Utah's First Raw Foods Restaurant

Kudos to Salt Lake Tribune writer Kathy Stephenson, on a beautiful, inspiring story (Raw Foods: Earth to mouth, March 7, 2007).

I'm delighted to hear that 27-year-old Omar Abou-Ismail left an intense career as a geophysical engineer to become a raw restaurateur! How awesome is that! And to think he started his business with a minuscule $3,000 loan!

Restaurants are known for being very risky businesses, even for experienced restaurateurs, so a big "Bravo!" to Omar!

Here's an excerpt from the article:

John Sroka, of South Jordan, is one of the many regulars at Living Cuisine. He was diagnosed with m yasthenia gravis, a chronic autoimmune neuromuscular disease that causes weakness, often in the muscles that control eye and eyelid movement, facial expression, chewing, talking and swallowing. "Eating raw foods is the only thing that I've found that helps me with that," said Sroka, as he dined on a falafel salad recently. Sroka said for several months he ate an entirely raw diet. "It seems like a strange thing," he said. "But it's cleansing, energizing and a great way to lose weight because you can eat as much as you want."