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VOD O
Story by Dana Kudelka Photos by Matt Buccambuso
n the corner of West Liberty Street and Arlington Avenue, snuggled in between Crush Salon and a residential home, lies Reno’s premier raw food cuisine eatery. In a room no wider than 20 feet, with walls covered in dirty yellow paint, Vod, formerly Rawjuvenation, houses Reno’s only restaurant focused solely on raw food. Vod offers freshly-blended beverages and handmade meals-to-go that, because of their raw nature, contain no processed sugar, dairy or gluten. Raw food involves weaving more nutrition into a regular human’s diet with less toxic food. So what’s the difference between a raw diet and a vegan diet? None of the food is cooked, as it’s believed to remove the healthy nutrients. One other major difference between a raw food diet and a vegan diet is that non-organic nuts are not encouraged. “Wheat and grains are not part of the raw food diet,” says Schall Adams, Vod’s manager and only certified raw food chef. “Meals that are nut-heavy are typically pre-made products. It’s different from eating nuts in the wild, because of the energy expenditure put into opening the shell and digesting it yourself. In regular meals, people grab handfuls of nuts versus eating a few in the wild.” As a substitute for processed sugar, Adams uses agave and tamari. Agave derives from cactus nectar whereas tamari comes from soybeans and is gluten-free and organic. While some raw foodists believe in eating raw meat, like fish or basashi, a Japanese horsemeat low in saturated fats, Adams does not prepare raw meats. “The whole process is really difficult,” she says. “If any step were missed, the meal would no longer be healthy.”
Raw Beginnings Vod originally began as a raw food retail co-op. Now it features a juice bar where you can sit and enjoy your drink or entree. The interest in transitioning the deli into a juice bar came after Adams, who taught classes on how to properly prepare raw food, discussed the possibility with the former co-owners of Rawjuvenation almost a year ago. When her company, The Healing Meal LLC, received a request from thenmanagers of Rawjuvenation to teach proper raw food preparation in January 2006, Adams jumped on board. Adams wanted her classes to focus on learning raw food nutrition while enjoying raw food cuisine. She has themes incorporated into each class, ranging from divine desserts to preparing raw holiday meals. Adams says everyone who attends her classes is interested in learning new recipes and how to properly prepare their meals. “There’s a range in people who attend my classes,” she says. “From single men to teenagers to people in their 30s, 40s, even 50s.” She met 27-year-old Ben Child, now a chef at Vod, when Child helped cater an event for Adams in Seattle this past November. Adams was so impressed with Child that she invited him to work for her in Reno. “He lasted the entire eight hours without complaining,” she says, smiling. Child worked odd construction jobs in Washington when he and his friends became involved with raw food. They would throw whatever food they could find into a blender, he says. From
Ben Child, a chef at Vod, prepares a salad.Vod, a deli in downtown Reno formerly called Rawjuvenation, caters to those who enjoy raw food. “There’s so much more flavor to raw food than regular food,” says Child.