Jetro Rafael and Robert Alejandro’s “Living Food: A Healing Journey” explores food, relationships, and the power both have over our lives

While we are inundated with so many different diets and techniques to eat healthy, a new book titled “Living Food: A Healing Journey” is as refreshing as it is sobering.

Authors and life partners Jetro Rafael and Robert Alejandro have a deeper relationship with food through their respective and joint experiences. Food is so much more than just mere energy for our daily lives—it can give joy, it can heal, and it can change your mood.

“The philosophy of the book is that it’s really a lived experience. So it’s not conceptual. It’s something that I directly experienced,” Rafael says.

“The philosophy of the book is that it’s really a lived experience. So it’s not conceptual. It’s something that I directly experienced,” Jetro Rafael says

Rafael, who was diagnosed with a bipolar condition early on, turned to the power of food and its healing properties. “Actually, I don’t see food as just food to fill up your stomach or to give into your cravings. I guess I see it scientifically. I see it on a molecular level, on an energetic level. Food is a living energy. So it’s a simple realization that I’m a living organism and to make this living organism thrive, I have to feed it with living energies.”

This way of approaching food also made Rafael an accidental chef in that he opened Van Gogh Is Bipolar—a small restaurant in Quezon City—where he serves dishes that helped him in his journey to a healthier mind. “I always like saying that this journey is unique to me. I don’t want to mislead others. It’s very important that I take full accountability and full responsibility for the choices and decisions that I made for myself,” he says.

When his partner of almost 25 years, artist Robert Alejandro was diagnosed with colon cancer and given only months to live, Rafael introduced him to a diet that can help his body battle his sickness.

“It was a natural flow for me when he asked for help and support. It was his own decision and his choice. We didn’t necessarily share the same truths or the same perceptions on how we live our lives, but since he was my partner, I wanted to give him my all,” Rafael recalls.

“I wanted to somehow ease the discomfort in him, ease the pain from his cancer recovery. Truthfully, these are recipes that I serve for Robert. These are the foods that he enjoys to eat. He loves lamb. He loves salmon. He also loves buko juice.”

The recipes in the book use familiar ingredients with simple techniques and promise flexibility; readers can tweak the recipes to their own liking. The book shares a recipe of a local version of raw Quark cheese made with raw carabao milk and probiotics that become the base of Budwig protocol, an unproven treatment for cancer that is said to improve cellular functioning. 

“The book is just to present that food is not just the food that you get full from. Food is medicine. That’s really the message of the book that living food is living medicine,” says Jetro Rafael

This diet combined with protein-rich nuts and antioxidants from berries and raw honey has been Alejandro’s staple meal the past several years. Alejandro writes in the introduction of the book, “All diagnoses say I should be dead by now. I feel this [book] is the reason (or perhaps one of the reasons) I am still here enjoying the remaining time I have on Earth.”

With Alejandro’s charming illustrations peppered throughout the book, “Living Food: A Healing Journey” also serves as a memoir. “It’s a memoir disguised as a cookbook,” Rafael chuckles. “If you’ve read some of the excerpts by Robert, it’s really raw. These are unedited versions of his thoughts and feelings. I’m his partner, so whenever I read it, I cry.”

The book is a reminder of the bigger picture and role that food—living food —plays in our lives. “The book is just to present that food is not just the food that you get full from. Food is medicine. That’s really the message of the book that living food is living medicine,” Rafael says. “It’s very clear that we’re not here to preach. We’re not here to judge. We’re just here to present what happened, what’s happening, and the possibilities of the future for us.”

“Living Food: A Healing Journey” is available for P895 on Milflores Publishing.