Talk to most people who are watching what they eat, and they talk about proteins, fats and carbohydrates. But for people in the raw food movement, it's all about the enzymes.

They believe that heating food to more than 118 degrees destroys enzymes, which are proteins that break down food during digestion and reduce food's overall nutritional value.

So raw foodists, as they are called, strive to eat mostly, and sometimes entirely, raw fruit, vegetables, nuts and seeds.

It sounds extreme, and it can be, but advocates say just about anyone can see the benefits by eating as little as 50 percent of their diet in raw fruits and vegetables.

Recipe: Broccoli and "Cheese" Soup

Recipe: Green Smoothie

Recipe: Raw Tacos

Recipe: Collard Wrap

Recipe: Cashew Cream

A whole movement has sprung up around this philosophy, and in Northeast Florida, the heart of the movement is the JaxRaw Meetup and Present Moment Cafe in St. Augustine. The monthly potluck dinner just celebrated its fifth anniversary.

Ian Keough, one of the leaders of JaxRaw, began eating raw nine years ago while in grad school after reading Edward Howell's "Enzyme Nutrition," which says degenerative disease and aging are caused by a lack of enzymes.

Keough said his whole understanding of nutrition was shaken up by Howell's book.

"I took an inventory of what I was eating for two weeks," he said. "I realized I was eating 10 percent raw foods. That was in March 2002. I decided to eat 50 percent raw."

It wasn't hard to do, he said. He ate fruit for breakfast and snacks and a salad for lunch or dinner. Sometimes he would eat mono meals of just one thing, like apples or oranges.

He quickly saw results when his digestion and energy levels improved.

"Eating 50 percent, I could still blend in with friends and family socially," Keough said. "I felt fantastic every step of the way."

In 2004 Keough gave up meat and increased his raw food intake to 75 percent to 90 percent of his diet. "I found I craved raw food and wanted less cooked food," he said.

Then in 2006, he decided to go 100 percent for three months and see what happened.

"It changed my life," he said. "I lost 30 pounds. I had more energy. I only needed four hours of sleep. Mentally I was much sharper. It transformed my being. I was high as a kite."

Keough celebrated the end of his three-month experiment with a cooked meal.

"I felt like crap," he said.

After physically humming for three months, he woke up the next day with a headache, feeling congested and fuzzy.

"It was a psychological challenge," Keough said. "I had a decision to make."

And he made it. Since deciding to go 100 percent raw in 2006, Keough said he has eaten cooked food about five times, and usually regrets it. He finds movie popcorn a special temptation, but the memory of waking up with a splitting headache and stiff, achy hands helps him resist.

"The food I shouldn't eat has taught me a lot," he said.

Keough said that staying 100 percent raw isn't easy, and it's not for everyone, but he stays motivated by reading books, going to classes, attending JawRaw meetings and dining at Present Moment Cafe.

A kitchen with a mission

Yvette Schindler and her son, Nathan, opened Present Moment Cafe on West King Street five years ago. Schindler had recently gone through a divorce, and when her son read a book about raw food and wanted to try it, she decided it was something they could do together for three months.

It wasn't that big a stretch for her. Schindler, a macrobiotic chef, was mostly vegetarian and didn't expect it to be much different than what she was used to.

"It was very different," she said. "We went totally raw. Our whole kitchen was transformed into a science lab, sprouting, soaking, dehydrating.

"Then all of a sudden the results started. Before I had arthritis so bad I could barely go up steps. And it went away. I had felt very anxious and that was gone. I felt love and compassion and connected to everything.

"After three months of this, I said we have to open a restaurant. This is too transformative. You can't ignore it and just go on with your life. You have to do something with it."

Schindler compares cooked and raw food to feeding a plant a Sprite vs. water. "It can live on Sprite but it won't know health without water," she said. "We can survive on this other stuff but we can't live long healthy lives. Raw food has the life force in it, and you feel it when you eat it."

Raw foods give the body what it needs to process foods, cleanse and heal itself, she said.

As the only raw restaurant in the area, Present Moment has become the focal point for the movement, offering classes and prepared foods that are available at the restaurant and Native Sun Natural Foods Market.

When raw foodists first start out, their diet consists of raw fruit and salads, which can get old. Present Moment helps move them to the next level. The menu includes things like burritos and tacos made with pine nut chili, walnut pate and coconut "sour cream."

The burger is made with walnut, sunflower, almond and carrot zucchini with a cashew "provolone." Crab cakes are made with coconut instead of crabmeat. Some of its entrees are served with homemade chips made from dehydrated nuts and veggies.

Many of the recipes are in the cafe's new book that is coming out in the spring, "Handmade in the Present Moment."

"I didn't want to open a restaurant," Schindler said. "But this is too important. This is definitely a kitchen with a mission."

Getting healthy

Almost everyone who goes raw to some extent says he loses weight. But many people who go raw report improvements in their health, even in serious conditions.

