interview w/ Gary Warren - Secret Art Man

this is the interview with gary warren, of raw love cafe fame. he also runs the secret art studio on rink street.
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can you give us an idea of what it means to be raw?
there are many different interpretations. basically, the more processed, modified, and cooked food is, the less nutritionally valuable it is. your body can make the enzymes it needs to function, but you can also get most of them in raw form through food. the digestive process requires lots of energy, and by eating food that is easier to digest and absorb more nutrients from, we are saving energy. our body then has more energy to defend itself from pathogens, and our whole system works more efficiently.


i was never personally 100% raw - i probably peaked at about 80%. i can tell you from this experience that the first thing i noticed while eating mostly raw was that i had clearer senses and my overall vitality was incredibly high. i was just high energy. my appetite changed radically - i was never ravenously hungry. i would like to suggest as an experiment, for someone who hasn't already, to try eating mostly raw for a week, then go out for dinner and eat a plate of pasta or something processed, and observe how you feel afterwards.
one huge benefit of eating raw is that you are not limited in how much you can eat, because everything you are putting into your body is good for you. there isn't really a point of excess when you're eating whole foods. it felt wonderful to know i was doing the best i could for my body, and i was never concerned about food in a nutritional sense.


how did 'raw love' start?
Ruth Ann Rousseau (check sp.), a well rounded lady, who was very into raw food herself, wanted to prepare/ serve/ provide tools for the community, and came up with the idea to start a raw cafe. She wanted to also make part of the operation selling the implements necessary to prepare raw food, because some things you need are hard to find. She wanted to be able to fully trust the owners of this cafe, and asked me and Emily (her daughter) to take on this responsibility. We basically were given the mission to 'start the cafe'. So, we began taking lots of trips to City Hall, knowing absolutely nothing about what's required to start a cafe. The space that was decided upon for the cafe to occupy was probably decided upon too hastily - it was never a restaurant, didn't even have a back door, etc. Since we were changing what the space was used for, we needed to fill out a lot of paperwork - we were now dealing with a 'change of use', new coding, etc. A lot of hassles. In the process of start-up and getting all our equipment, paperwork, and applications taken care of, we came upon an ADA (American Disabilities Act) compliance. To meet this compliance, the building needed a ramp and an enlarged bathroom. Also, the Historic District has lots of beaureaucratic (sp?) nonsense about building modifications. So we had to fix the historic building and try to meet everyone's requirements, which was a long to-do list.

We were working towards the ADA compliance until the end of August, when the lawyers in the Rousseau family decided it was best to try and circumvent the compliance, to try and avoid all these structural modifications. We had to seek a 'variance' by successfully completing a process of approval by the (what board?) board. The lawyers were confident they'd be able to get the variance. In the meantime, Emily left to go back to college. The Rousseau's shifted my job to working for their publishing company, doing editing work - so at this point in the cafe, things are stalled. By the first week of September, the lawyers found out the variance was not an option. After that, I didn't really hear anything more about the cafe - I was kind of disconnected now. The fact is that following an informal meeting with Joe Rousseau, their company (D. J. Iber & Co.) exercised their option to terminate my employment. Within two weeks, 99 West Broad Street was sublet to another business. By the first week in November, it was Chateau Bow Wow.

do you think a raw vegan cafe would succeed in this area?
I feel like it's challenging to base a business on raw food. There are some inexpensive options, but it seems best to do it informally, non-commercially, or maybe as a novelty through an established venue.

i think a lot of people believe that the raw lifestyle is labor intensive. is it?
Preparing raw food itself is not difficult at all - there are some machines you do need, such as a good heavy duty blender, a juicer, and a dehydrater. There is a lot of dehydrating, blending, juicing, and sprouting in raw living. None of these processes are labor-intensive or difficult - but there are downsides. You need a lot of materials to produce a little bit of juice, sprouts take a day or two, the machines are expensive. It takes some patience and a sizeable initial investment to transition from conventional living to a raw or mostly raw lifestyle. I still think it's worth it because of how much better you feel.

do you intend to continue to share raw food with people now that the cafe is no longer a possibility?
I really believe the way that I can best share raw food with people now is through sharing it casually and maintaining a d.i.y. attitude - you don't need someone else to prepare your food for you. learn how to make your own food. spend time preparing food with other people. have a substantial garden, re-learn the connection of food to the ground, get reacquainted with the earth, be more self sufficient in all realms of your life.

any last words?
well.. on the whole idea of including money in the equation of raw food: i'd really rather just grow a ton of wheatgrass and feed shots of it to people. i could have like a stand on the side of the road. i'd rather be providing my two amazing kids with substantial amounts of good food than making money off of it.