David Wolfe is one of the world’s leading authorities on raw-food nutrition. He is author of The Sunfood Diet Success System, Naked Chocolate, and Eating For Beauty. He has conducted over 800 lectures and performances worldwide on raw-food nutrition, and is co-founder of Nature’s First Law Online Superstore RawFood.com. David Wolfe’s achievements and worldly impressions could continue, could probably fill the space below this if one were to take into account every person he’s affected. And though that list alone has astounded many, it does not compare to the accomplishment I discovered upon meeting him in person. David Wolfe does not only talk the talk, he embodies the walk. And his ageless skin and the light in his eyes reveals the most beautiful data one could have to prove one’s beliefs. He is almost a living work of art - an inspirational alignment of the perfection of form and the food that he eats. Your new book, The Sunfood Diet Success System, initially came out in 1998. Why did you rewrite it?
For two reasons. Between ‘98 and right now I’ve given almost 800 public performances. Since then, I don’t have the same philosophies or opinions. I had subconsciously started to push myself away from that book in certain areas, and I thought: I really love this book. I have to bring it into alignment with who I am now.
It seems that you go through a constant growth with your philosophies. When I read the book, it felt so concrete. It’s hard for me to imagine you changing them. I mean, every single sentence is so loaded. It’s designed that way, yeah. See, one of the things that I learned when I was sixteen years old, was this: I was watching Mike Tyson (and that was when he was really up-and-coming and unbeatable), and his trainer said something that stuck with me forever. He said, when Mike Tyson throws a punch, he throws the punch to win. There’s nothing spent wasting or parrying an attack. I thought, “Whoa! I’ve never heard that sort of philosophy before. What that meant for me in life is that I don’t pull any punches. Every sentence is carrying weight. There’s not going to be any fluff or any distraction. Every sentence has got to be powerful or I don’t even want it in there.
In The Sunfood Diet Success System, you talk about the transformational technologies that apply to health. What are some of those key technologies?
I think the main thing is understanding the connection between our diet and our understanding of life. I feel they’re very closely related. When people eat junk food they have a totally different idea about what’s natural versus someone who eats wild wheats. If you take that out to its logical conclusion, it’s possible that part of the reason that we are really out of balance with the planet in terms of the natural cycles, is because of the food we’re eating. So, that’s a technological understanding in a certain way in the sense that it’s an insight that’s technological. Technology doesn’t always mean computers and calculators. It means understanding in order to create better leverage.
Do you really believe that if we are all healthy then the world can change and we can reverse environmental damages? Absolutely. In fact, I think with the technology that’s available, for example with brown’s gas which deactivates nuclear radiation almost instantly, with mushrooms which can eat up petroleum waste by-products. If the governments of the world all got into alignment and every army in the world stopped beating each other to death with weapons and got onto cleaning the planet and planting trees, within two weeks this planet would be completely transformed. I’m sure of that, actually. The real issue is, what is it going to take for us to actually really get behind healing the planet? Ultimately, what it’s going to take is an inner transformation. I mean, there’s no way we’re going to be able to go out there and tell everyone, “Hey, you have to stop polluting the planet with cars. You need to be planting trees.” They need to come to that conclusion themselves.
Why is it that they haven’t yet?
Food. It’s food. I know it is. And as strong a statement as that is, I’ll put that up against any other statement of a similar ilk. If you think about it, the reason why people behave erratically and irrationally is strongly correlated to their food habit. And you think, “Wha-what? How could that be?” Behavior is related to how we feel. And if you eat food that makes you feel terrible, your behavior’s going to be out of balance. If we eat food that makes us feel great, our behavior will be not only be in balance, but it will be in balance with the planet so that we’re behaving in a way that’s environmental and sustainable.
Do you think that people are unaware of the sickness that they feel or do you think that they’re so used to that weighted feeling of eating meat or that weighted sort of stagnant feeling that they have, that they are completely out of touch with their bodies?
I think it’s that. I think that most people are so completely out of touch with who they are and with their bodies that they have actually never felt completely good except when they were very young. I know that was the case with me. When I was like 5 or 6 years old I felt awesome. I felt great! But, as time has gone on in my life, I started feeling worse until eventually I got locked on raw food and then that completely flipped me around. All of a sudden I feel great everyday no matter what. That is startling news. That’s a big headline that we all should know about. And eating well should no longer be some silly South Beach diet or some ridiculous Atkins kind of a diet. That is outdated and inappropriate information. We’re talking about major amounts of pesticides, massive amounts of chemical solvents in our atmosphere, enormous quantities of artificial fertilizers being dumped in agriculture. The conventional food today is actually unfit to eat. Now, I know that cause I grew up on conventional food. And, I’ve been on organic food for fifteen years. Now I know very clearly the difference, cause obviously I’ve had these experiences.