Samantha Hein, for instance, went raw a couple of years ago after the birth of her daughter. Hein has cystic fibrosis, an inherited disease that causes thick, sticky mucus to build up in the lungs and digestive tract. The condition causes chronic lung infections and impaired breathing.

While she was pregnant, she had three major lung infections, and her doctor warned her that her lung function might never recover. A friend loaned her the book, "12 Steps to Raw Foods: How to End Your Addiction to Cooked Foods" by Victoria Boutenko.

"It made sense to me," Hein said. "When I was first diagnosed when I was little, my mother juiced for me, so raw made sense."

She began with green smoothies, a blend of fruits with leafy greens, which are packed with nutrition.

"I'd make them with spinach or kale, bananas, cherries or berries, and I'd put hemp seed in for protein," Hein said.

And she gradually incorporated more and more raw food into her diet.

"I didn't go cold turkey, and I'm not 100 percent, but I've been 99 percent for stretches. I felt better. I had more energy. I quit dairy and then meat. I started eating salad, a really big one for lunch. The more raw I ate the better I felt. When I didn't eat it, my energy wasn't as high."

And the best part was the lung infections disappeared and her lung function improved, most dramatically after she quit eating dairy.

"This has been the best winter I've ever had. I haven't been sick. I work around a lot of people and I haven't caught anything. My immune system is awesome. My health is really, really good."

When she and her husband go out to dinner, they go to Present Moment Cafe or European Street, which has some raw entrees.

But at home she keeps it simple: a green smoothie for breakfast, a salad at lunch, a lot of fruit during the day and soup or tacos for dinner. The soups are made with warm, not hot water, and the tacos are made with a nut filling served in lettuce leaves.

She also takes classes at Present Moment Cafe and from Chef Olive Mackey in Orlando and attends the get-togethers of Jax Raw.

Judith Rodriguez, a nutrition professor at the University of North Florida, is not as enthusiastic about going raw.

"The raw food diet is popular, but I'm not very comfortable saying it's a safe way to eat. It's good for people to eat lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, but if that is all you are going to eat you have to be careful."

Because fresh produce can carry salmonella and E. coli, it's important to wash fruit and vegetables. "This really important if you have a compromised immune system because these organisms can be potentially dangerous," she said.

Although raw food is packed with vitamins and fiber, people who eat only raw foods can be deficient in protein, B-12, calcium and iron, Rodriguez said.

"There are lots of ways to approach raw food, and you need to plan carefully to make sure you are getting all the nutrients you need."

Getting started

Raw foodists say that going raw can be as simple or complicated as you want to make it.

Keough says he's been raw for nine years with no more than a knife, a cutting board and a blender.

The blender is important. It needs to be a high-powered model, like the VitaMix or BlendTec, because pureeing greens and nuts requires the extra power. Additional equipment like a food processor, juicer and dehydrator are nice but not essential.

As for rules, there is really only one big one. Don't heat food to more than 118 degrees. Hot water is OK. Schindler recommends the finger test. If you can stir it with your finger, it's OK. But once it's too hot to touch, then it's too hot.

Instead of cooking, raw foodists dehydrate. Present Moment sells veggie chips made with dehydrated kale leaves flavored with agave, lemon, oil and salt that would satisfy any potato chip junkie.

Most health food stores carry dehydrated fruit, which can be eaten as is or rehydrated. Ground nuts can be dehydrated and made into all kinds of "baked" goods like cookies and crusts. Raw food chefs come up with some seriously decadent desserts.

Raw veggies form the basis of the raw food pyramid, especially leafy greens.

Lettuces, spinach, kale, collards and others are staples in salads, smoothies, soups and sauces. Pureeing greens is an easy way to up your intake because the "green" taste can be disguised with other flavors. Greens pack a nutritional wallop.

And keep your choices varied to avoid getting bored. The standard lettuce, tomato and carrot salad might be OK as a side dish to meat and potatoes, but as the centerpiece it needs to be full of lots of veggies to provide color, texture and flavor.

Fruit as the ultimate fast food is a staple for most raw foodists, and it's usually how they start their day. Bananas, apples and berries are staples, especially for smoothies.

Nuts and seeds stand in for meat and dairy in raw food recipes. Because they are high in protein, fat and fiber, they provide the satiety factor that is lacking in a strictly fruit and veggie diet.

Nuts like almonds and cashews are soaked for several hours and pureed. By adjusting the amount of water, they can be turned into non-dairy milk, cream or cheese. And handful of cashews and an assortment of veggies and water can be turned into a soup, a dipping sauce or a dressing.

Keough suggests having four meals instead of three. Some people dispense with traditional meals in favor of grazing.

And there is no weighing, measuring or counting with a raw diet. Since most fruit and vegetables are low cal to begin with, eating two or three apples or a couple of heads of lettuce at a sitting is not a problem.

Schindler and Keough both recommend not trying to go totally raw in the beginning and starting instead with foods you already like.

"Eat more raw, less cooked," Schindler said. "The more you eat, the more you'll crave."