Interview with David Wolfe
Monday, July 04, 2005 11:14 AM

1)Why vegetarian? Why raw food vegan?

Why Vegetarian:

1. Ethical reasons: Factory farming, animal treatment and animal cruelty are at an all-time high. Most people, if they knew the actual condition of the animals in factory farm conditions would never be able to eat meat again. The general practice before had been to turn away and pretend its not happening. However, this behavior of “turning away” from pain is shifting because people are getting more and more sick. The pain of illness is causing people to open their minds in order to allow other choices in. Without pain people will not change their behavior, but with pain motivation is high.
   
   
2. Resource depletion: Current factory farming practices are simply not sustainable. The amount of unprocessed waste being dumped into the environment by factory farms is enormous. Erik Schlosser mentions in his book Fast Food Nation that one steer deposits about fifty pounds of urine and manure every day. Unlike human waste, the manure is not sent to a treatment plant. It is dumped into pits, huge pools of excrement that the industry calls “lagoons.” Just two of the dozens of gigantic factory farm cattle feedlots in America produce more excrement than the cities of Denver, Boston, Atlanta and St. Louis — combined.
   
   
3. Karma: As the old saying goes: if you live by the sword, you die by the sword. Killing is not good karma. What part of “Thou shalt not kill” didn’t we understand?
   
   
4. Toxins migrate up the food chain: Various articles in all kinds of environmental journals (such as The Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health) and books (such Diet For A New America by John Robbins and Mad Cowboy by Howard Lyman) indicate that toxins of all kinds from pesticides to herbicides to chemical solvents are migrating into and up the food chain. Dr. Gabriel Cousens in his book Conscious Eating states that meat products contain 15 times the pesticide concentration as conventionally-grown (non-organic) vegetables. Dairy products contain 5 times as much, according to Cousens. Consider the pesticides and chemicals detected in various samples of an average pepperoni and cheese pizza as reported by the FDA’s Total Diet Study in September 2000:            
   
                2-chloroethyl caprate
                2-chloroethyl laurate
                2-chloroethyl linoleate
                2-chloroethyl myristate
                2-chloroethyl palmitate
                2-chloroethyl stearate
                benzene
                BHC, alpha
                chlorpyrifos
                chlorpyrifos-methyl
                cumene (isopropyl benzene)
                DDE
                diazinon
                dieldrin
                endosulfan I
                endosulfan II
                ethion
                lindane
                malathion
                permethrin, cis
                permethrin, trans
                pirimiphos-methyl
                styrene
                tetrachloroethylene
                toluene
                xylene
   
   
5. Fun: Who wants to bite into a smelly fish when you could be drinking a coconut on the beach in Hawaii! What is more fun than eating chocolate with your lover? How about squeezing mango juice on your wife, girlfriend, husband, significant other? Everybody knows somewhere deep inside that the picture of paradise is on a beach sipping a coconut not swinging an ax at an innocent animals head.
   
   
6. Control of Quality: Being a vegetarian strongly invites in a deep food consciousness and usually makes one aware of the importance of food quality (organic vs. conventional, fresh vs. stale, etc.) Organic is a great starting point for beginners and advanced food enthusiasts alike. I am assuming that we know organic food is vastly superior in all ways to conventional food. I am not going to take the time to prove that here. I assume that if you don’t automatically know that organic food is better than pesticide, herbicide, fungicide, larvacide and chemical-soaked food then there is probably no hope for you anyway…sorry!

Why Raw Vegan?

1. The Life Principle: As the saying goes “Seek life in the living, let the dead bury the dead.” Living, raw plants create the possibility of all animal life on Earth. Living chlorophyll is the basis of the food chain. Out of all possible diet strategies a diet that consists of a large amount of fresh, living plant matter (especially vegetables) makes the most sense to me. Where else could we derive the power and joy of living but from eating living foods?
   
   
2. Nutrient availability: Raw organic plant foods are completely intact without having been corrupted by heat, fire, chemicals or processing of any type. Living plant cells are hydrating juice bags of nutrients containing the building blocks of healthy skin, organs, tissues and, most importantly, of a sound Earth-friendly consciousness. Heat creates chemical changes. No creature on Earth naturally boils, broils, roasts, chemicalizes their food. The most popular diet on Earth, by far, is raw food. Due to millennia of living in cities and villages where fire-processing was the only food preservative, the human body been forced to adapt. But to continue to eat all this fire-processed food now when we can have the best raw organic food ever (if we choose) seems to be absurd. The most important ingredient in food is love. What has more love in it than raw, organic plants consciously prepared with love?
   
