Raw food. It’s not a phrase that generally makes my mouth water. The image it conjures is of uncooked broccoli—crunchy, bland, slightly astringent. I guess that’s why I’m always pleasantly surprised when someone drags me to yet another new raw-food restaurant. I never fail to be delighted by ravioli made of nut cheese encased in paper-thin slices of raw beets, or butternut squash cut into spaghetti-like strands and coated with a rich “cream sauce” made of nuts and herbs. Each time, I half expect to want to hit the Burger King drive-through on the way home, but I wind up feeling truly satiated by food that is filling, satisfying, and alive with flavor.

The alluring claims of the raw-food movement are rivaled only by those of expensive anti-aging creams. Proponents of a raw-food diet promise nothing less than radiant outer beauty, improved inner health, and heightened vitality. A veritable glut of raw-food cookbooks on the market lately, too, has piqued my curiosity about both the practicality and benefits of incorporating more raw foods into our day-to-day diet. Filled with lusciously styled photographs, the new raw food cookbooks are seriously tempting, but I admit that whenever I flip through one I’m put off by how complicated it all seems. A far cry from a plate of crudité, “cooking raw” seems likely to require me to quit my day job (well, if I had one), invest in a kitchen full of fancy equipment, and devote days or even weeks to the preparation of a single dish.

So when I came across Raw Food/Real World, I was intrigued. Could this be the book that could finally turn me into a raw food devotee? “People who eat only raw, plant-based foods have an unmistakable shine, like a pregnant woman in her second trimester or someone newly in love,” its authors write, promising that a raw food diet will deliver “unusually clear skin, glossy hair, and shining eyes.” It was a promise I simply couldn’t dismiss. I wasn’t ready to commit to a raw-food diet, but I committed to making a complete raw-food meal, but only if I could do it in an afternoon in my home kitchen, without investing in any fancy equipment that might never be used again.

This last requirement proved quite a challenge given that most raw-food recipes require the use of a dehydrator—a $200 contraption that dries food out or warms it ever so slightly at a temperature lower than standard ovens can accommodate. After poring over several books, I settled on a menu of Corn Chowder (Entertaining in the Raw), Grapefruit and Fennel Salad (Raw Food/Real World ), Live Burgers (Raw Family Signature Dishes), and Banana Cream Pie (Sweet Gratitude).

The menu was simple, but nonetheless required a shopping cart full of ingredients not normally stocked in my pantry, from raw cashews and sunflower seeds to date paste, soy lecithin, and fresh young coconut. On the plus side, I’m fortunate to have a natural-foods supermarket in my neighborhood, which allowed me to do one-stop shopping for my raw food extravaganza. The downside is that the tab for this simple meal for two was a whopping $40. Multiply that by three meals a day and seven days a week and a full-time raw-food diet would be a stretch for most people’s budgets. But for ever-lasting health, vitality, and good looks to boot? Perhaps it is worth it. After all, it’s cheaper than many wrinkle creams.

All in all, thanks to my handy food processor, the meal came together quickly and with nary a hitch. The soup—made of cashew milk; coconut water and meat (from a fresh young coconut); kernels from eight ears of corn; and a few spices—was filling, fresh, and flavorful. The Live Burgers were the surprise hit of the meal. A combination of raw sunflower seeds, carrots, onion, raisins, agave nectar, olive oil, lemon juice, fresh basil, and jalapeno, the result was more pate than burger, but served on Portobello mushroom “buns,” they made for a satisfying main course. The grapefruit-and-fennel salad provided a nice acidic counterpoint to the burgers. The banana cream pie was surprisingly rich and creamy, a decadent treat I’d be happy to eat anytime.

All told, the meal took me about three hours (including shopping and food prep) to make. While that may not be practical for a weeknight meal, I could see whipping up a salad and the live burgers, which would only take about 45 minutes provided I had all the ingredients on hand, after work.

But what about my inner health and outer beauty, you might ask? I did wake up the next morning feeling exceptionally vital and my husband swears I had a certain, unmistakable glow. What can I say? Maybe you really can turn back the clock. Now I may just be ready to invest in that dehydrator.