hard foods in blenders

[shelah]

what's the hardest food you've been able to handle with your vitamix or k-tec?
i want to try to make a smoothie recommended by dr. tom wu, who advocates including the seeds of the fruits you blend, even AVOCADO!!
i'm a little nervous to try it in my vitamix (he recommends the k-tec but i don't want to upgrade).
so, what do you all think?!

[rawjojo]

If I were going to use seeds, (which I probably wouldn't) but if it was recommended to you by someone you trust then I would feel okay about using smaller softer seeds like papaya, grape, orange, etc in my k-tec. As you probably know that huge pit in the middle of an avacado is really big and really hard. I myself would never put it in my k-tec. The k-tec is really powerful and so it may break it up however I can't imagaine that it wouldn't cause tons of damage (like cracking the pitcher and dulling the blades). However, I have never tried this and so I don't really know, but the sensible side of me tells me "no way". Also, one last thing I wanted to mention to you was to look into whichever seeds you plan to blend because while there are many that are beneficial health-wise there are also quite a few that could be potentially harmful.

DId he say what the benefit of the avacado seed was? Maybe you could try whacking it open with a hammer or something like that. I'm not even sure what the inner matter of the avacado is?!?!?!?

Let me know if you try it out!

[berrienoire]

avocado seeds? blended?! :confused:

yes, do tell...please.

[karenisraw]

I would say no for the sake of your blenders life span. Maybe you could smash the avocaodo seed first. (I can't imagine being able to down and avacodo seed though). :confused:

[exurb]

some seeds contain toxins. apple is one. I would check seed by seed whether you want to eat that seed blended.

I don't know who Dr Wu is, is he reputable? What kind of Dr?

[sport]

I do know that it is not recomended that you add avacoda seeds to your compost heap so I assumed that they were not very biodegradable. Because of this I would be afraid to injest them.

[shelah]

thanks, everyone, for sharing your thoughts.
dr. wu is a naturopath and qi gong master who travels the world giving nutrition workshops. his program is based on chinese medicine to a large degree. he says that the greatest amount of healing phytochemicals are not only in the skin but even moreso in the seeds of all plants. he also cites genesis 1:29 to further his understanding that we are meant to eat the seeds. he addresses the issue of toxicity of some seeds, such as apple, but dismisses it, mostly because he says you'd have to consume an unnatural amount to have a problem and also based on his own exoerience and that of many of his patients over many years.
in order for us to benefit, however, we'd have to either take a good 2 to 3 hours to properly chew an apple or leaves of kale, for examples, or take advantage of the powerful blenders availabe to us in our times. he'd be in total agreement, i'm sure, with victoria boutenko on the subject of green smoothies, ut he insists that the WHOLE fruit be used and has prepared smoothies this way for years. he certainly is the picture of heath. you can read a little about him, including a short interview on the following website:

http://qigong.com/dr_wu.php

hope you at least find this interesting, and i'd love to hear more thoughts/reactions to all this if you care to respond. you guys are very knowlegeable, so your ideas are always rewarding.
thanks again and many blessings to you all!!

[Salsify]

Somebody needs to the the vitamix people, because in their demonstration video they throw the whole apple in the container and blend it. So did I. Am I gonna die now??? :eek:

[Sheryl]

It's actually a rumour that apple seeds are toxic... even the story of someone that ate a whole cup of apple seeds and died. There has been work to substantiate that and they found it to be false. There are no recorded medical cases ever of someone being poisened by apple seeds (living or not). There is a miniscule amount of a compound containing a small amount of a cyanide based compound, and it won't hurt you! It probably makes us stronger!

The explanation I have been given by many: Apples have B17 (the compound that has a cyanide molecule as part of the structure), which is a compound used heavily in much alternative cancer treatment (ie eating apricot kernals). It's reputed to release the cyanide when it connects with a certain protein in the cell wall of cancer cells (it attaches and releases a micro amount of cyanide which kills that cancer cell). You'll find lots of stuff on the internet about this being a wacky theory, and lots saying it's the hidden cure for cancer. Actual medical studies have shown it effective as well. I know people that have benefited greatly from it and are around 6 years after certain dealth predicted by doctors, nd has had 2 children they said he would never have!

I almost always eat my apple seeds, and pear, and grape. They all have lots of good for you compounds and good essential fatty acids too.

Cheers,
Sheryl

[karenisraw]

I eat my apple seeds and ::feeling my head and face:: yep, I am still alive. My mother eats them too. She is still alive. I will think twice before eating the again though, just to make sure.

k
:D