Eating Without Heating: Favorite Recipes from Teens Who Love Raw Food

Great book, small, but jam packed with easy to make and delicious recipes. There are at least a hundred, covering a complete range of topics: from salads and soups, to drinks, bread, crackers, ice cream, pies and more, divided in handy chapters. Some recipes require a dehydrator or juicer (which I don't own), but you can make most of them with a kitchen machine or by hand. I use a simple hand blender & chopper. This book is not a fancy (un)cookbook by the way (read: thick, with glossy pictures and complex recipes) so if that's what you want (because we all love to drool over beautiful cookbooks, right?), this may not be what you're looking for. Except for some pictures (and -very inspirational- notes by the Boutenko kids) in the beginning, the rest of the book solely contains short recipes without photos. It's a very simple book, nothing fancy at all. But I think therein lies it's power: its practicality. I have two more books which are quite fancy, but for food prep inspiration I always grab this one. If I think: 'pie', I just look up the chapter, gloss over it and immediately get ideas to make my own version. I'll be spending a year abroad soon and this is the raw food book I'd take along with me together with my hand blender & chopper. If I had to describe this book in four words: small, simple, delicious and complete! I love it!

I've been eating a raw vegetarian diet for the past 5 years and I've added many raw recipe books to my library. "Eating Without Heating" is in my top 5. It has everything you need in a recipe book. The book begins by drawing the reader in with the author's personal stories of raw foods. They both healed themselves of disease simply by adopting a raw foods diet. Valya had a bad case of asthma and Sergei had a bad case of diabetes. After adopting a raw vegetarian diet, there is no trace of disease and they are perfectly healthy. At age 17, Sergei is now in his third year of college! These kids are a great inspiration! The recipe section of the book starts with beautiful full color glossy photographs of the authors, their parents, and the various recipes. The food photos are amazing, they have a wedding cake, chocolate truffles, raw vegan deviled "eggs", buckwheaties cereal with almond milk, pizza, borscht, cranberry sauce, and more. After the photographs is an excellent description about how to prepare generic gourmet recipes. You'll learn how to balance the various tastes in a recipe using different foods, herbs, and seasonings. These instructions alone are worth the price of the book because they allow you to be creative and start making your very own recipes. I refer to this section of the book quite often. This book is perfect for experienced raw gourmet chefs, as well as those new to preparing food. These recipes are simple to prepare and anyone can do it, even if your idea of preparing food is throwing a veggie burger in the microwave! "Eating Without Heating" covers all the bases. You will discover how to prepare juices, smoothies, soups, salad dressings, sauces, dips, pate, nori "sushi" rolls, crackers, breads, appetizers, entrees, cakes, pies, cookies, ice cream, french fries and catsup, spagetti, pesto sauce, salsa, pudding, trail mix, and much more. My favorite recipes are in the "Fermented Foods" chapter. You'll discover how to make raw vegan yogurt, cheese, pickles, relish, sauerkraut, and more. These foods have become a staple in my diet and I couldn't imagine living without them! I highly recommend "Eating Without Heating". Many of the recipe books I have own are too complicated, they use hard to find ingredients, and they take hours to prepare. In "Eating Without Heating", you'll find easy recipes with common ingredients found in every grocery store. The recipes are simple, and the food tastes like it was made by a professional gourmet chef. You'll love this book, I guarantee it!

Sergei was overweight and diabetic. His mother, fearing he would die from diabetes as did his grandmother, went on a search for a healthful diet. She switched the family to raw foods--nuts, salads, blended vegetables to make cold soups, and dehydrated vegetable and seed purees to make "bread." The teens Sergei and Valya tell how to manage in a world where junk foods and drugs are persistent menaces in school. Sergei's cracker recipes, made of ground flax seeds and pureed vegetables that are dried, are so delicious you won't believe it. And there are recipes for "cakes", smoothies, soups, and all look amazing. If you have an overweight teen who is suffering from ill health, maybe these teens will inspire him or her.

The book "Eating Without Heating", written by two teens, displays wisdom beyond their years. The book is magnificently illustrated with drawings by Valya. "Eating Without Heating is a guide book to all things raw. It is a treatise on the raw food philosophy. It is a cookbook. It is a living testament to a family that bucked the school establishment which tried to induce children to drink milk and eat fast-food burgers for lunch. Their recipes are quite a bit more sophisticated than just sliced cucumbers with dill sauce. One example is an entire chapter on fermenting foods. Sergei and Valya simply soak one cup of nuts in water overnight and blend the resulting product in a blender until it is smooth like heavy cream. They strain the mixture through a sprout bag, pour into a jar, cover with cheesecloth, and set in a warm place where the magic transfer of gases and air through the mixture produces a tart yogurt-like food. Try this with cashews and chopped mango. They produce unique cheeses with the same method as above. I'll soon be trying their sauerkraut and kim chee recipes. I salivate at the thought of producing my own. I've tasted raw breads, but have only wondered at the mastery of culinary skills necessary to create such miracles. From sprouted raw flax bread with kamut and walnuts to chili corn chips, the Boutenko children make it all seem simple, in easy-to-follow recipes. If you love sourdough bread, you've got to try their recipe which employs raw almond pulp with flax and caraway seeds. These kids have timing! They save the best for last, cookies, ice creams, and cakes. With secrets learned from their mother (sprinkle coconut or nuts so that the cake does not stick to the pan), and photographs that tempt and delight (walnut cream cake, un-chocolate cake, un-cheesecake, and many others), these recipes are what one would expect to be served at the gates of Valhalla. Try the Macadamia Date Pie or the amazing Coconut-Date Truffles.

This isn't just a recipe book. Sergei and Valya tell us how eating raw foods changed their lives dramatically. It's an interesting read for teens because the authors provide motivation to adopt raw foods in ways that teens can relate to. Also, parents are given advise about how to make it easier for their kids to eat raw foods.Lots of yummy pictures of raw foods, including un-chocolate cake and live pizza!There are 18 chapters of tasty, easy to prepare recipes. Each chapter starts out with helpful information about preparing the type of food in that section. For example, before the 14 delightful soups in the soup chapter, we're advised "If you want to make a vegetable soup, start by blending oil or avacado with some juicy veggie or fruit, then add spices and texture". This is only part of the info which will make readers confident to attempt these recipes, or create their own raw foods. I highly recommend this book for anyone who would like to know more about eating raw foods, or for those who have been eating raw foods and want more variety.