Raw Energy

For people who suspect the answer to everything might be in a carrot.

Raw Energy (1987) by Leslie Kenton and Susannah Kenton is the book that happens when the 1980s health revolution discovers fruit, vegetables and a blender, then decides to write a manifesto about it. Before cold-pressed juice bars, Instagram smoothie bowls and “clean eating” influencers, there were the Kentons saying: what if you just didn’t cook the food in the first place?

This is the classic Arrow Books paperback, ISBN: 9780099468103, a complete lifestyle kit for the person who looks at their oven with deep suspicion. Inside you’ll find the full raw-food starter pack: sprouting things in jars, soaking nuts like they’ve wronged you, and turning unsuspecting vegetables into drinks, pâtés and desserts with unnerving enthusiasm. There are recipes, explanations, charts, and that peculiar 80s conviction that if you eat enough alfalfa you will become a being of light.

The Kentons cheerfully explain how cooking destroys precious enzymes, vitamins, life force and probably your aura, while uncooked food delivers RAW ENERGY (always in capitals in your head) that will make you vibrant, slim, clear-skinned and slightly insufferable at dinner parties. Expect:

• Juices in shades no human skin should ever be.

• Salads that are technically engineering projects.

• Sweet things made from carob, dates and optimism.

• Practical advice on stocking your kitchen with seeds, sprouts, mysterious powders and at least one blender that sounds like a small aircraft.

This copy is in Condition: Good, as assessed by the unflinching eye of Crappy Old Books, which usually means:

• The cover is intact with some light creasing—like a celery stick that’s been through a few smoothies but still has crunch.

• The spine may show gentle lines from previous readings, possibly during heroic New Year “this time I mean it” health kicks.

• The pages are all present and firmly attached; no missing charts on how many sunflower seeds it takes to reach enlightenment.

• Mild tanning to the paper, which is ironic in a book so strongly opposed to things being “cooked”.

You may also encounter:

• The odd pencilled tick next to recipes that someone actually tried, probably in 1993 after watching a terrifying documentary about sugar.

• A faint whiff of nostalgia for a time when “detox” meant eating apples for three days, not buying a £300 juicer with Wi-Fi.

Perfect for:

• Raw-food enthusiasts who want to see what the movement looked like before social media filters and mason jars.

• Health-curious sceptics who enjoy reading the gospel of sprouts while eating biscuits.

• Vintage cookbook collectors who appreciate a good period piece in which carob is taken very seriously indeed.

• Anyone launching their 37th life reboot and needing a new set of recipes to not quite follow.

So here it is: Raw Energy (1987), Condition: Good, as sold by Crappy Old Books—a slightly worn, enthusiastically earnest manual from the days when the future of humanity was believed to lie in raw carrots, green juice and an unwavering commitment to never boiling anything ever again.

Keep browsing: See more Food books Other books by Leslie Kenton and Susannah Kenton