the scenic route

For those who think they don’t have what it takes in the kitchen or just want to try a taste of what a raw food meal has to offer, restaurants catering to the diet are popping up throughout Canada.

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Raw Food Audio Story

Script

Preparing a raw food meal can take a lot of time and energy. But 21-year-old Montreal resident, Lisa Trudel, makes eating raw easy.

In Cue: “Basically, to be a raw foodist…”
Runs: 0:15
Out Cue: “…I love my blender.”

A blender can make a variety of foods for a raw foodist, everything from peanut butter to cheese to soup. Trudel’s favorite is the smoothie.

In Cue: “My favorite meal…”
Runs: 0:20
Out Cue: “…until like noon.”

Even though Trudel prefers making simpler meals, such as salads, she still likes to experiment with gourmet recipes every now and again.

In Cue: “I guess the most gourmet is…”
Runs: 0:23
Out Cue: “…goes into the dehydrator.”

But an enthusiasm for cooking isn’t something Trudel always felt…

In Cue: “I didn’t enjoy cooking…”
Runs: 0:19
Out Cue: “…nourish your body.”

The Washington Post showcased fairly artistic photography. I liked that the photos were in black and white, and there was an interesting use of angles and points of view. I specifically liked the photo looking up to the plane from the ground among all of the shackles and the photo taken from the inside looking out the plane’s window at the men boarding the plane. There was also a good range of shots; faces, tattoos, feet, hands, inanimate objects, etc.

The audio narration was very scattered. It sort of jumped around and didn’t tell a straight forward narration (a beginning, a middle, a end). It also didn’t tell exactly what was going on in each pic; rather, it gave little glimpses into what was going on from different perspectives.

There was also a good mix of natural sound and ambient sound which really gave you a feel for the story.

The Times’ piece used quite visually striking photographs as well. It, also, used black and white photos and I just felt doing so made for a stronger visual component. The photos also had a good mixture of people and landscape so you got a good grasp of the situation these people are in.

It tells a more straight-forward narration, providing you with all the relevant facts and context, but there was no ambient or natural sound in the piece. It sounded like someone was just reading from a piece of paper with not much feeling behind what was being said. I felt that the tone of the narration contradicted the essence of the story.

I prefer the Washington Post’s approach to Soundslides. I found the photographs were very compelling in that they sort of showed you only bits and pieces of what was going on in each one, as did the audio used. The use of natural and ambient sound really helped in the telling of the story, something that the New York Times piece was lacking.

*an objective overview of the history and background of the raw food diet*

Amidst the over-abundance of over-processed foods in an average Western diet, a raw food movement has quietly gained momentum in the last century.

With a wealth of scholarly and scientific research concluding that a diet high in raw fruit and vegetables is the ideal diet for humans to live a healthier life, people are returning to their roots.

The “raw food lifestyle” promotes a diet of unprocessed and uncooked plant foods, such as fresh fruit and vegetables, sprouts, seeds, nuts, grains, and seaweed.

Such a diet is nothing new; it has been around for centuries. During the vast majority of our time on this planet, humans didn’t have the tools to kill animals, let alone cook our food, so our diet consisted primarily of raw fruit, vegetables and nuts out of necessity.

But a different conception of such a primitive diet gained prominence throughout the 1900s.

Finnish chemist and 1945 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Artturi Virtanen, showed in his research that uncooked food contains enzymes (these assist in the natural digestion of food and are the “life force” of the food) that are released in the mouth when the food is chewed.

Raw foodists, thereby, deduce from such research that if you heat food over 116 degrees F these enzymes are destroyed (they start to degrade in as little as 106 degrees F), the natural digestive process is hampered, and the food is “dead”. Furthermore, proponents of the diet assert that raw foods have enormously higher nutrient values than foods that have been cooked.

Typically, at least 75% of the food you consume must be raw, or “living”, in order to be a raw foodist.

Nowadays, the lifestyle is usually equated with raw veganism in which only raw plant foods are eaten, but there has existed other versions of the diet which emphasize the consumption of raw meat and other animal products as well.

Included in raw animal food diets are any uncooked and unprocessed meats, meat-organs, eggs, and raw dairy, as well as, to a much lesser extent, nuts, sprouts, plants, and fruits. Those who follow this diet usually obtain their meats from free-range and grass-fed sources. This greatly diminishes the risk of harmful bacteria, and grass-fed meat also has more nutrients, such as vitamins, minerals and omega-3 fatty acids, than grain-finished meat.

There still exist today some groups of people that consume a raw meat diet. For instance, the Nenet tribe of Siberia eat a traditional diet consisting of mostly raw meats, organ-meats and raw berries. As well, Inuit people that still follow their traditional diet eat a partially raw diet, including raw meat.

Within the vegan raw food stream, there are generally two schools of thought; the high fruit diet and the high healthy-fat diet.

The high fruit diet restricts fat intake to about 10% of total calories so you’re getting about 90% of your calories from fruit and vegetables. In practice, this means eating a lot more food on a daily basis since fruit has a lower caloric density than fat.

There is also the option to take the high healthy-fat route, which many raw foodists do, getting about 60% of calories from healthy fats such as nuts, avocadoes, seeds, and cold-pressed oils with the remainder coming from fruits and vegetables.

Raw foodists get their daily protein from fruit, vegetables, seeds and nuts. On average, fruits have about 5% of their calories from protein, vegetables have about 20-50% of their calories from protein, and sprouted seeds, beans, and grains contain from 10-25% of their calories from protein.

Today, interest in the raw food diet continues to grow and is especially prevalent in the UK, Germany, Australia and the western United States, like California. Restaurants catering to a raw food diet have opened in large cities, and numerous all-raw cookbooks have been published.