   
3. Expansion of consciousness: The disconnection we see every day in terms of unconscious behavior such as environmental destruction, wars, economic tyranny, etc. is all directly related to eating food that has been processed by fire. Once we stop eating all of our food processed by fire, then a whole new realm of experience becomes available to us. We become more in touch with the same feelings and impulses that all creatures in wild nature experience as a regular part of existence. This manifests itself in environmentally and self-sustaining behavior, more joy, heightened intuition, faster reflexes, overall improved health, better eyesight, clearer skin, loss of the fear of death, etc.
   
   
4. Omnivore or Vegan? Nature always favors exceptions to every rule. Vegans (no animals products of any kind) have to be careful of several types of imbalances (lack of: amino acids, long-chain omega 3 fatty acids and vitamin B12). Humans naturally have slight omnivorous needs that had been met in ancient times by a small amount of meat/fish, raw dairy products or insects. Because many who are attracted to this path have no desire to consume animal products of any type various superfoods (spirulina, blue-green algae, maca root powder, goji berries, flower pollen, etc.) are recommended for amino acid needs, blue-green algae, algae oil, purslane and garlic are recommended for long-chain omega 3 fatty acid needs and high-quality vitamin B12 supplements are valuable.

2)Please tell us about you, your work, philosophy. Specifically how are you getting your message to the public?
The entirety of my philosophy can be summed into one phrase. The most well-known phrase in the world: “You are what you eat.”

I generally recommend an 80% organic, raw-plant based diet for people. If people simply ate 80% organic raw plants, the world would easily be saved from a total collapse into unconsciousness.

I have found that the best way for people to eat raw food is to add it to their diet without feeling like they are being deprived. I especially advocate fresh vegetable juices and superfood smoothies daily. Once people see how good they feel, then they naturally want to eat raw food.

I recommend 80% raw and organic, because that is easy to do for most people and is, in fact, good enough.

These are the raw foods I recommend that people add to their diet:
Fruits (with seeds and not too sweet)
Vegetables (mostly green-leafy vegetables and their juices)
Nuts (not too many or you will go nuts)
Seeds (very important! Especially flax, hemp and pumpkin seeds)
Sea Vegetables (lots of minerals for a mineral-deficient population)
Grass (wheatgrass juice!)
Sprouts (grow your own garden in the middle of winter indoors!)
Fermented food (sauerkraut, kim-chi, etc.)
Superfoods (bee products, algaes, maca, goji berries, cacao beans…what are cacao beans? Raw chocolate. The food all chocolate is made of and clearly the best food ever!)

I have been eating an entirely raw-food diet since January 1995. However, I don’t believe that eating 100% raw is for everyone. It just isn’t appropriate for most types of lifestyles.

My mission is to make raw-food nutrition an option for anyone on the planet. I have been going about this via my website www.rawfood.com, davidwolfe.com, my books (Naked Chocolate, Eating For Beauty, The Sunfood Diet Success System), television appearances, radio appearances, public lectures and raw-food retreats.

Currently, my favorite modality for turning people on to raw-food is to serve them raw chocolate treats and drinks made with raw cacao beans. This is the subject of my latest book Naked Chocolate: The Astonishing Truth About the World’s Greatest Food. The Cacao God put me up to it and I’ve been enjoying the ride immensely!

3)What is the reaction: from vegetarians? from non-vegetarians?
Can you please give specific example?
The reactions are always good! People sincerely want to know what to eat! Everyone is sick and tired of eating junk food that they know is poison.

When I was a cast member in the television show The Mad Mad House in November/December 2003, I would literally have all the producers and camera-people with their friends, wives and girlfriends lining up at my door on the set on Sundays (our day off) asking me where to shop in Hollywood, what to buy, how to prepare the food, what restaurants were good, etc.

The biggest audience for the raw-food information is not vegetarians, but regular, everyday people who want to know that something extraordinary is possible.

4)Would you say raw food is a Hollywood trend, or that it is a lasting lifestyle that is attracting more people everyday? To what factors do you attribute this?
The main healthfood store in Hollywood is Erehwon on Beverly Drive. This healthfood store is impelling forward the possibilities of what can be done with raw-food to amazing levels! Raw-food lunches, fresh-pressed raw juices of all types, low-temperature dehydrated treats of all sorts and much more are served there daily and they are always sold out of their raw-food items. It is, by far, the fastest growing section in the store and the busiest. This is not a trend but a wave that has been building for a decade.