What do you say in response to people saying, “You know, my grandma has been eating meat her whole life and she’s still alive…” Is there a difference between longevity and, since you focus on happiness, happiness? I mean, there are people that live to be pretty old ages and they are eating “regular things”. To what do you attribute their longevity?
Well, people aren’t really living longer, they’re dying longer. And I think that just careful observation will reveal that truth. When you see somebody who’s ninety, they’re not in the best shape possible. When you start really breaking it down and you look at someone who is in the best shape possible in their nineties, like Jack LaLanne, you will find out that he eats organic food, a massive part of his diet for the last seventy years has been raw food, he juices constantly, and he’s a fitness guru. He’s still completely together and he’s in his nineties. He’s really an American legend. Now, if you look at other people who are in their nineties, they aren’t in good shape. I wouldn’t want to be ninety and in that kind of shape. I would have wanted to check out of my body at that point. So, we have the technology now to keep people alive longer, but is that really doing them a service? Also, I feel like my grandmother’s generation had much much better food in their youth and vastly improved exercise. Overall, they lived more frugally. And then in the last, say, thirty or forty years things have changed substantially. What we’re finding out is that we have more cancer, more heart disease than ever before, more of all those kinds of problems, and more environmental degradation than ever before. And I’m going to actually pin that onto the food. I’m going to say that’s the point where we have to change. We have to look totally at our own behavior and say, “Let me do something that I can do. I can do organic. Let’s start there. I can have a salad everyday. I’ll start there. Vegetable juice? I’ll do that. Add cacao beans and goji berries into my diet? I can do that.” And then what ends up happening is you do that and all of a sudden, you are what you eat, that comes home to roost, and you’re like “Whoa. Something is different.” And you just follow that out til the point where your body just tells you: pizza, no longer a possibility. It’ll tell you that. You don’t have to try. One of the things about this is it’s not actually a diet, it’s a system, because once you’re on that system it just tells you what you have to do. You don’t have to try anymore. You don’t have to try to lose weight. There was a guy yesterday who lost 350 pounds.
Was that the guy you were talking to that was standing near you at the book signing at Whole Foods when I came by?
He was there with his wife. Did you catch him?
I don’t think so.
Now, he lost 350 pounds without trying because he just got on the good stuff. I mean, come on, 350 pounds! I probably know 40 cases of people who lost over a hundred pounds. I know of many cases of people who’ve lost over two hundred pounds on raw food. But that was the first 350 pound case I’d ever seen. But that’s common. It’s easy. It’s actually totally obvious. Once you get onto natural foods that haven’t been boiled, broiled, microwaved, insecticided, anti-bioticized, chemicalized, genetically modified, hormonally altered, things that are natural and grow out of the earth, your body’s gonna go: Oh! I know what to do with this.
Just curious. Have you ever tried to eat anything bad just to see what happens? I’m so far from that. I think people need to go through that process as they evolve their diet. And, what’ll happen is they’ll say, “I’ve been good for three months. Let me go and eat pizza with my friends.” And then they feel what happens. Their body can’t deal with it. And then the taste is gone. You’ll eat it and you’ll go, “This tastes like soggy cardboard. What happened to the taste?” Then there’s a startling revelation that does occur, and that is raw food has vastly more taste than cooked food. And you can’t really know that unless you explore it. It’s an experiential thing. But once you know it, you really know it.
You talk a lot about beauty in The Sunfood Diet Success System and in your book Naked Chocolate. What is beautiful to you?
Beauty ultimately emanates from a heart opening. From becoming more loving. That’s ultimately the real source of beauty. What’s a tool or technology that we can use to open our hearts? Food. One of the greatest ways is cacao or chocolate. The raw chocolate. It’s one of the greatest tools to open your heart and to step into compassion as an energy. And that’s one of the reasons why I’m not into blaming, or saying “We have to stop them over there.” Because that’s impossible. We cannot stop them over there. We have to work on here. I believe that people want to do the right thing in their heart. But their heart might be so clattered, they might be so out of touch with themselves that they don’t know what the right thing is. And one of the ways that we’re reaching out to people is through food. It’s now common knowledge that the food today is toxic, but people eat it cause they don’t know what else to do. But once they know what else to do, they’re ready and willing to do it. I mean, it is incredible what is happening with the whole natural foods industry right now. People coming in by the millions. It’s that big of a thing. It’s by far the fastest growing segment of the entire food industry. It’s growing at a rate of 28% per year.
