Creating an appetite for changing the way we eat

Date Published: {J}

It takes bravery and determination to set up a company in times when people are scared of spending money and banks are no longer throwing loans at fledgling enterprises.

But some people are taking the leap and it seems when it comes to quality food and exotic food, there is a market out there.

In the case of Hilary Foley, who set up Ireland’s Raw Kitchen last year, her career in raw food came about by accident.

She came to Galway about 20 years ago and studied engineering. However, following a car crash she moved away from that career and started working in the financial services, eventually becoming self-employed as a broker. But she started suffering from digestive problems.

“I got very ill and I started looking into improving my health. It was all digestive issues. The doctors had given me medication but nobody was treating the food aspect, so I started looking into improving my health by trying different foods,” she says.

“I travelled to Thailand and learned about raw food. I didn’t plan to get into it, but there was nobody doing it in Ireland. I had to get the products for myself and I was paying shipping costs. And then I also wanted to educate people.”

Given that the Raw Kitchen sells products such as chia seeds and all forms of unprocessed cacao, acai berry powder, gogi berries, baobab powder beetroot powder, sea spaghetti, mangosteen powder and a whole lot more, she seems to be doing well on the education front.

Several of these products fall under the term ‘superfoods’, which is used to describe foods that appear to offer additional health benefits beyond simple nutrition. People with a suspicious mind might think that this labelling is a way of adding value to products so you can charge customers more for them.

But Hilary doesn’t agree.

“It can be quite a loose term. It can be anything from broccoli to blueberries to chia seeds,” she says. “[In Ireland] we have an abundance of what we call weeds and nettles that have a lot more nutrients than a lot of the food we eat. You don’t necessarily have to go out and spend a lot of money. It’s about having cop on.”

And she adds that the Raw Kitchen’s products are high-end – with many of them being organic – and are not overpriced.

Her own health has improved beyond compare since she changed her eating habits. At present, her diet is made up of 80 per cent raw food and 20 per cent cooked; the cool, damp Irish climate doesn’t lend itself to a complete raw food diet, she says.

She blends raw vegetables to make soup, includes lots of

healthy seeds and powders in her diet and has plenty of treats. “While these might be healthy, they are still fattening,” she says with a laugh. Even her dogs are involved. They eat carrots and beetroots as treats, with their main diet consisting of brown rice and chicken nuts.

“Both have really health coats and are full of energy,” she says.

The idea for Ireland’s Raw Kitchen was born late last year and the website went live around May of this year, which has been very good for business.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.