Is soaking nuts really helpful/purposeful?

[Goldsplinter]

I don't know... is it?

[Veganforlife]

Yes. It really is. Nuts have enzyme inhibitors. Soaking releases them and your body doesn't have to do all that work...
I re-read in Alissa's book about soaking nuts...do you have her book?

[Goldsplinter]

no.

Any links to detailed explanations on why?

[Goldsplinter]

look what I found


If you enjoy the taste of soaked seeds and nuts, there's nothing wrong with soaking them. But the enzyme inhibitor theory is flawed and not applicable to human digestion. Soaking simply activates the enzymes required to stimulate germination. This doesn't have an effect on ease of digestion in the human stomach.

The enzyme inhibitors are not set up to function as inhibitors to digestion, and whether or not they are in activated or not activated is a moot point. They are set up to inhibit germination, a completely different function than digestion.

Most nuts that people soak are completely sterile anyways, due to heat and long periods of storage.

Higher water content foods tend to be easier to digest....so in that regards, if you find that nuts are an effort to digest, it might be worth a try to soak them. Just as dried fruit is easier to digest once its soaked, dried nuts are too. Again, this has nothing to do with enzyme inhibitors, it's simply the water content.

The best nuts of all are those fresh off the tree.....still moist, juicy, watery, and crisp. Those are the easiest to digest of all, and they have not been soaked.

Since we only digest the surface area of nuts, the amount we chew our food is of prime importance. Unsoaked nuts chewed 100 times will digest with far greater ease than soaked nuts chewed only 20 times.

Blended nuts, as in a dressing or sauce, digest best of all.
http://www.vegsource.com/talk/raw/messages/16306.html

[mongomango]

Go to any sprouting link. While nuts will not really sprout, they will germinate and make chemical changes within themselves after soaking, just like other seed...which after all is what a nut is.. a seed.


edit: I did not see your post prior to putting mine up. The inhibitors aren't purposely there to prevent humans from digesting nuts...quite right they are there to prevent germination. However, and added attribute is that it does make the nut harder to digest and they also cause certain nutrients, depending upon the nut, to be unavailable to us.

[eatyourbroccoli]

you could find anything on the internet supporting either side of the issue.

do soaking nuts help your body digest them easier?

if so, soak them.

if not, dont.

things dont always have to be a drawn out controversy. its not as though anybody will ever be able to know the truth about anything anyways.

"truth" is always theory, and theory is always speculation.

that's that.

[Davylp25]

^ Agree. Truth is always percieved by the individual observer. But many people today always follow. I sure did at the beginning of this raw journey, until i decided from experience, Truth for me is an individual thing. Theres only one me in the whole world right now, shouldnt my experience be enough to decide what truth is?

Try and see, you will know if the nuts, agree or disagree with you soaked or not.

[codajess]

Instead of starting new threads for every question you have, you can click on the "search" banana at the top of the page and do a search. There are plenty of questions that have already been answered lots of times; and you can get your answers right away, instead of waiting for people to post responses.

[misslinda]

Your life is a whole lot easier with Alissa's book. There is explanation and a chart to refer to..........trust us, this saves you time and heart ache. Besdies, you will get all the testimonies and the recipes that you cannot get on the site. ;)