broccoflower couscous portobello mushroom pavé michgan sour cherries with vanilla cream and orange sabayon

White corn tamales with raw cacao mole, “pasta” made of mango and zucchini, “cheese” fashioned from nuts. Creations of a mad meat-phobic scientist? No, they’re innovative menu offerings at trendy raw food restaurants.

“Raw living foods are the healthiest and most harmonious way to maintain great health for our bodies and the planet,” says Uruguayan-born Juliano Brotman, owner of Juliano’s Raw, a vegan hotspot in Santa Monica, California.

While the advantages of a vegan raw food diet aren’t supported by scientific findings, enthusiasts like Brotman and Sarma Melngailis, co-owner of Pure Food and Wine, a vegan restaurant in New York City, believe that cooking foods over 118° F kills the enzymes, diminishing the nutritional value. Don’t cook, they say, and you can boost your immunity and energy. The diet, which relies heavily on nuts, seeds, fruits, and veggies, is also fiber-rich and free of processed foods and harmful fats.

The purported health benefits are enticing, but a study in Archives of Internal Medicine found that vegetarians who eat only raw foods have abnormally low bone mass, which can lead to osteoporosis. And registered dietician Sylvia Meléndez-Klinger at Hispanic Food Communications, a nutrition and culinary consulting company, warns about safety risks: “Cooking kills bacteria and natural toxins in certain edible roots, seeds, stems, and leaves.”