A lamington made with organic apples, oranges, cacao powder, vanilla, celtic salt and coconut – can you imagine it? Well, that’s what I stumbled across one day recently at IRA, a funky little cafe on the Gold Coast Highway at Tugun, south-east Queensland. And it was truly delish. It was called “Angel’s Raw Lamington Slice” and had been made by Liz GilbertGrant, a raw food cook who lives just up the highway at Palm Beach. “The lamington came about by mistake,” she says. “I was stewing some apples for my partner’s sons, and they burnt on the bottom.  I scooped off the top layer and mixed it with coconut, vanilla and cacao powder and they loved it, so I decided to try it raw apple.” A softly-spoken, kindly woman, Liz has been a raw food convert for 30 years and now runs cooking classes from her home at Palm Beach, and at The Oneness Cafe in Coogee, Sydney. “My passion is to encourage people to increase the amount of raw food in their diet to improve their health,” she told me. “That doesn’t mean everything you eat has to be raw,” she says.  “But I do believe that the closer we can be to nature supports our nature.” Liz doesn’t use recipes when teaching. “I teach people to use their intuition,” she says. “We’ve been so programmed in what we eat.  I believe that if people listen to their bodies, their bodies will tell them what they need.” Liz opened her first business, a vegetarian restaurant, in Whangarei, New Zealand, 20 years ago. She then ran a youth hostel and personal and business seminars. “My love is people.  Teaching people to create delicious meals with raw food is an opportunity to help them at ground level.” At The Oneness Cafe last week, she created a veritable banquet of raw food dishes including a green smoothie (kale, parsley, banana, orange and water); a cashew dip; a vegie dip (zucchini, carrot, tandoori spices); a raw Asian stir-fry (broccoli, mushrooms, cabbage, red capsicum massaged with a delicious marinade) with cauliflower and walnut rice; zucchini pasta with tomato sauce; rice paper rolls; curried vegetables; chocolate mousse and apple crumble. For most of the dishes, she used a Thermomix (a blender is fine), and a Spiraliser to make the zucchini pasta. “When we eat a lot of de-natured food, our wires get crossed,” she says. “If you want to get healthy, don’t walk into a supermarket for a month.”