Can you get enough Greens from Superfoods?

[Rawspberry]

I don't really like salads or blended greens. If the only green foods I ate were wheatgrass, spirulina and chlorella etc. do you think that would be enough? For the chlorophyll and other things greens have? I think those are more concentrated then salad greens anyways right? More potent etc. I hope they would be enough.

[Sunshine9]

I would say no. The concentrated foods are really beneficial for some people, but I know for me spirulina and green juice are totally separate. We need vibrant, juicy, chlorophyll every day - period. Why don't you try some celery apple juice, or maybe a fruit smoothie with one or two leaves of romaine or spinach.. start small and enjoy it! In the past you may have thought you didn't like a certain food, but I can assure you when you discover the beauty of greens no meal will be complete without them!

[rawnora]

Your body is not mistaken when it tells you that some foods are appetizing and others are not. This is important information coming from your body. All other animals on earth use their senses to select their foods, and they are healthy. We can do the same. Trust your body to select foods for you. It's not mysterious or complicated, you just go to the supermarket and pick out the foods that taste, look, smell and 'feel' good to you. If you don't like greens, you don't have to eat them and you don't have to make up for it by eating highly processed and fractionated supplements (even if they are marketed as "whole"). How often are we admonished to "listen" to our bodies? Yet, there is nobody in the raw community who is telling us we can be healthy NOT eating foods we don't like. Try feeding 'superfoods' to an infant. They won't eat it. Babies typically won't eat greens either, unless they are disguised in a fruit smoothie. They won't willingly take medicine and they prefer their foods one at a time. We need to learn from them!

Greens are supplemental foods. Fruit is our #1 food. If you like greens, eat them, by all means. Eat as much of them as you like. If you don't like them, however, you don't have to eat them. I think it's a good idea to keep trying them, however. Tastes change. Most people find that after a period of eating raw they do recover their ability to appreciate the subtle qualities of lettuce, celery and other green foods.

Regards,
Nora
www.RawSchool.com

[Rawspberry]

Wheatgrass juice is highly processed?

Chlorella is fractionated? I thought it was just dried algae. I actually do like the taste of chlorella and spirulina in just water.

I don't consider celery a green anymore then I consider a cucumber or green bell peppers a green. It's just a lightly green colored vegetable. I mean leafy greens like kale and red leaf etc. I actually do like salads and they make me feel good afterwards, very nourished. I just don't like the hassle of making them. Of getting fresh greens all the time and the pain of washing them and examining them for cleanliness etc. Vegetables and fruits like celery, cucumber, carrots, peppers, squashes, cabbage etc. are much nicer and easier to eat and prepare. I just wondered if I had the chlorella etc. if I would still not get enough chlyrophyll or anything.

Thanks guys!

[rawnora]

Wheatgrass juice is highly processed?

Chlorella is fractionated? I thought it was just dried algae. I actually do like the taste of chlorella and spirulina in just water.

I don't consider celery a green anymore then I consider a cucumber or green bell peppers a green. It's just a lightly green colored vegetable. I mean leafy greens like kale and red leaf etc. I actually do like salads and they make me feel good afterwards, very nourished. I just don't like the hassle of making them. Of getting fresh greens all the time and the pain of washing them and examining them for cleanliness etc. Vegetables and fruits like celery, cucumber, carrots, peppers, squashes, cabbage etc. are much nicer and easier to eat and prepare. I just wondered if I had the chlorella etc. if I would still not get enough chlyrophyll or anything.


Wheatgrass juice is processed, but I was referring more to the green powders you mentioned. "Fractionated" means the product is only a part of the original whole. If it was whole, it would retain its original form. Green powders don't come from nature, they come from factories. This is apart from the fact that algae does not meet the criteria for human food to begin with. If I have the choice of eating ripe fruits hanging from the trees or algae from a pond, I'd go for the fruit and most other humans would too. The only thing that might motivate a person to do otherwise would be the mistaken intellectual notion that algae is healthier, which is a product of the faux 'science' of nutrition. If a person prefers advice and opinions over his/her own senses, the next decision s/he'll have to make is which expert to trust over his/her own body. Speaking for myself, I prefer to trust the messages I get from nature herself, as delivered to me by my preferences. Our preferences don't come from our minds, they come from our bodies.

Celery is technically a green vegetable, while cucumbers and peppers are fruits, botanically speaking. It is mineral rich and shares all the important characteristics of the green leafies without the bitter and toxic constituents found in some of them.

Sometimes it serves our long term interests to spend time preparing foods even when we'd prefer not to because eating too simply can leave us vulnerable to impulse eating or even bingeing. Not wanting to eat salads either because you don't like them or you don't have time to make them won't hurt you, however. Perhaps you could just make them on weekends when you have more time.

Nora
www.RawSchool.com

[LightLover]

I found out that if I begin to eat more fruits like pepper, cucumber, avocado and tomato
(yes, these are fruits...) thihs is the best start

[Rawspberry]

I know cucumbers and peppers are fruits, but they are still green pigmented. Celery botanically and technically speaking is a herbaceous biennial plant in the family Apiaceae. Same family as dill, hemlock, angelica, gotu kola, poison hemlock, cumin, fennel, parsley, etc. Celery does indeed contain toxins. As does many fruits like grapefruit, tomatoes, peppers etc.

"Celery harbors toxins that at high enough levels damage the human immune system and causes photosensitivity. (Highest levels occur in celery that has brownish patches.) Celery also contains naturally occurring nitrates."

