When you hear someone talk about raw food, you first think about uncooked meat, filled with dangerous bacteria like e. Coli and salmonella. Actually, raw food is just food that hasn’t been processed in any way and hasn’t been cooked over 104 to 118 degrees Fahrenheit. Processed food is anything that has been refined, pasteurized, or treated with pesticides. But, just because something is raw doesn’t mean it’s not safe to eat.
Most meats are unsafe to eat raw, but there are a lot of raw foods that are perfectly safe to eat. For instance, you can eat vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, grains, and even some seafood raw without issue. Aside from seafood, many foods that we grow are safe to eat without being cooked, heated, seasoned, or processed in any way. They’re the perfect example of raw food that people eat regularly.
When you look at the foods you can eat raw, you’ll also notice that many are hors d’oeuvres and finger food. If you’re hosting an event and looking for something easy to eat that requires little cleanup, our Raw Bar catering menu might be perfect for you.
Are There Benefits to Eating Raw Food?
Raw foods–the ones that are safe to consume–have many benefits to them. When you look at the categories of raw foods we’ve mentioned, they’re foods that are high in nutritional value, have diverse flavors, and take little preparation time. But there are health benefits too, as non-meat raw foods like some nuts and seeds don’t have free radicals.
These are molecules with uneven electrons that react with other nearby molecules negatively. Why is this science important? Because free radicals are made whenever you cook food, and the way these molecules interact with other molecules in your food and body can cause cancer. Everyone has free radicals in their body and food, but when that’s the only food you eat, you can hurt yourself.
There are also many other molecules, proteins, and more in cooked foods that aren’t in raw foods. This has allowed raw foods to improve your defense against diseases like the common fold, flu, and measles. They also lower the chances of heartburn, gas, indigestion, and constipation. A raw bar for social function sounds pretty good right about now.
What’s on Our Raw Bar Catering Menu?
This special catering menu is designed for any event. Our Raw Bar menu is full of items people can eat while mingling and take and eat at their seats.
- Cocktail Shrimp: This is one of, if not the most popular appetizers you can get. Shrimp is the most consumed seafood in the world. You can eat it while it’s warm or cold. Pair it with a cocktail sauce that was integral to its growth in popularity, and you have an appetizer that’s both tasty and healthy. This menu comes with 160 pieces of shrimp.
- Poached Lobster: This one-time delicacy is cooked at a low temperature to the point that the water never boils. This reduces the free radicals we mentioned and maintains its health benefits. These also come in 60 small pieces, making another food people can eat on the go.
- Snow Crab Claws: Snow crab is one of the most popular crabs to eat, and the claw is where a large chunk of their meat is. While all crab is known for being juicy, snow crab is especially so, and it doesn’t have the sharp edges of king crab. Snow crab is also much easier to break, so while this is something people will want to eat at the table, they’re not going to make a mess and can walk around with it.
- On the Halfshell: This is a collection of oysters, clams, and green tip mussels that your guests can pick up and pop into their mouths at their leisure. This appetizer item comes with 60 pieces of each shellfish, perfect for seafood lovers.
- Side of Smoked Salmon: When we smoke meat, we don’t use an oven or microwave that creates a lot of free radicals. Instead, we place the pan over a charcoal grill, and it cooks in a way that retains the benefits of raw foods while making them safe to eat.
- Side of Poached Salmon: Like the poached lobster, this is cooked at a lower temperature to maintain the benefits of raw food.
- Poached Scallops: Scallops are another shellfish known for their tasty and soft texture. They’re best when poached because of how much flavor you can lose when you cook them through other means. Our menu provides 4 pounds of poached scallops.
Our items come in bulk so you know how much you’re getting and if it’s enough on its own to feed your event.
Contact Grico’s for Our Raw Bar Catering
There’s nothing wrong with having healthy and delicious foods for the guests at your event. Whether it’s for a social outing among friends and family or a work function you need to host, our Raw Bar catering menu is perfect for the occasion. If there are other themes you’d rather, please see our large selection of catering menus.
We have catering menus for all occasions, but if you need to taste our food for yourself, come to our restaurant. Make a reservation online and get a taste of what you and your guests can enjoy.