Food, nuts

Just in case you though veganism was as far as the vegetarians could do, let the members of the raw food movement set you straight:

 GOSHEN -- "Don't eat it unless it will rot, and for heaven's sake, eat it before it does."

That's one of the mantras of a growing movement of local raw foodists, who share a lifestyle centered around eating raw, unprocessed and mostly organic foods for holistic health and environmental reasons.

"If it's not going to spoil and decay, I don't bother, because it's not real food, it's a chemistry set," says local raw foodie and yoga instructor Darlene DeChant.

In December, DeChant joined a multigenerational group of diet and health-conscious people for a raw food retreat hosted by Maple City Market and held at "The Chouse," a historic downtown Goshen church home owned by Lon and Judy Miller.

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Retreat participants made raw, soft gingerbread cookie dough, dehydrated nut loaf -- a cooked meat substitute -- and lingered over lunch. Also served: mini pizzas on sesame seed and flax dough and topped with marinara sauce, tomatoes, and cashew "cheese"; and Caesar salads with romaine lettuce and spinach, sun-dried Peruvian olives and local organic sweet onion. After lunch, the group rolled out yoga mats for a deep breathing and stretching class, watched a documentary about raw food as medicine and walked a few blocks to Maple City Market.

Yum, what a feast! And just think of all the money we could save by not using the stove or the microwave. And we could get rid of all those pots and pans, and the slow cooker and the pressure cooker. Just keep the dogs and cats around -- if they won't touch something, it's probably too close to rotting and shouldn't be eaten.

Oh, this just in. According to a Newsweek article, the latest thing in some vegetarian circles is -- are you ready? -- eating meat. This isn't just copping a cheeseburger on the sly, mind you, like some nicotine fiend sneaking a smoke out behind the barn. These people are far too precious for that.

For as long as people have been foreswearing meat, they've also been sneaking the occasional corn dog. The difference is, vegetarians used to feel guilty about their sins of the flesh-consumption. Now, thanks to the cachet attached to high-end meat, they are having their burgers without sacrificing the moral high ground.

The word "flexitarian," meaning someone who mostly eats vegetarian with the occasional cheesesteak thrown in, has been around for a while. But only recently have former vegetarians been so smug about their forays to the dark side. "There is something almost primal about it," writes lapsed vegetarian Tara Austen Weaver, describing her first meat-buying expedition in The Butcher and the Vegetarian. "I haven't actually hunted dinner myself, but I set my sights and claimed the prize I sought."

Flexitarian. So they're just as much sanctimonious a-holes when they eat meat as they are when they don't. Hey, here's an idea. They should eat it raw and really smug it up.