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Noted raw foods movement leader, Laura Chiraya Fox, is pleased to announce the 6th Annual Best of Raw Foods Awards are now accepting entries and nominations for the yearly honors taking place at the Raw Living Expo™, January 31 to February 2, 2014 in Thousand Oaks, CA. Featuring both an online awards contest and a “green carpet” raw celebrity gala event and formal dinner, the event is the annual highlight for the plant based raw foods movement. With a mission to “invite everyone to add more raw, organic plant food to their diet to increase health, decrease their eco footprint, and raise their spirits,” these ‘Rawscars’ as the awards are affectionately known, bring much deserved attention to the exciting personalities, companies and products in this billion dollar segment of the food industry.
Best of Raw™ celebrates initiatives towards a healthier diet and eco-footprint. Whether one is simply adding more raw to the diet, reaching for a healthier way of life, or are all raw vegan, Best of Raw™ encourages the raw community to have fun nominating their favorites and voting to increase visibility about these important brands and people.
People, Places, Products and Media of the plant based raw foods movement will be nominated and enter the competition in 66 categories. Some of the People categories include Professional Raw Educator, Professional Gourmet Chef, Raw Friendly Musical Act, Funniest Raw Woman, Sexiest Raw Man and more. The Places awards include Grocery Store with a Raw Section, Juice Cleansing Program, Raw Chef Training Program, Restaurant and others.
The largest group, Products, includes honors for Cereal, Chocolate Bar, Chocolate Truffle, Beverage, Cold Pressed Juice Product, Cookie/Brownie, Entree from Restaurant or Grocery Store Refrig Section, Kale Chips, and Raw Vegan Body Care Product. Media categories include Book, Film, Song about Raw Food, Blog, Online TV Show, Raw App and Raw Recipe Video. The Eco-Raw category highlights the raw Chef, Company, Educator, Initiative, Product, and Restaurant who go the extra mile to minimize their environmental impact.
The Best of Raw™ Voting Platform onto which entrants submit their work will help spread the word about their awesome, rawsome initiatives. Nominations and entries can be submitted until November 1, 2013 at http://bestofrawawards.com/. Voting on the nominees will open in November. Video instructions for the nominating and entrance processes are online now.
Revamped in 2013, the Best of Raw voting platform offers an exceptional voter and contender experience. People, Places, Products, Media and Eco-Initiatives in 66 Categories can enter, or be nominated by their fans. Once nominated, all contestants must ENTER. Voters will be able to see company images, videos and listen to any audio contenders upload, and vote with a click under the company logo. They can also immediately post to Facebook any comments they care to make about their vote, and easily share their choices with their friends.
In addition to the entered awards, Best of Raw also gives the Founder’s Awards and the Advisory Board Peer Review Awards to satisfy the needs of this growing industry. These awards include the Founder’s Award for Innovation; The Lifetime Achievement Award; The Eco-Friendly Company Innovation Award; The Soil Quality Improvement Award; The Organic Produce & Farming Award; and The Children’s Education Award.
Additionally Best of Raw™ is integrating a plant based Raw Foods Resource Directory as well. All sponsors and advertisers receive a free directory listing, and the community of raw foods products and services are welcome to register as well.
The Best of Raw Annual Awards Gala will take place at the Friday night of the Raw Living Expo™ in Thousand Oaks, California, January 31, 2014 at the Hyatt Westlake Village. The event will feature a sit down dinner orchestrated and designed by noted Raw Chef Jillian Love who will be training the Hyatt’s staff in raw preparation specifically for this event.
On the Sunday of the Raw Living Expo™, February 2, the Afterparty Dinner features a delicious casual raw meal designed by Best of Raw Award Winning Raw Chef Solla Eiriksdottir of Iceland. Tickets for the awards and expo are on sale now.
In addition to the awards, the Expo features three days of speakers, workshops, product giveaways, food sampling, live chef demos, entertainment, music, yoga, films and much more.
Regarding raw foods Chiraya Fox notes, “We not only assist our bodies in reclaiming higher vibrancy, health, mental and emotional well-being, we also reduce our impact on the planet, by simplifying our way of eating. When we also reach for local organic foods in their natural raw state, we’ve just reduced our footprint dramatically in the arenas of packaging, shipping, processing, marketing and more, as well as enhancing the physical energy of our sacred body temple with pure foods adding to our well-being instead of taking away from it, as processed foods do.”