Raw Vegan Chef Journey:

From the First Lasagna to the Global Stage with Raw Chef Yin

How a trigger finger, a food blog photo, and a TEDx stage shaped one of the most prolific raw chefs in the world

Every raw vegan chef journey has a beginning, and Raw Chef Yin’s might be one of the most unexpected ones out there. No culinary background, no grand plan, just a photo of a lasagna on a blog that stopped her mid-scroll and changed everything.

Yin is a repeat guest on my channel for good reason. She has been part of the Ultimate Raw Vegan Bundle multiple times now and this year she brought something a little different. Instead of a recipe course, she wrote a book. Raw Roots is her story, from that very first lasagna in 2014 all the way to the global stage, and it is a genuinely fascinating one.

Why a Book Instead of a Course This Time

The reason is very Yin. Practical, honest, and a little bit funny. A trigger finger and trigger thumb had been giving her grief, meaning long hours in the kitchen with a knife and food processor were off the table for a while. So she sat down and wrote instead.

Almost twelve years into her raw vegan chef journey, she figured it was time to document it before the details started fading. Smart call. The result is a book that reads like a real insider account of how someone goes from zero kitchen confidence to a TEDx stage to teaching raw food workshops across Asia and beyond.

That First Lasagna

She was not even looking for raw food. She was searching for healthy ice cream recipes, found a food blog called This Rawsome Vegan Life, and landed on a lasagna photo that stopped her cold. She had all the ingredients. She made it. It took two and a half hours in a tiny food processor and tasted amazing.

What really got her though was not the taste. It was the energy. Coming from a Malaysian diet heavy in spices, salt, and fat, she was used to feeling sluggish after meals. This lasagna left her feeling light and energized in a way she had never experienced from food before. That was the moment the raw vegan chef journey really started.

From Kitchen Experiments to TEDx

What followed was a rapid and somewhat accidental rise. Yin started documenting her raw food experiments on Instagram in 2015. People got curious. They started asking if she could teach them. She kept saying no. Then she said yes, starting with simple things like bliss balls and almond milk and chia pudding.

Within months she was teaching multiple times a week, then in other cities, then in Singapore and Hong Kong. Press interviews followed, then radio, then print magazines. The raw vegan chef journey had taken on a life of its own well before she had planned any of it.

The TEDx talk came because she wrote it on her vision board in 2016 and started saying it out loud. She borrowed books from the library on how to give a TED talk, practiced with workshop participants, rehearsed with the organizers. When she walked out onto that stage and found the red circle, she was not nervous. She was lit up. That is worth something.

Going Lower Fat and Finding the Bundle

Yin’s early raw food phase was high fat by default. The Matthew Kenney training she did is beautiful food, but it is built for broad appeal and uses a lot of cashews, oils, and rich ingredients. The shift toward lower fat came gradually, nudged along by COVID, a desire to feel even better, and stumbling onto Dr. Rick and Karen Dina’s energy summit.

Then she bought the very first Ultimate Raw Vegan Bundle. She made recipes, learned low fat oil free approaches, and not long after I reached out and invited her to contribute. Now she is a recurring part of the family, 29 video courses deep into her raw vegan chef journey and still creating. We couldn’t feel more blessed that she is a part!

She mentioned in our chat that even Lisa did not know she had a raw vegan dim sum course until Yin brought it up in Vegas. Dumplings, lotus rice, tarts, paw. Twenty-nine courses and counting. If you are not following Raw Chef Yin, you are missing a lot.

Raw Food in Malaysia and the TCM Tension

One of the more interesting threads in our conversation was the cultural landscape Yin is working within. Malaysia is one of the best places on earth to be raw vegan in terms of tropical fruit access and year round produce, and yet raw food remains pretty niche there.

Part of it is the abundance of inexpensive, deeply flavored cooked food that is woven into the culture. Part of it is traditional Chinese medicine, which tends to view raw cold foods with suspicion. Yin herself feels pulled between both worlds, which I found very honest and refreshing to hear. She mentioned that even her acupuncturist was shocked she eats salad every day.

My own view, which I have held for a long time, is that TCM and Ayurveda are intelligent systems with a lot of wisdom, but their framework for raw food was built around a very different dietary context than an abundant low fat raw vegan diet provides. When someone is thriving on raw food, the whole cold and damp argument starts to lose its footing pretty quickly. But it is a genuinely interesting conversation and one worth having with more depth another time.

The Work Behind the Stage

When I asked Yin what she most wants people to take from Raw Roots, she kept it simple. Put in the hard work and the results will show. There is a lot of behind the scenes effort that goes into making anything look effortless in front of people, whether that is a TEDx talk, a raw food workshop, or a 29-course library.

That is actually one of the best things about following a raw vegan chef journey like Yin’s over time. You see that none of it happened overnight. The TED talk came from vision boarding and library books and practice runs with students. The teaching career came from saying yes when it felt too soon. The international reach came from showing up consistently even when the food did not always land with the boyfriend the first time around.

About Raw Roots and the Bundle

Raw Chef Yin’s contribution to the Ultimate Raw Vegan Bundle this year is Raw Roots, her memoir-style ebook covering the full arc of her raw vegan chef journey from that first lasagna in 2014 through the TEDx stage and beyond. It is a genuinely different kind of offering and a great read for anyone who wants a real inside look at how this path unfolds when you commit to it.

You can find Yin on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook all as Raw Chef Yin, where she posts both raw and cooked content for a high raw lifestyle.

Raw Roots is included in the Ultimate Raw Vegan Bundle alongside The Model Diet, the 80/10/10 Diet Masterclass with Dr. Douglas Graham, and 30+ other brand new resources. All of it for just $50 until midnight Pacific time May 11th.

And a quick note from our chat: if you are dealing with any injuries or recovery and want to explore red light therapy, I use and recommend TheraBulb with code rawadvantage15 for 15% off.