March 6, 2008 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Becomes professional chef to maintain healthy lifestyle
Local opera singer loses 160 pounds on ‘raw diet’
by LEN LEAR

Michelle, after losing 160 pounds in eight months.

When Michelle Schulman sang “O mio babbino caro’ (“Oh my dear daddy,” an aria from the opera Gianni Schicchi by Giacomo Puccini) during an open mic night Feb. 14 at Arnold’s Way, a restaurant/food market at 319 W. Main St. in Lansdale (215-361-0116, www.arnoldsway.com), as well as “Habanera” from Carmen and “Zueignung” by Richard Strauss, the audience cheered as if the Eagles had just won the Super Bowl. But even though her glorious voice is of the spine-tingling variety you’d expect to hear at the Metropolitan Opera, Michelle had to go into the kitchen after the applause subsided to prepare food for the cafe’s customers — something Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo and Beverly Sills undoubtedly never had to do.

That’s because Michelle, 31-ish, A resident of Manayunk who has sung operatic arias at venues all over the Delaware Valley, is also a talented chef at Arnold’s Way, the region’s only exclusively raw-foods restaurant. Her journey to becoming a chef was not conventional but was literally an attempt to stave off premature death.

Michelle, a Northeast Philadelphia native who has battled an eating disorder all of her adult life, ballooned up to 425 pounds late in 2004, despite having tried dozens of diets, therapies and expensive “fat farms.” (When Michelle was featured in a Local Life article on April 8, 2004, about her operatic career, she weighed 375.)

“I was binge eating,” she said in an interview last week. “I had an uncontrollable addiction to food. One night I went to five fast food restaurants in a row, and each time I ate what for most people would be one complete dinner ... I could not sing any more because breathing had become such a problem. I could barely walk up a flight of stairs or walk to the corner. I had horrible back pain all the time, and I could hardly stand upright.”

As a last resort, Michelle went to the Optimum Health Institute near San Diego, a 30-year-old facility whose guiding principle is that a strict raw-foods diet will produce significant health benefits not only for obese people but also for people with virtually any other medical ailment.

The theory behind the raw-foods diet is that cooking destroys the enzymes in food that are required to maintain good health. The diet is even more restrictive than a vegetarian or macrobiotic diet. Those who follow it generally eschew cooked, refined or processed foods, so supermarkets are pretty much off-limits. They eat lots of organic vegetables, fruits, nuts and seeds in countless combinations and lots of soups and juices made from these foods, as well as herbs and spices for seasoning.

Michelle weighed about 400 pounds when this photo was taken. She eventually got up to 425 before going to the Optimum Health Institute.

(It should be pointed out that nutritionists, dieticians and basically the entire medical establishment rejects the claims made by raw-foods advocates. Their major complaint is the lack of grains and animal protein in the diet.)

Michelle had planned to stay at the Optimum Health Institute for two or three weeks (most people who go there stay for just one week), but she made such dramatic progress that she wound up staying for eight months. (She could not possibly afford the cost of such a lengthy stay, but she was allowed to work there for more than seven months in return for most of her room and board.)

There were about 100 residents there at any one time, including people with cancer, leukemia, drug and alcohol addiction, etc., in addition to obesity. The regimen included at least three classes a day on raw-foods principles and meal preparation (“to make the foods flavorful”), as well as exercise. Participants were introduced to such unusual foods as wheat grass juice (which does not taste like lawnmower shavings) and dandelion greens (“which are thrown away by farmers but are so nutritious”).

“My friend went there for bronchial problems,” said Michelle, “and after one month she stopped wheezing and snoring. One woman came there with a blood clot on the brain and left in good health. And there are an amazing number of testimonials from people with cancer whose health improved dramatically after going there.”

During her eight months at the Optimum Health Institute, Michelle lost 160 pounds. “Not only that,” she said, “but I have no more back pain and no more sleep apnea. I’m now able to sit in a normal seat. I have been able to stop taking the allergy pills and acid reflux pills I had been taking. I’m able to sing and perform again because I can breathe normally, and I have not been sick once since I left the Institute.”

“During the long months Michelle was away, my eye twitched constantly from the stress,” said Michelle’s fiancé, Cliff Bolt, “but it was worth it because now she is finally healthy and on the path to even greater health in the future.”

Michelle was so inspired and energized by the raw foods diet that she took a job at Arnold’s Way, where she prepares very tasty dishes in the kitchen, among other responsibilities. I have tasted some of her dishes — hummus made with cashew nuts; a fruit smoothie with strawberries, kale, bananas and apples, all organic; a mock sushi tuna roll, and a chocolate tart with a shell made from almonds and dates and a filling of avocado-based chocolate pudding and strawberries. All were delicious and ridiculously healthful.

When asked about the opposition to the raw-foods diet by the medical establishment, Michelle responded passionately, “If you take people who actually do a raw-foods diet and see the remarkable results, you can’t help but question all of the supposed health information we have been fed, and you need to start looking for alternatives. Raw-food diets are an alternative that not many people know about, but they should.

“Also, I really question the opinion of a nutritionist. Why is that? Because where did she learn nutrition from? From a university textbook. Now where do the universities get their money from? Besides the student tuition, they get it from big corporate donors. Who are these donors? Among others, the dairy industry, the meat industry, giant pharmaceutical companies like Wyeth and Astro Zeneca and gigantic food companies like McDonald’s and Procter & Gamble.

“Do you really think that pharmaceutical companies and McDonald’s have the least bit of interest in teaching drug-free ways to get healthy? I don’t think so. Getting healthier by eating organic and vegetarian foods with no added chemicals would ruin McDonald’s and make so many drugs unnecessary. As long as we are sick, we will keep taking the drugs that make drug companies rich.

“And who are the advertisers on the TV news shows that we watch? If the TV news reported daily that meat and dairy products are killing us and raw fruits and vegetables can help patients with cancer, then don’t you think that KFC and Burger King and Wendy’s would create an upheaval and pull their ads? When all is said and done, the news programs are about making money for the networks and for the big advertisers, not about promoting a healthy population.

“I know some people will think I’m a crazy conspiracy theorist, but think about it. What organic fruits and vegetables have ever been recalled due to dangerous side effects, like so much beef and so many drugs have? It’s all about money only. McDonald’s doesn’t build playgrounds for children because they care about children having fun. They build playgrounds to create lifelong consumers for their Big Macs and other unhealthy products.”

Michelle, who also has a business making one-of-a-kind pocketbooks from scratch, will soon be teaching a set of four classes on raw-foods “cooking,” and she does private cooking classes for raw gourmet foods. For more information, email lasoprana@aol.com You can see Michelle singing spectacularly at www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLwSysYvZRY.