Meet 65 year old vegan raw food pioneer and the forever young Karyn Calabrese.
Her positive attitude and boundless energy have helped her maintain the longest operating raw food restaurant in the United States. Karyn’s passion for clean living and her love of life are her greatest motivations. She has been eating a plant based diet for over 40 years, and feels amazing despite her family history working against her: her mother, grandmother and great grandmother died at ages younger than she is now.
Her positive attitude and boundless energy have helped her maintain the longest operating raw food restaurant in the United States. Karyn’s passion for clean living and her love of life are her greatest motivations. She has been eating a plant based diet for over 40 years, and feels amazing despite her family history working against her: her mother, grandmother and great grandmother died at ages younger than she is now.
Her motto: “If you don’t take care of your body, where are you going to live?”
Karyn has been featured on many national popular television programs such as The Oprah Winfrey Show, CBS Sunday Morning News and NBC’s The Today Show, plus featured in Chicago’s two largest newspapers the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times. She has also been honored with the First Annual Raw and Living Foods Golden Branch Award in 2002 for introducing the idea of raw and living foods to the greatest number of people in mainstream society.
She says,
"I have more energy then I know what to do with. I truly believe it is the life style I lead…I had every allergy known to man. I was a mess — terrible skin, so I became vegetarian first, then I became a vegan, then I met Dr. Ann Wigmore after reading her book. It was the next thing for me to move forward to becoming a raw foodist.”
Over thirty years ago, she used raw foods and detoxification to heal herself of her physical ailments and has since been a radiant example of the incredible benefits of plant-based living.
"People have so many excuses why they can’t be healthy: “It costs too much,” “It’s too far away,” “It’s too difficult,” “It’s too hard,” “I don’t have the time.” You have a myriad of excuses why you can’t take care of the most magnificent and the best thing you’ll ever be given in your life, right? So, my statement is helping people to remember that if you don’t take care of the most magnificent thing you’ll ever be given, you’ll have no place to live."
With the unfortunate passing of her mother at age 48, grandmother at 50, and great-grandmother at 60 due to health problems, Karyn became determined not to repeat this sad family history, but to create a healthful future for herself.
"I don’t know what illness is; I don’t know of being tired, it just isn’t a part of my world or my vocabulary. And I directly relate that to the lifestyle that I have evolved into. So because I was a very sickly child and a sick young adult – I had every allergy known to man, I had terrible skin, I had PMS, I was constipated all the time – my mother had introduced to me to vegetable juicing."
She goes on to say: "So I kind of started the vegetable juicing. And the more I did, the more I wanted to learn, because I believe that we intuitively know what’s right for ourselves; we’re born knowing from God telling us how to take care of our bodies. We’ve just forgotten because the world is so bizarre, and there’re so many bizarre things out there to attract your attention. So, as I started cleansing my body with the vegetable juices, I developed a natural repulsion to red meat.
And once again, I don’t believe it’s a natural human instinct to eat dead flesh. I think it’s a learned experience, and I think everybody does it so it feels comfortable. But I don’t think it’s natural to human beings. And so, my body evolved into being a vegan. I haven’t had meat, fish, chicken or dairy for over 40 years now, and it has served me very well. I don’t get sick, I don’t get tired, I went through menopause with no symptoms, I’ve got the same body I had at 16."
And once again, I don’t believe it’s a natural human instinct to eat dead flesh. I think it’s a learned experience, and I think everybody does it so it feels comfortable. But I don’t think it’s natural to human beings. And so, my body evolved into being a vegan. I haven’t had meat, fish, chicken or dairy for over 40 years now, and it has served me very well. I don’t get sick, I don’t get tired, I went through menopause with no symptoms, I’ve got the same body I had at 16."
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