Rating: 
Summary: Great taste!
Review: This book was my first intro to raw food beyond a salad or fresh juice. It is both inspired and inspirational, but sometimes I wished there was a little more information and pictures, especially of the unfamiliar ingredients. The recipes do taste very good, and while it seems almost magical at first, after a while you realize that if you add enough salt and herbs anything begins to taste savory. I've eaten regular cooked borsh since I was a child, so when I saw a borsh of raw veggies swimming in beet and orange(!) juice I was very skeptical. But when I made and tasted it, all I could say was WHY did we bother boiling the ingredients all these years?! It had all the familiar taste and more! And guess what - you don't need fish OR rice for great sushi!
A lot of ingredients in this book are reduntant, but once you get comfortable with the concept you can get creative. And there's really no need to get committed to the lifestyle - some of this food will simply replace your regular meals, and that's already great. You can always just use regular bread instead of the labor-intensive dehydrated breads, but you'll still have a sandwich filled with delicious vegetarian ingredients.
Rating: 
Summary: Shame, I just bought a new luxury oven and hob...
Review: A real eye-opener. Before reading this book I couldn't imagine how anyone could live on raw food, but this is a gorgeous source of ideas and I've been converted. Beautifully produced, easy to follow, inspirational and few (if any) US-only ingredients that you can't find in the UK. I'd specially recommend it if you're an avocado fan. The good news is that the author does tell you how to use an oven for drying and crisping, so maybe my new oven and hob won't be entirely redundant.
Rating:
Summary: Response to "Meat Loaf" Review
Review: I am SOOO glad I got this book from the library FIRST! I recommend that. I am a Michigan mom that is into healthy foods, where organic food is quite costly. I'm a health educator with nutrition as a major and I am always interested in new and exciting ways to be healthy, prepare vegetables, and healthy food. BUT....JUST in case you are not totally engrossed in RAW food yet, I recommend you borrow it. I read about this book, and its author from a Fitness magazine I read. It sounded GREAT! I thought it would be a great book to get recipes for my juicer and learn some other healthy recipes as well. Well, I sat down to read/look at the book, it has beautiful pictures and text, and some fun sounding recipe titles etc. But I soon realized that this was not going to work for me and my family. I have 2 kids ages, 5 and 3, and a husband that is healthy and fit, but would not touch most of this stuff with a 10 foot pole. I would be putting a LOT of time and preparation into stuff that only I would probably eat. This type of dieting is a bit over the top. And may be fun once in awhile. It would be a fun trip to his restaurant, to have SOME ONE ELSE make it. Juliano is as interesting looking as his food. But unless you are totally committed to this way of life, you may be totally flustered by the amount of time and energy it will take to sprout, dehydrate, chop and chop, and prepare more than half the stuff in this book. The list of ingredients is also daunting to say the least. Anyway, I suggest you get the book from the library first, and see if this is what you really want. It saved ME some money! If you are a single vegan, or have kids and a spouse that can handle all the vegan ingredients, and they don't mind you living in the kitchen preparing, and/or if organic produce is readily available and affordable to you, than this book is for you. I applaud the healthy ideas, colorful foods, and interesting recipes, but be sure you have the time, or care enough to spend your time on this.
Rating:
Summary: Delicious approach made simple
Review: I can't recommend this book highly enough. I was on the way to raw food when I bought this book, so I was sprouting and already had the dehydrator. However although I was preparing raw meals using recipes I got off the web, they weren't always the most tasty and they seemed to be settling into a pattern of boring repetition. I was feeling doubtful about maintaining this approach although I felt the health benefits of it. Juliano's cookbook has opened my eyes to the potential of raw food. This book is full of delicious recipes that are easy to make. Raw soups take seconds to blend up. Having raw condiments on hand for new flavours. Yes the dehydrating takes up to 24 hours, however unlike ordinary cooking where you have to watch the food and check it all the time, dehydrating just goes on in the background while I get on with my life - and because I can cook in bulk, the breads stay fresh and tasty for weeks. The detail and the photos in the book are great, and so is the flexible approach where if one ingredient or three are not available then we are encouraged to improvise. This book is the most innovative, practical and delicious cook book I have ever used - and I use this all the time now. Highly recomended.
Rating:
Summary: Recipes look good, but seem complicated
Review: If you are new to raw foods this isn't the book. I asked for this for Christmas, and received it but haven't used it yet. The recipes seem very time consuming and, if you don't have a good dehydrator, the kind that has a temperature gauge, then that is another investment you need for most of the recipes. I have the cheap Mr. Coffee dehydrator, that actually cooks the food at high tempteratures, therefore not making the food raw any more. If you have the funds to buy a nice dehydrator and the time to prepare the foods, then this would probably be a good book as the recipes look delicious!
Rating:
Summary: Some of the best raw recipes I've tried
Review: The book, while inspiring, leaves a lot to be desired, like recipes that actually work. It has been more than disappointing when time and again, after spending literally days to sprout ingredients, chop, food process, blend, and dehydrate to have an unedible mess come out. Maybe in the la-la land Juliano lives in, everything just 'works out' somehow, even with incomplete recipes. I, however, am having a bit more trouble. Buyer beware.
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