Celery also contains Coumarins, a light activated carcinogen and skin irritant. It is also bitter and astrigent

Grapefruit contains naturally occuring pesticides, tomatoes and peppers contain toxic glycoalkaloids. Mango, berries, rhubarb and all nuts and seeds contain oxalic acid. So can we trust our instincts to only select non-toxic foods, I doubt it since toxins are such a normal and natural part of most foods.

[Goldsplinter]

I know cucumbers and peppers are fruits, but they are still green pigmented. Celery botanically and technically speaking is a herbaceous biennial plant in the family Apiaceae. Same family as dill, hemlock, angelica, gotu kola, poison hemlock, cumin, fennel, parsley, etc. Celery does indeed contain toxins. As does many fruits like grapefruit, tomatoes, peppers etc.

"Celery harbors toxins that at high enough levels damage the human immune system and causes photosensitivity. (Highest levels occur in celery that has brownish patches.) Celery also contains naturally occurring nitrates."

Celery also contains Coumarins, a light activated carcinogen and skin irritant. It is also bitter and astrigent

Grapefruit contains naturally occuring pesticides, tomatoes and peppers contain toxic glycoalkaloids. Mango, berries, rhubarb and all nuts and seeds contain oxalic acid. So can we trust our instincts to only select non-toxic foods, I doubt it since toxins are such a normal and natural part of most foods.
wtf.

You seem to be saying a siginificant part of raw-foods, are not good for you. Well actually, it makes kinda sense, because supposedly, we are only supposed to eat like 10-20% fruits(sugars) and 10-20% fats

I had a funny-ass thought today, that maybe the natural diet for humans, is, for humans to eat other humans.

[sport]

wtf.

You seem to be saying a siginificant part of raw-foods, are not good for you. Well actually, it makes kinda sense, because supposedly, we are only supposed to eat like 10-20% fruits(sugars) and 10-20% fats

I had a funny-ass thought today, that maybe the natural diet for humans, is, for humans to eat other humans.
I think that you would have to increase that 10%-20% fruits significantly because there is not much else besides protein and too much of that is very harmfull.
On your 2nd point you should read The China Study and know that any flesh is detrimental to our health regardless of the source.

[sport]

To get back to the original point:
I fully understand the problem that you have cleaning produce because I am as fussy as you and have to inspect every leaf fully on both sides.
I am aware that the factory producing the "Superfoods" are not quite so fussy and that creatures are probably getting through.
I recomend that you buy big leaf produce without crinkles such as Romaine. It is easy to inspect romaine and adding 4 or 5 leaves to a strong tasting smoothie will go unnoticed.
I agree with the previous post that eating algae does not seem natural to me (besides I tries a spoonfull once and almost got sick) and that eating something that you dislike does not seem natural either but if the only reason that you do not try greens is the ones stated then you should try it my way.

[alex]

Getting back to the original question of whether or not you can get enough from superfoods...

If you google superfoods - it seems everyone has a different opinion as to what superfoods are.

Here is an interesting site about chlorella and spirulina:

http://www.chlorellafactor.com/


alex

[rawnora]

I know cucumbers and peppers are fruits, but they are still green pigmented. Celery botanically and technically speaking is a herbaceous biennial plant in the family Apiaceae. Same family as dill, hemlock, angelica, gotu kola, poison hemlock, cumin, fennel, parsley, etc. Celery does indeed contain toxins. As does many fruits like grapefruit, tomatoes, peppers etc.
"Celery harbors toxins that at high enough levels damage the human immune system and causes photosensitivity. (Highest levels occur in celery that has brownish patches.) Celery also contains naturally occurring nitrates."
Celery also contains Coumarins, a light activated carcinogen and skin irritant. It is also bitter and astrigent
Grapefruit contains naturally occuring pesticides, tomatoes and peppers contain toxic glycoalkaloids. Mango, berries, rhubarb and all nuts and seeds contain oxalic acid. So can we trust our instincts to only select non-toxic foods, I doubt it since toxins are such a normal and natural part of most foods.

The above reminds me of a recent thread on my discussion list where someone claimed that since it has been found that mothers' milk contains a "morphine-like" substance, mothers' milk is therefore addictive and that's why babies want it. This kind of information (I use the word loosely) and the kind cited above is exactly why we need to learn to trust our senses fully. The nutritional and medical research fields are fond of hyper-analyzing foods (usually with the hope of finding some marketable 'beneficial' compound) and completely ignoring the big picture. The big picture is what is important, not what can be seen through a microscrope.

I didn't say following our senses in selecting foods will allow us to avoid ALL toxins, Rawspberry. As you note, there are some in almost every food. The idea is to eat foods that have the fewest toxins, and for humans that food clearly is fruit. The benefits of a few other foods besides fruit also outweigh their negative aspects, like celery, lettuce, baby spinach and a few others. I don't find this to always be the case, because sometimes these foods taste bitter to me. When that happens, I don't force myself to eat them anyway because of all the beneficial minerals they contain, and I don't add them to smoothies to sneak them past my senses.

Incidentally, if celery has "brownish patches" on it, we don't need a scientific study to tell us that it has substances in it that will be unusable by the body. If a person chooses to ignore this and eats some anyway, the presence of those harmful substances in the food will be confirmed by his/her taste buds.

Nora
www.RawSchool.com

[LightLover]

I don't really like salads or blended greens. If the only green foods I ate were wheatgrass, spirulina and chlorella etc. do you think that would be enough? For the chlorophyll and other things greens have? I think those are more concentrated then salad greens anyways right? More potent etc. I hope they would be enough.


Rawspberry, did you ever try to marinate your salade for 1-2 hours?
And did your feeling of disliking it change?

(with some olive oil, lime juice, and if you want some good salt; or
with a good raw pesto)

Anyone else who is doing the marinate? And what do you use, and how long?

LL