Kemi Nekvapil, The Raw Beauty Queen

It is an incredible pleasure to share this interview with Kemi Nekvapil. We met with her in her “office”, a funky cafe in Brunswick. It immediately tells me thats someone that loves people when their “office’ is a cafe. So excuse the background noise, it was also quite a busy cafe!!

Kemi is quite a remarkable woman, joy filled, playful, funny and incredibly committed to what she does.

As Laura was interviewing her, I was behind the camera and I could just feel my heart filling as I listened to her and her philosophy on life.

Its not often you get to spend time with someone that just makes you feel good to be alive. Kemi does that so well. I’ve been looking forward to sharing this interview with you and I just know you will love her as well.

Oh and at the bottom is one of Kemis recipes she said we could share with you as well as all the details on how you can connect with this incredible woman. Enjoy….

 

 

Hi it’s Laura from the Raw Food Institute of Australia.

Today I’m having a cup of tea with the beautiful Kemi Nekvapil. Kemi, for those of you who don’t know has been in the raw food space for quite some time. I believe you started as a baker and chef,

Kemi: Yes long before I was in the raw food world I was a baker and chef

Laura: So I guess the first question that inspires me is what got you into raw food in the first place?

Kemi: I wasn’t into raw food at first place, actually when I first heard about it I was very unimpressed. I didn’t understand why people would eat carrots when there was pasta and pizza to eat. And then I met a beautiful man who bought me a book, and that beautiful man is now my husband so he really was very beautiful and in that book,(it was actually the Tao of health, sexuality and longevity by Daniel Reed.) there’s a whole chapter about food, and he just said if you added raw food to your life, 50% was actually the amount, then you would experience a level of wellbeing and health that would blow your mind.

I read that chapter and it made sense to me. So I just started by adding one salad a day, very simple.

It was an organic salad and it was very big. Lots of nuts and seeds, I’m into juicy dressings, I’m not one of these..dressing on the side ladies! I like pile it on, You’ll never see me eating a bowl of leaves!

I just did that and day two, my energy levels went through the roof, day three, my sleep was better, and the really big thing as well, was that my bodily functions started working better and I think we forget that health and wellbeing comes not just from what goes into our mouth, but it’s what comes out as well. and that’s just as important.

That was how I got into it and then I had two children and after Id weaned my son I realized I wanted to do a bit of a cleanse or a detox and decided to do a raw food one. It was actually Leslie and Suzanna Kenton’s Raw Energy program.

So for 10 days you have raw food in the day and cooked food in the evening. I wrote in my journal at the end that I have found something that I will have for the rest of my life. and that was it. And the rest they say is history!

Laura: I find it really inspiring because a lot of people when they discover raw, they go from predominantly cooked food straight into almost predominantly raw food, Which is a really tough way of doing it. But that progression is in my opinion more long term.

Kemi: It is, this is what I teach and for me it’s been over 10 years but I’m not 100% raw, and don’t aspire to be 100% raw. I eat whatever I want to eat, but I eat to feel good, so that dictates my choices. It doesn’t mean I am always chowing down on a super green, super smoothie salad…(If you can get a super green smoothie salad that would be an interesting recipe…!! )

That’s not always what I’m eating, sometimes I’m eating my mothers Nigerian stew, sometimes I’m eating my brother in laws homemade pasta. Although I have to admit, wheat isn’t my best friend anymore, I think I ate enough in my baking days!

Homemade food cooked with love, I think that’s more important sometimes than having a nutritionally based plate without the nourishing energy.

Laura: It brings me back to something I read. About food being part of a ritual and raw food preparation is that to me..about taking the time, using the beautiful ingredients, it’s really bringing it together and pulling that gorgeous energy with it.

Kemi: absolutely, I have an organic garden and I go out into the garden and harvest it and pick off the caterpillars. (Some people can do raw caterpillars, I can’t I’m not one of those people!) Then to bring it back into the kitchen and wash it and then you’re eating right.

