I discovered The Raw Food Coach, Karen Knowler when I watched a simple make your own almond milk video. I fell in love with her easy-to-follow style! I’m excited to share Karen’s book, Raw Food Made Simple.  

 The book is very well-written beginner’s guide, complete with easy raw recipes and cooked food options to complement them.

I got to have a virtual chat with Karen, who is based in England, to learn more about her passion for raw foods and how she become a Raw Food Coach.

YP:       What was the turning point that made you decide to want to move to a predominantly raw diet?

KK: After dabbling with raw for just a few weeks, I felt intuitively that eating a mostly raw diet was where I wanted to go. The experiences I had on every level were so enjoyable and compelling that there was every reason for me to want to experience more of it – and I did!

YP:       Can you describe the changes in how you felt as you moved from a “cooked food” vegan slowly towards raw?  Were there any negative side effects as you transitioned?  What were the positives?

KK: I wasn’t really a cooked food vegan at any point, so-to-speak, as I got into raw foods and went vegan at more-or-less the same time. So I would eat some simple cooked foods like rice, pasta and potato, along with raw foods, which was very easy to do. The most memorable changes as I went to increasingly higher raw was how weird cooked food started to taste, how my energy went through the roof as I left the cooked food out, and how I generally simply felt happier. I don’t really recall any negatives. The only thing that comes close to that was my feeling of being extra sensitive to the harsher energies of the world, but you could also see that as a positive.

YP:       People seem to be concerned that it really takes a lot of preparation and special tools to follow a raw diet.  What advice would you give to someone who is exploring this path to help set him/herself up for success?

KK: It can be true that it can take a lot of preparation and special tools, but the opposite can also be true, as I share in my book. When I got into raw food, I kept it really quick, easy and delicious, because that was what I wanted it and needed it to be. Over the past 15 years the way raw food can be done has become increasingly diverse and with that has come complexity, but I have discovered over and over again that the simpler you keep it, the better the taste and the results.

YP:       Is there an easy transition path that you could recommend?

KK: Yes! I recommend that people begin with a raw breakfast every day, whether that be fresh fruit, a fruit smoothie, a juice or even a raw muesli, and then aim to have 50% of each main meal plate comprise of salad, the rest a clean, healthy cooked food or two. Ideally, snacks would be raw fruit, nuts, seeds or crudités, and drinks also kept clean and healthy. By following this super-easy method, you can be eating 75% raw pretty much overnight and feeling the difference right away.

YP:       What inspired you to become a raw food coach?

KK: I’m passionate about raw food and passionate about living my potential, and I realised that I certainly wasn’t alone. Raw food enables us to explore and live our potential and actually accelerates and intensifies the process, and life coaching is one of the most brilliant inventions ever. By combining the two I released that I could create a magical and transformative approach to whole person brilliance that wasn’t (as far as I was aware) being addressed in a methodical, mapped out way like I wanted and felt it needed to be done. To me, being a raw food coach is the most exciting and fascinating vocation on the planet.

YP:       With the rise in the numbers of vegetarians and vegans in general, have you seen any changes in the demographic of your audience over the last 5 years?

KK: Yes, I have definitely seen a general increase overall in the level of interest in raw foods, although I would say it was as high from meat eaters as any other group of eaters, which is great. Raw food is for everyone, and people are finally cottoning on to the fact that it doesn’t have to be all or nothing, and that it can be what they want it to be.

Karen, thank you so much for making the time to share your thoughts about incorporating more raw foods into our diets.  I’m currently exploring raw foods and it’s great to have your easy-to-follow book as a guide.

Thanks again to Karen Knowler for making raw eating accessible to all of us!