NAME: Bryan Au

OCCUPATION: Raw organic chef, cookbook author, and spokesperson

Cheeseburger combo meals. Frozen pizzas. Drive-thru fried chicken and microwaveable fried chicken. Get a burrito at the convenience store. Tear off the plastic wrapper. Throw the burrito in the microwave. Press 3. This isn’t how college students eat. This is how many people eat. It’s SAD—the Standard American Diet.

I advocate the benefits of raw organic food. I recently published a cookbook, Raw in Ten Minutes, and I pitch my ideas to agents, publishers, businesses, and TV executives. I deliver persuasive presentations over the Internet, on television shows, in conference rooms, one on one, and in front of thousands of people. I talk about vegan food, and I promote wheat-, gluten-, and dairy-free food. And as you may have already guessed—what? no cheese? no burgers? no cheeseburgers?—I run into some very hostile audiences.

Fortunately, I have a background in communication. As an undergraduate, I took a number of communication classes, and the principles and concepts I learned in those classes have been especially valuable to me as a persuasive speaker. For example, as a persuasive speaker, I seek to influence my audience’s preexisting attitudes and beliefs toward raw organic food. Those attitudes and beliefs include, but are not limited to, raw food = gross. I try to counteract those beliefs and attitudes, and by doing so, I hope to influence my audience’s behavior. In other words, I hope to change people’s eating habits.

The proposition-of-fact part is easy. Through stories, slides, examples, and statistics, I can persuade my audience that organic food is healthier than overprocessed food. There is, for example, a great bonus feature on the Super Size Me DVD that shows a plate of french fries from a certain fast-food restaurant. Those fries have been left out on a counter, unrefrigerated, for a number of months. At the end of those months, the fries look exactly the same. Images like that bolster my propositions of fact.

Because I deal with hostile audiences, it’s particularly important that I make appeals to ethos. I need to come across as trustworthy and full of goodwill. I start my presentation with an informal question-and-answer session. People ask me questions, and I ask them questions. Has anyone eaten any raw food this week? What about a salad? Through this informal Q&A, I try to demonstrate to my listeners that I’m not trying to force a particular diet on them. I acknowledge their point of view (hey, I like fast food too!), and I look for ways to bridge the gap between us. I also appeal to their senses. My raw organic food recipes don’t look like lumpy white tofu on a bed of wheatgrass. My recipes look and taste like comfort food.

Finally, with a bridge established between me and my audience, I make a quick little pathos appeal. I dare everyone to give raw organic food a try. Just as I’m daring you.