People are attracted to raw food because they like to feel good, awake and aware.

I believe that the explosion of raw food in Hollywood has been in large part due to a concerted plan that we set into motion many years ago. We chose specifically to go after Hollywood, because once Hollywood is sold on something, then the world will soon be hearing about it.

5)What is your reply to anti-vegan writers like Chet Day (we don't know him, but he seems to be a leader against veganism and raw food veganism in particular)?
I think he, and other anti-vegan writers, have some important points. I don’t think that 100% raw, 100% vegan or even 100% vegetarian is best for everyone. I think these lifestyles should be a choice that is available to those who want to live this way. Education is the key. The more informed we are, the better.

I promote an 80% raw-vegan diet. The other 20% should be what each person feels intuitively is appropriate for their own unique body type.

6)Please tell us about the vegetarian and raw food scene in your area of the country. Can you provide some specifics such as Websites, organizations, events, restaurants, publications?
My area? Well my area is the world, because I live in many places including: California, New York City, Toronto, Hawaii and Amsterdam. Probably the best resource in this regard is what I have compiled at www.davidwolfe.com or at thebestdayever.com.

In July 1995 there were 2 raw-food restaurants on the planet. In July 2005 there are over 50 raw-food restaurants! I’d say we are making progress!

7)Please tell us about your experience on the television reality show.
For example, were you a veg'n depicted fairly and accurately?
Did the program generate interest in veg'm and raw foodism?

The program was aired on the Science Fiction channel. It was called The Mad Mad House.

We had an incredible time on that show. It was one of funnest experiences of my life. Basically, I got paid to be sequestered from all phone calls and e-mails for over a month (thank you!) and to play myself and to go berserk on raw-food in any way I wanted.

The premise of the show was that 5 Alts (myself, a voodoo priestess, a witch, a vampire and modern primitive…tattooed from head-to-toe) live in a mansion as landlords. We invite 10 random guests to live with us. We put them through all kinds of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual tests each episode. And each week, the one we feel needs to go is voted off the show. The last guest left standing was to win $100,000.

It was an intense experience that took all 15 of us to realms we didn’t think we’d ever reach.

When the show started out the dinner table that we all shared each night was 5% raw and organic. By the last show the dinner table was 80% raw and organic. The influence of raw food was MASSIVE on the show. Everyone loved it!

The most intense part of the show for me was during the last 5 minutes of the show when the final vote as to who was going to win the $100,000 fell into my lap. The pressure was intense. Fortunately, a decade of public speaking experience allowed me to nail the finale of the show live in one take. It was one of my personal favorite successes ever. I cried after it was over.

8)Please tell us about your interview on Coast to Coast. What was the reaction from the host and callers? Do you recall the best and worst comments? What was the response after the program?
My first appearance on Coast to Coast AM (May 2nd, 2005) precipitated the biggest response we have ever experienced on our websites (www.rawfood.com and davidwolfe.com). Phones rang off the hook for a month. I was even recognized on the streets of New York by numerous individuals a few days after the show. Now…this is a RADIO show…not television. That means that people went to the websites, saw pictures of what I looked like and then were able to recognize me on the street! As if in answer to a prayer, one guy recognized me as I was getting out of a cab just when I really needed someone’s help unloading an entire trunk-full of my books, goji berries and cacao beans out of the cab. He helped me unload the cab, thanked me for the information on the radio and we went different directions. I love New Yorkers.

9)Are GMOs a threat to raw foodism, both as organic, natural foods, and due to the possibility of fruits and veggies created to contain animal DNA. Would a carrot containing pig DNA still be a vegetarian food?
GMO’s are one of the biggest threats to major domesticated plants worldwide. The ability of GMO pollen to cross into non-GMO flowers is a real problem. Already, we see that GMO papayas are contaminating non-GMO papayas on the Big Island of Hawaii. This is creating the possibility that all papayas on the planet will be contaminated with GMO genes in a relatively short period of time.

As a raw-foodist, I love papayas but I never eat them on the Big Island due to cross contamination. If contamination continues I may never be able to eat them again.

As far as I am concerned any GMO food is: dangerous, not vegetarian or vegan and is poisonous.

Dr. Cousens reports in his book The Rainbow Green Live-Food Cuisine that GMO potatoes caused a shrinking of rat brains in less than 11 days.

