pay some respect here to a restaurant called, coincidentally, RAW. Juliano Brotman's restaurant right across from Golden Gate Park was where I was first exposed to raw foods. That was back in 1997, and it was really quite lovely what they were doing way back then with buckwheat, sprouted pizza crust, hummus, but I would say most particularly, my favorites were the deserts. He didn't necessarily "create" raw cuisine. We can go back to the 60s for, really, the beginning of the American "raw foods movement," if you will. It is the much more modern-day version of raw foods – something that began, really, the new way we are using now.

Mike: So, if I may paraphrase just for those listening, when some people think of raw food, they just think salad, carrots and rabbit food, but as you were explaining, there's an entire universe, a raw cuisine that goes far beyond that.

Kevala: Oh yeah, taste is probably the most exciting part of this. I mean, I have a lot of clients that wind up getting into the live food lifestyle because they are athletes and need to have more endurance or want to have less downtime. Maybe they are climbers, or they have to just work out heavily. Maybe they're cyclists; they can't have any inflammation in their joints or with their muscles. You get those benefits with living foods, and I'll explain why in just a little while. Certainly, I would say my biggest clients are middle-aged women, whose bodies are changing, and it doesn't matter what diet they try, nothing lasts. With the raw foods diet – with a mindful raw foods diet, I must say, because they're not all created equal – this staying power is real. That's not to mention, by the way, all the antioxidants and all the pharmacology in this cuisine, which creates very literal anti-aging effects.

Mike: So, for people who want to prevent chronic disease or may be battling chronic disease, in your view, there's no cleaner or more medicinally potent diet than raw foods.

Kevala: Well, someone would have to be very well informed and would have to understand which raw foods and why, so it's not just the apotheosis of, say, eating lots of bananas and carrots. It's where you can get the highest sources of bioavailable omega-3, -6 and -9 in the most perfect ratio, and things like that. So the raw food movement needs to grow up a little bit, and people need to understand that there's a difference between eating something like a low-glycemic fruit, for example – like cherries, berries and dates – or utilizing herbs like stevia and loti instead of using lots of honey and maple syrup to sweeten things. That's really where I see the main niche of working with Dr. Cousens, the pioneering work that he's doing as a physician, and it is my distinct honor to be his right-hand chef for some time.

Mike: And for how long have you worked as a chef?

Kevala: Well, let's see, it is 2005 now, so I came here in 2002. I was originally only going to stay for two months and then go back to Seattle and open up my own restaurant called Sunraw. I was all set to go. I had my funding, my location and everything, and then I really began to get into the flow of running the café here and became kind of the kitchen manager and head chef overnight, so what better experience for me? I had been a raw foodist for about two years at that time, and I began to go through more like a detox, you can say, because I was eating much more nutrient-dense cuisine – a lot more dark, leafy vegetables like kale – and working with more of the salubrious vegetables – lots of seaweed and some supplements – and so I wanted to work on myself much more and I wanted to learn more about this lifestyle and really be a product of that, and not just be another person out in the world with a restaurant promoting raw food but not necessarily having all the experience. I've taken the last several years in my life to travel around living out this lifestyle as a hypothesis. Is it indeed the best diet? Is there anything beyond this? There are just so many different variations in it, and food in itself needs to be seen in context of its dynamicity. There are certain foods that are more appropriate in certain environments, like for example, eating tropical fruits in a tropical environment makes much more sense than importing them to say, Scandinavia, and the way it will affect the blood is very, very different because nature has a whole blueprint that encourages us and enables the to get the maximum amount of benefits from those foods, sugary fruits and otherwise, because you're eating them in conjunction with other things that grow in that ecosystem.

Mike: There's a huge local movement now gaining steam in the United States.

Kevala: Yes, definitely. We should definitely go there. That authentic food movement is very important. There's an umbrella called organic food, right? Back in 1990, that was the big thing, but at this point now – thank goodness, since we're having many more evolutions based on science – you can see that variation where people are putting more of their attention on why we need to do things like eat locally. For us here at the Tree of Life, this authentic food movement means having foods that come from within a 250-mile radius.

Mike: You grow a lot of the food that is consumed here at the Center.

Kevala: We have definitely made a lot of headway. This is really difficult soil to grow in – but thanks to the work of some great gardeners that have come through, especially someone named Chip and his ability to utilize something called EM technology – we grow almost all of our greens here and have a litany of vegetables that are grown here, as well.

Mike: For those reading, EM is effective microorganism, something like probiotics for soil.

Kevala: Yeah, that's a good way of putting it.

Mike: The gardens down here are truly amazing, especially for being in the desert. We're in a high mountain desert, and you're growing heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers and, of course, some native crops; it's amazing.

Kevala: Lots of root crops, too. There are fruits, too. There's an orchard of apples around here, too.

Mike: Pomegranates.

Kevala: Pomegranates, prickly pear cactus.

Mike: Lots of cactus.

Kevala: They actually do bear fruit, too.

Mike: Again, let me give you the web site for those reading, raw4real.net, and that's Kevala Karen Parker, master raw foods chef and, as you can tell, someone who lives this and doesn't just approach it from a technical point of view. You're not a technical assembler of food ingredients; you embody this; you live it; this is what you eat for yourself.

Kevala: That's true. This is what I eat for myself, and I try to divert away from it, too, because I'm not a fan of dogma in any fashion, and I travel a lot. The Tree of Life is one of my bases in the world, but as a consultant, I travel to different countries, see different cultures and help spas, restaurants and individuals get turned on to this whole new way of orienting ourselves toward food. When I'm in these countries and cultures, I like to try the foods that are indigenous to that population because, as a chef, I kind of use my tongue and my imagination in trying to create something that will ideally taste even better than "the real thing." You have to meet people where they're at. You can't just cut and paste an American platitude on top of what people have been doing and respecting for hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of years. The hubris that goes with that approach is something that definitely has been in the infancy of the raw food movement. People get very enthusiastic about healing, and it's not even necessarily just their physical healing that is taking place. Psychologically and physiologically, you have a shedding that is not one's true self with this cellular detoxification, so the mental, emotional and even the spiritual correlates and can come across as this potent and resounding enthusiasm where the most well-intentioned people can seem zealot, or even pushy, perhaps even proselytizing their religious food choices, we can say.