Problem: I know I should be eating more fresh fruit and veg in my diet, and as many raw things as possible (like nuts and kale and such) but, a lot of the time, and especially in winter, I want something crunchy and a little sweet or tad bit salty to snack on, and I’m not inclined to go for a piece of celery.
Solution: Make It Raw Crackers, Triple Nut Banana Bars and Grawnola.
Julia Brown, the brains and petite-brawn behind Make It Raw, has come up with a line of healthy raw foods that meets my need to eat healthier, and my cravings, head on. Here’s how it happened…
Solution: Make It Raw Crackers, Triple Nut Banana Bars and Grawnola.
Julia Brown, the brains and petite-brawn behind Make It Raw, has come up with a line of healthy raw foods that meets my need to eat healthier, and my cravings, head on. Here’s how it happened…
Julia grew up near Rangiora on a smallish farm. She studied psychology at Uni but has always wanted to run her own business. So, after working for a stint at NZ’s largest health-food store (Huckleberry Farms in Auckland) she returned to Canterbury where she bought a Vitamix blender and started experimenting with raw recipes. The resulting raw chocolate pies, slices and various other snacks made their way to the Ohoka Farmers Market where she got heaps of encouragement, especially to share Make It Raw’s goodness in local stores. Shops started calling and asking to stock her products and so it went.
One reason Make It Raw is now taking off (in 29 stores around NZ so far, including Raeward Fresh) is that even while New Zealand has heaps of great natural produce and supplies, not a lot of stores were selling anything like Julia’s raw crackers, snacks or breakfast foods. The challenge of dealing with raw product shelf life or customer acceptance might have put a lot of people off however Julia persisted in creating delicious snacks that can stay fresh, and raw just long enough for you to get your hands on some.
One of my favourites, Make It Raw’s Triple Nut Banana bars, are made of activated almonds, banana, cashews, brazil nuts, coconut, apricots, cinnamon and NZ sea salt. These snacks are packed with flavour sans the preservatives or sweeteners you’d find a typical muesli bar. Julia’s nutrient rich Hazelnut Chocolate bar is made with organic raw cacao butter, organic raw agave, organic raw cacao powder, raw hazelnuts (spray free and grown right outside Julia’s new commercial kitchen at her mum’s orchard) and organic NZ sea salt. The Rosemary & Almond crackers are made from activated almonds, organic flaxseed, spray-free rosemary and organic New Zealand sea salt. Julia dries these ingredients at just the right temperature to maintain their raw goodness while preserving the flavour, and very importantly (to me), creating the crunch of a good cracker which goes great with a slather of garden made pesto or tapenade.
Innovative raw food like this is brilliant in so many ways. Not only does it push the flavour and nutrition envelopes, it also adds new ideas to recipes or menus which are now becoming restaurant concepts in their own right (like Little Bird in Auckland or Ecopolitan in Minneapolis MN). I’ve done a whole month of eating only raw foods (RAWgust) and found the creative angles raw offered were astounding. However, it’s the mix of eating raw and cooked that makes both all the more interesting. I think this is the real genius behind Make It Raw’s offerings. Julia (who’s own diet is about 50% raw foods) doesn’t assume her customers are going to be fully raw/vegan down the line. Mimicking her own broad based cuisine, she offers a raw foundation piece so her customers can add healthy cooked foods to their own diets, while keeping the preservatives and sweeteners out of the mix. I love that I can now grab a few Make It Raw Olive Crackers and throw on a bit of hummus and feel great about the flavour and the health benefit.
Everything Julia makes she makes by hand. The Vitamix, food processor and dehydrator are the only machinery in her kitchen and so the odd shaped crackers, the big chunky bits of granola and the squar-ish triple nut bars all carry the signature of a craftsperson who loves her job. We really appreciate everything Julia puts into her products and we’re really glad to stock these innovative snacks.