How long do you think before it’s adopted by fast food restaurants like McDonalds and/or before those places go out of business?
I don’t think that those giants are going to go out of business because they’re smart enough to adapt to the times. I think what we’re going to see is eventually an organic food option on those menus. I think you’re going to see that with some of the more conscious businesses, at least in their main offices, like Wal-Mart. You think Wal-Mart! Oh my God. They’re trashing the planet! But, in fact Wal-Mart is making a major move towards organic food and a major move towards biodiesel fuels for their trucking fleet.
Wal-Mart?
Wal-Mart is. Because we’re reaching them. We’re reaching the people who run those operations. We’re getting there. You know, I’ve talked to people who run major networks like MTV and VH1. I’m in the offices of those executives and they want to do the right thing. They’re going to. We’re going to see, at the highest levels of media, a complete flipping around to get the message out there. I’m actually really surprised. I was hoping that McDonalds would just disappear, but I guess that’s not going to happen.
I was hoping that too, but that right there, that’s pinning our hopes and our happiness on someone else’s desire to change, someone else’s failure, someone else’s misfortune. I personally had to get out of that whole kind of consciousness and get into thinking, “Ok. What can I control?” I can actually control my own food, I can control my own thoughts and my own emotional reactions to different things that happen in my life. And that’s where you’ve got to start. You have to start in that place.
Do you think that, if there weren’t so many chemicals infused into meat and dairy products they would be acceptable to eat?
Well, I believe in individual choice, but because I believe that our peaceful philosophy begins at breakfast, I believe we can’t have peace in the world with killing. It’s not possible. Now, I don’t eat dairy and I don’t eat meat. I’m still alive and functioning and very happy and it’s all good. But I don’t believe that the type of diet that I’m on is for everybody. But, I believe that organic raw food can play a very crucial role in everyone’s diet at the level that they can do it.
I have a philosophical question. This was sort of on the subject of beauty. You mention seeing your body as a work of art and I just think back to so many artists and really crazy inspirational people who, in order for them to create their art, depended on drugs-on heroin, on all of those things. I’m wondering about the idea of sacrificing your body for your art. If you could go back in time, would you tell the Jazz greats…
Or like Jim Morrison… …
Yeah. Would you tell them to stop doing drugs and would art be sacrificed?
Well, I think that what’s happening in those cases, in particular with artists, is that artists are looking for a high that delivers the inspiration that allows the art to flow through. It’s like a channel. But the trick is, how do you maintain or sustain that level of inspirational high? That’s where we come in right now in the year 2006 with this whole raw food trip. Because the raw food trip is basically a way of maintaining a super high level of creativity and inspiration constantly with no low. With no wipeout. With no hangover. No sacrifice. So basically what I’m saying is you can reach levels of inspirational creativity that exceed heroin, pot, cocaine, alcohol, all of those things sustainably and are more fun than all of those things 100% naturally. That’s major news. And in fact, a lot of people who get into raw food, I’d say, it’s almost everybody who’s in my age group who gets into raw food in really a full-on kind of a way, are former cocaine addicts, heroin addicts, alcoholics, the whole show. Because somewhere in their psyche, when they were young, they knew that they were supposed to be feeling good. You often refer to life as a cosmic joke.
Cosmic giggle.
Cosmic giggle joke. What do you mean by that?
All you have to do is look around. The intensity of the pain, the destruction in the world, is so great that we actually can’t take it on. There’s only one reaction we can have to it and that’s: It’s gotta be a joke. This has got to be some kind of a cosmic giggle.
What specifically is very painful for you to see?
For example, the amount of pollution that’s going on, the total greed and corruption of the government, the way people treat each other. If we take that seriously, we’ll end up killing or destroying ourselves. The only reasonable way to take that on and to observe that is to observe that as humorous. And when you do that, what’s interesting is that actually, it is humorous. It’s actually hilarious. It’s like a comedy. It’s like the Marx Brothers or something. All you have to do is look at the U.S. government. That’s like the Muppet Show. As much as there’s disease, greed, famine, hate, anger, we can’t really take that stuff too seriously, otherwise we’re going to get in trouble. We’re going to end up blaming or pointing our fingers at others. And ultimately that’s just an illusion. What’s real is your reaction to that stuff, and if you react with pain and hate, you’re going to manifest that in your body, but if you react with joy- I mean, I look at stuff like war and I’m overjoyed.
