Brighton is perhaps the raw capital of Britain with leading author on the subject, Kate Magic (who has been a raw foodist for 16 years), and Kyle Vialli’s Manna café leading the way. They explain why it’s not about sacrifice.

Kyle Vialli: People who go by the description of a raw foodist would have between fifty to one hundred percent raw food in their diet. Everyone is a raw foodist in a way – everyone is having bananas, everyone is having apples. The idea of having something uncooked to preserve its nutrition is definitely not new.

James Kendall: So the idea is that the human body is made to only eat raw food and we’ve stepped away from that with our cooked and processed food.

Kate Magic: No, I don’t think so. We don’t know what people did before. It’s very hard to be a successful raw vegan – not all raw foodists are raw vegans – but we’re evolving into something. It’s about achieving new levels of energy, new levels of optimum health and vitality that we’ve never experienced as humans before. It’s not that we’re harking back to the past, it’s that we’re trying to create a new paradigm, a new way of experiencing life which is much more exciting, more vital.

KV: We’re doing this because it’s evolutionary – it’s the best way forward from a biological level.

KM: For me it’s about tuning into your body’s natural intelligence, its natural wisdom, and that’s what we’ve lost, especially in the last 100 years with all the processed food and all the junk food. For me it’s not about trying to attain something, it’s about what can I do for my body right now. Most the time that happens to be raw food. It’s not just about having more energy. It’s emotional, it’s mental, it’s increased spiritual connection – everything feels better. I keep feeling younger and more excited about life.

KV: Living foodists have more zest for life. There’s a massive lifestyle behind the whole thing and the raw food becomes a catalyst for the harmony for the rest of your life.

JK: It all sounds like a positive thing but it seems like too much of a sacrifice. I like the idea of eating just raw food, but I don’t think I could handle it.

KM: Everyone says that but when you break it down, actually if someone is eating a healthy diet then they’re usually eating thirty percent or forty percent raw food already through salads and fruit and seeds. So just taking it over fifty percent – which is what you have to do to feel the benefits – is actually quite simple. Once you start listening to your body it’s easy to get to seventy percent and then you’re getting all of the benefits without feeling like you’re alienating yourself. You can still go out for dinner, you can still have your favourite treats – ice cream, or whatever. Then what happens is that you stop wanting those things. It’s like smoking – when you smoke it tastes really good, and you get that hit and you love it. When you give up, smoke on other people is disgusting and you think, why did I ever like that?

JK: I would have thought it marginalised you though, made it really difficult to socialise.

KV: There’s a real social scene around Manna, we have intimate music gatherings, sacred music, which is our attempt to get our cafe as an evening hub for what I call the new emerging consciousness and the attendant social scene. There’s a big call for it, I’ve heard. It no longer means that if you’re interested in something outside the box you’re going to be isolated.

Kate Magic’s Raw Magic is out now www.rawliving.eu