Meet Ben Flowerday, a raw vegan chef

 ‘For a diabetic I realized the natural way to go was to go vegan,’ says Ben who wants to give people an opportunity to improve their lifestyle, to live a little longer.

MANILA, Philippines - There’s a lot of confusion about people who eat meat. They say it’s a rich source of protein. But the percentage of protein in meat products that your body is able to process is only about 14 to 15 percent. The rest of it, your body gets rid of,” says Ben Flowerday, a raw vegan chef who visited Manila recently.

“If you look at it, the animals are vegetarians. They are eating grass. That’s where they are getting their protein. So why not go straight to the source and eat vegetables and greens?” Ben says. “Kale is 50 percent (digestible) protein and spirulina (an edible green algae) is 97 percent.”

With this kind of argument, who would not want to turn vegetarian overnight?

But Ben is not after a hard sell. He’d rather slowly introduce the food to people. “Let them try it and discover it for themselves,” he says. “The more information you put out there gives people an opportunity to help their lifestyle, to live a little longer.”

There is a difference between a vegetarian and a vegan. “Vegans will not consume animal products and byproducts such as dairy. Strict vegans won’t even have honey, but that’s open to discussion,” Ben shares.

They will not wear leather products. Ben does not use a leather wallet but instead has a money- and cardholder made of carbon, a natural mineral. “Vegetarians are less strict,” he says. “They would still eat cheese and milk.” 

There’s one more qualifier. For a raw-food diet, the food should not be heated above 45 degrees Celsius.

“Food heated above this temperature begins to lose its nutritive value,” Ben explains.

As a raw vegan chef, Ben believes in propagating knowledge about the benefits of eating a wholesome diet. There’s a deeper motivation. When he was 11 years old, he learned that he was a Type 1 diabetic. He started taking insulin. When he was 23, he turned vegan. He was still taking insulin but the dosage dropped by 60 percent.

“I’ve stabilized due to my vegan diet,” relates Ben, who is now 32 years old.

A native of Melbourne, Australia, Ben studied at The William Angliss Institute, where he trained in commercial cookery for three years. He apprenticed in Montalto, an award-winning restaurant and winery an hour south of Melbourne, where he learned classical French cuisine. He then worked at Vue de Monde in Melbourne, where he learned to combine classical French cuisine and molecular gastronomy.

In his second year, Ben joined the kitchen team of Dallas Cuddy at Verge Restaurant, where he learned to combine French cuisine with Japanese, which uses less fat.  To continue his explorations, he went to Japan, where he stayed for two and a half years.

It was in Japan that he was introduced to macrobiotic vegan food. He met raw-food chef Chie Shinya, who introduced him to the world of raw cuisine.

“I found veganism affected my health in a positive way and I began to look into alternative and natural ways food could benefit and complement my lifestyle,” he relates.

In his pursuits, he traveled extensively to Cambodia and Thailand. He spent three months in Costa Rica.

“It was right at the start of my journey to find natural alternatives,” he relates. “For a diabetic, I realized the natural way to go was to go vegan.”

He returned to Australia to work as a raw-food chef in Samudra, a café promoting healthy, raw and vegan food in Dunsborough, a popular holiday spot in Western Australia. Back in Melbourne, he worked with Matthew Kenney, the celebrity chef specializing in plant-based food. He traveled to Ubud, Bali, where he prepared food for students of the Radiantly Alive Yoga Teacher Training and Elaina Loves Food Training.

“We’ve been traveling a lot for the last five months through Asia: in Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and India, just looking for different inspirations and flavors,” Ben shares. His travel companion and assistant, Luna Epeam, is vegetarian, “but moving towards vegan,” she says. She’s originally from Byron Bay in northern New South Wales, where Ben worked at one time in a small day spa “preparing breakfast for a group of very health-conscious guests.”

It’s their first time in the Philippines. They organized a retreat over a long weekend in Subic for a small group of like-minded, health-conscious individuals. They had yoga, meditation, as well as speakers on the holistic lifestyle. They then came to Manila to prepare a private dinner in the elegant home of the ever-gracious Marilou Tantoco-Pineda of Rustan’s and Adora.

“She’s very active. She’s also into yoga. She looks very good,” Ben observes. “I find that vegans actually have more energy since the body is not struggling to process the food. We have no difficulty digesting natural foods. We feel a lot lighter.”

“I am vegan,” Marilou says. “Some people are scared of the word ‘vegan,’ but it’s really just about substitution. Instead of using chicken in your adobo, use tofu.”

Her cook in the house cooks vegan. For the dinner that night, Ben prepared the menu: Thai pumpkin gazpacho; raw tart made with a base of dehydrated zucchini and onion topped with three kinds of mushrooms (shiitake, shimeji, and oyster mushrooms), arugula and spinach leaves; carrot falafel and cashew cheese tucked in a green cone wrapper made of coconut meat and basil that was passed through a blender and dehydrator; teriyaki papaya steak; and coffee cake made with cashew and a base of desiccated coconut.

To achieve the textures and food presentation that he’s after, Ben makes good use of the blender as well as a dehydrator, which is great to have around in a vegan kitchen.

He was delighted to find one in Marilou’s kitchen.

“Food needs to taste good and to look good,” Ben says. “My attention now is more on fine dining.”

He would like to do more private dinners and to hold more retreats. He had some nice experiences during his three-week stay in the country. He raves about the local calamansi. “It’s beautiful,” he says. “I’ve never experienced it before. Coco sugar is beautiful. And the avocado is really nice. What you have here is creamier, which makes good smoothies and flourless cakes. The papaya is really nice and the local bananas. We were surprised with the bananas with seeds, which is the way it should be. You can never overdose on bananas.

” Recipe File: BEN’S BANANA SMOOTHIE

Ingredients:

2 frozen bananas (remove skin before freezing)?

1 tablespoon calamansi juice?

1 cup coconut water?

1 cup filtered water?

A handful of greens like kale or spinach, and spirulina, if available (optional)

Procedure:

Blend all ingredients until smooth.  Serve. Photos by WALTER BOLLOZOS