Help with Greens

[Kristi]

I know I need to eat more greens. I eat salads with romain, red leaf lettuce, spinach and some mixed greens. I occassionaly have arrugula but only when I accidently pick it up instead of spinach....it's a little strong but ok.

Any ideas? I've tried some green drinks but they are usually too strong for me.

[smasty]

I've never tried it, mainly because I like to chew my food, but what about blended salads? You just throw your salad in the blender and you have salad smoothie. Looks gross to me, but I used to think mushrooms were gross before I went raw. Heck, you should see the juice concoctions I come up with...I guess I should try a blended salad sometime myself.

[Kristi]

That sounds disgusting.

[Rawkinlocs]

I tried my first blended salad yesterday and it was not appealing to me at all. In fact, veggie juicing, period is kind of yucky to me.

But, to incorporate more greens, sometimes I add a little kale or spinach to my fruit smoothies! I used to add spirulina powder, then a friend mentioned adding kale.

So, I blended up some bananas, strawberries, a pear (or apple) and about 3 to 4 dates with apprx. 3 to 4 leaves of kale (or a small handful of spinach). It must be blended WELL, until you don't see any green specks, but rather the whole smoothie is kinda greenish/brownish (I know, sounds gross) but it's actually quite good. Now, if you taste a little of it (before pouring a glass) and it still tastes kinda "greensy", then you may need to add a little more fruit and/or dates.

You can also do kale or lettuce leaf wraps where you spread some kind of nut pate' or other mixture in the leaves, roll and eat!

[smasty]

Did you see the 48 hours special on raw food recently? That's about all they showed was people drinking blended salads. Not a great representation of raw!! That's for sure! They had other things on too, don't get me wrong, Juliano and Carol Alt, but they spend way too much footage on blended salads.

[Kristi]

No I did not see that special. They really needed Alissa on to show them how to really eat raw!

[PaganChick]

I juice TONS of spinach (it's 65% protein, higher than chicken breast) and toss in carrots, tomato and a couple apples. Depending on the "strength" of the juice, I'll add a bit of water. It's a green juice, no doubt about that, but I've learned to actually like it.

[Kristi]

I'm willing to try. Thanks!

[suebee]

try the marinated greens, the collard rolls or the spinach dip.
That will help get more into ya!
Suebee

[Kristi]

Suebee,

Are those recipes from Alissa's book?

[suebee]

yes, they are all from her book!
Suebee

[Kristi]

Ok. I made a green drink. It's one of my micromovements towards my big goal and a goal for this week. I used carrots, one apple and about 1/3 bag of spinach. Not bad :p (that's licking my lips not sticking out the tonque.)

Here come the questions:

How much juice should I consume? Is 8 oz a day enough? That's about what I made today.

Paganchick said that spinach was 65% protein & more than a chicken breast. Well, how much spinach equals one chicken breast?

I exercise a lot and always run anemic. My doc keeps pushing for animal protein but I can't go there.......I want to make sure I'm doing what he ultimately intends without animal meat. Is a juic with spinach what I should be doing?

[thunderdancer]

Hiya Kristi!

Sounds like you need lots more iron rather than protein.. but I dunno. Maybe your Doc is pushing animal iron as they say it is more easy to absorb, but that's debatable (as it all seems to be!). What IS for sure is that cooking lowers the useability of iron so woohoo the raw greens!

Anyway, dark leafies YES for iron, more than 1/3 of a bag i'd say (unless your bags are bigger than mine which are 500g). Broccoli is great too. I eat 1/3 of a bag a day blended up with extra lettuce too.

Dried apricots are really good for iron too. And prune juice (!) and raisins.

What's good to do it make sure you have a good source of vit C as you eat your iron - it aids absorbtion. So juicing your greens with a high vit C fruit is great.

Have you put your intake into fitday? It can give you a heads up as to how much iron you are actually getting.

For protein you will get a good amount if you eat nuts and seeds.
I get mine from sprouted beans coz I can't digest nuts and seeds right now.

Again, try fitday to get an idea of how much you are getting?

I never heard of the protein in spinach/chicken thing but either there's way less useable protein in chicken than I realised or this is not true in some way. If I didn't eat some nuts/seeds/sprouts in a day fitday (ok, I know they aren't god ;) but they are good) won't recognise much protein at all, and I eat a LOT of spinach. I never tried putting chicken in tho as I don't eat it.

[Kristi]

My bag of spinach is 142g. Isn't spinach high in iron, too? I get plenty of C. I tried to do that fitday but I had trouble figuring out quantities. That's part of why I love raw.....no counting, no measuring. I would get a little OCD with that kind of stuff. I always have about 1/2 my salad as spinach. Yuck on the brocolli. I eat nuts and seeds....I make almond milk and use it to make something every day it is available. My doc pushes animal protein because he believes it is needed by humans. He is familiar with the raw food diet.

[thunderdancer]

Hi Kristi - yeah spinach is high in iron absolutely!

Sounds to me like you are doing great, are you still anaemic on this amount of spinach etc?

What about just entering in the greens then to see how much iron it gives you (ok, i'll stop plugging fitday now, honest I promise I don't work for them... or own shares hehe).

I agree on the raw broc = yuck too btw.

Unsulphured apricots... yum

Your doc should look at Alissa ripped muscles then hehe

[kirk]

Kristi,
In my book "Fresh Vegetableand Fruit Juices" by Norman Walker there are quite a few recipes for iron containing juices to overcome an anemic conditions. The ones numbered in Bold type are considered to be essential and the ones numbered in normal type have been shown to produce results.

