MANILA, Philippines—Culinary artist Cherie Lou Ignacio was a walking drugstore for most of her life. She suffered from hypertension at 21 years old, had a baby who died in her womb at 23, suffered from arthritis in her 30s, not to mention high cholesterol, and had lived on heavy medication until her 40s. Meanwhile, she established a successful but stressful Quickmelt Ensaymada business, went through a rocky relationship and survived it. As if the travails weren’t enough, she was diagnosed with kidney stones.

Not wanting to have them blasted, Ignacio decided to take the natural route by chucking in the white flour and refined sugar for a healthy diet of brown bread and green leafy vegetables. Eventually she met a naturopath who put her on a raw food diet. In three days, she was liberated from all her medications. Then she went on a detoxification program for another 10 days, eating salads, fresh fruits, coconut juice, tuber leaves, bitter gourd and radish. She lost three pounds on the first day. Then at the end of her program, she lost 16 pounds. “I lost weight without looking haggard,” she says.

Then she decided to reinvent herself at midlife as a raw food chef. She sold her ensaymada business and decided to pursue an alternative lifestyle. “I was managing 200 employees. I was just too glad to let go,” says Ignacio.

Healthy lifestyle

Two years ago, Ignacio enrolled in raw food cuisine under one of the world’s most prominent experts on healthy lifestyle, Alissa Cohen in Massachusetts. Thousands of people worldwide have benefited from her book “Living on Live Food” and her raw food diet wherein many have experienced dramatic and permanent weight loss and healed themselves of ailments such as diabetes, migraines, joint pains, high cholesterol, hypoglycemia, allergies, depression, gas and bloating, skin diseases, chronic fatigue and cancers.

The raw food diet espouses uncooked produce, nuts, seeds and sprouts, seaweeds, and cold-pressed olive oil. The principle is that cooking destroys most of the enzymes in foods. Enzymes are needed for body functions. As the body ages, the enzymes dwindle. The loss has to be replenished by eating raw food to feed the cells with nutrients. Cooking makes it more difficult for the body to digest the food and assimilate them. When overcooked, the food accumulates and becomes toxins, resulting in diseases.

The body becomes acidic when it takes meat, refined sugar, flours and pasta, candy, alcohol and foods with preservatives. An acidic body results in restless sleep, chest pains, sinuses, negative moods, constipation and a mental slackness. A raw food diet can put the body back in balance.

The raw food diet eschews cooked fats that often lead to heart disease, cancer risks and obesity. Cooked fats clog up the arteries and get stored in the body resulting in weight gain. Raw plant fats such as avocados, coconuts, seeds and nuts contain antioxidants. They don’t make the body heavy because they contain enzyme lipase which helps in digesting fats. Cooking fats ruin the lipase and other important nutrients.

A liver-cleansing program espoused by Dr. Sandra Cabot complements the raw food lifestyle. The liver is a vital organ in the body that has a major influence in the other systems. The author of “The Liver Cleansing Diet,” Cabot observed that one in every three persons has a dysfunctional liver which, no matter how minor, will still affect the immune system and energy levels. Conventional and even natural medicine may ease the symptoms but not get into the root cause of the problem. Invariably, the symptoms worsen and the intake of antibiotics, anti-inflammatory medication and immune suppressants increases.

Green smoothies

Pushing 50, Ignacio looks 20 years younger, having lost more than 20 pounds. She starts the day with two glasses of green smoothies made from 40 percent green vegetables and 60 percent banana, coconut juice, flax seed oil, Vitamin C and virgin coconut oil. Raw food expert Victoria Boutenko espouses that taking two or three cups a day provides the body with all the energy and nutritional requirements. These could be combinations of mango and parsley; bananas and spinach; or kiwi, banana and spinach.

Between meals, Ignacio drinks juices made from fruits or celery and cucumber. She has a big salad for lunch with flax seed oil. For dinner, she favors fresh fruits and juices.

Ignacio prefers to eat her meals by 6 p.m. so she can sleep at 8 p.m. “The liver functions actively from 10 p.m. to 2 am. That’s the time it purifies the blood and gets rid of the body’s toxins,” she says.

Comparing raw food cuisine with conventional culinary art, she says the latter is more complicated, what with all the gadgets, heavy fats from dairy and oils, and the precept caters to the gustatory experience rather than the health benefits.

“All you need is a blender or a food processor. If you want to splurge, you can get a dehydrator to make the pastas, pizzas and breads from nuts and vegetables. I don’t worry about oils flying out of the pan or burns from the gas range. I can wear makeup because I don’t cook in front of a hot stove that will melt it,” she says.

With the spiraling costs of oil and its effects on byproducts, the raw food diet is the way to go.

Cheloy Ignacio offers raw food diet classes and detoxification programs. Call 6871121, 4093529 or 0915-2959582. Located at Parc Royale Condominium, Doña Julia Vargas Ave., Ortigas, Pasig City