Q&A with Café by TAO's Agat Mathieu

Agat Mathieu has always loved food. As she says, “Just looking at a cake, I would gain a pound!” How different her outlook is today.

Agat owns Café by TAO, a tiny eatery on Vancouver’s North Shore that’s been serving all organic, raw, vegan, and wheat and dairy free food since March. These days, she eats as she pleases, her one deviation being wine. We can understand that.

How did you discover raw food?

It was August of 2003 and a friend of mine leant me the book by Victoria Boutenko, 12 Steps to Raw Foods: How to End Your Dependency on Cooked Food. I read it all that night. And then thought, ‘What she’s saying is to eat more fruits and vegetables’. She’s not telling me to go out there and buy supplements, to spend $1,000 a month on things like that. It’s food that I’m eating already, but in a different way. The next morning, I started to eat raw.

Within three months, my Rheumatoid Arthritis pain was gone. My skin was in a constant rash, hurting, cracking and peeling; it was so painful. That went away. I had many floaters in my vision and now it’s just down to a few. I was overweight and that went away.

What made you decide to open a café?

Back in 2002, I started to feed my family strictly organic. I totally understand that some people will say they can’t afford this. Neither could I. So I created a buying group with friends so I could buy directly from the supplier, get it by the case, and then the prices are less. My friends would taste my food and say, ‘Agat, you must sell that food!’

Is every single dish organic, raw, vegan, wheat and dairy free?

Yes! I don’t touch anything conventional because it means you’re ruining the topsoil, it contaminates the water, it’s very bad for the animals. They’re covered with pesticides or they have to inject pesticides for transferring the pollen from plant to plant.

Here in the café, we have avocados in the Nori. If the avocados aren’t available organic, there’s no avocados in the Nori that day.

Miles, a farmer in Richmond (Cherry Lane Farm) just delivered beautiful spinach, swiss chard and zucchini blossom, which I will come up with some recipes to use [special creations are posted daily on their Facebook page].

I buy from local farmers as much as possible. Miles picked up all the veggies this afternoon and delivered them to us two hours later.

How do you keep your prices so low?

Going out to a restaurant, you’ll usually have a burger and a salad on the side, or you have something that comes with it, so that burger is now $8 or $9. I wanted to offer the items separately, and if someone wants to eat a salad with their burger, they can order the salad, but it doesn’t come with it. They’re not looking at a $20 meal every time they come in here, so it makes it more affordable.

I really believe in what eating this way can bring to families, children, the planet. So I’m doing my part by keeping the prices low by not expecting a huge salary out of the business, but more to bring it out so people can really experience it. They’ll start to eat that way at home, too, not only at the café.

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You can find Agat’s ready-made line, TAO Organics (kale chips, crackers, granola, etc.), in markets and grocery stores. She will also begin teaching classes above the café this month, so check out the website for what she’s offering.

If wine is her only deviation from her raw food diet, we’re pretty confident she knows what she’s talking about.

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