Jason Mraz Plugs A Raw Vegan Lifestyle On New Video Series

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by Michael Parrish DuDell September 9, 2009
Categories: Eats, Video
Tags: .

Being vegan is a cinch, but raw vegan? Dude, I’ve tried and it’s sooooo hard for me. Hence the super amount of respect I have for Jason Mraz and his rockstar raw diet.

Jason went raw last April when his “trusty sidekick, Toca Rivera…discovered he was Diabetic.”  A year later, Jason likes the diet so much that he’s still rocking it.

To help promote his Cafe Gratitude tour, Jason has been releasing a series of comical videos that we think are pretty neat.

In one of the latest ones, Jason leaves his assistant to prepare some delicious raw vegan food when…

Well, we won’t ruin the surprise. Just watch below!


Categories: Eats, Video
Tags: .
  • http://www.beforewisdom.com beforewisdom

    Nobody should feel like raw foodism is a logical extension of veganism or a logical extension of healthy diets.

    The word “vegan” was coined by Donald Watson and his wife shortly after WWII to refer to people who believe it is wrong to use animals for our purposes.

    Any health benefits from a raw diet can also be gotten by simply eating more produce:

    - weight loss via increased bulk/fewer calories

    - more vitamins and minerals from an increased vegetable intake

    - a greater water intake via the increased produce intake

    - decreased junk from not eating junk due to a conscious decision or simply not having room with the high fiber produce.

    Some vegetables offer anti-cancer benefits eaten raw. Other vegetables offer similar and other benefits being cooked.

    The idea that many raw food authors have that raw produce has some sort of living essence or magical enzymes the body would use if not destroyed via cooking contradicts basic biochemistry and is not supported by science.

    The restrictions of raw diets also make it more expensive and more inconvenient to get adequate nutrition.

    Nobody should feel like they are slacking on ethical eating or healthy eating if they can’t/don’t want to be raw.

  • http://RawfoodsRetreat.com Erin Raw foods retreat

    Dr. Mercola’s take on raw foods (he eats nearly 90% of his food raw and says the enzymes are destroyed when cooked :)

    Then again he eats some raw meat too..

    http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2002/05/22/cooked-food-part-one.aspx

    E

  • http://www.veganbodybuilding.org/ Pete – veganbodybodybuilding.org

    Dr Mercola has also had at least 2 FDA warnings for using misleading claims when advertising his products. He’s not a credible source of information. Money accumulation seems his main goal. Claiming any product “virtually eliminates cancer” (as well as his other claims) is really preying on the vulnerable in my view just to sell product.
    I not claiming that raw food isn’t excellent, just you chose a poor source to quote from, there are many who support raw food out there who don’t have quite such a tarnished reputation.

  • http://www.veganjapan.net herwin

    beforewisdom +1. i would like to add that regularly raw vegan nutritionist mention and perform animal tests to prove that raw foods are superior then cooked foods. besides being very unscientific, these experiments also show that there is no common raw food philosophy about not harming animals.
    http://www.rense.com/general76/raw.htm
    btw, raw food is delicious and healthy its a shame though it should be accompanied by a wacky theory, but i guess a health theory even incorrect is necesary to sell it well to the health obsessed.
    damn , i am too honest.

  • http://www.beforewisdom.com beforewisdom

    Every dictionary in the world defines the word “vegetarian” properly. Yet, even educated people still think “vegetarians” eat fish and chicken. There are even free and online dictionaries a few keystrokes away.

    In the same way, basic biochemistry books have taught people for centuries that the human body breaks down food into its basic components and then uses those components to make its own enzymes.
    The human stomach is basically a pouch with acid in it.

    Yet, raw foodists still believe that heating their food will destroy some magic essence (“enzymes”) that a human body can use.

    Thankfully some raw foodists are coming off their island and trying to harmonize themselves with science and dropping their made up beliefs:

    http://www.fredericpatenaude.com/enzymes.html

    If raw food diets make people feel better it is likely due to a decision to eat less junk and eat more produce.

    The benefits from both of these decisions can be had without the expensive equipment, books and inconvenience of raw foodism

  • http://www.beforewisdom.com beforewisdom

    @herwin;

    Thanks for the link. As I wrote, the word “vegan” refers to ethics. A person can eat a “vegan diet” but not be a “vegan”….someone who holds a particular ethical belief.

