Raw in New York City at Bonobos

Before I moved to Arizona to work at the Tree of Life, I used to have a weekly ritual. I would drive to the East Village in Manhattan on Saturday mornings, take an intensely wonderful and cathartic Jivamukti yoga class and then head to my fave raw food places for a treat! I would take turns going to Caravan of Dreams, Pure Food Takeout, Bonobos, High Vibe, Quintessence – wherever my mood and desire took me that day. Sometimes I would meet up with friends. Others times I preferred to go it alone. So when I recently learned that Matt Monarch would be speaking at Bonobos, I thought I would resurrect my old “me day” custom and head on to NYC to hear his talk on raw food.

Matt Monarch has been a raw foodist for 9 years and wrote the books, Raw Spirit and Raw Success. He has a wonderful raw web store with lots of great products called The Raw Food World. He’s a very charismatic speaker and knows his stuff. The thing I found most interesting during his presentation was how raw food awakened a spiritual side in him that he had never experienced previously. He was a self-described partyer, president of his fraternity and admitted that spirituality was the farthest thing from his awareness. Then after getting deep into raw food, he instinctively began meditating and had “epiphanies” and lucid dreams. “Whoa…that was new!” So he went straight to his bookstore, asked for the spirituality section and began researching what was happening to him. Quite a fascinating story to hear him convey and not an uncommon one among high raw foodists.

(Raw Food Author/Speaker Matt Monarch and Kali Lilla)

After Matt was finished, Phillip from LovingRaw.com spoke for twenty minutes. He has a tremendous story as well. Two years ago, Phillip weighed 400lbs. The day before he was scheduled for gastric bypass surgery and after attempting every diet under the sun, he decided to try the one diet he hadn’t – the raw food diet. He went “cold turkey” 100% raw and lost nearly 200lbs! That’s half his weight and he’s been 100% raw since. He too said that the most amazing thing about adopting a raw food diet, even MORE THAN the physical benefits, was how it awakened the spiritual side of him. Now THAT’S a powerful statement! And still another transformation worth mentioning is that of Matt’s fiancee, Angela Stokes. Angela weighed 280lbs and lost half her weight as well. I met Angela briefly when she came to visit TOL. Check out her before and after pictures on RawReform.com

After these two awesome speakers, I worked up an appetite and sat down for a yummy Bonobos salad with macadamia nut pate, tomatoes, greens and my beloved sprouts of course. Then I walked to the East Village, hit the Union Square farmer’s market and finally headed on home. A great raw day in NYC!

(Yummy raw Bonobos salad for under $8 bucks!)

Debbie

Thanks for all the new links! Sounds like a great time out. I am checking them out as we speak. I did love Caravan of Dreams in NYC!
Adam Waters

Yeah Debbie! COD was a very cool place! Maybe next time we go back Lilla will be the guest speaker!
KaliLilla.com

Yeah, Debbie – Caravan was a fun time. Today I’m posting a recipe for your COD beverage pick. Watch for it!

Haha Adam! That would be fun. Who knows? Stranger things have happened.
juli gets happy

Hey Lilla, Thank you for all the new links as well.
Sounds delicious waht they serve and the information is mind-blowing…love your new blog a lot and will brwose through the last two weeks.

Love, Juli
Marbella

Your blog is so pretty today with all the photos. I have no idea how to do that, so am right now bowing low to you and your PC knowledge. You are the BEST!

DEBBIE told me to be sure and check out the new things you have, so that´s my next move. Wish I could go to NYC and check out some raw stuff….
Lynda
KaliLilla.com

Welcome back Juli! You’ve been missed. Am so looking forward to hearing about your holiday. I’m going to your blog right now to see if you’ve posted! Love, Lil
KaliLilla.com

Thank you Lynda! With your garden, I’m sure you’ve got some raw goodies better than NYC.
gastricbypasssurgery

Your post is really too nice really I like your information about health. Your news is very well for heavy person. Now this time you can reduce your extra weight with the help of Gastric bypass surgery it is great for every heavy person and it have no any side effects so it is safe for heavy person.
http://www.philipmccluskey.com/latest-updates Press Updates • Philip McCluskey

[...] Lovely article written on Matt Monarch and I, from out lecture in NYC, click here. [...]