Dinner for Two—Preheat the Oven to…104?

Did you know that by cooking food you may actually decrease its nutritional value? People like Dr.Douglas Graham, known as raw vegans, would say 'tell me something I don’t already know!' Well, what if I told you these meals could be not only nutritious, but extremely delicious as well. Listening now?

Raw veganism actually began in the late 1890’s as a medical diet, when Dr. Maximilian Bircher-Benner (who recovered from jaundice while eating only raw apples) began to experiment with the healing power of raw vegetables. A raw vegan’s diet consists of unprocessed raw plant foods (fruit, vegetables, nuts, seeds, sprouted grains, and some legumes) that have not been heated above a temperature of 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius for all you metric folks). They believe that foods cooked above this temperature will lose nutritional value and—in some cases—may even be noxious to the body, as the heat destroys natural enzymes leaving toxins in its wake.

To the untrained pallet, this may seem to greatly limit options and leave only bland, dry, cold meals possible for consumption. Wrong. Raw food chefs have come up with a multitude of delectable meals to satisfy not only the health-oriented conditions of raw vegans, but their standard of taste as well.

For your next date night, instead of going out to eat or making pasta (again), get creative and prepare a delicious AND healthy meal for you and a loved one. We recommend zucchini pasta with basil pine nut pesto sauce.

Recipe follows below. We love to hear from you—send us stories and pictures from your raw dining adventure!

Yum! Enjoy!

Basil Pine Nut Pesto Sauce over Zucchini “Pasta”

Basil Pine Nut Pesto Sauce Ingredients:

(Makes 1 cup sauce)

• 3 cups fresh basil leaves, tightly packed
• ½ cup of spinach
• 5 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 tablespoon flax oil
• 4 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon white miso
• ½- 1 tablespoon garlic, minced (depending on taste)
• ½ teaspoon salt, use less at first
• ½ cup pine nuts

1. Put the basil and salt in the food processor. Pulse a few times to begin chopping the basil leaves.

2. Add the olive oil, flax oil, lemon juice, miso and garlic, process.

3. Add the pine nuts, process until the desired consistency is achieved. Do not over process the mixture will become too oily. The texture should be creamy with a tiny specks of pine nuts through out.

Can be refrigerated in a glass container for 4 days or frozen in an ice cube tray. Brazil nuts or walnuts may be substituted for pine nuts.

Zucchini Pasta Ingredients:

Serves 1-2

• 2 Zucchini

1. Take the zucchini cut the ends off and place it in a spiralizer and spiralize. (Can also use vegetable peeler.)

2. Serve immediately with sauce of your liking.