1.carrot 10oz., spinach 6oz.
2.carrot 9oz., fennel 7oz.
3.carrot 7oz., celery 4oz., parsley 2oz.,spinach 3oz.
4.carrot 8oz., beet 3oz., celery 5oz.
5.carrot 10oz., beet 3oz., cucumber 3oz.
6.carrot 8oz., radish 4oz., lettuce 4oz.
7. pomegranate 16oz.
8. carrot 11oz., beet 3oz., coconut 2oz.
9. carrot 9oz., beet 3oz., lettuce 4oz.
10. carrot 9oz., dandelion 3oz., lettuce 4oz.
11. carrot 8oz., lettuce 5oz., spinach 3oz.
12. carrot 11oz., dandelion 3oz., turnip 2oz.

This should give you something to play with:)

[Kristi]

Wow thanks Kirk. That is super helpful (not that everyone else's advice wasn't helpful.) This is something I can put into action. Does your book say anything about quanitity per day or is this it? If I have, for example, 10 oz carrots & 6 oz of spinach per day that's enough to boost me out of anemia?

I am printing off the list now so I can put it near the juicer!

[thunderdancer]

BEETS!!! I forgot about beets :D

[Kristi]

I think I'll try the non-beet recipes first. :rolleyes:

[kirk]

Kristi ~ If I were going after a specific condition, I would try to drink about 3 a day but I suppose you could get by on two a day depending on how fast you want to see results.

Also when juicing beets,dandelion,radish,and turnip use both root and top.Carrot tops are to be discarded.

Beets are cool. They go in red and come out red. When I first trid them, it gave me quiet a scare!:)

[Kristi]

You crack me up! Ok, I won't disregard beets.

I do want fast results. I'm a recovering type A personality! But it still sneaks in.

[marigold]

just read the whole thread and it cracked me up..this is marigold who pulls faces to get her juice drunk!!! in answer to how much i say as much as you can manage and that may only be a small glass right now yeah !! i have got caught up in oh i must have x amount and if its aweful to you whats the point..

i got my green strar juicer so i could do green juices and i hate them..until recently after months of trying this and that..so there is hope for you all..
now i can stomach
an apple
beet
3 carrots
and couple of handfulls of greens which at moment is bout 8 stalks of nettles and wild greens so i get the prana and the soil..!!!

this blend covers up the wheatgrass and green taste..in the winter i will go onto spinich and kale..

i have lettuce and spinich and watercress in a salad ..if i have a strong or yummy dressing on i can cope with it...

just got some green powder for the days i dont get a juice in...

do you ever feel the day is about fitting all this in lol

love marigold

[PaganChick]

Unfortunately, you would have to eat 50 cups of spinach to get the amount of protein in 1 cup of chicken.... not very doable. I cant imagine 50 cups of spinach, or spinach juice for that matter... YUCK!

As for the iron and anemia... surely it would take alot less spinach. Lots of good advice here.

[Alissa]

That’s not correct. Animal protein is a very poor source of assimilated protein. Protein does not create protein in your body. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein. Dark greens have the highest amount of amino acids. And they are the most digestible and assimilated source available.

Also, when you cook your chicken it destroys a huge amount of protein, vitamin and mineral, not to mention the enzymes. And that’s before you even try to digest it and get the useable protein from it.
Living foods are highly superior to dead animal carcass that gets stuck in your intestines and takes 68- 100 hours to digest (as opposed to living foods which take 24-36 hours).

A bowl of sprouts may only have 2 grams of protein but it is in a much more useable form as apposed to a chicken breast that may have say 20 grams? By the time you cook, destroy and try to digest whatever isn’t rotting in your colon from not being able to assimilate it, you may end up with a few grams... if your lucky.

[Kristi]

So, am I doing ok on that amount of spinach, Alissa?

[NWgal]

You are so smart Thunderdancer! I am learning so much from you.
so I must ask... whats fit day?

[thunderdancer]

Hi NWgal :)

I'm not qualified or anything :eek: just I guess i've done a lot of reading in my health travels the past couple of years, i've been lucky that i've not been working so i've had the time.

Fitday is this site where you register for free and then you can enter in what you eat in a day and it gives you the values and reports your nutrients etc.. it doesn't tell you EVERYTHING but it's a good benchmark - especially I find when non raw people start saying 'you don't get enough protein/calories/calcium/iron' and all that.

You can also put in your fitness goals and record too and weight and calulate BMI (body mass index) and stuff like that.

You can find it here:

www.fitday.com

[Dane]

Alissa,
Thanks so much for that bit of information on protein! Im going to copy this and give it to a couple of fitness friends of mine who say that greens are inferior to chicken and fish.

Much love,
Dane

[valencia]

Paganchick said that spinach was 65% protein & more than a chicken breast. Well, how much spinach equals one chicken breast?


According to the USDA nutrient database, It's actually about 49% by kcals, although that is a little deceptive because spinach is mostly water and you have to eat a lot of it to get a considerable amount of protein.

You must eat 1.43 times as many kcals of spinach to get the same total g of protein in 200 kcal of chicken breast.

One 10 oz bag (284 g) of raw spinach has 65 kcal and 8 g of protein. You would have to eat 3.7 10 oz bags of spinach to get the same amount of protein as one 100 g cooked chicken breast.

But, it will hurt your stomach if you eat that much of it, probably because of the high oxalic content.

A better approach might be to aim for 20 g of protein from sprouted legumes and vegetables (this could be anywhere from 7-20+ cups, throughout the day), another 10 from fruit (at least 5 pieces) and another 10 from nuts/seeds (a few ounces). This will probably provide a good mix of amino acids, too.