The world traveler

Hi! This is the world traveler returning from shooting a movie in Italy. I shot most of the film in Rome but then I went up to Milan for the weekend. Then I went to Venice for a christening! Boy, a lot of travel and a lot of hunting for food, for sure! But don’t we do that anyway? Hunt for food I mean-whether we eat raw or not!

Italy is great for food. As anyone who loves pasta knows. But what about the raw foodist? What can they eat and where can they eat?

I am going to answer the first question because it really answers the second question at the same time.

Because the Italians really like to cure their food I could eat almost anywhere. They have many interesting dishes and meats that are completely raw-because curing is not cooking. Marinating is not cooking either.

So let’s start with cured foods: Bresaola is a type of meat that is cured. It is dark red in color and tastes a little salty (it is cured by salt- so no kidding it tastes salty!) as is Proscuitto and Carpaccio-my favorite! Carpaccio is cow’s meat and Proscuitto is pig. I was told that Bresaola is venison (deer meat)-so I hope I translated that right!

They also marinate a lot of their fish-especially salmon. Now, don’t confuse marinated salmon with smoked salmon! In fact, many people consider smoked salmon to be carcinogenic (that means that it contributes to cancer in the body) and I do not eat it myself.

But I love marinated fishes. I went to a place called La Rizahaka 6 (and no, I don’t know if I spelt it right so let me tell you how it is pronounced La Riz-ak-a. just in case you go to Milan and need to ask!)

La Rizahaka had not only marinated salmon, but white fishes as well. Spada (swordfish), mackeral or sole all marinated-fabulous! In essence you can marinate practically any fish you would want to. I would think lemon, salt (evaporated sea salt) and a little olive oil (raw, cold pressed of course!) could probably do the job!

And that brings me to my next point: 8 years ago I had an argument with one of the leading olive oil producers in a piazza in Spoleto. Spoleto is outside of Rome about an hour and a half. It is beautiful countryside and I had my gorgeous night ruined by this man telling me how proud he was that he made enough money producing olive oil that he could now buy machines to heat press the oil!

I nearly fainted! I got so upset and he could not understand why. “But, I will make more oil and faster. Isn’t that good?” he asked. “Good for who?” I said, “You make more money because you produce more and you produce it faster, but you will destroy the health of more people!”

He looked at me like I was crazy (and believe me that is nothing new-I am a raw foodist for heavens sake, many people look at me like I am nuts!)

Anyway, I tried to tell him that the result of his changeover would be more fat children in the years to come. (Did you read the article on how the Italian kids are the fattest kids in the world now speaking-relative to the number of kids in Italy? Well, I did and it made an impression on me!) But, he did not believe me. He was too focused on his bottom line-not on his ‘bottom’!

You see, once you change how a food is prepared and you don’t tell people that you have done this, you take their power away from them. Because as we change how food is prepared, the newly formed food has a different effect on the body and its health and well-being. And if you do not know this happened, you will only experience the negative results over a period of time as the body starts to degenerate as you eat more cooked foods that were once a staple in your diet in their raw form.

And because people don’t connect their body’s degeneration with products they have been using their whole life, (albeit in different form, but they don’t know that because they have not been told) they start wondering how “suddenly”, “all of a sudden” everything is changing: How they “suddenly” have wrinkles, acid stomach or ill health.

Darling! We are the accumulation of everything we have done to our bodies through out our lives and this includes what do to ourselves with our food!

Anyway, Italians have always liberally poured olive oil on their food-but years ago it was cold pressed and therefore “raw”. But, as the machines take over and producers look toward the bottom line, they are heating their oil in their pressing machines to get more oil out and to get it faster.

So in short, always ask for “cold pressed”. Or rather do what I did: I carried a bottle with me and didn’t rely on waiters who don’t know their a** from their elbow!

But I digress….

The Italians have great salads and of course ‘fab’ meats and fishes. Many people tell me that they have found that they can go to Italy and eat until they are full and they feel better and lighter then they do in America-yeah! No kidding! They don’t do what we do to our food (hormone additives, spraying the crops, genetically altering God made seeds, radiating. Etc, etc.)

In fact, I still can find unpasteurized raw milk RIGHT in MILAN! But not in New York, however, a huge city in a democratic country!

Naturally, I drank up a storm so I could have my fill and be satisfied enough to face the “New York City Raw Milk Drought” when I got home! By the way, they also have a lot of unpasteurized cheeses, too.

Ok, so you say you have to have your pasta in Italy-go ahead and have it once or twice-but better to eat clean and healthy on your vacation then to have to come home and make up for that vacation with depriving yourself for the rest of your year.