Whole Life Times: Conversations: David Wolfe

May 2007 | Conversations

Conversations: David Wolfe

Interview by Ritzy Ryciak

He might not convert you, but after hearing him speak you’ll definitely have a fresh perspective on raw food — and quite possibly crave a cashew cacao smoothie. Known as David “Avocado” Wolfe by fans, this 13-year raw foodist drinks only water for breakfast and “has been around the sun 36 times” — his response to the question of how old he is. The author of a handful of nutrition books, including his latest, Naked Chocolate, Wolfe — who maintains his raw food diet keeps him depression-free — has made his life’s work spreading the raw word. A superstar on the raw lecture circuit, he is the cofounder of Sunfood Nutrition (sunfood.com), an online distributor of exotic raw foods, books and products all geared toward helping health seekers live a more “plant-food-based lifestyle.” Wolfe, who studied at Oxford University and holds a law degree from University of San Diego, will be the first to tell you that humanity’s “fall from grace is the cooking of food” and that keepin’ it raw could change the world and save the planet. True to his global and green vision, he is the President of the nonprofit Fruit Tree Planting Foundation (ftpf.org) — its stated goal is to plant an ambitious 18 billion fruit trees.

Why do you say “the raw food diet is the greatest secret in the world today?”

I am a big advocate of choice. The more choices we have, the freer we are. Raw food nutrition, as a choice — just knowing it’s there — is extremely empowering. It indicates we don’t need any fancy machinery to live. We weren’t born attached to a stove, or microwave, or toasters, or any of that stuff. Most people have never experienced the power of “you are what you eat.” Most people, even if they are vegetarian, or on a lacto-ovo diet, or a meat or protein diet, they eat mostly the same stuff — the same 15 foods: soy, rice, corn, wheat, barley, orange, potato, chicken, coffee, beef, and dairy from cow and goat. Coconut actually made the list worldwide in the top 15 foods, and believe it or not, cacao made it, but obviously processed cacao (in the form of chocolate). When you get on to raw food nutrition, it is completely different food. You start eating seaweed, algae, sprouts. You start eating fruits you never heard of before.

What does, “you are what you eat” feel like?

If you eat food that is grown and treated with love — prepared with love and served with love — it really is different. I think everyone knows that. Everyone knows that mom’s food tastes better. But, I don’t mean love in the esoteric sense, “oh we are loving the food and everything is great.” I mean that you get food grown by a farmer who loves what he or she is doing. You go to a store where there is love in the store. People are happy to be in their jobs. I am talking about a grounded kind of love.

When you get into foods like seaweeds and sprouts — garden food that you grow yourself, exotic vegetables, superfoods — these foods are super rich in minerals. Not only do you feel like you don’t need to take supplements, but you feel completely transformed at every level. You will definitely experience more clarity, more focus and imagination. You will feel a lightness of being. Heavy foods — steak and potatoes — drag you down. They don’t allow you to reach the highest states of feeling good. Raw food is light. I feel lighter, happier, cleaner.

You wrote a book called Naked Chocolate. What do you want the world to know about chocolate?

Chocolate is the world’s greatest food. It’s the most enjoyable food, it’s the food most associated with love. Chocolate is the food that most connects us to the subtle pleasures of living. And chocolate is the most alchemical food of them all. It can be mixed into bars, you can take cacao beans and make the most outrageous blueberry chocolate smoothies. You can blend it with your favorite tea and have hot chocolate. You can put cacao beans in your pocket and have them as a snack anywhere you are. Chocolate is one of the most nutritious foods in the world, if not the most nutritious. Cacao is the number one whole-food, antioxidant, and natural source of chromium and magnesium, and in its natural state, it’s one of the highest vitamin C foods going. Processed chocolate contains no vitamin C, as it is destroyed by heat. Chocolate is the number one antioxidant food in the world by far. It’s more than three times higher than acai, more than ten to fifteen times higher than blueberries, twenty times higher than red wine, thirty times higher than green tea. In ancient times, the Mayans, Aztecs, Toltecs, all used the cacao bean as money — it was their currency. They revered this food, it was exchanged at every wedding. In an ancient baptism ritual that preceded Columbus, they would basically grind cacao in with water and baptize five-year-olds with chocolate water. It just goes on and on.

What question do you wish our readers would ask themselves?

Number one, how can I do something good for myself and the planet today? I do believe people are asking themselves that question more and more. How do I add more raw plants into my diet and less junk food meat, candy etc.? Third, the most important of them all, how do I make today the best day ever? If you ask yourself that question, you’re not going to believe the answers that are going to pop up. I generally like to focus on questions that do have an answer. How do I accomplish this project and have fun while doing it?

What keeps you focused, motivated and hopeful?

For me personally, it is the connection with growing plants. I love growing fruit trees. I love growing vegetables. I love growing and picking wild herbs. I love forests. That keeps me going. What keeps me hopeful is the desire that I see in young kids to do good things for the planet. I’ve got this 18-year-old kid that works for me who wants to be the best cacao farmer in the history of the world. What kind of kid has a goal like that? The youth will always keep the generation that preceded them inspired and excited by what the future could bring. I believe that what is going on, the whole fate of our planet, is like a big story — the greatest story ever told. In order for it to have the drama, the climax, the nail-biting, thrilling suspense, we have to push ourselves into a corner that we do not believe we can get out of. All Americans are fans of the underdog. Like David versus Goliath, the story has to unfold in such a way where it looks impossible — it looks like we have trashed the planet. It looks like there is no hope, and then all of a sudden, at the last second, we turn it around. That idea keeps me going.

I love your optimism.

Thank you. I am tremendously optimistic. I feel strongly that there is so much doubt, fear, frustration, anger, depression and greed in the world that we no longer need to feel those emotions anymore. There are enough people feeling those emotions. We need volunteers who are ready and willing to feel good all of the time and to be optimistic. To laugh. To have fun. To be in love with everything. To appreciate beauty. We need more of those kinds of people.

How does the raw food diet speak to any of our current environmental challenges, like global warming?

Our diet is the primary way we interact with the planet. We have to learn to live lighter, or lower on the food chain. That means more plants and less animals. It is just that simple. John Robbins in his book, Diet for a New America, says that a simple change of 10 percent less meat-eating and 10 percent more plant-eating globally would free up enough resources to save every starving child in the world. Now that is profound. When I eat raw food combined with the way that I live in my house, I produce no trash. I have no trash coming out of my house! What causes trash? Food packaging. This is a major cause of all the debris we are leaving behind as a civilization. For me personally, there is only one issue worldwide. It is not the war. It is not the economy, or all of these other political distractions. It’s the environment. We are still lucky; we’re young enough to have experienced pristine environments. But if things keep going how they are going, in 300 years our descendents will have never experienced a pristine environment. We can’t allow that to happen. We have all of the technology. We have all of the solutions. There is no problem we have in this world today where there is not a solution. If we implement those solutions, each individually in our own daily lives — just in America — we would transform the planet immediately — instantaneously. It is totally within our power. It basically comes down to “hey, let’s eat organic. Let’s eat more raw food. Let’s grow more of our own food. Let’s have more fun.” That right there will lead to paradise on earth.

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