Doctors offer tips for a safe, healthy winter Local parks programs offer fun fitness

By Eric Czarnik
C & G Staff Writer

WEST BLOOMFIELD — If the holidays have made you tired of sweltering over a hot stove, a West Bloomfield health coach has a solution.

Mary Beckerman, who goes by the title “Chef Mary B,” is releasing a new DVD, “Raw Fundamentals,” that teaches viewers how to prepare and eat raw meals. The DVD contains lifestyle tips and recipes for juices, wraps, and dishes such as zucchini spaghetti.

Beckerman believes that a chef preserves edible nutrients for healthier eating when food is not cooked or heated beyond 104 degrees. She called her DVD the perfect, simple and practical guide to getting started in the raw foods lifestyle.

“This is the first DVD of its kind,” she said. “Not only can you watch me prepare the food, but you also have the ability to print our the recipes. It becomes like a mini book that you can print out.”

Beckerman said she has been drawn to natural ingredients and healthy, pure food all her life. She grew her own wheatgrass and concocted juices back when she was in high school in the early 1970s. After high school, she owned Mary’s Fine Foods, which catered to rock legends like Kiss and David Bowie.

After college, she managed Restaurant Duglass in Southfield. She also worked at a computer technology company for 13 years, but decided to return to cooking about three years ago. So she went to culinary school and graduated in 2007 from California’s Living Light Culinary Arts Institute.

“I went with my passion and love, and that was with food,” she said.

Beckerman promotes eating as much raw food as possible. She said she found it easy to eat raw 100 percent in the summer, but she’ll occasionally eat warmer, non-processed food in the winter.

“If you’re a person that doesn’t eat any raw foods ... make it one meal a day,” she said. “Your body will then start to crave natural foods.”

Eating a raw diet on the road is far from impossible, she said. Although many people are used to buying processed, convenient food, she will prepare and package salads and other food in advance, often the night before.

“It’s like brushing your teeth,” she said. “It’s about getting into the program of preparing your foods that are going to be healthy.”

Emily Camiener, a registered dietician and nutritionist at Henry Ford West Bloomfield Hospital’s Vita wellness center, explained that today’s raw food diets date back to the 19th century and fall within the vegetarian and vegan family.

“Vegetarian diets, when done properly, are very healthy,” she said. “They’re rich sources of fiber, antioxidants, vitamins and minerals. What can be dangerous is when people … are following a raw food diet or a vegan diet as a form of restriction, where they’re not eating enough of a variety.” 

Camiener recommended that raw diet beginners seek professional guidance to ensure that their diets are properly balanced for nutrients.

Beckerman said her “Raw Fundamentals” DVD would be distributed to major retailers when it is released nationally in February. But for now, buyers can find it on her Web site, or at Barnes & Noble or Plum Market in West Bloomfield, she said.

She encouraged hesitant, older dieters to give her ideas a try. “What I have found is, a lot of people think, often, it’s too late,” she said. “But I say it’s never too late. You can repair your body.”

For more information on Beckerman and her DVD, visit www.chefmaryb.com.

You can reach Staff Writer Eric Czarnik at eczarnik@candgnews.com or at (586) 498-1058.