Sources

Absolute Astronomy: Raw Food Diet
Alternative Medicine: Raw Food Diet
BBC News: “Cooking in the danger zone”
CSU Chico: Grass Fed Beef Health Benefits
Living and Raw Foods Community
Steve Pavlina Blog: Raw Food 30 Day Trial
Washington Post: “Where home cooking gets the cold shoulder”

Telling Stories with Sound felt very familiar and redundant. The dip students, myself included, have been told all of the information contained in this NewsU course over and over again the past two semesters, and, I can only speak for myself, have the tips and info ingrained into our minds.

However, I did find that the course provided good distinction between natural and ambient sound, and gave very clear examples which me differentiate the two in my mind. It also gave me some good specific ideas for natural sound to use in both my audio story and my audio-photo slideshow. Going through this course also really helped me organize my thoughts and ideas for the specific audio assignment at hand.

I also thought it was a good tip, suggesting that if we are short on time and need to get sound clips, we ask someone at the location we need to record at to tell us when “hot” sound times are.

I felt the ethical considerations when recording natural and ambient sound very interesting. It seems like such a small thing, to just record any old noise of traffic, yet according to this course doing so would be deemed unethical since its not the traffic you are talking about in your story. Very interesting.

Interview Sources

Lisa Trudel
Miss Trudel is a raw foodie living in Montreal. I made contact with her last week and I plan to do an audio interview with her. She is very lively and personable, passionate about what she is talking about, and is a great story teller. I plan to talk to her about her personal experience with the raw food diet (what changes she noticed, both physically and mentally, what didn’t work for her, etc), and generally give the audience a glimpse into the mind of a raw foodie.

Anne-Marie Stelluti
Miss Stelluti just graduated from McGill’s Dietetics and Human Nutrition program. I have already been in contact with her and plan to use this interview for the final print article only. I am going to talk to her about the nutritional effects of a raw food diet (good or bad), what the risks may be, what someone should take into consideration before starting such a diet, etc.

[Both Lisa and Anne-Marie were sources for an article I did on the raw food diet last semester. Both interviews were done over e-mail, but this time around I will be going much more in-depth, asking a wider range of questions and digging deeper into certain aspects with both of them since this project requires a more extensive look at the diet. I will also be performing an audio interview this time (with Lisa). I would like to use these two sources again because I have already established a relationship of trust and communication with them, and I already know they both have the necessary knowledge to comment on this diet and are well-spoken.]

Mathieu – Owner of Crudessence
I have not been in contact with Mathieu himself yet. I called the restaurant and spoke to an employee (Sarah). She suggested Mathieu would be best to talk to for this project, but he is out of town so I plan to call him later in the week. I hope to do an audio interview with him, but I am still waiting to see what he is like as a speaker. Nevertheless, if I don’t talk to him I will talk to someone else from the restaurant. I hope to talk to them about the Montreal raw food scene specifically: how big it is, what its sense of community is like, how the restaurant came to exist, whether it has grown since its inception, the kinds of foods they serve, what is most popular, etc.

Additional Source Ideas

Ms. Judy Campbell-Gordon, RD
Food Prep Lab Coordinator/Freshman Advisor/Lecturer
McGill – School of Dietetics and Human Nutrition

Failed raw dieter (TBD)
Someone who tried the raw food diet and didn’t like it and/or didn’t notice any changes. Could be found through word of mouth, asking around, etc.

Professional raw dieter (TBD).
There are many websites and blogs run by people who make a living at raw dieting (whether it’s writing cookbooks, advocating the lifestyle, or running their own restaurant). These people could be easily contacted via e-mail or phone (if a number is available).

Secondary Sources

At least 3 newspaper stories

Food Network: The Raw Food Diet

Article from The Hour

Vitality Magazine: Get in The Raw

Calgary Herald: Raw food movement catching on locally

Get Fresh Magazine

At least 3 primary source documents
Steve Pavlina’s Blog: 30-day Raw Food Trial

About.com – Alternative Medicine: The Raw Food Diet

The Best of Raw Food

Raw Food Meetings in Montreal

Living and Raw Food

Raw Food Directory

First and foremost, I don’t have patience watching these kinds of multimedia presentations; please don’t ask me why because I have no idea. Due to this, I probably wouldn’t be compelled to get through any online multimedia presentation on my own, no matter the subject matter, the navigation, the integration, etc.

With that said, here are my general comments about the two pieces.

I really enjoyed the Los Angeles Sun piece, considering the topic isn’t the most intriguing, I was surprised. The video screen was nice and big and the visuals attractive, and I like that you didn’t leave the main page when you switched videos. I also liked the informal feel of the camerawork. It felt very “hand-held” and felt a little more artsy in that it strayed from the rules of “proper” angles and shots.

I thought the map below the video was helpful in putting the story in a larger context, and the little fact bites beside the map did the same. I like that they changed in tandem with their complementing thought in the video, but it was distracting to want to read those while simultaneously watching the video. And, I don’t know if there was a problem with my internet connection, but it seemed the buffering was a little slow and the video got stuck at times- but it never lasted for more than a second or two.

The piece by the Dallas Morning News was very well done as well. It was a moving story and in reading that first paragraph on the left side of the video, and it made me curious to know this girl’s story. It also had appealing visuals, and I really liked that a mix of photographs and video was used. The girl’s voice was pleasant to listen to, and I was very thankful that they used subtitles and didn’t try to dub in a voice-over.

However, I didn’t finish this piece without complaint. The play bar on the video was distracting because it was so close to the subtitles. You didn’t have this problem with the LA Sun piece because the toolbar only appeared if you hovered over it, so I prefer that style. And I also didn’t like that it left the main screen to watch the videos, and you then had to switch back to get to the next video.