A New Culinary Adventure 
In Pai, a tiny mountainous village in Thailand’s north, a UK father-and-son team have launched a brave new culinary adventure which is tantalising tastebuds in a most unusual way.
The globetrotting dreadlocked hippies, artists, musicians and soul-searchers drawn to Pai’s inexplicably enchanting energy can now dine at a raw food vegetarian café, thanks to Shaun Turpin and son Austin, 10.
It’s a singular endeavour which serves up deliciously imaginative, and often surprising combinations of raw foods. Creamy, crunchy, blended, dehydrated, fermented, frozen,
marinated, sprouted, soaked and even warmed, the raw food experience is, in a word - memorable.
One of the bestselling items on the still-moving menu is porridge, which consists of soaked oats and fresh coconut water with a concoction of dates, goji berries, raisins, figs, cranberries, flax,
seeds, bee pollen and tropical fruit.
“We had an American guy come in one night who wanted a steak," Shaun recalls. "He ended up getting our lasagna, which uses crushed macadamias and cashews as a cheese substitute.
He cleaned the whole plate and said it was the healthiest meal he’d ever had.”
Autism: A Toxin Overload
Shaun explains that his journey to a raw food diet was “all Austin-driven.”
When Austin was three and a half, he was diagnosed with autism, a little understood brain developmental disorder that appears early in life and affects social interaction and communication.
“The autism was staring us in the face, but we didn’t know it,” says Shaun.
According to Western medicine, autism is said to be incurable. However, some parents of autistic children believe the condition is largely caused by a toxic overload of unnatural foods, pollution, vaccinations, electromagnetic radiation and chemicals.
Frustrated with conventional treatments, some of them have turned to radical lifestyle changes to get good results.
US parents Cristin and Joseph Fergus, for example, believe they have reversed their son’s autism after tweaking his diet through trial and error - a frustrating, but ultimately triumphant experience chronicled in their book “Dylan’s Story”.
They particularly credit their success to their decision to remove hard-to-digest glutens (the protein found in wheat, rye, barley, spelt and oats) and caseins (dairy protein) from their young son’s diet.
This is because research shows that the majority of autistic children suffer from nutritional deficiencies, leaky gut, heavy metals and enzyme deficiencies, making it even tougher on their already compromised immune systems to absorb essential nutrients.
Going Raw
In Shaun and Austin’s case, diet would also eventually prove to be the key in tempering Austin’s autistic behaviours.
“I started reading straightaway and realised very quickly there was a link between autism and food. Until that point, we had tried music therapy, yoga, osteopathy and a good school. All the bases were being covered, but Austin wasn’t making any progress,” says Shaun.
Already a longtime vegetarian, Shaun quickly consulted a nutritionist to help draw out a plan for Austin. They experimented with removing glutens, caseins, sugar, wheat and dairy products, with varying results.
About three years ago, during his continuous quest for information, Shaun stumbled on a detox book which reinforced the need for alkalising the body through raw foods. Something clicked.
“It just made huge sense because once you process foods, they will turn acidic. I did more research and drew the conclusion that we needed to go raw,” he says.
The benefits of eating raw foods were immediate.
“Austin had almost no upper body mass. But from his weight of about 19 kilos, he put on three or four kilos straight away. He changed from having a drooped shoulder to a square shoulder,” remembers Shaun.
“For the first time he was getting good nutrition. Raw foods just made everything absorbable and cleaned his gut out. He calmed down and his body started healing. He’s thriving.”
As Shaun and Austin have spent the past four years living in Brazil, UK and India they had to be flexible about maintaining a completely raw diet. They ate raw foods where possible, with the help of their own blender. Now they have their café venture in Pai.
“When we got to Thailand and saw all the foods, we thought, ‘Oh my god, this is the place, this is the place.’ We can survive quite easily here on salads and juices.” Shaun says.
A Most Remarkable History
The raw food movement is said to have been started more than 50 years ago by the “mother of living foods”, the late US holistic nutritionist Ann Wigmore.
As the story goes, Ann healed herself from both colon cancer and gangrene in the legs by intuitively eating local weeds and herbs she gathered - as taught by her Lithuanian grandmother.
She pioneered the use of living foods in order to heal the body from disease caused by under-nourishment and toxins.
As such, the raw food approach looks at replenishing enzymes and emphasises the use of wheatgrass (a super food for chlorophyll), sprouts (said to be the most enzyme-rich food on the planet), fresh juices, and vegetables and fruits (particularly sea vegetables).
So why exactly are raw foods good for you?
They are said to contain vitamins, minerals, oils, and digestive enzymes which ensure foods are properly processed. That’s because when you cook foods at high temperatures (above 118 degrees Farenheight), these nutrients are destroyed and the body’s digestive system is forced to work harder than necessary.
Converts say a raw food diet boosts energy, improves mental focus, lowers cholesterol, gives new life to organs, and even reverses life-threatening diseases.
In certain parts of the world, raw foods have gone from being an underground movement to becoming the latest trend.
“You can’t believe how good raw foods can be. It’s all about giving people different tastes. You can give them 1 plus 1 plus 1 and it equals six,” Shaun says.