Emily von Euw
Emily von Euw
Emily von Euw is the author of the Bestselling books Rawsome Vegan Baking and 100 Best Juices, Smoothies and Healthy Snacks. She is the creator of the blog This Rawsome Vegan Life, winner of The Vegan Woman's Vegan Food Blog Award and named one of the Top 50 Raw Food Blogs by the Institute for the P sychology of Eating. She was a featured speaker at the Vancouver Veg Expo and Spokane Vegfest. [0]
Emily about herself:
"I put tahini on everything.
I dance a lot.
I eat plants because I love my body, the planet, and other beings.
When I eat food I want it to be beautiful, but not merely in taste.
I want it to nourish my body and brain, work symbiotically with the earth, and allow other earthlings their right for freedom and justice."
Early life
"It's an intimate and colourful place (albeit on the unceded territories of Coast Salish nations)."
Her parents were always into the home cooked meals and generally into healthy eating, but she says that they were still pretty mainstream as far as the foods they were eating.
They’d get frozen burritos sometimes and occasionally go for fast food.
"I think we were still weighted toward more homemade and healthy food, though, and I was always interested in being healthy, but I was also really into baking with lots of butter and stuff like that too.
I wanted to open my own bakery.
And at the same time I was like, “How can I be healthier and fitter?” I think partially the focus on being healthy or being fitter was definitely influenced by society’s pressures on women to look a certain way.
That has definitely evolved into something way healthier."
Her mom had been vegetarian in her twenties - Emily thinks it was mostly because she had no money.
She was kind of a Hippie. Her parents met volunteering in Thailand. She says that they’re pretty open-minded. So, when she was sixteen she decided to go Vegan.
"I remember thinking, “Wait, why are we drinking cow’s milk if we’re adult humans?
This doesn’t make that much sense.
I love animals.
Who doesn’t love animals?
Oh, yeah; they have to die for me to eat meat.
Maybe that’s not cool.
And I started learning about the environmental consequences of animal agriculture, which are huge - more impactful than all transportation combined (which I think a lot of people don’t know).
So it just was the logical decision."
She made the switch to veganism overnight, telling herself she would try it for 30 days, but by the second day or so, she knew she would be vegan for life.
"It wasn't one hundred percent for the animals or for the environment.
I was a young girl wanting to conform to society’s expectations.
I definitely wasn’t eating enough at first.
That was kind of a rough time.
I was so excited about this new way of living and the fact that I wasn’t supporting animal exploitation anymore and all these things, but I just wasn’t really eating enough.
I was getting too obsessed about trying to eat raw all the time.
Fortunately, that has developed into a much healthier way of life and I’m all about not restricting now, and it’s all good.
And my parents saw that too.
They’re quite happy with where I am now."
Over the years her parents eat mostly vegan themselves.
"They said that they eat vegan ninety nine percent of the time.
Sometimes they’ll call themselves ‘flexitarians.’ It’s totally true.
Our freezer is just full of gardeen.
They’ll only bring out real fish when we have relatives staying with us, but usually they’re just trying to preach the vegan message to anybody who will listen.
My dad prefers tofurkey dogs over processed animal meat hotdogs now.
I love that!
I kind of take it for granted, and I’m so proud of them.
They weren’t super skeptical at first, but I don’t think they ever expected that they would get as into it as they are.”
She also has 2 brothers.
Her older brother is in law school, while her little brother still lives at home with her and her parents.
"My older brother literally sticks his nose up when there’s vegan food.
I don’t know why, but that’s his two cents on it.
My younger brother is actually a really cool smart guy.
He gets why I’m vegan.
He totally respects it.
For a while, he was like, “I can see myself being vegan or vegetarian eventually.”
Frankly I can still see him transitioning into that kind of a lifestyle, but for the time being, he really likes frozen pizza and tater tots and things like that.
I guess tater tots are vegan, actually.
And he also likes making his own food.
He’s an intelligent person.
He gets the vegan thing.
He just hasn’t adopted it himself at this point."
Mental illness
Emily posing
She has always struggled with Depression and she deals with Anxiety as well.
"Mental illness is challenging to live with, but I manage.
Having a good social support system is invaluable, as is forming healthy habits that keep me in a positive mental state (ex.
meditation, eating whole foods, biking in the sun).
I take anti-depressants and have no shame around it: we all need to do whatever works for us."
Recovery story
Emily posing
Emily in bikini
Emily smiling
She suffered from Disordered eating at the beginning of her raw vegan journey when she was around the age of 17.
"I became vegan because it made sense to me; if you care about others, yourself and the environment, you should eat a plant-based diet.
Soon after becoming vegan I learned about the raw food diet and lifestyle, and the logic behind it also resonated with me.
That is, the idea that raw foods are the healthiest foods on the planet because they are the least processed, their enzymes are still intact, and all other animal species eat only raw food… so it must be the most natural, and therefore healthy, diet!"[5]
Yet, in turning to the Raw food diet, she made several mistakes.
Firstly, after researching the lifestyle online and in books, she convinced herself that she should strive to eat 100% raw if she wants to be truly healthy.
"Of course, I have learned this is not true.
Humans have been eating cooked food since approximately 250,000 years ago and our bodies have evolved to handle it.
The strongest civilizations throughout history have based their diets on cooked grains and vegetables."
Secondly, she learned to see all cooked food as poisonous and bad for her and she felt guilty whenever she wanted to eat – and did eat – cooked food, even if it was just steamed broccoli or brown rice.