(I’m laughing.) How about that one? I’m overjoyed. It’s actually comedy. People say, “You’ve completely lost your mind.” Well, the thing for me is there’s no war goin’ on in here. Everything’s perfect. And if they’re going to try to recruit me, I’ll walk to Antarctica. There’s no problem there. I’m completely at peace with myself. So, what’s going on out there, I don’t really have any reaction to it. It’s just like total comedy. People say, “Well, we have to do something to stop them over there.” Impossible. We cannot change the government. We cannot change anybody. We cannot change our mom, nothing. What we have to do is reinterpret what our mom, dad, grandma, government means to us. In that reinterpretation we find either total joy or total despair.
Speaking of parents, both of your parents are medical doctors, which I found really interesting.
Now you really know what the secret of the joke is. I grew up in a doctor’s office. Can you imagine?
I’m guessing that you have pretty complex feelings about western medicine, then? Would you turn to it for your medical needs?
It depends on the situation. I think that Western medicine does have some value. If you get into a car accident, you break your leg in five places, Western medicine is probably the best way to put yourself back together. At the same time, if you have some kind of a chronic condition, let’s say chronic viral condition or cancer or diabetes, Western medicine is going to put you on a program that’s going to lead you to a very serious health challenge. In fact, it might even kill you. If I was diagnosed with cancer, for example…One of my best friends healed himself of cancer when both his dad and his brother died of the same cancer and he lived.
You also talk about faith a lot in your book. Do you mean faith in God?
Well, the way I describe it in the book is that faith is a belief in things that are invisible. It’s an understanding that, in order to really manifest things in your life, you have to take a chance. And the only way you’re going to take a chance on anything is if you have faith that it’s going to work out. I believe one of the big trials of our civilization is, do we have faith? And also, are we so ungrounded when we have faith, that we actually put so much trust in God that we don’t tie up our camels. And then people walk away with our furniture. So there’s a balance of faith.
You mention human instinct, as well. What is our basic human instinct? I think that at the root of it all, every person knows what’s right, and that’s what I mean by that. That’s our instinct. That’s our intuition. Are they going to act on it? Are they going to think in that way? Are they going to speak in a way that’s consistent with what they know is right? That’s a whole other question. But I believe intuitively in everyone’s hearts they actually know what’s right and wants to do what’s right. One of the things I do at my seminars is to give people options, so at the end of the day, if they’ve had juice or a superfood smoothie or if they’ve had cacao beans or something, they actually feel that they’ve done something good for themselves and the planet. And that is so important to have the feeling at the end of the day. It’s something I completely take for granted.
I love that additive element you’ve established, where you’re adding positive things as opposed to taking away certain foods.
Right. That doesn’t work. That’s against human nature, actually. What’s in human nature is adding things in that make you feel good that tastes good and that we know is good for the planet. What’s against human nature is saying no. It’s just superfoods basic psychology. We have to say yes to everything with the understanding that some choices may be better than others. And in the hierarchy of choices, raw foods and organic seem to be some of the best choices and that’s why we start there cause it’s so basic. I mean, everybody eats.
s there organic meat?
Yeah, it’s out there. It’s 100% up to you. I’ve come to a place in my life where I don’t want to be associated with killing. Now, that’s just me. That does not mean that humans have never eaten meat or that we shouldn’t eat meat, whatever. I want to give people the meatless option. I mean, we’ve done the meat thing ‘til we turned red and has it made the world better or worse? I think we all have to decide that for ourselves.
You also talk about magic powers. You believe in magic?
I believe in different levels of reality. One is just the physical, normal reality that we all engage in on an everyday basis, and kind of our mainstream cultural identity of what’s real. I also believe in magical realities because I’ve experienced them on occasion to such intense a degree that I can’t just go, “Oh, this is a coincidence.” When things happen at such an intensity, like a series of synchronicities in a row, it does cause you to change your belief about things.
