April 21, 2006 - For Earth Day ABC7's Hungry Hound gets in touch with nature by exploring the raw food movement, a diet and lifestyle that requires zero cooking.

The living food movement has been taking off in California the past few years, but even Chicago's own Charlie Trotter co-authored a raw food cookbook a few years ago. It's perfect for vegetarians and vegans at one North Side restaurant, it has literally transformed one chef's outlook on eating.

Looks can be deceiving, especially when you're dealing with "raw" or "living" food as it's called. At Cousin's IV - which stands for "incredible vitality" - a plate of "spaghetti" is actually raw zucchini put through a spiralizer, coated in a bit of raw tomato sauce and fresh herbs. The mantra here is nothing cooked beyond 104 degrees, which keeps the food's enzymes intact. That means no meat, no dairy. One simple reason: check out chef Mehmet Ak two years ago, when he was cooking his native Turkish cuisine. He's lost nearly 80 pounds on a raw diet.

"I recently did this program called cleansing workshop. Inside this cleansing workshop the program requires you to eat all the live plant-based food. So, after tasting all that and having been in that program, I did it faithfully, I realized that this is the kind of diet I actually like to have," said Mehmet Ak, Cousin's I.V.

One of Ak's best friends is his huge dehydrator, which contains tiny pistachio falafels; instead of baked pita bread, he first massages fresh kale, to break down the walls and make them more digestible, then rolls up the falafels inside. They're finished with tomatoes, cukes and a ginger-tahini dressing. Some typical sides include sauerkraut, red cabbage and pickled turnips. The "zoom" burger is made with walnuts, flax seed, imported mushrooms and fresh herbs...it arrives with a cashew mayo. A nut tuna wrap may look like albacore, but it's really a combination of assorted soaked nuts; giant mushroom caps are stuffed with pine nuts and fresh herbs...even the stuffed grape leaves are raw. Herbal tea is incredibly good for you, made with and Asian grass called gynostemma; it's great with an assortment of desserts, including a black-and-white mousse cake, containing raw cacao cream layered with vanilla coco-cashew cream; mango tango cheesecake is also surprising, as are the Morning Sunrise with coconut cream and the berry tartlets resting in a nut-based tart shell.

"This is really great; I don't think I'm going to go back to eating cooked food again because if I was eating live food and cleansing my system, why would I go back and eat cooked food again?

The raw pioneer in Chicago is Karyn Calabrese. Karyn's Fresh Corner in Lincoln Park not only has a deli and take-out, but a living food gourmet restaurant as well, plus detox classes and raw food education.

Cousin's Incredible Vitality
3038 W. Irving Park Road
773-478-6868

Karyn's Fresh Corner
1901 N. Halsted
312-255-1590