"This was not healthy because guilt and self-loathing are never healthy, but it was also unhealthy because I have since discovered I do best with cooked food in my diet, and if I eat all raw for too long I begin to feel weak."
And finally, she did not eat enough.
"I think some folks can probably live on an all raw diet long term, but the amounts of food you need to eat are enormous (2,000-4,000 calories a day).
I only ate a few pieces of fruit a day, and I was always craving other food I felt guilty about eating.
It was a nasty cycle."
After trying to eat all raw for several months she began to feel weak, light-headed, and tired all the time.
She was exercising a lot, but after an hour of cardio she’d only have a plate of fruit and thought that should be enough.
She dropped to about 100 pounds, and technically she was Underweight.
"My parents were concerned and told me I should gain weight, but in my head I was proud of my unusually low BMI and wanted to lose even more pounds."
Once she let herself stop feeling bad about eating cooked foods, which took a long time and was not easy, she naturally came to a diet that was similar to 80/10/10.
She ate as much fruit and veggies as she wanted, she drank huge smoothies all day and then had a dinner of rice and veggies, most days.
But because she make so many Raw vegan dessert recipes for her blog, she was also eating a lot of fat in the form of nuts and coconut oil.
"For the first two years of being vegan, I always felt great eating that much fat, but gradually I noticed if I had too many nuts in a day I’d feel bloated and groggy.
I started cutting down a bit, and then I discovered 80/10/10!
Well, actually I had read the book “80/10/10” when I first got into raw food, but I mostly just took away from it the fact that you should eat all fruit, and that played a role in my disordered eating for awhile.
But now when I think of the term 80/10/10 I think of Raw Til 4.
So I discovered Raw Til 4 and thought “Hey!
This is pretty much what I am doing, but these people basically eat no fat and they eat more fruit and veg than I currently am.
Let’s try this out!” It worked for a few months and I felt really good, but it was exhausting eating so MUCH all the time."
She still eats a diet that is close to 80/10/10 or Raw Til 4, but on her own terms: fruit smoothies all day, then rice and veg for dinner.
But she is not afraid to use coconut oil in stir-frys, or nuts in her Raw vegan recipes.
"I love avocado, coconut, and all nuts and seeds!
I feel great when I have small amounts of them in my diet.
I think the only issues I might have with 80/10/10 or Raw Til 4 is that they could possibly create a fear of fat for some people, and in a broader way: it is a diet that tells you that there is something you shouldn’t eat.
The problem with that is it can make you feel guilty for craving or eating that food, it doesn’t matter what it is."
Motto
"Do what works for you.
Eat what makes you feel your best, and be conscious of the effects that your food has on everyone involved."
Education
Career
Emily in TV
On October 2011 her parents got her to start her blog after always trying her raw vegan dessert creations.
They would usually react, “You NEED to put this on the internet!”, [12]so soon after she created her YouTube channel and Food blog, This Rawsome Vegan Life, where she creates, photographs and shares wholesome plant-based recipes that everyone can enjoy. She is a freelance recipe developer and contributor to Vega’s Recipe Center and the author of the best-selling raw vegan desserts cookbook, Rawsome Vegan Baking, and as well as 100 Best Juices, Smoothies & Healthy Snacks. [6]
Dream
She dreams of buying some land in BC and build a simple home to live in with animal companions and blackberry bushes.
Passions
Emily dancing
Aside from recipe design and development Emily enjoys Yōga, Yōga, Hiking, Camping, Kayaking, Reading, Photography and many more artistic and outdoor experiences. [13] She has always been into various forms of art, whether it be writing or painting or drawing or photography. She really liked abstract photography and landscape photography.
"When I started my food blog, I was like, “Oh, okay, I’ve got to get this together, because these photos are not looking good.”
If you go back to some of my earliest posts, the photos are so… I thought they were good at the time, but now…"[12]
Favourite food
Her favourites are always changing, and lately there were: rice and potatoes with tomato sauce.
"But when I want something more colourful: greens with shredded beets and carrots plus a ginger tahini dressing and tomatoes from the garden with corn from the farmers market."
Books
Rawsome Vegan Baking
It's all about raw, vegan and gluten-free desserts.
There are about 100 recipes, all with their own full page colour photo.
There are also chapters about equipment, ingredients, storage, and useful tips.
"I want you to get this book and rejoice at the endless magical possibilities that come with simple, wholesome ingredients like dried fruit, coconut oil, seeds and nuts."
100 Best Juices, Smoothies & Healthy Snacks
It's filled with raw, vegan, wholesome recipes for juices, smoothies, soups, mylks, mylkshakes, and healthy snacks like kale chips and energy bars.
Nearly every recipe has a full page colour photo to go with it, and she provides chapters on recommended equipment, methods, ingredients and more!
"This a perfect cookbook for everyday recipe making."
The Rawsome Vegan Cookbook
"I am so excited about this one since I thiiiiink it's my best yet.
My photos have definitely gotten better and I had all the recipes tested twice by readers around the world.
It's a vibrant mix of about 80 raw and cooked recipes, with a full page colour photo for nearly every recipe.
All gluten-free, all vegan, all delish, all quick and easy to make."
Awards
Her blog This Rawsome Vegan Life won the The Vegan Woman's Vegan Food Blog Award and was named one of the Top 50 Raw Food Blogs by the Institute for the P sychology of Eating.