10)How is vegetarianism progressing in the USA? Do you find a difference from state to state?
More and more people are opening to vegetarianism as a choice. I believe this is being impelled by two conditions:

1. Pain: People are more sick, tired and obese then ever. Everyone is looking for alternatives. Vegetarianism represents a peaceful and viable choice with a tremendous history stretching back to the beginning of recorded history.
   
   
2. The Internet: The Internet is allowing formerly controlled and suppressed information about pharmaceutical scams and toxic animal-food production to reach vast amounts of people.

I am seeing that in the big metropolis’ on each coast more and more people are seeking vegetarian options.

In the middle of the country (in cattle country) huge awakenings are occurring. I remember giving a lecture in Wichita, Kansas and 150 people showed up. Upon talking with people after the presentation, some of these individuals had never been to any kind of seminar ever on anything! Again, we are seeing that pain is motivating people to seek a better, cleaner, more karma-free way of life.

11)Just how unnaturally are fruits and veggies produced today; that is, can you tell us of the growing process, packaging, cooking, etc?
Well, it is about as unnatural as it gets. Let’s start with the groundwater table. Because most of the forests have been cut down, the groundwater table, nearly everywhere, is receding down into the Earth. This means that young plants and fruit tree saplings are not able to access the mineral salts present in the groundwater. Thus, most agricultural products are grown using artificially and prematurely pumped up aquifer (well) water and unnaturally-channeled (angry) river water. With the application of chemicals and pesticides plants are then forced to grow. Most of these plants are cooked, then fed to animals that are fed antibiotics, hormones and who are sprayed with pesticides (yes, factory farmed animals are sprayed with pesticides). The animals further pollute the groundwater table by their excrement. They live unnaturally brief lives, are deficient in lean protein and are cruelly butchered. They are then cut up, processed with soy and/or chemicals and made into “food.” This “food” is then packaged in environmentally unfriendly containers of the worst type (such as styrofoam). This “food” is then purchased in a store under artificial UV lighting and cooked before it is consumed.

12)Why is raw foodism beneficial? Have studies on human beings been conducted?

There are many reasons which I have summarized below:

1. Simplicity. Eating raw garden-grown and wild plants reconnects directly with the vegetable matrix of the planet Earth itself. It connects us to the Creator’s original intent.
   
   
2. Raw-foodism helps us to reassess our values. This re-prioritizes what is important and what is not. This usually leads us towards a quieter, more sustainable, more connected, more joyful, more animal-friendly, more spiritual way of life.
   
   
3. Controllability: Eating raw puts us in direct connection with what we are eating. It allows to control our internal exposure to pesticides and chemicals in the environment.
   
   
4. Eating a balanced raw-food diet can significantly decrease the amount of food we require per day. One thing we know scientifically: the less we eat, the longer we live.
   
   
5. Comprehensive studies have yet to be done. Those which have been done are inconclusive on small test groups. Additionally, raw-food diets can vary dramatically and my experience is that most people eating mostly or all raw-vegan diets do not get enough minerals, protein, long-chain omega-3 fatty acids or vitamin B12. Until these issues are addressed in long-term scientific studies, the results will remain inconclusive.

13)Please tell us about your tree planting project.
The Fruit Tree Planting Foundation (FTPF) is a unique non-profit charity I founded in 2002 dedicated to planting edible, fruitful heirloom trees and plants to benefit the environment and all its inhabitants. Our goal is straightforward: to collectively plant 18 billion fruit trees across the world (approximately 3 for every person alive) — I am a big believer that if you don’t set a goal, you don’t get a goal and that as long as you are going set a goal it may as well be big.

We envision a place where one can have a summer picnic under the shade of a fruit tree, breathe the clean air it generates, listen to the songbirds it attracts and not have to bring anything other than an appetite for the healthy fruits growing overhead. A world where one can take a walk in the park during a lunch break, pick and eat a variety of delicious fruits, plant the seeds so others can eventually do the same and provide an alternative to buying environmentally-destructive, illness-causing and chemically-laden products.

Fruit trees heal the environment by cleaning the air, improving soil quality, preventing erosion and helping sustain valuable water sources by uplifting the groundwater table. They also create animal habitats and provide enrichment for wild animals by way of foraging opportunities. And the science is clear that nutritious, delicious, mineral-rich heirloom fruits improve human health by reducing the risks of our top killers, namely obesity, heart disease, cancers, diabetes and stroke.