Have you ever experienced magic in the way we traditionally think of magic? Yes. I’ve known very powerful psychics, like Uri Geller is a good friend of mine. Uri Geller was very popular in the seventies for bending spoons on TV, and then the people who’d be watching him, all of a sudden their spoons in their cupboards would bend. On his website you can see him sprouting a seed in his hand and it’s not an illusion. And that’s what’s amazing. I know him personally. I’ve been to his house. I’ve seen him bend a spoon in front of me. He’s bent the spoon when it was in my hand. He has telekinesis. He can move objects with his mind. All those things that are supposed to be not real ARE actually, in fact, real. They’re aberrant. They’re rare. But they do occur. Now, what in the world does that mean? I’ve been trying to integrate this stuff into my belief system for years and I finally just had to let go of all of it. I mean, it’s real. It’s happening. I’m just with it. I no longer disbelieve things that have been proven to me right before my very eyes just because some cultural imprint says don’t believe this.
Has Uri Geller done any other cool magic tricks for you?
Yeah. He had me draw a picture one time. I drew this picture, I couldn’t even see what I was drawing because I was so concerned, like thinking maybe there’s a mirror or something, and so I drew this picture, you know? After I drew it, I put it inside a book, and he was turned around the other way. And he said, “OK, are you ready?” And I said “Yes.” And he turns around and faces me, just like us right now, and he says “OK. Here’s what I’m going to do. Look me in the eye and I want you to visualize what you drew and I’m gonna draw it.” I was like, “OK, Cool.” So, he’s drawing it like this, ok, looking me in the eyes. And, this is how sure of his power he is: He goes, “Is this what you drew?” Of course it was what I drew. And he said “Watch this!” and he grabs my piece of paper from under the book and he superimposes it on top of his picture and it was a photocopy.
What?
It was a photocopy. It was exactly the same.
In other words he didn’t even see that…
He didn’t see – he’s so sure of his power that he knows that he’s going to draw the exact image. So what do you attribute that to? What is that?
I don’t know! It’s magic. I don’t know! Your mind tries to fit this into a logical structure of reality, but in fact it doesn’t fit. And that’s one of the great things about raw food. It’s a lever that gets you out of this constricted, materialistic view of reality, which is a valuable tool in certain scientific paradigms, but is not the whole nature of the game. And that right there, the understanding of magic or of spirit or of true profound possibility is totally healing when somebody takes that on who’s been in a total scientific paradigm. When they take that on in their heart, it heals them incredibly. And that’s one of the reasons why I think that raw food is so powerful because it causes those things to happen inside your own life and then you decide yourself that the whole scientific paradigm has a few holes in it and that magic exists too.
Why is your middle name Avocado?
That’s a good question. My cousin named me that a dozen years ago. Originally it was ‘Fats Avocado’, like ‘Fats Domino’. And then, it just became Avocado over the years. My full name is really Avocado Noni Cacao.
Ok. So let’s say we all achieve happiness through raw foods. What’s next? What comes after happiness?
That’s a great question. I think that happiness itself is the goal, because when you’re in happiness you’re living in natural magic. And therefore, you are in the zone of the unexpected and there’s always a surprise awaiting around every corner. One of the things about our culture is that we’ve got everything boxed up and packaged and perfectly contained, so we lose the uncertainty in our lives. But we want certainty and we also have a need for uncertainty. It’s a big part of being conscious beings on this planet.
Posted by Rebecca White on May 5th, 2006 under Food, Recipes, Interviews, Spirituality, Culture, Books, Holistic Health. Comments: 2 | EMail This Post
Comments
Comment from I have no name (personal designation) Uzi Sovereign
Time: January 11, 2007, 11:04 am
I have just started back on the path to eating ALL RAW FRUITS AND VEGETABLS. I was a RAW VEGAN for 3 years. My wife had cancer and we were searching out healthy alternatives to radiation and chemotherapy. I finally lost her to the cancer and my concentration was shattered. I lost her back in April 04… I stopped taking care of myself and slipped back into the “comfort” of cooked (read dead) food. I have teamed up with an accountability partner and I am striving to get back on total raw food and take somebody with me in the process ;). I was just wondering what new developments are out there concerning raw foods. Thanks, Uzi
Comment from Rebecca White
Time: January 20, 2007, 7:14 pm
Hello
I am so sorry for your loss. I am not sure about the new developments on raw foods, however I know that if you go to David’s site there are sure to be some great bits of information and advice. I have had health concerns lately as well, and am now a vegetarian. For me, it just feels the healthiest and the most calming diet. Though I’m not raw, it seems to be quite a rejuvinating life choice. Good luck to you and good health!
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