There’s a beautiful thing with the whole bio-dynamic idea, that the food that’s grown in your garden is the food that you should be eating for your body. Like this food is for me and my family because we live on this land. I kinda like that idea…

Laura: The other aspect in regards to raw is, yes, food is a big part of raw food diet and lifestyle but the lifestyle part of it…it’s what else comes with a raw food diet?

Kemi: In some ways the food has got nothing to do with everything else that comes. I think one of the biggest things for me was just the clarity that I gained about myself, about who I am in the world, you know after this amount of time.

But also, the feeling of vibrant living and joy. This idea that when you put life into your body you get more lively. I think that takes you to a whole other level of being. I think that’s one reason why I started Raw Beauty Queen… I have Kemi’s Raw Kitchen which is my online recipes and classes and DVD, but I’ve also launched Raw Beauty Queen because after following this lifestyle, (I’m now 39) I feel more beautiful, more grander, more clear than I ever did.

Never when I was 18 did I feel the way that I do now. I think as women we told its going to go downhill as we get older. We make people a lot of money by believing that lie.

I decided I wanted to create something that actually showed the women that our beauty comes from who we are. When we nourish our bodies, we start to get clear.

And when we get clear we get in contact with who we are. Not all the barriers…. Then we start to create life from this place of nourishment. The magic is everywhere when you do that, it’s amazing.

Laura: in fact we were talking just before we started recording about forgetting to count the number of wrinkles and that’s a big part of what your saying isn’t it.

Kemi:  I think women have been dealt a really cruel hand, well not really a cruel hand but I think we are bombarded with who we should be and what we should look like, especially what we should look like. We have 12 year old girls at the moment (something I read recently) that want to have plastic surgery on their vagina’s because they want them to be beautiful and it just floored me. I thought who decided what a beautiful vagina looked like? and why is a 12 year old girl thinking about that?

I also can’t do the whole calorie thing. If I eat because that won’t give me weight, but that will, that’s really not a way to live. As opposed to…. I’m eating for vibrancy and energy and to feel great about myself and feel great about my life.

Laura: I guess it comes down to the fact that all aspects of our lives are so intermeshed, its strange to think that we could consider raw food just being one isolated area of our lives that’s improved but the others are not addressed.

Kemi: but it’s interesting some people can take it and it just becomes about the food and the measurement of it. Are you 100% Raw, are you 80% are you 70%.

Even if you have to ask that question, there’s a level of judgment and a level of non openness to the person that’s on the journey, you know its not about the percentage of how much raw food you eat.

If you are someone that’s conscious enough to know if you add life to your life you’re going to feel great then we are all on the exact same journey.

Some people are 100% raw and it doesn’t work for them and some people add a little bit of raw and they want to add more. I don’t believe that there is a wagon to fall off but people make it hard for themselves and then feel like they  “fall of the wagon”. I think it’s a food journey that we’re on and if Im in Croatia, like I was last year, I’m not going to be eating the same food that I am when I’m in Melbourne.

If I’m in Vancouver then I’m living in Whole Foods every single day and its as if I’ve died and gone to heaven. The only rule I have when I’m travelling is something I call “own my mornings” so I normally don’t have a blender handy when I’m in a hotel room, but I do get a teacup in a hotel room and a teaspoon, I have this great little breakfast that I make. I always go and find some bananas and I’ve got some sort of seed mix with me and some sort of nut butter and maybe some cacao nibs and I make what I call my morning mush,  I also do my exercise in the morning and then I just feel whatever happens for the rest of the day, I’m open to.

I don’t have to to be frustrated. life’s too short to be feeling like that about food.

Laura: Love it, perfect note to finish on, Kemi, thank you so much for your time today, Its been an absolute pleasure and we look forward to chatting again with you soon.

Raw food advocate Kemi Nekvapil has become one of Australia’s most popular advisors on eating raw thanks to her easy, inspiring recipes and realistic approach. You can find more about Kemi at http://kemisrawkitchen.com.au/. To find out about her upcoming Beauty Queen Programs go to http://rawbeautyqueen.com/ . Kemi will be running one last Deluxe Raw Food Class in Melbourne on November 30th this year. It is the last one she will be running If you are keen make sure you book soon before it fills up