FTPF has planted thousands of fruit trees from coast to coast and provided advice and training for others to do so as well. FTPF is embarking on a series of exciting new planting programs for social causes. These include improving diets for animals on sanctuaries (“Orchards for Animals”), offering vegetarian, humanitarian food relief from harvests from our plantings (“Fruit Relief”), providing education for children on how to heal the planet by planting fruit trees (“Planet Planting”), and helping create nutritious food sources in poverty-stricken areas on Native American reservations (“Reservation Preservation”).

An example of our “Orchards for Animals” program took place in July, 2005, when we planted more than 40 fruit trees at OohMahNee Farm, a sanctuary for farmed animals in Western Pennsylvania regarded as one of the best in the country. In the coming years, chickens, cows, goats, pigs, sheep, turkeys and other animals will enjoy a wide range of treats from this planting, including apples, peaches, plums, and pears. This will allow the sanctuary to use valuable resources normally spent on purchasing fruit for the animals on other ways to improve life on the farm.

For more information about FTPF programs, please visit www.ftpf.org.

14)What are the best, strangest, rudest, and worst comments you have received as a vegetarian?
The best comments I have received have been from vegetarian or mostly-vegetarian women. I always wondered why women liked the guy in highschool with blue hair. What do they see in him? I eventually found out the answer. Women like something different. Something unique. Women don’t want to talk about football, barbecues and beer. Women like chocolate, shoes and a man who can make food. As soon as you play in that game and show a sincere interest in what interests women, your love life will turn into something extraordinary. Women love men who are vegetarians; especially if you aren’t a skinny wimp. I love women. So it has been a great ride so far. That’s about as much as I can say without getting in trouble!

15)Can you offer advice to people considering going vegetarian?

1. Go organic. Start shopping in an organic food store.
2. Grow your own fruits and vegetables.
3. Read, read, read. Leaders read. Educate yourself.
4. Get inspired. Inspiration moves the world.
5. Approach all food with an attitude of gratitude. Yes, the planet is loaded with toxic foods, but we also have access to the best, most exotic raw vegetarian foods now more than ever! Everything is karmically balanced in the universe. The worse it gets, the better it gets too.
6. Experiment using the trial and success method. Find what works for you.
7. Drink fresh vegetable juice daily.
8. Add superfoods to your diet: bee pollen, spirulina, blue-green algae, maca root powder, goji berries, cacao beans, etc.

16) Is national advocacy of vegetarianism on the right track in the USA?
National advocacy? As in the government supporting vegetarianism? The government supports the great money tower. And the only vegetarian thing in the great money tower is soy. Oh boy, that’s just what we need, more GMO soy.

17)Why is controllability important to you, and should it be to all veg'ns -- and all Americans?
The food giants, the government, the pharmaceutical industry, the chemical conglomerates and the mass media have proved over and over again that they cannot be trusted to tell the truth. There is too much money at stake. How can a giant agricultural food company come forward with evidence that a pesticide they have been using for 50 years is actually carcinogenic? They can’t. They don’t want to open themselves to the negative publicity and the litigation. The media does not report anything that is important — they believe that only spiritually-vacant sensationalism sells. The pharmaceutical industry has made doctors vastly more dangerous than gun owners (actually hundreds of times more dangerous). The government lies non-stop. Every single thing that any American politician says is an outright lie.

In this type of environment, we have to take personal responsibility for our own destiny. By voting with our money (the best way to vote) for organic plant food we automatically disconnect ourselves from the karma of unconscious corporations and start impelling the planet in a sustainable direction.

18) Is the vegetarian world in the USA growing? That is, has it developed a culture of its own, and how does David Wolfe and raw foodism fit into it?
Everything is in a karmic balance. NASCAR car racing, I’ve heard, is the fastest growing sport in America. One couldn’t imagine something more environmentally destructive and unconscious than more needless burning of fossil fuels for an entertainment arena that serves massive amounts of junk animal food to obese Americans. How can we take this seriously? This has to be a cosmic joke.

In karmic response to all of this we are seeing a blossoming of vegetarian, vegan and raw-food consciousness. We are seeing a flowering of new types of thought in regards to sustainability, shamanism and success consciousness. The “negative” things that are happening are actually teaching us how to get into a place of more abundance than ever before. Pain is impelling us towards ever more possibilities of exciting, inspirational change.

Is vegetarianism, veganism and raw-foodism growing? The answer is: probably, but it doesn’t matter. We cannot measure success by how many people are convinced, we can only measure success by how much joy is in our hearts in each moment. That is truly the goal. And if vegetarianism, veganism and raw-foodism can help that along (I believe they can), then they are valid tools in our journey towards more consciousness.