My letter re: Utah Newspaper's Excellent Raw Foods Article

See my letter to a Utah newspaper about their reporter's excellent article about a geophysicist who became a raw restaurateur.

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."

A List of Raw Restaurants

A list of raw restaurants in the US

Raw Foods Restaurant Opened Recently in New Haven, CT

Ahimsa, a mostly-raw restaurant, opened a few weeks ago in New Haven, CT. A recent article in the Yale Daily News that mentions it says there's also a raw restaurant called the Alchemy Juice Bar Cafe in Hartford, CT. It's great to see restaurants opening outside NYC!

NJ's Only "Almost" All-Raw Restaurant

I haven't been to East Coast Vegan, in Toms River, NJ, but will check it out next time I'm in the area. In this newspaper review, owner Michael Pollack says when he first opened, the menu featured cooked food, but since he switched to "almost all raw," his business has increased three- or four-fold.