    Raw foodism has nothing to do with veganism beyond some raw diets using exclusively vegan foods.

    If there are raw foodists, as you say, doing animal experiments, those people are definately not vegans.

    +1

    • b

      Being against vivisection (animal experimentation) is not technically part of being vegan. I have been vegan for 8 years now and am hardcore against vivisection, but if you take the word vegan it represents a person who abstains from using, wearing or eating things with animal ingredients. Animal testing SHOULD be part of it, but that is actually it’s own sub-genre I guess you could call it of being vegan. Anyone who is vegan but thinks that vivisection is okay by them, well, to me that’s just hypocrisy in action, but vegan simply means not using animal ingredients in what you wear, eat, or use. Staying away from vivisection is more an animal rights stance than a vegan stance. For instance, some people who go vegan for health or environmental reasons will opt to buy all of their products without animal ingredients, but may not pay specific attention to whether or not an animal was tortured to produce it. :)

  • http://www.beforewisdom.com beforewisdom

    The watchdog site quackwatch.com has a whole page on Dr. Mercola:

    http://quackwatch.com/search/webglimpse.cgi?ID=1&query=mercola

  • VeggieTart

    I would also like to point out that the nutrients in some foods are more bioavailable when cooked. Cooked carrots are more easily digested than raw carrots, for one. Cooked tomatoes–even in sauces–enable one to better absorb lycopene.

    That said, I do enjoy the occasional raw meal.

  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT_LwLDn4xY Inga Ambrosia

    Most of us eat “raw” at some point during the day. Just as most of us eat “vegan” at some point during the day.

    I got into the raw food movement for 6 months on Douglas Graham’s 80/10/10 diet, which basically consists of 80% fruit! Couldn’t deal with the sugar highs and lows. However, I felt amazing!!!! There is something to it. You think clearer, sleep better, more energy than you know what to do with and great nails, hair, skin etc.

    Anyone that claims to be “super-raw” I tend to stay away from, because they are usually a little off … meaning high energy, high strung, high attitude. Not everyone, just a few crusaders. Do what you can, don’t eat animals, don’t harm animals or humans, and live your friggin life. Because if you die tomorrow, who gives a damn what your last meal was … What has your life consisted of up until that point? Love or the absence of love …

  • http://TymeForChange.org Tyme

    Yikes. So snarky. I don’t even understand the need here to criticize raw foodism. Sheesh, it is like the banal Mac verses PC debate.

    It is true that being a raw foodist does not necessarily make one a vegan, but that is probably most often the case.

    Let’s raise our glasses of soy/almond/rice milk and toast the raw foodists for probably reducing/eliminating animals from their diets. And, to committing themselves to a healthy way of eating.

    And, hey, not veering off point: Mraz looks good in the raw.

  • elmer

    Except only morons pay attention to bullshit like the FDA and Quack list. Both have been discredited.

    Remember, its the same government that gave radioactive milk to ten thousand school children to ‘study,’ the effects and in the case of the FDA its basically funded by drug pushers. In the case of Quacklist, doesn’t that come out of some medical school with a cult affiliation so that its got something to disprove by snuggling up to the orthodox drug pushers? Hmm only one percent of drugs have efficacy above %30 and the majority of those are old drugs… maybe our medicine and the science behind it are based on bs marketing and heuristics.

    You go raw vegan organic like an Gorilla* and you will put the useless big medicine that is breaking the country out of business. But you don’t have to go to what man existed on for 99.99% of his time on Earth you can find natives in 3rd world countries that have none of the diseases Americans die from but also spend nothing on medicine.

    And for the supreme moron that tried to say there is no difference between raw and coocked on the basis of moron science: look moron, cook a seed or a nut and then plant it. Will it grow? Nope. Hmm, why is that. When you cook food you force the body to do the equivalent of recycle it- a waste of energy and coupled with toxic immune sapping white cell reponses because the body can’t recognize some of the degradation. I guess there is no difference between beans and refried beans?

    So morons can keep believing their box thinker bought and paid for “my doctors” and die prematurely of cancer/heart attack/stroke/renal failure/dementia or they can die unwrinkled at 90 of unknown causes with something to pass on to their children aside from bad memories.

    *no Gorilla’s do not eat meat- more propaganda

  • Jae

    Once again, where the “eco”?
    This is just garbage!
    Who gives a rat’s ass what this latest manufactured celebutante eats?
    Seriously!

    get a life and a real job!

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